Happoshu

[dave_0613]

Good morning friends,

I thought I might try brewing a happoshu, but I guess I'm a little unclear on the guidelines here. From what I understand is malt can only make up 65% of the fermentables, (67% by some sources). What I'm not so sure of is if this percentage includes malted adjuncts like rice, corn, potato, etc. Or even sugars?

Anyone have any insight?

 

[eastoak]

Happoshu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dave_0613]

Yeah, I had read the wiki before. I just want to be clear, when it says 67% malt this includes malted corn or rice or other cereal grain? And I can use use sugars and other starches to make up the remaining 33%?

 

[unionrdr]

Sounds lkike a Japanese small beer to me. so I tend to think it'd use those amounts in the same amount of water. Just my guess...

 

[dave_0613]

I'm positive it's percentage of fermetables. They can be smallish - 4%, but their range is up to 7% abv. Definitely not small.

 

[unionrdr]

Well,it sounded to me like you'd still brew,say 5 gallons. but use only 67% of the normal amount of fermentables. Odd that that small amount would be as much as 7%?...unless it's using a lot of sugar to make up the difference,then you'd have alight bodied,high alcohol drink with not much flavor?

 

[dave_0613]

I see what you're saying, and it's a possibility I guess. That being said, there's some happoshu beers that are zero malt..which would literally just be water if you were going by 'percent of a recipe' like you were saying.
Also if you were to use 67% of the malt of any given recipe, that's still 100% of the malt in the recipe you just made.

So yes, you still make 5 gallon batchs, but I believe 33% of your fermentables need to be non malt adjuncts.

My question is if they're considering rice or corn as malt or whether they're specifically talking about barley. I'm thinking that they would, as with rye or wheat, or oats. I just want to be perfectly sure I guess.

 

[Glossolalia]

Happoshu (literally "sparkling liquor") was simply a tax designation; it isn't a style per se. The law, at one, time allowed for any sparkling alcoholic beverage with less than 67% malt to receive a lower tax rate. Thus, happoshu was simply a beer-like beverage with less than 67% malt. The other 33% could be made up of any of the various non-malted adjuncts. Technically, several Belgians could have been sold as happoshu as long as they weren't labeled as beer in their home countries.

As of 2006, however, the tax law was amended so that the tax bracket is now divided between beverages >50%, beverages between 25-50%, beverages <25% malt, and beverages with no malt at all. This has driven the brewers to produce sparkling beverages with no malt at all (the so-called "third beer" or "other happoshu") to get the lowest tax rate. Furthermore, the tax law states that all happoshu and "other happoshu" must be < 10% ABV.

So, if you want to make a happoshu, you make a beverage with < 10% ABV and that contains less than 50% malt. Of course, you can't label it or call it "beer" in public. As you approach the lower end of the malt spectrum, this will likely necessitate an alternative source of amylase (koji or purified amylase). I've been playing around with doing this, and I've been taking sweet potatoes, exposing them to koji for 48 h and then adding the sacchrified liquid to the beer boil so that sweet potato mass is > the mass of malt used.

 

[dave_0613]

Okay cool, so basically what I assumed. Thanks for the help.

 

[Freezer66]

Okay cool, so basically what I assumed. Thanks for the help.

@Glossolalia @dave_0613, I know it's been awhile but, did you ever perfect your happoshu recipe? I moved to Japan and love the Kirin Platinum Double. Alittle highier ABV and lower everything else which fits my lifestyle. As you may know getting the supplies can be difficult here so, I'm trying to figure this out before I have to....well, figure this out. IE: have my supplies ready.
Any helpful feedback is much appreciated