We’ve got a new beer on the way, and like all great things, it comes with a story. Meet Habu, our upcoming rice lager, named after the legendary pit viper native to Okinawa, Japan. If you know about Okinawan history, you might have heard about a tradition of watching Habu snakes battle mongooses—a spectacle of speed, strategy, and survival. While the mongoose usually wins, the real winner here is everyone sitting around watching the fight with a crisp rice lager in hand. Now, let’s talk about what makes Habu special beyond its reptilian roots.
Brewing Habu: The Long, Technical, and Absolutely Worth-It Process
One of the most important upgrades we made to our brewhouse was adding a Mash Mixer, which allows us to control mash temperatures with precision, opening the door to traditional European brewing techniques. This piece of equipment isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential for brewing classic lagers, historic decoction mashed beers, and Belgian styles.
But there’s another trick up its sleeve: it doubles as a Cereal Cooker. Large breweries use these to gelatinize raw grains like rice and corn, making their starches available for conversion into sugar. Most craft brewers rely on pre-gelatinized rice flakes because they don’t have the right equipment so that brewers can skip this step. But we like to do things the hard way, because fresh processing always leads to better beer.
For Habu, we use short grain Calrose rice which adds a clean-sweet floral character. Rice is often used to lighten beer, but it doesn’t mean it lacks complexity. Instead, it enhances the delicate balance of flavors while making the beer incredibly drinkable.
A Long Journey to Crisp Perfection
This whole cereal cooking process takes about four hours, compared to the 15-60 minutes of a standard American mash. But that extra time and effort is what makes Habu stand out. I first learned about cereal cookers in Belgium in 2008, while visiting the Stella Artois brewery. Seeing how they used this process in large-scale brewing stuck with me, and it’s something I’ve wanted to incorporate into our lagers ever since.
Now, after years of brewing and the right equipment upgrades, we’re bringing it full circle—just like the age-old battle of Habu and mongoose, only this time, everyone wins.
Stay tuned for the release date, and get ready to enjoy this crisp, clean, and dangerously drinkable rice lager soon.
