Kaiser Chick

Do you know Kaiser Chick? It's a brewery along Stadium Street in Tobitakyu, heading toward Ajinomoto Stadium, and it's a bit unusual. The brewer, Takumi Taira, was originally a pastry chef.

His wife's older sister lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, and when he visited, he got hooked on the local beer culture. It's the home of altbier. So he trained for four years at a brewery in Fukuoka, and opened his own place in 2023.

Well, his parents have run a Western-style pastry shop called Patisserie Urson in Fuchu since 1993, and about 15 kinds of cakes are delivered from there every day. So the counter has beer taps and cakes side by side. It's the only place like this in Japan.

Exactly. And the beers also show his pastry-chef sensibility. The porter called "Tarama" uses Okinawan brown sugar. Taira's roots are on Tarama Island in Okinawa, so that's where the name comes from. In the "White Clover Saison," he adds clover honey, and the way he combines ingredients feels like a pastry shop's approach.

Definitely "Chick Alt." He recreates the style that shocked him in Düsseldorf using German hops and malt. There's also a strong ale called "Chef," with an IBU of 61 and a bittersweet flavor like biting into an orange. Apparently it was brewed to suit his father's tastes.

It's a brewpub where you can see the brewing tanks from inside, and they also host a rakugo performance once a month. That's because the performer, Yuko Sanyutei, is a high school classmate of Taira's. Paying the cover charge and drinking beer while listening to rakugo is a pretty rare experience.