Beer is integrated into our daily lives in a variety of ways, whether it is enjoying a perfect match with a special dish, opening glasses of beer with friends, toasting at a special occasion, or sipping a beer while cooking.

I work hard every day to brew beer with the image of people drinking it freely in my mind's eye, but I also have a strong sense of my own original experience when I first drank craft beer, and I am always thinking about how to balance this experience with my own.

I always try to find the right balance between the classical beer and the beer that has an aroma and taste that I have never encountered before, and that is an encounter that overturns the existing concept of what beer is. It is an encounter that overturns existing concepts. This is very interesting.

It is a diverse, creative world that is different from existing needs and wants, and not uniform. This is the never-ending creation that is beer brewing.

In our collaboration with DANDELION CHOCOLATE, the recipe was designed to express "classic chocolate or cacao flavors," but this time we wanted to completely change the direction.

As we were talking about this (over beer), Mr. Monoe of DANDELION CHOCOLATE told us

Mr. Monoe of DANDELION CHOCOLATE came up with an exciting idea: "Can't we make a beer using whole cacao pods as an "all in one" ingredient?

Mr. Monoe of DANDELION CHOCOLATE had an exciting idea.

Is such a thing possible?

As we proceeded with our discussion, we came to the conclusion that the pulp inside the cacao pods might have potential.

First of all, do you know how cacao (pods) are made?

When the cacao tree grows, it produces small flowers, which are pollinated by insects and grow into small football-shaped cacao pods. These cacao pods produce seeds inside. This seed is the cacao bean.
Once harvested, the pods are broken open and the seeds are removed before fermentation and drying. This is the point where the flavor of the cacao bean is determined.
Drying also stabilizes the condition of the cacao pods and allows them to be distributed, making cacao available in Japan.

The seeds inside the cacao pods are encased in a sticky pulp, which is actually called cacao pulp, and is said to have a delicious lychee-like flavor.

The cacao pulp, which is called baba by cacao farm workers, is available in Japan and can be tasted at the DANDELION CHOCOLATE Kuramae store, so I went there to taste it.

The cacao pulp, which gives off a unique aroma, is still viscous, and when inhaled strongly and held in the mouth, it has a fresh, fruity, acidic taste, and a lychee-like flavor. It is truly a cacao fruit.

Let's try this in beer!

From here, we decided on the direction and base beer, and designed the recipe.

Fujisaki, who was in charge of brewing at the time, drew inspiration from Flanders Red Ale and used it as a hint to write a recipe that was reminiscent of a reddish sweet and sour sour ale. With the advice of Mr. Furuno, who is in charge of chocolate production at DANDELION CHOCOLATE, cacao nibs were selected to give the beer a deep flavor, as if it had been aged in a foudre.

The brewers themselves could not imagine how the final product would turn out, but they did their best and finally completed it.

This time, we changed the way we relate to cacao and our point of view 180°.

We broke away from the preconceived notion of "cacao = chocolate" and designed the product from the ground up, and a new perspective of "cacao = fruit" was born.

That is why we asked the designer of COEDO's small batch series "Fruit Ale" to design the label.

We would be happy if we could share a little of the joy of the finished product with you.

Cheers!

See the products

This is a small batch brew. Please note that the number of bottles is limited.