Episode 136 Show Notes
Episode 136. Sitting down with another U.S. sake brewer, this week John and Timothy interview Todd Bellomy, founder and brewer at Farthest Star Sake in Medfield Massachusetts. As New England’s only sake brewery, it has become Todd’s mission to introduce his customers to the adventure of discovering freshly brewed, local sake. At his sci-fi themed taproom, guests can explore his classic junmai and nigori as well as an ever changing rotation of infusions and variations of his standard brews. Talking with the busy brewmaster gave us a window into the ever expanding market of domestically brewed sake. Listen in as we discuss the life in the taproom and the sci-fi inspiration for his sake. If you’re anywhere near Boston, you’ll want to travel at lightspeed to visit the Farthest Star Sake Brewery and Taproom! #SakeRevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 01:40 Interview: Todd Bellomy, Owner and Brewer Farthest Star Sake
After a stint living abroad in Japan, Todd returned to the States and was unable to find the range of sakes he enjoyed in Japan. This led him on an adventure to brew sake – first as a home brewer and then professionally. Since May 2022, he is the founder and head brewer of Farthest Star Sake, New England’s only sake brewery and Taproom. Todd’s mission is to brew delicious and accessible sake so that people can experience the adventure of discovering freshly brewed, local sake for themselves. The ancient traditions of Japanese brewing have a modern twist at Farthest Star.
Established in May 2022, the Farthest Star Sake Brewery and Taproom is an outpost of delicious sake in New England. Located outside of Boston in Medfield, Massachusetts, you can experience fresh sake on draft, frequent local food popups and the far out space station vibe in a family friendly space where all are welcome. Sakes served on draft range from the classic Junmai and Nigori, to variants on these standard brews (different rice or unpasteurized), to an ever changing rotation of infused sakes. Infusions feature a spectacular range of ingredients such as Ube purple potatoes, cinnamon, chili and honey, just to name a few.
Discover more about Farthest Star Sake:
Farthest Star Sake Website: https://www.fartheststarsake.com/
Farthest Star Sake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fartheststarsake/
Farthest Star Sake Twitter: hhttps://twitter.com/farthestsake
Farthest Star Sake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fartheststarsake
Farthest Star Sake Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@farthest.star.sake
Taproom Location and Hours:
120 N Meadows Rd Medfield MA 02052
Taproom – THUR 4-8 / FRI 5-9 / SAT 2-9 / SUN 2-6
Skip to: 17:13 Sake Introduction and Tasting: Farthest Star Sake “In a Strange Land” Junmai
Farthest Star Sake In a Strange Land Junmai
Alcohol: 16.0%
Brewery: Farthest Star Sake
Classification: Junmai
Prefecture: Massachusetts, USA
Seimaibuai: 70%
SMV: +5.0
Rice Type: Yamadanishiki (USA)
Yeast: 901,1601
Where to buy in Massachusetts:
https://www.fartheststarsake.com/find-sake
Skip to: 22:14 Sake Introduction and Tasting: Farthest Star Sake “Mountains on the Moon” Nigori
Farthest Star Sake “Mountains on the Moon” Nigori
Alcohol: 16.0%
Brewery: Farthest Star Sake
Classification: Nigori
Prefecture: Massachusetts, USA
Seimaibuai: 70%
SMV: -10.0
Rice Type: Yamadanishiki (USA)
Where to buy in Massachusetts:
https://www.fartheststarsake.com/find-sake
Skip to: 30:29 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 136 Transcript
John Puma: 0:23
Hello everybody, and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s First Sake podcast, and I’m your host, John Puma. From the Sake Notes, also the administrator over at that Internet Sake Discord, as well as Reddits r slash sake community.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:39
And I’m your host, Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai. I’m a sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.
John Puma: 0:55
Uh, so Tim, there’s something I couldn’t help but notice, uh, in our Zoom today,
Timothy Sullivan: 0:59
What was that?
