Toriaezu beer

Needless to say, these factors have, until recently, been deterrents for anyone interested in brewing, or starting a microbrewery. That all started to change during the pandemic, when a fraught global supply chain made it difficult and expensive to import beer. All of a sudden, locally produced Japanese craft beer was cheaper and fresher than its international competitors, resulting in explosive popularity that has catapulted quality into a league of its own. 

While craft beer still accounts for less than 1% of beer consumed in Japan, and is still largely only sold in designated craft beer bars and bottle shops, beer as a broader category is extremely popular. The beer drinking culture that has arisen from the drink’s widespread appeal plays out most notably in restaurants and izakayas. It’s custom, when sitting down to a meal or snacks with friends, that the table orders ‘toriaezu beer’, meaning ‘beer for now’, or ‘beer first’. That means everyone is having a beer (or two), while the party gathers, catches-up and thinks about what they’re going to eat. 

With beer being a built-in part of Japan’s work, social, and world-renowned culinary culture, the potential of craft beer to grow into that wider market and culture is limitless and exciting. 

This insight comes from Emile LeBlanc, brewer at Okutama-based brewery, Vertere. Emile describes Okutama as a tiny town that’s as far away from Tokyo as you can get without being outside the prefecture. It’s the last stop on the train line connecting it to the city, and Vertere’s original site, a tiny brewpub, is the first thing you see when you get off the train. When Vertere first opened its doors, ten years ago now, it was running a 150L brew system, and was catering to the town’s 5,000 residents, as well as the multitudes of walkers, hikers and climbers that frequent the area to enjoy its incredible landscape. 

Emile joined the brewery five years ago now, just as the 150L system was upgraded to a 500L system, more than doubling the brewery’s brewing capacity but still leaving it wildly under equipped to meet demand during tourist season. “We went about two years, probably 2022 and 2023, where we just couldn't make enough beer,” says Emile. “We had a five-barrel system, making four batches a week. So we were filling 20 barrels per week, roughly, and it would sell out in a minute. Whatever we released online was just snapped up. And yeah, it's a good problem to have, it’s one of the best problems you could have. It's just too bad it took so long to get our new brewery.”

Complications with building Vertere’s new and current brewery arose from the fact that it was located on the side of a mountain. Weaknesses in a nearby cliff face required the brewery to either reinforce the area with concrete — which would be as expensive as it sounds — or shrink the size of the brewery, to draw it away from the cliff edge. As such, Vertere is currently a little smaller than it had originally planned on being, but still has ample space to grow within its new site. 

Transitioning once again to a bigger 20 barrel brewhouse in January of this year, when Vertere could officially move into its new home, has brought new challenges and opportunities to the brewery. For one, Emile says that with the capacity to brew enough that everything won’t sell out immediately, comes opportunities to grow Vertere’s audience, and seek out new sales channels. Vertere has never had to think about sales or marketing before, a brilliant problem one doesn’t hear about often, especially coming from a ten year-old brewery. 

Needless to say, development in that area came naturally to Vertere, given that over the last decade the brewery has grown into its sure-footed identity. “Vertere actually comes from a Latin word, meaning to rotate, to turn, or to change,” says Emile. “The name was chosen by the brewery’s owner and head brewer, who were high school friends, went to university together, took the same courses, and then started a brewery together afterwards. But I guess the train of thought behind the name was, you know, craft beer is something that's always changing, and that's a good thing. 

“Still now we're not looking to make recipes the same each time over, rather, we change a little bit here and there and are always trying to improve the recipe. We always want to try different things, see if we can make something a little more interesting, a little better than it previously was. So our batches are pretty different each time, and I would say ‘pretty different’ feels about the right way to describe it. Sometimes the customers are like, ‘well, I liked that one better’, and sometimes I’m like ‘we liked it better too’”.

Curious to know what “better” looks like, if staff and customers can both agree on what makes a beer better or worse, I ask Emile what standard Vertere is aspiring to. “That’s a good question,” he begins. “I guess we’re working towards what the ‘best’ looks like in our eyes. I think we brew more to our liking than to the specs of a specific style. We’re a pretty small brew team — just four people — so we all decide together, but as I say, that changes all the time. We’ve probably made 200 styles since I started here, and 50 or 60 different styles on a regular basis. Each is a little different every time.” I have a funny feeling these next few years will bring new meaning to change, evolution and improvement, for Vertere, and while that change may at times prove challenging, it will no doubt be exciting.