I've had the pleasure of sharing ideas and visions on truly local beer with Dr. Yoshi Shinoda of the Kyoto 100 project (kyoto100brew on Facebook). We've exchanged perspectives and opinions on how best to define local (Can yeast be local? What is the range of "local" in the state of North Carolina...and does it differ in a small, densely populated country?).
Nine years in our exploration of truly local beer, I'm beyond thrilled to see this topic literally take root in other parts of the world -- places where beer's ingredients (barley, hops, local agriculture, foraged harvests) can give a beer a true taste of place.
This article, translated by Google and thus not quite perfect, makes me want to jump on a plane and raise a glass with our Japanese friends. I hope you see the parallels in vision. We may be a world apart, but our passion for our community, farms, and the land unites us.
"Isn't the world good? Isn't it worth it? I want to help local farmers somehow. I want to make beer from malted barley in the areal from hops in the area. If the beer in the glass traces back to the field, I want to create a society like that...that I was able to make beer and local things.
I want to work on this as an industry as a region, I want to make it as local as possible, I want to pay money locally, I want to commit to society, I want to create such a society from Kyoto as soon as possible."
Dr. Yoshifumi Shinoda