Date & Time: Wednesday, October 17, 8:50 a.m. – 13:30 p.m.
Spots: Kirin Yokohama Beer Village Factory and Spring Valley Brewery Yokohama in the Factory Area
Visitors: 10 Mothers of Saint Maur International School Students in Yokohama
(3 Americans, 2 French, 1 each English, Filipino, South African, Chinese, and Korean)
Attendants: 3 KSGG members
Language: English
As the brewery tour was not reserved only for our group, we moved together with many other people during the tour. The attendant explained the factory in a bland tone and I couldn’t hear him well because his voice echoed inside the brewery. So I had a hard time interpreting what he was saying into English. As I have experienced working as a tour guide in a sake brewery several times, I recognized there are some differences between sake brewing and beer brewing. One of them is the word “wort” used in the beer brewing process. I thought it was very helpful to have studied technical terms and the beer-making process in advance. I’m afraid that I didn’t have enough time to explain the differences in the fermentation processes of beer, sake and wine with a chart, because I was so busy interpreting the attendant’s explanation. However, I still felt relieved to find that they understood “Ichiban-shibori beer” or first wort beer, which is the main product of Kirin Brewery Company established in Yokohama, and tastes great because of its pure malt produced through filtering. They might have found how good “Ichiban-shibori beer” is when they tasted it after the tour.