Happy Birthday Hashigo Zake

Hashigo Zake is a bit complex. It’s a craft beer bar with a Japanese theme operating out of some old police cells in central Wellington. NZBeerBlog caught up with proprietor Dominic Kelly in between preparing for his bar’s first birthday party and planning a trip to Japan.

“There’s an Old World/New World divide in beer, as there is in wine,” says Dominic.

“The Old World is that rustic English imagery with pub names like the Fox & Hound. There’s a place for that, but we in New Zealand are part of the New World of brewing along with the Pacific Rim and Scandinavia. To draw on the Old World imagery would be doing a disservice to our New World brewers. We wanted to challenge ideas about where craft beer could come from.”

Dominic lived and worked in Japan for three years. “Popeye in Tokyo is a benchmark for a craft beer bar. They don’t let anything they do distract you from the beer, which is important. The first beer I has there was a hand-pulled Rising Sun Pale Ale from Baird Brewing and it was one of those epiphanies”.

You don’t come to Hashigo Zake and ask for a pint of the usual. The range is constantly changing, and if you find a beer you enjoy, you’d better make the most of it because there’s no guarantee it will still be on when you finish your glass. The tap range usually includes a pilsner, a wheat beer, a session ale, a porter or stout and an IPA.

“We started with imports in bottles and taps full of locals, but since then we’ve managed to import kegs and beefed up our selection of local bottles. We must have between 100 and 150 beers, but I really don’t know.”

Dominic has learnt a lot in the past year about how beer travels. “Some of the beers are just bullet-proof, but it’s just not worth bringing in moderate strength. Beers with higher alcohol and stronger flavour, beers that can age, will travel best. We found from bitter experience that beers at less than 6% don’t travel very well, but above 6%, IPAs will travel beautifully. We’re now arranging to bring everything in in refrigerated containers.”

Tonight Hashigo Zake staff are celebrating the first year with a meal prepared by a guest chef, and a
beer or two. Then in a couple of days Dominic is flying to Japan to present Tuatara Brewery’s range at the Great Japan Beer Festival in Yokohama. “Tuatara asked if I could introduce them to any Asian contacts that could help them export. I’ll squeeze a few other local beers into my suitcase and run a New Zealand tasting next Sunday night. We could have a thriving craft beer exporting business because it is a value-added agricultural product. We grow unique hops here by world standards. You don’t hear our hop industry talked about in business pages and TV, and that’s because we don’t recognise success here until we’ve made it overseas.”

Dominic has lots of plans for the future, including developing the online sales side of the business and increasing the imports to on-sell to other craft bars. He plans to start an exchange network of craft beer businesses around the Pacific Rim. “I’d like to see full kegs going in both directions across the Pacific, to Japan, Australia, California, and who knows where else. It’s not clear whether that’s viable due to the way kegs are filled and cleaned and reused, but in principle, it’s a good idea. At the moment we own 40 kegs but soon we’ll own 200. The possibilities are endless.”

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©Martin Craig. Reproduction with permission only.

martin@nzbeerblog.com



4 Responses to “Happy Birthday Hashigo Zake”

  1. “We could have a thriving craft beer exporting business because it is a value-added agricultural product. We grow unique hops here by world standards. You don’t hear our hop industry talked about in business pages and TV, and that’s because we don’t recognise success here until we’ve made it overseas.”

    Y’know, this little bit about craft beer and hops really intrigues me. Way back when I first moved to Beijing, I was introduced to a Chinese beer that was brewed with NZ malt and hops. It was a pretty good beer. Steinlager (yes, I know…) was brewed in China for a while – Suzhou, if I remember rightly. But although it is different in certain parts of China, in my experience NZ wine is very hard to come by, and NZ beer even rarer. Having a crack at the Japan market is great, but my observations here in China suggest that at least in China, our brewers and wine makers haven’t really put anywhere near enough effort into the marketing. And being such a small, unknown country, we really do have to put a huge amount of effort into making our voice heard.

    The thing is, I see a lot of potential for NZ to succeed in beer and wine here in China, both in terms of exports to China and deals on local production. I don’t see much being done to fulfill that potential.

    Sorry to go so far off-topic. NZ certainly does produce plenty of good brews deserving of international attention, and I wish Dominic all success on his Japan trip.

    Reply

  2. Chris, as far as I’m aware Tuatara have just sent their first shipment to China.

    Reply

  3. Thanks, guys. But really, 1700 stubbies? A start, at least. But my main point is that there’s a lot more to it than simply shipping bottles. Still, I wish them luck.

    Reply

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