AEB BREWING Creative Collab: CraftRock Brewing & Busa dei Briganti COLD IPA

In the heart of the Euganean Hills National Park, in the northern Italian province of Padua, an exceptional Cold IPA named XYZ was born, crafted by the skilled hands of Ryo Suzuki (Head Brewer of CRAFTROCK Brewing, Tokyo JAPAN) and Davide Salvalaio (Head Brewer of Busa dei Briganti, Padua ITALY).

Their expertise guided the creation of a unique recipe, featuring local rice (sourced from a farm in the Padua region) and a bottom-fermenting yeast strain, AEB’s FERMOLAGER W. This collaboration has resulted in a Cold IPA that is gaining recognition and interest worldwide

First of all: what is a COLD IPA?

Characterized by its blend of the intense hop flavors of a West Coast IPA and the crisp, clean finish of a lager, Cold IPA is a newly innovative beer style. This hybrid approach was first developed by Kevin Davey at Wayfinder Beer in Portland, Oregon. To brew a Cold IPA a bottom-fermenting lager yeast is used, but at higher fermentation temperatures than usual. Cold IPAs often include adjuncts like rice or corn. These ingredients lighten the body of the beer, making it more refreshing and so enhancing drinkability.

This brewing technique produces a brighter, punchier hop profile, resulting in a beer that's highly aromatic with a dry finish, avoiding the heavy malt sweetness typical in some IPAs. The result is a distinctive beer that offers the hop-forward character IPA lovers crave while providing a crisp, lager-like experience, making it a perfect choice for those seeking a lighter but flavourful option.

FOR MORE DETAILS CHECK THE FULL ARTICLE

Let’s hand it over to the two brewers, who will introduce themselves and share insights about this new AEB Brewing Creative Collab, including tips for brewing an excellent Cold IPA.

1) Ryo, could you share a bit about your background, your journey in the beer industry, and what you love most about your work?

My journey began in 2011 at a beer bar called DevilCraft, and I’ve been involved in brewing hands-on since 2015, when DevilCraft started crafting its own beers.

From 2019 I’ve visited nearly 1,000 breweries across Japan and abroad, constantly expanding my knowledge by exchanging insights with brewers worldwide. I channel these experiences into creating imaginative and original beers.
2) Could you tell us a bit about CRAFTROCK Brewery—its vision, values, history, and what sets it apart?

CRAFTROCK BREWING has been based in downtown Tokyo, Nihombashi, since 2019. We’re passionate about music, frequently collaborating with bands and organizing an annual Rock Festival.

Since 2011, our company has also operated 18 pubs across Japan under the name Craft Beer Market, making us one of the largest independent craft beer companies in the country. We’re dedicated to brewing exceptionally clean, drinkable, and creative beers!

3) How did the collaboration with Busa dei Briganti come about, and what inspired you to use FERMOLAGER W with rice in this brew?
I traveled to Italy to take part in the Historical Beer Festival in Padua, where I was introduced to Davide by the festival organizer, Vincenzo Matterazzo. About the yeast, with its clear, clean character and low esterification, Fermolager W seemed perfect for highlighting the unique qualities of the hops and rice.

4) How did you and Davide go about creating the RICE COLD IPA recipe, approaching production, and managing each step of the process?I've recently become fascinated with brewing beer using different types of rice. I've noticed that sake rice, table rice, and rice from various regions each bring unique qualities to the beer. Cold IPA is popular abroad, but it’s typically made with flaked rice or rice syrup, so there’s little emphasis on rice itself. I’m eager to explore a Japanese-style approach that spotlights rice as a key ingredient. The rice we have used is a local variety, grown since the 16th century at the Grumolo delle Abbadesse monastery, some 20km north of the National Park, and Davide sourced it specifically for this project.
While we were discussing the recipe, Davide was visiting a German hop farm for the harvest, and we saw an opportunity to experiment with new German hops. Together the opportunity to work with both new hop and new-to-brewing rice varietals we thought was most exciting.

