Booth: Japas Cervejaria

Hello! We brew regularly in the USA since 2019. We distribute in NY, MA, ME, RI, OR, FL and CA so far, but planning to expand to other States soon. Yes, Great South Bay brewed Black Miso and we're also contracting with GCBC in Chicago. Cheers!

 

Hey! We're planning to brew a rice lager soon. We already brew Matsurika, a pilsner with Jasmine flowers that is also brewed with rice, but it's not a rice lager.

Thanks, we're glad that you liked Black Miso!

 

We did A LOT of tests to get to this amount, that in our opinion is very balanced. Thanks, happy to know you enjoyed the experience! Cheers!

 

New stuff coming soon! Stay tuned

 

Indeed

 

Hey! When it comes to market share, we're still babies compared to the US market. Craft beer in Brazil represents something around 1 to 2% of all beer consumption (we also don't have great accuracy in those numbers), while in the US it's 13.6% according to the Brewers Association. We have a very creative industry here, and brewers are really pushing themselves to do better, to follow the international trends, but we're still building our identity. Also, craft beer here is way too expensive because of multiple factors - therefore inaccessible for most people... I'll cite two of the main ones in my opinion:

1. Most of the ingredients are imported from the USA and Europe; we do produce good pilsner malt, but specialty malts and hops are imported. There are a few maltsters and hop growers doing interesting stuff, but in a very small scale.
2. Alcoholic beverages are highly taxed here, and small business don't have ANY incentive from the government; on the contrary, they subsidize macro breweries operations, like a lot, like indecently, and craft brewers are not strong enough to fight in the political arena.

 

To be honest I don't see much difference when it comes to craft beer bars here and in the US, they operate very similarly. The thing is that here we don't have as many of those as you do, it's still a niche, most bars here are dominated by macro breweries and they won't let anything else in. I guess that probably happens in the US too, but here it's a very brazen practice, they don't even try to hide it.

 

I totally agree with you!

 

Thanks! Yes, there are many fruits and herbs that we can't find in Brazil or the USA. I'd love to brew something with sanshō pepper, for example, but never found a vendor. Would love to brew with Kyoho grapes, Satonishiki cherries, akebi, daidai...

 

Sure! We really like to mix those references and ingredients. For example, we brewed Kohi, a Double NEIPA with Japanese Tangerine and coffee (Brazil is the largest exporter of coffee in the world market and accounts for one third of the world's coffee production, which places it as the world's largest producer). Another good example is Ukiyo, a barrel aged sour RIS with Japanese and Brazilian grapes varieties. Also, when we do international collabs we try to use Brazilian ingredients as well. Some examples: KCBC (guava), Aeronaut (acerola cherry), Against the Grain (cacao), Baird (tonka beans).

We're soon launching a series of beers that have at least one Japanese and one Brazilian ingredient to make this Brazilian reference more clear

 

Of course! Japas is term widely used in Brazil to refer to Japanese descendants. Sometimes it's used in the wrong way; for instance, when a person meets a Chinese or Korean (or other Asians that are not Japanese, those examples are merely because those are big communities here in Brazil too) and generalizes calling them "japa", or when the person call any Japanese or Japanese descendant "japa" without asking their permission. It's a long discussion, some people don't like the term, but we decided to signify it to show who we are, our origins, our pride to be half Japanese.

 

We started our operation in NY, at Great South Bay (Black Miso was brewed there), but for logistics reasons, changed the main brewing operation to IL, in partnership with GCBC. We're currently distributing in NY, MA, ME, RI, OR, CA and FL but planning to expand to other States soon. If you need help finding our beer in those States, shoot me a DM!

 

Miso is a paste fermented with koji and salt. We then add it to the beer, and there are some sugars left, but most of it can't be consumed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But yes, there's a small percentage of fermentable sugars that contribute in a very very small scale to the alcohol in this beer

 

Thank you very much, it means a lot!

I will try to be succinct! In 2009, I went to live in Paris because of my ex-husband's job. I quit my job here in Brazil and started looking for a specialization in the beverage industry. I was already a home brewer, but as I was living in a country with a strong tradition in wine, I started to study it, but then I discovered Brewlab's Brewing Technology course in Sunderland, UK, and spent 3 months studying there in 2011. When I returned to Brazil in 2012, I started taking other production and tasting courses, met a lot of people that were starting businesses, and in the same year I co-founded one of the first contract breweries in Brazil. As part of the logistics strategy, we also distributed other Brazilian and international brands too. At the end of 2014, I started Japas with my current business partners Fernanda and Yumi, and since then we have grown a lot. In 2019 we started our operation in the USA and here we are!

 

Not exactly, but sometimes we use ingredients that are so unique that many people have never tried before, so there's a lack of sensory references. To partially solve that, we usually try to explain the main taste/smell notes in the labels.

 

Thank you very much, glad that you liked it! We don't distribute in Colorado yet, but we want to, so, who knows, maybe in the near future you'll be able to try it again!

 

Sure! Actually it's really simple, we add the paste by the end of boiling and it goes to the fermenter with the wort. We did several tests before in different stages of the brewing process to get to this conclusion and are very happy with the outcome. Cheers!

 

I totally agree with you! Diversity brings innovation, cause different references, cultures, backgrounds, will bring different outcomes. In my opinion, representativity is very important. I'll give an example from my place of speech: if Japas, an all-female brewery, can inspire other women to start their own breweries or to work in this industry because they see that is doable and normal, I'll be really happy. I'll cite here three breweries that we should follow and pay close attention to, among many others: Crowns and Hops, Gay Beer and People Like Us.

 

That's all from the grain