On October 26, Hokusei North America and its parent company, Hokusei Products of Japan, hosted a webinar for professional beer brewers in Japan.
The main focus of the webinar was non-alcoholic beers, which are increasingly popular in the United States. In fact the number of Americans drinking a non-alcoholic beer at least once a week increased eightfold between 2020 and 2020, and has grown to be a $6.5 billion market.
The webinar was lead off by greetings from Shotaro Tomita, Hokusei’s CEO, and Alex Blamberg, Director of the U.S. Agricultural Trade Office in Osaka, Japan. Later, Red Gillen gave an overview of Portland beer trends, and Yurie Wata of Hokusei Products introduced new purees being imported to Japan.
Anna Buxton, Steeplejack Brewing
Two guests also joined to speak to the webinar attendees. They included Chris Hodge of Oregon Fruit Products and Anna Buxton of Steeplejack Brewing. Anna spoke at length and shared much about the brewing of non-alcoholic beers, and answered Japanese brewers’ questions about non-alcoholic beer production techniques.
Thanks to these guests, the webinar was extremely well-received, and Hokusei plans to do more in the near future.
