Homebrewing is exactly what it sounds like: brewing beer at your home, for your own personal consumption, and not for retail. This kind of brewing is very popular in the United States and Europe, with more than 1 million homebrewers in the U.S. alone. Even if you haven’t tried homebrewing yourself, if you’re an avid beer drinker you’ve likely drunk a homebrewed beer at some point in time.
When sharing your homebrew with friends at a house party, you can get their honest opinion and update your recipe in the next batch. You might get feedback like, “It tastes much better than the last batch!” or “Personally, I prefer it a bit more bitter.”
In the same way that homebrewers update their recipe based on feedback, Shared Brewery does the same with their “Zesty Hops IPA.” While keeping the concept of a classical Belgian base beer fused with hops, they update the recipe after each batch, so its current version is completely different compared to its first.
The goal of this beer is to satisfy its customers, so please, let them know what you think after drinking. Your honest opinion might be just what they need for their next batch.
While homebrewing is popular overseas, the liquor tax law in Japan prohibits the self-brewing of beverages with an alcohol content of more than 1%. The owner of Shared Brewery shared his concerns on how this might affect the craft beer culture in Japan:
“Dreams start at home-- you might enjoy playing sports in the park and dream of one day becoming a professional sports player. In the same way, I hope that more people will enjoy making beer in the kitchen and dream of one day becoming a professional brewer. It’s the natural way for dreams to sprout.”
Beer lovers have a unique opportunity at Shared Brewery to make their own beer. Not only that, the recipes are considered public property and anyone can scan the QR code on the beer bottle label to see the recipe for that particular beer. “We want to continue to improve our beer with the help of our fans, that is the concept of our shop.”
“You can easily tell if someone likes the taste of your beer by their facial expression. We can use this process as a kind of ‘test marketing’ every day.” Since every glass is a test, the trial and error is never-ending. But that’s what makes it all the more rewarding. In fact, their customers' taste for beer has refined alongside the progression of the beer itself, and their beer critique has become more cultivated as well.
In such an open and welcoming environment, where both the creator and consumer grow side by side, surely culture will flourish and thrive.
