My latest article for The Bulletin, Central Oregon breweries tap into Japanese rice lager trend, takes a look at the style in question through the light of two Bend beers currently available—Deschutes Brewery’s Kanpai Crispy and Crux Fermentation Project’s Bochi Bochi.

Deschutes Brewery released a new limited-edition beer in its “Crispy” lager series recently, Kanpai Crispy, which piqued my interest. It’s brewed as a Japanese rice lager, a style that’s growing in popularity among craft brewers in recent years, and joins other local examples from Crux Fermentation Project, 10 Barrel Brewing Co., Wild Ride Brewing Co., and more.

While the name “Japanese rice lager” might sound exotic, the style itself is fairly simple — a crisp, light-bodied pale lager brewed with a large proportion of rice in addition to barley. Rice tends to have a neutral aroma and flavor, providing fermentable sugars without adding body to the finished beer. As such, its addition helps to lighten and dry out the beer.

Many mass market lagers have been brewed with rice for decades, and more recently craft brewers have explored rice as a specialty addition to their recipes. Rice lager as a style calls for higher amounts of the grain than many might be used to.

I get into origins of the “dry beer” style in Japan (Asahi Super Dry) and profile the two beers.

Kanpai Crispy is the latest in the “Crispy” lager series from Deschutes Brewery, a light rice lager with 4.8% ABV and 15 IBUs. According to head brewer Jessica Cruzan, torrified rice makes up 21% of the grain bill. (This fact didn’t make it into the article before deadline.)

Bochi Bochi from Crux Fermentation Project is similar in stats, with 4.6% ABV and 17 IBUs. It was developed by head brewer Ryan Atagi, who used whole Calrose rice at 40% of the grain bill.

You can read my tasting notes of both in the article. Cheers!