Farmer's Market!

I’m the proud dad of these three beers

Yes we just did it, WE JUST FINISHED OUR VERY FIRST FARMER’S MARKET!

It has always been a dream of mine to do a farmer’s market after I started to work at AEDAN Fermented at the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

The cool air of the morning, the quiet hustle and bustle of the stands being set up, and the fresh vegetables that were being put out.

For some reason, I also really enjoyed the one on one interaction with customers who weren’t here just to buy produce, but to enjoy the whole culture of a farmer’s market. So when I first heard that there may be a possibility that we can do a farmer’s market at our company, I jumped onto it.

But then I thought to myself, “Okay what the hell are you going to be providing to the customers Shun?.” I wasn’t growing enough vegetables in my own garden to provide for a large crowd, and it wasn’t like I was making some jams or preserved products like pickles to sell… Breakfast sandwiches again? Nah, I’ve learned that Japanese people are not big fans of eating and walking. So what…

beer!

Yes my brain does work kinda like that, I just go down the list of things that I like and try to see if there are the resources to make that said thing. We had the plum flower yeast; perfect we got fermentation. We have local ingredients that provide good color, flavor, and fragrance; alright we got the flavor profiles. Okay so we got beer right?

So after two weeks of fermentation and a whole lot of worry to if the fermentation would finish by the due date of March 23rd, we somehow got the beer to full fermentation level. I got this news literally a week before the farmer’s market, and this information only came with the success of the fermentation and nothing about the taste, so you could be sure that I was super nervous about how the beer turned out.

Well, it came to the tasting and thank you beer gods, it turned out to be REALLY GOOD!

The plum flower yeast gave the beer a slightly sour and fruity after flavor, which gave the beer a very clean and refined after taste. Apparently the yeast give off an acid as a byproduct called Apple Acid. As the name implies the yeast gives off a flavor that is similar to the sourness found in apples. I think this acid is the key to the flavor profile of the plum flower yeast.

Alright, so this is my Beets and Kuromoji IPA.

My coworker Suzuki-san grew these amazing beets that we used fully from stem to the root. Usually the brewery where we had the beer made uses canned beets, but this time we had fresh ones and boy did it make a difference. I asked the beer to be made a little hazy as well so that it would look like fruit juice or something. I thought the beer would have more impact if you weren’t able to see through it. As for the flavors, the brewer mentioned that the beets might give the beer a metallic taste, so I decided IPA would be a good style to counter that flavor. The Kuromoji was put in there to enhance the fruity and citrusy flavor and aroma. In the end, the koromoji didn’t come out as much as I wished for, but I feel like it brought down the “wheat” flavor at the very end.

This beer has a strong fragrance of hops which hits you first when you go in for a sip, almost like grapefruit. The beginning has a refreshing bitterness but after the beer warms up in your mouth you start to taste that unique soft sourness that the plum flower yeast gives off. As it tailors off, your palette is almost left with almost nothing. The end is incredibly light and refreshing, and that’s what keeps you going for more.

I feel like even though this is an IPA, it gives everybody a little something. The beginning hit of hops is great for beer lovers, while the end is easy for those who are venturing out to an IPA. I feel l like sometimes IPA’s can linger in your mouth for a long time, I enjoy that flavor profile, but for others that grassiness can be unappealing. Despite its red hot color, the flavors are surprisingly floral and light but gives the punch that is needed in an IPA.

I would pair this with something simple but bold, like a steak or grilled vegetables. This guy has enough personality that you can just enjoy it on its own as well. I think this is my favorite beer out of all three…Shh don’t tell the other two okay?

This pale yellow beauty is my Saison flavored from the rice grown at my company and Sansho peppers from our local mountains.

I was planing on making pretty unique beer for the 2 out of 3, so I wanted one that was easy to drink and familiar to all. This one is a standard Saison which is similar in flavor to Asahi beer, relatively dry and inoffensive. But for some reason, the plum flower yeast got along well and became buddy buddy with the rice in the fermentation process, and the rice flavor really came out in this one.

Unlike the IPA, the fragrance of this one is less punchy and is softer and has more of a wheaty scent to it. When you take a sip, you realize it has quite a light body but the flavor of rice is very prevalent. The rice gives the beer a bit of a sweetness and roundness that is a good compliment to the usually dry beer. The Sansho, like the Kuromori, isn’t in your face, but I feel like it is at the back end of the sip adding to the clue finish. I almost want to just add a shit ton more Sansho to the next batch, but I feel like having it at this level makes it easy to drink.

This beer is for everybody and pairs with pretty much anything and is for any occasion. It’s the allrounder that you want in your fridge that you can always rely on. This would be really nice with some tempura or grilled chicken with its skin all crispy. It’s got enough dryness to it that it will cut through the fat really nicely.

The final beer tastes the least like beer out of all of the three beers I had made. (Wow how many times did I say beer there?). It’s a sour ale that uses another type of wild yeast found in Tottori Prefecture called the cherry blossom yeast. Yes it is a yeast found on cherry blossom flowers in Tottori. So this beer uses 2 types of flower yeasts, pretty floral right?

The cherry blossom yeast makes lactic acid as a result of fermentation which gives the beer it’s signature sourness. Iwamibakushu makes a 100% cherry blossom beer, but it’s completely different from the one we made. Our sour ale uses a blend of the beers made from both yeasts and has a much mellower sourness, almost like a white wine. The first scent is floral and a little sour, which makes you think you are smelling some cider or something. The first taste on your pallet is sour, but a pleasant and mellow one. We made sure to make this a sort of an amber ale t give the beer some body and roundness to counter act the sour flavor. So after the initial sourness, comes a this deep flavor that gives closure to the whole flavor experience. Then repeat.

I would pair this with some fish or seafood, considering this beer is so much like white wine. I was thinking also some spaghetti or even better… seafood spaghetti! This is a beer for people who just hate beer and would like no trace of it in their beverage.

So those are my beers, all three which are all uniquely different and good for all the different reasons! Super satisfied with the results, and people seemed to really enjoy the beer.

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Now here comes shun’s deep insight into this, get ready!

The craft beer making was of course about the fact that I love beer and that I wanted a beer that I wanted to drink. At the same time I wanted to show the people of Omori that you can make really cool things out of the stuff that seems to just be lying around in our natural environment. Usually all these ingredients are treated to make simple things like tea or just treated like spices, but with a little bit of imagination it can be a lot more than that. This town of Omori is not just a town of history, a place for preservation but a place for invention, for innovation! I also wanted to see sights like the one below in the town of Omori. Yes the town is beautiful because of the old building and its surprisingly empty streets that are perfect for photographic opportunities. That may be fun for the tourists who just visit the town once and leave, but for people like me who live here, we want to use this space! We want to use the town not as a historic space but a social space, and if that because part of the culture here, the better! Which is why we hope to continue this farmer’s market so that it becomes part of the town.

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Also just gonna add some aesthetic photos of my beer because why not?

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I think I’m going to leave you guys with one final image which sums up what I want the future of this town to look like. If you are ever in the area please come and visit, we are all waiting for you here to experience the making of the culture here in Omori!