〈Brewer's Note〉Pink (Light)

With the goal of dissolving the boundaries between alcoholic beverages, haccoba and we created different drinks using the same raw ingredients. We made a Japanese Braggot—a style of mead using grains, but essentially a hybrid between beer and mead. This time, instead of using barley, we used rice and rice malt, and substituted wasabi for hops. Please enjoy it while pondering: "What is this? Is it 'sake'?"

〈Minami Soma⇔Yasu〉
Our first real encounter with haccoba was at the 2023 ICC SAKE AWARD. Among the many incredible sake breweries present, haccoba took the top spot in the taste category.

Man, that’s great. It’s so cool to be making sake that makes people groan with delight. I'm so jealous.

haccoba then proposed that we make a braggot using rice. For us, the concept of a braggot had always felt more like "beer + mead" than "grain + honey," so the concept of a rice + honey Japanese Braggot left us absolutely stunned and excited.

〈Tasting Note〉
The yellow of the honey is visible behind the cloudiness. Acidity derived from white koji, yet a mouthfeel distinct from sake, with a mead-like fermentation character rather than ginjo aroma. Deep down, there is the green, fresh scent of wasabi. There is no spiciness.

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Style: Japanese Braggot

ABV (Alcohol by Volume): 6%

Carbonation: None

Content: 500ml

Ingredients: Rice, honey, rice malt, wasabi

Sweetness (10-point scale): 3 (Semi-Dry)

Serving Temperature: Well-chilled (4-8°C)

〈Mead making〉
We mixed the rice and rice malt to mash. I debated whether or not to add rice hulls, but I figured people in the old days likely did things more simply, so I went for it. In the end, after making a few sacrifices, we succeeded in extracting the rice juice.

We mixed the honey into the rice juice, fermented it, and "dry-hopped" it with wasabi just before the finish. It is lightly carbonated, but please be careful, as there are many solids that can easily spill if opened too quickly.

〈Naming & Design〉
We chose "Salmon" (Sake) as our theme. We believe this drink is about dissolving the boundaries of genre. When you think about a salmon, you wonder if it’s a sea fish or a river fish—then you realize, this fish has no boundaries.

The design features two salmon. A sea salmon and a river salmon. Since they can both swim in either, they must be robots, that’s the kind of salmon they are.

The name is "Pink" (Tan). We actually thought about naming it "Gray." Gray represents the ambiguous space between black and white, which is the theme of this drink. But then I realized there is also a color where the boundary between red and white is ambiguous. "Pink!" I thought, and decided instantly.

(Tan/淡) is because we are in Shiga. We have no sea, so our "sake/salmon" comes from Lake Biwa (Tanka). haccoba is Pink (Western). We expressed our own interpretations of Pink, Salmon, and Sake.