Belching Beaver Brewery is the newest brewery to join the Nagano Trading family, and what better way to kick off their introduction than by having them at the Japan Brewers Cup this week.

DAM GOOD TIMES

-Mr. Belching Beaver

Starting with the logo and name of this brewery, it was all started by Tom Vogel’s friend at a cocktail party and since then, Tom’s mission has been to create high quality beers while keeping the fun in beer. This playfulness with beer shines through with their beaver; each can has a unique design to link to each beer’s name. An example is their Phantom Bride IPA which has a decorative skull of a beaver. The Phantom Bride IPA is a collaboration beer with frontman Chino Moreno from the Deftones. Chino told Head Brewer, Thomas Peters that he enjoys hops that are loaded with pine and citrus notes that are also hoppy. Thomas worked with Chino to make the beer that he would love to drink, and Phantom Bride was the result. In addition to this, Tom and Thomas are particular about quality, and every year they fly to Washington State to go hop shopping with a Kolsh and a French press to test each lot at hop farms until they find the prefect hops to use for their beers.

Since 2012, Tom has expanded his operations in the San Diego area with five locations. Their tasting rooms are where they test Thomas’ new beers before shipping into other markets. Thomas is given free rein to try anything his mind can come up with, and you can find some of these experimental beers, as well as their main and seasonal line-up, in the seven states they supply. Added to that, Tom has also pushed the beaver brand into overseas market while winning countless awards, especially for their Peanut Butter Milk Stout.

Belching Beaver Brewery also has a sour program with 400 plus barrels and two 40 BBL foeders that started three years ago. They also have a new canning machine which Thomas said is “the most state of the art canning machine you can find in the world.”

Belching Beaver Brewery

Interview Day

Nagano Trading invited their customers for this personal brewery introduction and Q&A session. Marc (Sales Director, aka the Citra Hop Hater) gave a thorough explanation about their company, while Thomas explained about each beer, and Tom would cut in with “It pairs great with hot wings” and other interesting facts about his brewery. Many questions and answers were about the beaver logo, selecting hops, food that could be pair nicely with their beers, using Me So Honey Blonde in tempura batter, pouring Peanut Butter Milk Stout into a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream, and so on. After the Q&A and a few drinks at Antenna America, Tom, Thomas and the Citra Hop Hater gave Taihei a few minutes of their time.