Hello from Japan

[Nomofett]

Just realized I've been on here for the past few months reading and taking advice and asking a few questions but I haven't introduced myself.
I'm Ben. I now live in Japan a
But I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I love it here now but a major adjustment I've been having to make is in the beer area, coming from arguably (but not very arguably) the craft beer capital of America (we Oregonians are overly proud of where we are from) it's difficult having all craft beers being extremely hard to find and costing about 7$ US a bottle, so I've decided to start trying to brew in my tiny little apartment. I love to run before I can walk so my first brews are all grain BIAB's and they are currently fermenting so...... Fingers crossed.

Anyways, expect to hear a lot of questions from me cause I tend to make a lot of mistakes but I have fun doing it. And thanks already for all your previous tips that I've read here.

Oh, and if you happen to live in the Osaka area, send me a message, let's go grab a drink at CBB or Garage 39, it'd be nice to connect to someone over here.

kanpai!

 

[Dixon9717]

Hi Ben,
Welcome to HBT. I'm from Vancouver just north of Portland. Completely understandable to miss all the craft brew available here. Good luck with your brewing adventures......


Jeff.....

 

[user 83772]

Hey Ben! Welcome again to HBT!

Assuming that you likely have fairly limited space, you might want to check out small-batch brewing. There's a pretty awesome 1-gallon brewing thread going on over here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/1-gallon-brewers-unite-311884/ with a ton of info and recipes scattered throughout.

Good luck and good brewing!

 

[Nomofett]

Thanks, yeah, I'm doing one gallon (appx 4 litre) brews, no way I think I could do more in my little place. And it just seems more fun to be able to experiment with new and fun styles

 

[HK823]

Awesome.. didn't know about garage39 until now. Thanks

Are there any decent homebrew supply stores in Osaka? And how do you keep the fermentation temp down during the hot summer months if you don't mind me asking?

 

[rekoob]

Welcome to the site.

I'm headed to Japan for work soon, no idea how far that will be from Osaka but check out the Japan links, you might find some homebrewers in your area.

Good luck.

 

[Nomofett]

Garage is a great place, super nice people and good food. Do you know he bottle shop asahiya? It's out by Moriguchi but well worth it. Also Yellow Ape in Yodoyabashi.

No craft shops in Kansai that I know of. I heard there used to be one in Lobe but it recently closed, I get hops and grains on line from Sakeland or Advance Brewing.

As for keeping them cool, I don't know. I just started so I've yet to encounter that. But right now try fermenters are in a big plastic bucket filled with water and an aquarium heater to heat them. On summer I'll probably just keep them in the water bucket and just try to keep the water at a cool temp.

 

[HK823]

Cool (non pun intended) thanks for the tips. Btw Japanese descendant living in Europe and just started bru'ing myself a few months back.

I'm occasionally in Osaka (mostly in Minami) but will give you a shout when I am. Definitely will check garage out.

And Yellow Ape - that's the one serving Minoh beer on tap ( I forget )? Love the Minoh stout - and hey it's an Osakan brewery so I support it by having one.

Keep us updated with your Japanese brewing adventure - keen on following that.

 

[Nomofett]

They do have Minoh on tap, but the main Minoh bar is Beer Belly. Yello Ape just opened a year or two ago, and they rotate their stuff quite a bit. Good beer is getting more popular in the last few days so you'll be pleasantly surprised when you visit again, they've even started selling Yo-Ho beers in Lawson's now!

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the group, from CO

 

[SpottedDogBrewing]

おはよう