THRASHZONE & THRASHZONE BREW LAB

Beer pub 'THRASHZONE' was established in 2006 nearby YOKOHAMA station.

It was still early era of Japanese craft beer scene at that time.

Limited people got into more heavy ,funky beers and THRASHZONE supplied that kind of beers including intense hoppy beer like STONE , GREENFLASH.

After that starting up , we thought that we should have our own beer.

HOPSLAVE is the first beer brewed by our own recipe at Atsugi beer.

Yes this is contract brewing and now still available.

The spec of this beer was one of the biggest at that time 2009 in Japan as a double/imperial I.P.A. with 9% alcohol and big aroma from Amarillo hop.

I wanted to say 'This is the answer to California from Japan.'

HOPSLAVE was successfully accepted for people and could be a good suggestion for us going to the next stage.

' We should brew ! '

And then ,in June 2011 ,we got a license of brewing and started brewing at a small garage size space.

This is our brewery 'THRASHZONE BREW LAB'

The location is 10 minutes walk from THRASHZONE.

Our brewing system is enough small to be called 'NANO BREWERY'.

BREWING

Our one batch size is one barrel = 120 Litre.

This quantity is only for 6 kegs.

Thus the capacity is very limited , but at the same time the risk to brew experimental beer can be very small.

This means we can brew more aggressive beer and this can be a big advantage without risk of having big stock.

Luckily I have gotta chance to learn how to brew at my favourite breweries ATSUGI BEER , BALLAST POINT and AVERY.

The basic of brewing technique is very much basic but the specialty is the philosophy.

'Brewing unique beer' is it.

I have a tone panel of guitar amp in my head as a taste parameter of brewing.

I was a guitarist in a hardcore/thrash band and all time I got into making guitar sound as brutal as I could.

Anyway , when I decide brew profile, I actually hear a sound of beer in my ears and the tone panel pops up in my head.

Like bass for beer bitterness , gain for the body , treble for hop aroma etc etc...

I turn each knob up and down ,and I make brewing recipe much the same as guitar sound making.

This is translation from sound to taste , and this is the way of our brewing.

NANO BREWERY

What is nano brewery??

That is less than micro brewery and more than homebrewing.

Most cases , 1 bbls class batch but commercial base running.

The nano brewery scene is getting very hot especially in US.

I walked around visiting over 30 nano breweries and I interviewed with each owners.

Many times I saw exact the same equipment as ours and the way of brewing was the same as ours.

The advantage of nano brewery is that they can brew aggressive beers without risk of having big stock , as I said formerly.

In conclusion of the trip , I found out two things.

One is that our way of brewing is right and the second is what is the next thing which we should do.

ATTITUDE

The Craft beer scene these days is in big expanding era as globalism.

However in the beginning , every brewery started brewing very much independently ,and the scene grew up from grass root level activities.

In music scene ,from 80's to 90's there was a big indie movement as known as 'D.I.Y. HARDCORE' scene.

I was in the scene in 90's in Japan.

You might know few names of bands like BLACK FLAG , CIRCLE JERKS , MINOR THREAT , BAD BRAINS.

Those band played fast and loud songs , and they tried to keep their musical activities only by themselves.

The philosophy was like

 1)DO IT by YOURSELF = D.I.Y.

 2)ANTI MAIN STREAM ATTITUDE

 3)LOCAL PRIORITY POLICY

I feel a sympathy very much between CRAFT BEER and HARDCORE in that meaning.

One day,a regular guy @THRASHZONE asked me

'What is the difference between PUNK and HARDCORE?'

We discussed this and that , and then he finally answered.

'There is a reason to sing in HARDCORE'

That could be a perfect answer.

Let's translate this to craft beer.

'THERE IS A REASON TO DRINK IT.'

That is it!

BEERS

We mainly brew ales especially focused on big hop character.

All the time we hope our brew to be sharpen and tighten like a well trained athlete.

Oridinally , we opened this brewery to brew an awesome double/imperial I.P.A. with rich aroma hop character.

Finally we fixed the recipe and put a name to the beer ' HOP DEICIDE '

This is our benchmark beer and we brush up brewing by improving this beer.

Now , our regular beers are as below.

'EXTREME BEER ONLY'

YOKOHAMA

THRASHZONE & THRASHZONE BREW LAB is located in YOKOHAMA.

YOKOHAMA is very next to Tokyo and has 3.5 million population.

Keikyu line is commuter train which combines cities , TOKYO - YOKOHAMA - YOKOSUKA.

I love this red train personally , and I believe this is the soul train of YOKOHAMA.

Anyway , YOKOHAMA is an international city and many types of people come and go.

All time the scenery in THRASHZONE is like melting pot.

THRASH ZONE

Tsuruyacho2-10-7 Tamura bldg 1F

Kanagawa-ku YOKOHAMA JAPAN 2210835