Category: English

Starting in September 2020, Far Yeast Brewing Co., Ltd. will relocate its headquarters from Shibuya-ku, Tokyo to its head brewery, Genryu Brewery, in Kosuge Village of Yamanashi Prefecture.

The global impact of COVID-19 has led to a rapid shift in our working style, increasing the need and practice of telecommuting, culminating in our decision to relocate our head office to Kosuge Village. This move enables us to work more closely with the local community and Yamanashi prefecture to increase our contribution to revitalizing efforts in the region.

■Promote teleworking

In response to the spread of the new coronavirus, employees working at the head office in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, have already been working remotely since April. Our company’s standard practices have been built around sharing information and holding internal meetings online due to our dispersed operations between our brewery in Kosuge and our directly managed restaurants in Atami, Fukuoka, and Shibuya. Therefore, our employees effortlessly overcame the hurdle to transition to a remote work system, resulting in a positive impact on business efficiency. We are convinced that providing our employees with different working style options that reduce the restrictions of time and place is a necessary step to keep our growing company attractive to new talent interested in joining our team.

■Contributing local revitalization 

We are honored to be the first company to move its head office to Kosuge Village in Yamanashi Prefecture. Kosuge Village is located at the headwaters of the Tama River and is blessed with abundant nature and water. We established our head brewery, named Genryu Brewery, in Kosuge Village in 2017. Since then, various initiatives have been undertaken in cooperation with the Kosuge Village Office and local businesses in Kosuge village and Yamanashi Prefecture. In 2017, we collaborated with the Kosuge Village volunteer team to brew a limited edition beer for the Tama Genryu Festival. To revitalize Yamanashi with beer, we launched the “Yamanashi Support Project” in July 2020 with a beer brewed with peaches grown in Yamanashi Prefecture. We will continue to strengthen our ties with the local community and actively work to employ residents and promote immigration. Because of the lifestyle changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a growing trend of escaping the city center in search of a nature-rich living environment. Our response to this trend is to provide attractive workplaces for employees and help to revitalize the region.

About Far Yeast Brewing Co., Ltd.

“Democratizing beer” – Developed under the mission to “re-establish the diversity and abundance of true beer culture, which has sadly been hidden by relentless over-commercialisation.” To achieve this goal, we enlist our Japanese flavored beer brand “Kagua,” Tokyo themed brand “Far Yeast,” and Innovative beer brand “Off Trail” to spread our distinctive beers to the world.

<Contact for this release>

Far Yeast Brewing Company　PR team：Sasaki・Oshiro
Mail：pr@faryeast.co.jp　 TEL：03-6849-2812

Far Yeast Brewing Co. (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Shiro Yamada), a craft beer brewery that brings beer brimming with originality from Japan to the world, has announced the second installment of the “Yamanashi Support Project” to liven up Yamanashi Prefecture with beer: “‘Ume-kin’ Me Crazy!” The beer is brewed with Japanese Ume harvested down the road from Far Yeast’s Genryu Brewery in Kosuge Village, Yamanashi Prefecture. The presale started on Saturday, September 5 at Far Yeast Brewing’s online store.

As COVID-19 continues to lead to event cancelations and a decline in tourism around Yamanashi prefecture, we at Far Yeast Brewing are doing what we can to help revitalize our local agricultural, tourism, and food & beverage industry partners the best way we know how: brewing beer! Our first Yamanashi Support Project, “PEACH HAZE,” a beer using peaches from Yamanashi Prefecture, was a great success. We began taking pre-orders in July, and sold two entire batches before the beer was released.

For the second Yamanashi Support Project we teamed up with local Kosuge plum farm manager, Mr. Hiroki Aoyagi, to make “Ume-kin’ Me Crazy!”

Kosuge Village has seen a number of new people moving to the village in recent years but the average age of village residents, especially farmers, is still increasing. Mr. Hiroki manages the plum farms that are no longer being maintained by the aging farmers and uses the fruit to hold workshops on how to make various food products such as umeboshi, Japanese pickled plums. 

To harvest the ume for this beer, the Genryu Brewery staff went plum picking on a sunny Tuesday morning. Mr. Hiroki kindly shared 200kg of the plums we harvested with us as a beer ingredient. participated in harvesting the plums, and Mr. Aoyagi shared the harvested plums with us as ingredients for beer. The number of plums used for the brewing process was 200kg. This project, notably participated picking plum, was a significant experience for us. As a result, we could make new friendships with the Kosuge village locals.

We fed plums harvested from Kosuge Village into a barrel-aged Belgian yeast brewed wheat-strong ale, and We also blended it with other barrel-aged wheat-strong ales to create a complex sour ale with a refreshing plum aroma. Ume-kin’ Me Crazy! is a release from our third brand, “Off Trail” that focuses on the challenge of creative beer making. Ume-kin’ Me Crazy! is a beer with various characters, including a mellow plum aroma, soft tannins from the barrel aging, and an aroma reminiscent of marzipan, a Middle Eastern pastry made from almonds. Umme-kin’ Me Crazy! is available for pre-sale in 750ml large bottles only at the company’s online store ahead of its nationwide release in mid-September. Due to the limited quantities, the sale will end when the product is sold out. We will continue to use Yamanashi Prefecture ingredients to create a variety of made-in-Yamanashi beers in the future.

Project page :  https://bbc-theme.info/faryeast/yamanashi-project2/

【Product】

Name: Ume-kin’ Me Crazy!

Release Date: Mid-September

Price: Open Price

Ingredients: Imported Malted Barley, Plum, Sugar, Hops

ABV: 7.7%.

Style: Barrel Aged Wheat Strong Ale with Fresh Ume

Product Type：Happoshu (malt content more than 50%)

Format: 750ml Bottle, 330ml Bottle, 10L keg

This beer name Ume-kin’ Me Crazy! was as word play, named after “You’re Making Me Crazy!”

 As the name sounds, we hope this beer makes you intoxicated with the seductive aroma and complex flavor of plum.