Japanese college students first to 'officially' produce own beer
Japan's Sapporo Breweries campaign girl Kaori Nakamura displays the kind of bottle that local students hope to emulate.A group of students in Japan were apparently given their college's blessing to brew their own beer -- and have already sold out.
In a first for Japan, the beer was entirely college-produced -- by Tokyo University of Agriculture. 47 News failed to reveal how many bottles the students deemed 'unfit for consumption' and kept back from public sale, but reported that 500 six-packs of 330ml units were sold at a pricey ¥3,150 and were effectively sold out before the bottles had even been capped -- on advance orders.
Twenty-two-year-old senior Mitsutaka Magara said, "We put all our hearts into creating the beer. We hope people will drink it on special occasions."
The University is the only one in Japan offering exams to obtain a license to brew and has been "researching" brewing techniques since 1994.
The students cultivated hops from local barley in Abashiri, Hokkaido, and had worked on the mass production for two years, in partnership with a Tokyo Agricultural University venture company so that the Tokyo University could sell it in their Bioindustry store.
