Hitachino
3,000 Bottles Of Kiuchi “3 Days” To Come To U.S.
Kiuchi Brewing (makers of Hitachino) have a limited created called – “3 Days.” The beer is actually a result of the deadly earthquake that struck Japan on March 11th. When the earthquake hit, the brewery was mashing in. The power was out for 3 days. When power was restored, the brewers attempted to complete the process – only to find that the mash had already started to naturally ferment. A beer created by the earthquake. Hitachino has bottled it, yielding about 8,000 bottles.
3,000 of these bottles are headed stateside in the beginning of 2012.
Style: Witbier, alternate fermentation
Availability: 18.6 oz
Limited to 8,000 bottles
Deadly Earthquake Makes Hitachino’s 3 Days Beer
Right at the time Hitachino was mashing on March 11th, they there struck by a deadly earthquake. The power outage caused the mashing process to be shutdown. Over the course of the 3 days of the power being out, the mash started to naturally ferment. Hitachino rolled with it, and bottled the beer. Essentially – the earthquake made the beer. By the looks of it – 3 Days is “Nest” and witbier, with a little different fermentation.
On 11 March 2011, a huge earthquake struck Japan and with it our brewery. Some parts of the brewhouse were damaged, and the brewing tanks were left leaning at an angle.
Completion of the typical mashing period had to be extended to three days until electricity to the brewery was restored.Natural fermentation had already started in the mash tun during these 3 days with lactic acid cultured in our brewery.
This “3 Days” beer is limited to only 8,000 bottles.
Style: Witbier, alternate fermentation
Availability: 18.6 oz
Limited to 8,000 bottles
Japan Beer Production Falls
Beer is the last thing Japan needs to be worrying about right now. However beer, like car manufacturing bears economic importance. Total shipments of beer in March 2011 fell 10.9%. Breweries like Asahi, Kirin, & Kiuchi (Hitachino) have had to deal with power outages, material shortages, & brewery damage. Kiuchi actually stopped brewing altogether for a while in order to produce water for the victims. They have slowly started to brew again.
Overall, 10.9% decline pushes total production down to 33.34 million cases. Consumer confidence is down too. Consumption is down after the quake. As is a worry of radiation. Kiuchi Brewing has performed it’s own independent research and found negligible radiation findings. <MainichiDailyNews>
Kiuchi Brewing Bottles Water For Quake Victims
Kiuchi Brewing – best known for Hitachino line of beers suffered some damage in the recent Japan quake. Posted to their website since the quake –
A big earthquake happend around our brewery. It will take a long time todo our ordinary job including export to foreign countries.
We will do our best to reconstruct our brewery, so please wait for a while.
In leiu of brewing, Kiuchi Brewing is has suspended production of beer and is bottling water to help the victims of this terrible tragedy.
Posted to a BeerAdvocate forum today was a response from B. United, importers of Hitachino:
Hi Polly:
Thank you so much for your very kind words & understanding. Indeed, New Orleanians can probably best relate to the incredible scope & scale of this disaster. I received the following email from Toshiyuki Kiuchi yesterday {see below}.
I am in touch with Toshiyuki to organize how best the proceeds of many fund raising events can be transferred directly to him /to the families in need without loss to bureaucracies and/or administration.
1. They are all ok . Kiuchi brewery, in particular the Sake part, was damaged & need fixing/rebuilding. He will keep you posted.
2. The most damage was caused to Sendai, about 180 miles northeast of Mito. Lots of damage, but more importantly, lots of people missing.
3. Kiuchi brewery is now using their full brewery capacity to bottle water for people who have lost their homes. As you might have read on the internet there is a severe shortage on food & water there. We are extremely proud of Kiuchi Brewery’s commitment
and fast action to help everyone in need.
4. We are putting together a shipment of special kegs & cases [at our cost] to be shipped to Kiuchi Brewery as soon as possible/appropriate. We want to organize a special event at Kiuchi brewery to raise money for all these many people who have lost their homes and loved ones.
I will keep you posted.
PS Over the next months we will not be able to perfectly serve all our markets with Hitachino Nestbeer. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and your /our Hitachino customers. But we DO believe that you and all your /our Hitachino customers will understand & embrace Kiuchi Brewery’s societal responsibility and commitment.
CASK ALERT: Hitachino Classic
Friday, 6pm Porter Beer Bar taps a wooden cask of Hitachino Classic in a wooden cask. This IPA is brewed by Kiuchi Brewing in Ibaraki-ken Naka-gun, Japan
History:
In 1853 Koutami Kawamoto, who was a scientist, brewed the first Japanese beer. In 1862 the Japanese magazine ‘Taiyo’ (which means Sun) published an article about the beer brewing process. “… sugar is changed to alcohol… when it seems to be enough, beer should be matured in cedar Taru…” – (translated by Miho Sugiyama) Hitachino Japanese Classic Ale is brewed according to this original Japanese brewing process.
Style: English IPA
7% ABV
The Porter Beer Bar – 11/19, 6pm
1156 Euclid Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30307
NEW RELEASE: Hitachino Nipponia
Here’s a new one from Hitachino, a part of Kiuchi Shuzou, LTD from Ibaraki-ken Naka-gun, Japan. The Kiuchi Brewery was established in 1823 by Kiuchi Gihei, the headman of Konosu village. His family was collecting rice from farmers as land taxes from the Mito Tokugawa family. He began his brewery with the idea of using remaining rice stocks in the warehouse to produce sake. In 1996, the company started brewing beer with the capacity of 1,500 barrels per year.
This new release is Ancient Nipponia. Nipponia makes use of the Sorachi Ace hops developed at the Sapporo Brewery in Japan in 1988. In addition to the hops, the malts actually have a interesting history. As Hitachino explains, the “Kaneko Golden” malt used in this beer is a new malt cross pollinated between the European “Golden Melon” and the Japanese barley malt “Shikoku” that disappeared around 50 years ago. In an attempt to bring this malt back to life, Mr. Kiuchi acquired 16 seeds from the Department of Agricultural History in Japan. Kiuchi planted those seeds in a small area near the brewery 5 years ago. Over the years, seeds were harvested and regrown into a larger harvest. The 2009 harvest finally yielded enough “Kaneko Golden Malt” to use in Ancient Nipponia.
Style: Specialty. Style ambiguous. Golden ale/Pale Ale
Taste Expectations: Lemon from Sorachi Ace hops. Citrus & honey. Malt sweetness with light touch of sour.
Availability: 550 ML bottles. Rare draft offerings
6.5% ABV
