Bread beer, Japan’s first craft beer made from leftover bread crusts

Do you want to enjoy a cool craft beer in a hot sweaty summer in Japan, while doing good for the environment at the same time? Then you should try the first Japanese craft beer, bread beer, made from leftover bread crusts in Tokyo and Nagano.

The craft beer tastes soft and light, easy to drink, without being too strong or bitter. It matches Japanese cuisine using soy source and vegetables more than meat and oily food.

This beer is the result of the collaboration with a bakery cafe Bricolage bread & co, Nagano-based brewery AJB and the environmental organization 530 week.

Even though Bricolage bread & co already use bread crusts of its regular Champagne for bread pudding, cake sponge and breadcrumbs, there are still too much leftovers. Namae, the owner of the bakery and a chef at the famous French restaurant L’Effervescence, felt that it’d be waste, or “mottainai” in Japanese. He wanted to give these bread crusts another life.

When he met his friend Nakamura, who was promoting a zero waste campaign, they came up an idea of making beer from amazing bread. With support from AJB brewery in Nagano, they succeeded in making the first craft beer made from leftover bread crusts in Japan.

There is another sustainability benefit from this beer. They give spent grain, a by‐product in the process of brewing, to neighboring farmers to avoid wasting as much as possible.

Sure, sustainability is its strong suit, but we should not forget that the beer taste great. Namae believes that delicious food can change the world. This is the first bread beer in Japan, so it is very important to be tasty. “Otherwise, other breweries don’t follow us to make beer from bread,” he shared.

At the moment, you can buy bread beer at Bricolage bread & co in Tokyo, AJB brewery in Nagano or the following beer bars for 650 yen; Mikkeller Tokyo (Tokyo), Beer Rupurin (Tokyo), Miyazawa Shoten (Tokyo), Beer Pub Camden (Tokyo), Novel Craft (Tokyo), Beer Komachi (Kyoto) and Oriental Brewing (Kanazawa, Ishikawa). 1% of every purchase is donated to 530 week activities.

Why not enjoy craft beer made from wasted bread crusts with Japanese cuisine and help solve a food loss problem?