Japanese yeast for lager

[SanPancho]

i love a crisp clean japanese lager. even prefer them to mexican lagers alot of the time. in any case, i've tried other folks' attempts at japanese lager. and frankly, they mostly remind me of budweiser. bit of rice flavor, but doesnt really remind me of japanese beers. so just adding rice doesnt seem to be the answer.

ive always thought you need actual japanese yeast. so to that end i wonder if anyone has been able to get a hand on some actual japanese lager yeast? i cant find a damn thing online. but i figure its worth asking.

otherwise the only other avenue to pursue is a commercial yeast bank. found some samples that are from japan, but dated back in 1955. i wouldnt really have a guess as to whether they represent the japanese lager taste we are familiar with nowadays. its a bit expensive, but was thinking of proposing to the local homebrew club as a project/experiment.

anybody ever heard of options for actual japanese yeast?

 

[ebbelwoi]

FWIW, I've never seen any Japanese beer yeast for sale at any of the online homebrewing shops in Japan. I did a short intern/training stint at a microbrewery here, and they used all Lallemand and Fermentis yeasts, except for their cider and perry, which was fermented with a yeast they got from a nearby university lab (i.e. likely not a beer yeast).

Keep in mind that the adjunct lagers from the Big Four (Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory) all contain not only malt and rice, but also corn and starch.

 

[DoctorDuvel]

I don't think it's a matter of yeast as much as it is process, and as ebbelwoi noted, other fermentables. I too enjoy them more than Mexican lagers, by far.

 

[Red over White]

The brands we see stateside are very modern low oxygen brewhouses and they are filtered. The filtering process does strip some flavor and bitterness and needs to be accounted for upfront. I have a deep appreciation for some Japanese and German lagers. Saying all that, for many years I loved Wernesgrüner from Aldi in bottles, but when they switched to cans the flavor changed and I am not a fan. I likely expected/enjoyed the minor amount of oxygen ingress that took place in transit, that's kinda funny right.

 

[Miraculix]

Japanese brewers are the best of the best. They can compete with us Germans big time. That's their secret, not the ingredients. A lot of their beers don't include rice or adjuncts but are brewed with base malt only. It's the process.

 

[SanPancho]

FWIW, I've never seen any Japanese beer yeast for sale at any of the online homebrewing shops in Japan. I did a short intern/training stint at a microbrewery here, and they used all Lallemand and Fermentis yeasts, except for their cider and perry, which was fermented with a yeast they got from a nearby university lab (i.e. likely not a beer yeast).

Keep in mind that the adjunct lagers from the Big Four (Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory) all contain not only malt and rice, but also corn and starch.

yeah, the only place i've seen a real "japanese" yeast is in the yeast bank over in UK. now here's the kicker- it was banked in 1955. but i'd wager that by that point the yeast had definitely veered off into its own character vs the german parent strains that the industry was built on.

i contacted the yeast bank, and they'll send a sample to local homebrew club under the "research purposes" use if i can get those guys to go in on it. probably close to $300 for shipped plate of freeze dried sample.

as to the question of this being the missing character, unless somebody can give me a better answer i still say this is the missing link to homebrewing an actual "japanese" beer vs some sort of euro/american macro lager with rice. it remindes me of people using actual corn/flaked corn in a lager and trying to say it's therefore mexican. it didnt taste mexican. it never came close until they released the mexi yeast at white labs. now it actually tastes like a mexican beer. (modelo is my vote)

i guess that'll be the basis of the "research" if i can get the brew club to go for it.

 

[SanPancho]

Japanese brewers are the best of the best. They can compete with us Germans big time. That's their secret, not the ingredients. A lot of their beers don't include rice or adjuncts but are brewed with base malt only. It's the process.

i totally agree they are great technical brewers, you're right in the technical aspect, i couldnt match their character exactly even if i had their recipe and ingredients given to me to copy. not possible on homebrew scale.

but lets look at the "big picture" here....... these are really "two ingredient" beers in terms of character. yeast and malt. i cant really think of more than two macro type beers where i get a noticeable hop impact/flavor. (one mexican, one german)

and if the statements above are correct, that they're mixing barley with corn and rice in various forms, then i'd say that indicates that the malt character is probably less prominent than the yeast character, that's why they're willing to make changes to it.

only one way to know for sure- hopefully i can get the brew club to sign on to the experiment and put it to the test!

 

[ebbelwoi]

I don't drink Japanese adjunct lagers unless there's no all-malt beer available (which is often the case), but I'm guessing that Asahi Super Dry and Sapporo (known as Sapporo Black Label in Japan) get the most exposure overseas.

Kirin Ichiban Shibori often gets lumped in with them, but it's really an all-malt lager. That being said, Post #36 in this thread says that it uses W-34/70:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/need-kirin-or-sapporo-or-orion-style-recipe-please.141623/
Kirin Lager is an adjunct lager, but I don't think it's exported or brewed under license or contract outside of Japan.

If I were to make a Japanese adjunct lager (notice I don't call it a rice lager), I'd use a grist of about 66% barley malt, and the rest rice, corn and cornstarch. I'd have to play around with the percentages, though. I'd definitely mash low, at maybe 63C/145F. I'd probably go with a single bittering charge of something like Magnum. I'd first try SafLager S-189 for the yeast. It's a neutral, high-attenuating yeast.

I wouldn't use jasmine rice (it's very different from Japanese rice) or Sorachi hops (too pungent).

My favorite Japanese lager is Yebisu, an all-malt beer brewed by Sapporo. Sapporo also does a contract-brewed all-malt lager for the Aeon supermarket chain that's quite good. I don't think anything branded with the Sapporo name is all-malt. Same goes with Asahi. At least in Japan.

 

[Red over White]

Brewing Japanese lagers is a tall order. Squeaky clean isn't easy, but will be a feather in your cap.

 

[Oleson M.D.]

Japanese brewers are the best of the best. They can compete with us Germans big time. That's their secret, not the ingredients. A lot of their beers don't include rice or adjuncts but are brewed with base malt only. It's the process.

Having spent a lot of time in Japan, in the Tokyo - Akasaka area, and consuming many beers on tap, the beers they brew there are outstanding, simply world class.
In all honestly, I would take a Japanese Pilsner over any other beer from anywhere! Kirin, Yebisu, and other premium beer on draft is mind blowing good.

 

[JAReeves]

Not to throw another wrench in the cogs, but Japanese brewers also use the "dip-hop" method. There's a lot of articles about it and some threads here on HBT also. Best of luck!

 

[ebbelwoi]

Some Japanese brewers use dip hopping on some of their craft-ish beers. I can't imagine this technique is used to brew any of the macro adjunct lagers, though.