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Cheers from Tokyo!

  • Thread starter tokyohomebrewer
  • Start date
T

tokyohomebrewer

Hi all,

I'm an American living in Japan (Tokyo) but unfortunately it's illegal to homebrew in Japan. The result is that there is a small but strong underground contingent of homebrewers here. Also, there is a local branch of the AHA homebrew competition here but for obvious reasons it is not widely publicized. Since homebrewing is illegal, there are no real homebrew shops in Japan, making it a challenge to source ingredients and equipment. Most equipment has to be pieced together from here and there. For hops we either grow our own or do group buys from the States. We also buy our yeast in quantity from the States. Most grains are bought locally from the same distributor that supplies the craftbreweries. Equipment comes from restaurant and chemistry supply houses, as well as the larger DIY shops. It's more expensive and time intensive to put system together but for the dedicated homebrewer it's all part of the hobby.

I started brewing about 4 years ago and after 2 years I placed (Gold, Silver) in our local AHA sanctioned competition. Last year I started all grain and have been slowly upgrading my AG equipment. I brew mostly 4 to 5 gallon batches but my system now has the capacity to brew 10 to 12 gallon batches. My only limitation at this point is that my largest fermenter is 6 gallons.

The name of my brewery is Geisha Beer (www.geishabeer.com). I don't update the site very often and I keep it anonymous because of legality issues.

Ever since the first day I bought a kit and started brewing I've been upgrading my system and brewing level. And today I decided I needed a better brewing program so I bought Beersmilth after trying it out for a few days. Prior to that I used Strangebrew and Promash.

I promptly updated the grain database from the files at the Beersmith website. I wanted to add the fruit database also but it will only go into the grain database. That seems strange. Other fruit related ingredients are in the Miscellaneous section and that's where I'd like to add the fruit database. Has anyone else ever had this problem? And what did you do about it.

Jim, in Tokyo
 
Welcome to the Forum!

I also had the same idea so I created my own fruit additions for misc and grains. I have attached them with this post. It is always interesting to hear about other countries and their laws. Glad to have you here. Let us know if we can help.
Cheers
Preston
 

Attachments

  • Fruit Grains.bsm
    112.5 KB · Views: 298
  • Fruit Misc.bsm
    19.4 KB · Views: 302
I don't know if you can do this given you're situation but some pictures of a Japanese Brew session would be great.  No faces or names need be shown but Japan just seems so out of the ordinary for a homebrew.  It would be neat to see how you do it. 
 
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