The one and only liqueur!
The "only one" taste we have pursued.
<Part 1>

It is the only one of its kind in the country!Have you ever heard of a beer-born liqueur?Kiuchi Shizuku, founded in 1823 by the Kiuchi Sake Brewery, is a beer-born liqueur.A bold attempt by a long-established brewery to try something new.

writer：Ryoko Kuraishi

Kikumori was brewed at the end of the Edo period by the first generation of Kiuchi Gihei.The sake was named by the two men in the Kiuchi family's tatami room on New Year's Day 1823, in support of the ideology of the Emperor's exclusion of the barbarians by Toko Fujita, who was a close ally of the first generation.

Kiuchi Brewery is a long-established brewery in the country of Hitachinokuni, Ibaraki Prefecture, founded 190 years ago.
The brewery is also famous for its craft beer, Hitachi-no-Nest Beer, which has now won numerous awards in the USA, UK, Germany and Japan.
Brewed in the traditional top-fermentation (ale type) style using British malt and hops, with the aim of creating an authentic European beer, Hitachino Nest Beer is now very popular in bars and pubs in New York.
It is said to be the best-selling Japanese craft beer in the world.
Now, we would like to introduce you to an unusual liqueur that was created thanks to this beer.


The story behind the creation of this liqueur, which is also known as Kiuchi no Shizuku, is told by Kenichiro Yashiro, the head brewer of the Kiuchi Brewery, who was in charge of its development.


In 1996, following amendments to the Liquor Tax Law, we obtained a licence to produce locally brewed beer.
We were told that they bought brewing machinery from Canada, improved part of the brewery and installed it themselves.
The standards of the parts did not match the Japanese ones, and they also had a hard time reading and understanding the English manuals.
Nevertheless, the 'Hitachino Nest Beer' was born as a result of these hardships.
The following year, we won a gold medal in the 'International Beer Summit' competition."

Mr Yashiro checks the equipment used to distil beer spirits.

We have been brewing craft beer in addition to sake for some time now, and actually started distilling shochu about ten years ago.
We carefully distil Daiginjo lees after squeezing, and this rice shochu has the flavour of Daiginjo.


Now, when brewing local beer, a kind of oli builds up at the bottom of the tank.
This is yeast that has absorbed the alcohol content and is called residual yeast, and major beer manufacturers collect it and process it into health supplements such as beer yeast tablets for reuse.
However, microbreweries like ours don't have the know-how or financial resources to do this, so we disposed of it as a matter of course.
However, it costs a fair amount to dispose of yeast residues, so for many years we were puzzling over how to dispose of them.
One day, the head of our company thought that if we could process it successfully, we could make a liqueur.
That's how it came about.


In addition to sake brewing, Mr Yashiro has also been involved in shochu distillation,Yashiro, who had also distilled shochu in addition to brewing sake, was entrusted with the development of a completely new type of sake.
Mr Yashiro, a genuine craftsman, says that he had never thought of making a liqueur from discarded yeast residues, but it is the pride of the toji, who is in charge of the brewery, to give form to this idea.


He tried distilling the yeast residue in a shochu distiller and then distilling it at low temperature under reduced pressure.
The result is a colourless, clear beer spirit.

We were allowed to taste the freshly prepared beer spirits.The spirits are exported as Kiuchi No Shizuku and sold only in the USA.

'We used leftover yeast from Hitachino Nest Beer's 'White Ale' as an ingredient.
White Ale' is a traditional Belgian wheat beer with coriander, orange beer, nutmeg and other spices and orange juice added.
It is characterised by the fresh aroma of herbs and the sour taste of wheat, but the freshly brewed beer spirit was indescribably good, enhanced by the aroma of herbs and the flavour of the beer.


The result of a change of mindset, born out of a kitchen situation to increase the production of beer.
In fact, the only such beer spirits available are from the Kiuchi Brewery and one other distillery in Germany.


Kiuchi Shizuku is a liqueur made by maturing this beer spirit, which the distillery says "tasted better than expected", for three years in oak barrels previously stocked for shochu.
The result is a unique liqueur with an alcohol content of 43.5%, a slight sweetness and a nutty oak flavour.


'It was more difficult to get through to the tax office than from a production point of view [laughs].
(Laughs.) After all, we had been paying taxes on the waste, so it was difficult to get them to understand that we were going to make liqueur with it.
Well, I was a bit skeptical myself at first."

This is the tank where the plum wine is prepared.The huge tanks are stirred every day for a month immediately after preparation.

Meanwhile, he has also started brewing his own original plum wine using this beer spirit.
It is called Kiuchi Umeshu, and is Yashiro's pride and joy.
The creation of this plum wine was either a coincidence or a stroke of good luck.
Six or seven years ago, a plum farmer from Ibaraki Prefecture brought his plums to us.
He said that a hailstorm had damaged his plums and he could no longer ship them, so he was looking for a place to accept them.


As you know, sake is facing difficult times.
Other manufacturers have decided that they can't do sake alone, so they are actively using sake to make plum wine.
Other companies were ahead of us when it came to plum wine, but we have our own original beer and spirits.
Since we have plums, I thought if we brewed it with beer and spirits instead of white liquor, we could make our own original plum wine.
At first, they made plum syrup and tried mixing it with beer and spirits, but "it didn't work very well".We tried making ume syrup and mixing it with beer and spirits at first," says Yashiro, "but that didn't work out too well either.
Plum wine also seemed to go well, so he decided to try soaking plums in beer spirits.


I'm in charge of sake, shochu, liqueurs and spirits, but apart from the delicacy of sake, plum wine is also quite difficult.
The colour of the plums in the tanks is completely different depending on the condition of the plums that come in.
Plums that have ripened on the tree have a richer and tastier flavour, but I can't be too selfish about that."

On the premises is Nakaya, a handmade buckwheat noodle restaurant in a renovated Taisho warehouse.The restaurant serves 'Jyuwari Sake Soba', which is made using only sake and no water.

Yashiro-san says that he has worked to maintain a constant quality level by repeating detailed tastings each time he blends to ensure that there are no differences from bottle to bottle.
The spirits used as ingredients are original to the Kiuchi Brewery, and the plums used for pickling are also produced within the prefecture.
The sweetness essential for plum wine is not glucose, but fructose.
This is because fructose is 30% lower in calories for the same sweetness.
The body absorbs fructose relatively quickly and blood glucose levels rise slowly.
This is in consideration of the health-consciousness of recent years.
So, a plum wine full of ingenuity and creativity that is truly typical of the Kinouchi Brewery was born. ......


And yet.I carefully made plum wine with all my heart and soul, but for some reason it didn't sell.


'I've come to my senses.I don't know why it doesn't sell, the quality is absolutely certain.
There must be some way to do it, so I want to think about it, but even so, I can't think only about plum wine because I'll be so busy that I'll be dizzy once the sake brewing process starts.
I was wondering what to do. ......


Mr Yashiro has put his heart and soul into growing plum wine.What is his plan for a comeback?


Continued in Part 2.