A collaboration with Hansharo combining sake yeast and flowers to make a unique saison
[Character]Light, crisp and dry, with fruity and mild hoppy flavours, this beer blurs the lines between sake, beer, and white wine characters, offering nuances of wildflowers, melons, pears, and grapes.[Food Pairing]Kombu-cured white fish, Iwagaki Oyster, Herb Grilled Chicken[Naming]"Iza" simply means a cry to move forth, while Shinshu is derived from "Shinshu Kakan", a four character idiom meaning taking initiative with courage and determination. In learning about Hansharo's history, and its connection with the Nirayama reverberatory furnace, a furnace built at a rapid pace in preparation to resist the Western powers pressuring Japan to open its borders during the late Edo period, we thought this worked as a good symbol of the pioneering spirit of Japan at the time, which proactively embraced new things.
This worked quite well in parallel with modern craft beer brewing, where brewers actively challenge conventional ideas and traditions, freeing themselves from fixed notions and established customs to create the current beer styles popular worldwide. Iza! Shinshu![Brewer's Voice]This was a fun beer to put together. When speaking with Hansharo, we discovered we both had similar interests in flower and sake yeast beers. Rather than decide which one to do, we combined the styles together into a wildflower sake saison! Truly a mix of our two breweries' styles and techniques, we sourced and then propagated the sake yeast based on their experience using the strain. One of our brewers hails from a previous sake brewery before joining KBC, so we used her knowledge and connections, and designed a fermentation profile merging both Hansharo's style with some of her experience, with the goal of enhancing the pear and honeydew melon flavours that this yeast can produce. Using our experience with wildflowers, we used a blend of dandelion, jasmin, and chrysanthemum. We wanted to use the light sweet fruit sake yeast elements, combined with the fresh flowery character to make a beer akin to a Pinot Grigio style white wine. We paired this with complimentary hops such as Audacia and Vista, Audacia contributing rose, lilac, and lavender characteristics with a touch of lingonberry sweetness, and Vista supporting the Sake yeast esters with melon, pear, tangerine, and other light tropical flavours. The malt base was a blend of a mixed grain style saison with some wheat and rye, with some added rice flakes for a softer dry sake-like finish. This beer was months in the making with a 3 stage yeast propagation, followed by a 3-week primary fermentation with several weeks conditioning. While sake yeast beers are not a new thing, we wanted ours to take a slightly different direction, and we think we were able to achieve that here. This beer was a labour of love from start to finish, but a beer worth the effort.StyleFlower Saison with Sake YeastSeriesNakamaABV7.5%IBU20Gas Volume2.7OthersFlaked Rye, Torrefied Wheat, Rice Flakes, Dandelion leaves, Jasmin Buds, Chrysanthemum flowers, Amylase enzyme.CategoryHapposhuJAN4589718743301Shipping Start2026/05/18Regarding shipping datesPlease note that, when multiple items are ordered together, they will be shipped out after the shipping start date of the latest product in the order.Best Before2027/01/11
