Thursday, March 28, 2024
Home Beer Review Passific Brewing Event : Taproom Opening

Passific Brewing Event : Taproom Opening

by Rob
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Passific Brewing, based in Chigasaki, Kanagawa, have proven to be one of the breakout breweries towards the end of 2021, with their beers popping up rapidly throughout the Kanto region since they began brewing back in October of the same year. Since opening, Passific Brewing have been rather active on social media sites, with Instagram being one of their main sites for promotion, with them showing behind the scenes action as well as promoting their beers and events. One of their main events is a monthly taproom opening at their brewery. Unfortunately, for the first few events, BeerTengoku was unable to get to it – either due to bad timing or being injured. However, towards the end of January 2022, Passific Brewing hosted a single day event and off we went on a ride.

The weather that eventful day was cold. Under trousers were worn under a pair of jeans, and three thin layers on top – it’s best to layer up when cycling in cold weather, rather than wear one thick layer for reasons that will become clear later on. The route was a simple one, but it was along the Sakaigawa, which runs from Machida, all the way to Enoshima, and is wide open. With a biting wind the whole way down, I was glad that I decided to wear a face mask on the ride down, just to take some of the edge off.

Passific Brewing is situated in what could only be described as the industrial area of North Chigasaki. There is nothing really else in the area in terms of drinking establishments, so it’s an interesting place to have opened a brewery. The brewery itself is situated in an old metal works building, with the retro company sign from the previous company still present on the wall above the main doorway into the brewery.

The event started off at midday and was scheduled to last for only four hours – but with the current climate due to Covid-19, and the big grey clouds looming over us, it kind of made sense really.

There were 8 taps of beer on for the event, with a wide variety of styles on – I’m glad that it wasn’t just IPAs as seems to be the fashion with some new breweries. While I personally do like IPAs, it’s important to get different drinkers in and then letting them try a variety of styles. What was unusual to see was a schwarz and an amber ale on the menu – two styles that most modern breweries have eschewed for being old fashioned. All the beers were 700 yen, and came in what appeared to be glasses of about 300 ml – give or take a few ml. Unfortunately, there were no tasting flights available, but I guess that was to be expected really as it means more washing up for people to do. You could get beers to takeaway, either in a plastic cup, or a growler / plastic bottle fill, with prices at 100 ml for 120 yen – so I got some Pioneer Work to drink later once I had gotten home.

The brewery was also opened up for people to have a look around with the head brewer available for questions, when he wasn’t helping out to pour beers. The brewery was sparkling in stainless steel and clearly had been polished up to be as sparkly as possible, but the most noticeable piece of equipment in the brewery was a Wild Goose canning machine. At the time of writing, Passific Brewing’s beers were available on draught only, but the brewery was planning on realising cans in the middle of February onwards, with their Passific Lager and Passific IPA being the first two beers to be released.

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At the event, I plumped for four of their beers – mainly because I didn’t have enough money with me and I wasn’t too sure if I was cycling back or not – not a good idea to cycle when you’ve drunk a lot and not had any food. However, one of the friends I was with, kindly cycled to the local McDonald’s – no food was served at the event so it was either go hungry or order some in. Later on, another friend joined us and had brought a whole Domino’s Brooklyn pizza with him on the back of his bike – herculean effort there and was a site to see when he turned up.

From left to right.

  • Passific Yero – a Wallonian Pils with Yuzu at 4.5%. Smelt like yuzu in a natural way, and was a touch sweet in the nose from the malts. No noticeable hop aroma really but that was to be expected with the amount of yuzu in there. Would be a great late spring / early summer beer for the warmer days, not for temperatures that just touched 5c. Lingering yuzu flavour into the aftertaste and overall, a solid beer.
  • Passific IPA – an American IPA at 6%. Slight pine and dank nose to the beer with a light dusting of citrus but solid, if not bursting with aromas. That could have been due to the temperatures on the day. The body had a light bitterness to it, and continued the pine notes found in the nose. Good but not exceptional.
  • Passific Wald – a schwarz at 5.5%. The aroma was wonderful – lots of woody, chocolate notes to the beer with none of the black malt acidity that sometimes is present. There was a hint of smokiness to the nose once the head had settled down. The body was smooth and tasted wonderful – not so heavy but also not thin.
  • Passific Solar Pollen – an amber at 6%. Not often you so an amber on a menu, and this was more of a hoppy American amber that needed to be warmed up to be at its best. Cold and it was more malty than hoppy. Let it warm up, and more of the hops came through, with a subtle lemon and slight pine resinous aroma came through. As the beer warmed up, the beer got nicer but again, temperatures on the day weren’t conducive to beers warming up.

Overall, I was nicely surprised with the beers from Passific Brewing and would happily drink them next time I am out at a bar and they’re on tap. Keep an eye out on their Instagram page for future events – may even see you there next time there is one on at the brewery.

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