YGGDRASIL BREWING

Last Updated: 13 September, 2024

Fans of craft beer in Japan will surely have already heard of and know the name, Yggdrasil Brewing, inspired by the owner’s long-time interest in Viking symbolism. French-born David Gardahaut, more commonly referred to as “Davido Gardamoto”, is well known for his exquisitely crafted beers, love for heavy metal music, and combining them both at his brewpub in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Davido grew up in Brittany, a region in the northwest of France famous for producing some of the world’s best apple spirits, cider included, accounting for about 40 percent of the country’s total production of cider. It should come as no surprise, then, that he would be influenced by such an upbringing. Still, many people don’t realize, perhaps because they’re too busy drinking his beers, that Davido is also an expert cidermaker, making arguably some of the best in Japan. We visited Davido at his brewpub to sit down and discuss his thoughts on cider and cidermaking.

Tell us about your first cider experience:
I actually had my first sip of cider when I was about eight years old, while on holiday at my grandmother’s little orchard in Brittany. She was making simple sweet ciders with her own apples using my late carpentering grandfather’s oak barrels.

As a beer brewer, do you have a philosophy about cider and cider making?
I originally started with hybrid beer/cider graffs using ale and saison yeasts but quickly moved to mostly blending pure apple juice using French cider yeast strains. Simple is best!

How often do you make cider?
We currently produce about one 250L batch every two months. 

Do you make them by yourself or do you have any help?
I usually decide all blending and fermentation details while my hardworking lieutenant, Yohei Takahashi, makes sure that the maturation and packaging get done smoothly.

With craft beers, brewery collaborations are popular. What about cider? Have you done anything like that yet?
Our most popular collaboration-to-date has been with OK, ADAM who are a gipsy cidery in Akita. They provided us with some of their amazing crabapple varieties such as Kurenai no Yume. We are very open to doing many more collabs in the future and share our love for apples and craft culture.

What kinds of cider do you like to make and why?
I like to make very sessionable ciders, 5 to 6% ABV range, dry to medium-dry mouthfeel, usually with a refreshing tart kick. My regulars have been loving the scrumpy (unfiltered)-looking ones so I have been keeping our ciders cloudy lately.

What are your favourite apple varieties to work with?
For Japanese apples, my favorite base variety is Kogyoku, nicely tart and juicy with just the right amount of sugar for fermenting sessionable and dry ciders. For foreign varieties, I have recently been keen on Braeburn.

What about other ingredients?
We’ve tried dry-hopping a couple times, it can help to balance the residual sweetness and add some extra aroma character. We also get tons of local citrus so we sometimes do special blends with Hyuganatsu. Our regulars have also been loving our spiced ciders, such as cinnamon, which adds a lovely apple pie touch, or local ginger which adds a ginger ale-like spicy kick.

Do you always use local ingredients?
I am constantly searching for suitable, tasty, and affordable apple juice, both Japanese and European. I also often get inspiration on the spot, like when we got a bunch of passion fruit from a local farmer last year and decided to do a small batch of passion fruit cider.

How do you decide what ciders to make?
I basically make ciders that I would enjoy drinking all day and that I think our local regulars would love to try as well. I tend to remake the most popular ones the following year and so on.

All of your creations have such great names – how do you come up with them?
Haha! Let’s say that I infuse a lot of my passion for Viking culture and metal music into my creations.

And the labels? Do you do them yourself?
My other half happens to be a prolific designer in her spare time and loves to come up with crazy original artwork based on my even crazier concepts.

For you, what are the challenges of making cider in Japan?
Cider culture is still very new in Japan and even explaining to new customers what cider is can be a challenge in itself, as they may have the wrong idea that it is an overly sweet or even non-alcoholic beverage. Also, production costs are very high here so we have to be as creative and flexible as we can regarding sourcing ingredients.

You also make mead. How is that the same or different than making cider? Is one more difficult to make than the other?
Aside from the steep upfront cost for honey, our mead’s primary fermentation takes about two months with a couple extra months for maturation so the whole process is much longer. So despite being mead lovers, we can only afford to do a handful of batches every year.

Besides your own, do you have any favourite ciders? Any Japanese ciders that you particularly like?
Tekikaka Cidre in Aomori Prefecture is probably the most consistent and flavor-wise pretty close to classic French table cider. Lots of good things are happening, too, in Nagano with the ever-creative guys from Son of the Smith. I love Kamoshika ciders as well, their choice of blends and the quality of both their sweet and dry ciders is excellent.

What do you see as the future of Japanese cider? Where do you think it’s headed?
I really hope that more and more motivated breweries and orchards join the new wave of Japanese cider. Hopefully, more bars will also start serving cider on tap, which can be a great alternative to non-beer drinkers as well.

Where can readers get your cider?
Our taproom in Hiratsuka is open every single day of the year, from daytime for both drink-in and takeout. We also have an online shop with limited bottle sets available at https://yggdrasil-brewing.myshopify.com

And Yggdrasil Brewing? What’s next?
Our next baby will be the wild child of cider and mead: Cyser! We’re now working on a small batch of apple mead that we’ll release in spring. I also really wish we can make some space for oak barrels at some point so that I can expand my blending activities.

What about other bars that might be interested in having your beers and cider on tap?
Feel free to contact us anytime via SNS, we would love to expand our keg distribution to more craft bars and restaurants across the country, which would definitely help us to increase our future output.