5) Tips for Brewing the Perfect Rice Cold IPA / Cold IPA
If you wish to brew with raw rice it requires boiling for 20 minutes to gelatinize, but this step is challenging with typical brewing equipment, so we had to find ways to adapt. Using rice and hops strategically helps create a balanced brew. The rice adds a light body and clean finish, while the hops bring a pronounced aroma and flavor. The result is a refreshing, dry beer with a full taste that feels satisfying yet light enough to leave you wanting another pint.

1) Davide, can you tell us how it started and how your journey in the world of beer is continuing?

My journey began in 2009, working for a national beer distributor, opening and managing their first beer shop. Subsequently I obtained a master's degree in brewing technology, which opened the doors of the Birra del Borgo brewery to me. From there I dealt with production and quality in breweries of different sizes around Italy like Amarcord and Crak Brewery, finally ending up here at the Busa Dei Briganti. This new season of my career is dedicated to research and expanding my professional boundaries, which I can do by strategically collaborating with important supply companies and creatively collaborating with other breweries
2) Tell us a bit about the Busa dei Briganti, and how would you define the beers you produce?

The Busa Dei Briganti brewery was born in Padua, first as a nano brewpub and then moving in 2019 to become an agricultural brewery located in the municipality of Cinto Euganeo (Padua), in the middle of the Euganean Hills. I would define the brewery and the vision behind it with two adjectives. The first is ‘conscious’. The brewery is conscious of its means, of the context from which it comes and of the importance of the agricultural dimension in which it operates, as well as the artisanal and entrepreneurial ones, too. Secondly it is ‘unconventional’, in as much as we produce beers that mainly appeal to us who make them, without caring too much about trends and fashions, working independently of both the constraints of traditional thought and the equally stringent ones, of going against the tide at any cost.

3) Have you already used FERMOLAGER W in other recipes? If so, what did you like about this yeast and why did you rate it with Ryo as the right one for this type of beer with rice in this brew?
I had the opportunity to use Fermolager W in some bottom fermentation brews we produced, notably a Helles, then whilst writing this recipe with Ryo it turned out that for his Cold IPAs he already used this strain, and so it made sense to rely on a yeast that we both knew in order to better understand the other variables at play. Cold IPA is a sub-style of IPA that involves grist and hopping similar to a canonical IPA but changing the yeast from a top-fermented one with a neutral profile to a low-fermentation one with the same characteristics. In addition, Cold IPAs mostly rely on American-style hops and we opted for new German varieties, therefore we needed a yeast that would let the hops express themselves.

4) Can you describe the finished beer and tell us the story behind the name?
The basic idea was to recreate a beer that had the distinctive characteristics of an American-style Cold IPA but using only Continental raw materials, in fact the cereal base is composed exclusively of pilsener malt grown by our company and Carnaroli variety rice originally from Grumolo delle Abbadesse (Slow Food presidium) and for the hop sector we decided to use Tango, Ariana and Callista; new varieties of hops developed in recent years that reproduce American characteristics, although bred and grown in Germany. And FERMOLAGER W. The finished beer is full of citrus and tropical notes on the nose with a herbaceousness typical of German hops. In the mouth the aromatic bouquet is accompanied by a dryness conferred by the rice without, however, leaving a purely watery mouthfeel. The cleanliness of the yeast has been able to enhance the organoleptic contribution of both cereals and hops. The name comes from the City Hunter manga, where, in order to call upon him to help you, you had to write on the blackboard of Shinjuku XYZ station. The idea came to me because the protagonist in the manga and the brewer of Craftrock have the same name and I called upon him to help me in this creative collaboration.
5) What other AEB products do you use?
I find Brewmix Plus excellent, I especially use it in beers where the diastatic power of the cereals is low, or when, thanks to the use of barley substitutes, I have high concentrations of beta-glucans and I want to avoid a mash high viscosity affecting the quality of lauter-tun filtration.

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AEB BREWING Creative Collab: CraftRock Brewing & Busa dei Briganti COLD IPA

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