It’s been a while since I’ve been drunk enough to think of things that have annoyed me enough to warrant sitting down and writing a piece about it. Call it getting older – I am 43 now. Call it being more active – I run about 40 kms a week. Call it just mellowing out and realising that things will happen if you like it or not. But one thing that I have enjoyed is the absence of beer festivals. Hear me out…
In the past, I loved going to big sprawling festivals – Keyaki in Saitama was often attended with a group of friends and we’d share (remember those days!) beers or offer each other sips before going out and spending good money on a beer. The Yokohama BeerFes was another one I enjoyed with its four hour time limit and being able to have small 50 – 100ml samples of beers from any of the breweries in attendance. Niigata for the beer festival there and getting free beers simply because we had turned up to the festival. Osaka. Nagoya. Kyoto. Crikey. Heck, even the beer festival Brewers Cup, which isorganised by Bay Brewing, and their weird obsession with J-Pop girl bands was fun, but that was because I was with friends.
Yet at the time, there were some smaller festivals. They weren’t as well advertised, or did not have such an expansive list of breweries from all over Japan. We’re not talking about brewery open days where you could go along and try some beers, but some hyper-local events with just breweries from the immediate area – some local brewpubs, breweries, and maybe some shops. The beers were sometimes good, sometimes bad but again the key point among them was we went with friends.
Then Covid-19 hit.
Noone knew what was going to happen during those times as the whole industry shut down. Bars closed. Breweries shifted their focus from keg sales to can and bottle sales. Online stores were hurriedly opened up. In fact, some breweries that were 90% focussed on bar sales saw such a massive decline there was talk among the industry that they wouldn’t survive. Before Covid-19, there had been a paradigm shift in the domestic craft beer market in that we weren’t seeing just breweries open up, but brewpubs. Being able to sell beer to the local community and generate a following among local drinkers meant that these places could, perhaps, weather the storm of a decrease in sales but still shift enough beers to get through on a bare bones operation.
However, beer festivals that operated throughout the year still needed to run. While many festivals call for volunteers during the events, some with the promise of pay, while others with the promise of free beer at the end, for the organisers themselves, it’s their day job and a source of income. Some beer festivals, notably Keyaki, shifted to an online event with a shop that sold specific bottles over a set period of time from certain breweries, mimicking their festival of two weeks and some breweries only being present for one week. Other events shifted to an online drinking session – something that I could not get on with as seeing other people get drunk online, perhaps being recorded, just didn’t sit well.
Slowly though, as Japan went through wave upon wave of infections – at the time of writing we’ve just “done” the seventh wave of Covid-19 – the country has begun to open up, and not just for tourists. Bars are working at normal capacity it seems with the usual Covid-19 suggestions of masks, alcohol spray, and distance. Breweries have increased production for bars with some of them reporting to be at such capacity that they don’t have enough beer to supply their own bars, yet be able to sell kegs, or even cans, to retail outlets.
With all of this opening up, we’ve started to see the return of beer festivals across Japan. And it has been great to see people at the festivals; however, something didn’t sit right.
The larger festivals have come across as being corporate and organised to maximise profit for the organisers, and not the breweries themselves. When you go to a beer festival, of course, it takes organising; however, since attending a fair few smaller ones this year, the atmosphere has been far different. At the bigger festivals, the organisation has been too clinical and far less organic – turn up at this time, drink these beers during this time, then leave. At the smaller festivals, everyone seems more invested in the breweries and the beers themselves. Brewers are around for a chat about their beers, people are more likely to try more of the beers – something about the paradox of choice and the irony is not lost on me.
And this is how it should be. Attending the smaller festivals gives you more of a chance to support local business and local breweries, giving them much needed sales and much needed feedback from drinkers. More importantly for those businesses, more of the sale goes towards them supporting the staff and keeping the business alive. While I do enjoy beer festivals, I know in the future, I will be attending less, if any, of the big beer festivals, and going to some of the smaller ones in the local area where possible.