John Puma: 1:00
uh, there’s, there’s a, there’s another guy here,
Timothy Sullivan: 1:02
Yes, we have a V I P on the line We are so happy to welcome our friend and sake brewer extraordinaire from Massachusetts, Mr. Todd Bellamy. Todd, welcome to the show. How you doing?
Todd Bellamy: 1:19
Hey, pretty good. Hello to everybody out in sake land.
John Puma: 1:23
Hey, welcome.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:25
So Todd? You know, John and myself pretty well. We’ve known you for years, but for our listeners who have not met you before, could you give us a little bit of a self introduction and maybe let us know briefly how you got into sake professionally.
Todd Bellamy: 1:40
Absolutely. my name is Todd Bellomy I lived in Japan for a while, but after I came back to the States, I worked in the craft beer industry for eight years. Uh, however, during that eight years, um, I home brewed a lot of beer and I started missing really fresh sake. From Japan, uh, the sake market was not as developed as it is now. Uh, and I really started missing fresh sake. So, uh, my wife said, since your home brewing beer, how hard could it be to home brew sake? Um, and much to her chagrin, uh, we are now sitting in, uh, new England’s only sake, brewery and taproom.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:22
Now the brewery is called Farthest Star Sake. Is that.
Todd Bellamy: 2:27
and it’s correct.
John Puma: 2:29
that’s a really good reason I think to, to kind of get into it. It is. and I think that’s something that, Tim and I have heard, uh, on occasion from, other North American brewers as well, has been the idea of like, well, we couldn’t get this thing that we, we couldn’t get the sake we were able to get in Japan. So I just got to do it myself. And, uh, that.
Todd Bellamy: 2:48
mean, absolutely. I mean, in the beer world, you know, home brewers who become professional brewers is pretty common and luckily I was working in the craft beer industry for so long that I had access to a laboratory and highly trained brewing professionals with dozens of years in the brewing industry. Uh, so it just made my sake better and better and better.
John Puma: 3:11
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Now you’re actually coming to us, uh, live here, from your tap room. what can you tell us about it? Paint us a word picture
Todd Bellamy: 3:20
Yeah, absolutely. Um, I just didn’t have enough time to go home and do the podcast for home. So, um, uh, yeah, we have a 6,000 square foot brewery here in Medfield, Massachusetts. It’s a bit outside of Boston, maybe 45 minutes west of Boston and, uh, in the suburbs. But we needed a lot of space. and we found this great warehouse, that has 21 foot ceilings and a lot of space with loading docks and ramps that come up into the building for getting equipment in. so we turned, the front 1500 square feet of it into a tap room. So we have, seating for 75 people or so. We have a bar inside of a 20 foot shipping container. and then, we have a full sort of half wall bar that looks straight into the brewery. We didn’t bother to wall off the tap room or put windows between us and the brewery. The whole thing is just open so people who come here, can see exactly what we’re doing in the brewery
John Puma: 4:24
Wow. Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:25
Awesome. So when you have customers coming in, you are outside of Boston, and what is your typical customer who comes to farthest star sake to walk into your tap room?
Todd Bellamy: 4:41
Yeah, we see a lot of the same customers that you see in other breweries. so we see kind of people between 25 and 45 who are really interested in beverages, and beverage history, and how everything’s made. I mean, you’re coming to a tap room to drink sake. But you’re also coming to a brewery. So all the manufacturing equipment is in full view, and I think the people who come here just have a real curiosity about how Sake’s made and what it is. And, sake is an incredibly discoverable beverage, right? So most of the new consumers, uh, for sake, they’re coming into it for the first time. So we get a lot of people who come here are really just looking to discover something really new.
John Puma: 5:29
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so those people that come in there and they, they, they come in with, I guess a, a varying, varying degrees of, ideas about sake. When they, when they first arrive, what is it that you kind of wish that they knew a little bit more about?
Todd Bellamy: 5:41
We get a lot of two different comments. Uh, comment. The first comment we get more than anything else is, I’ve only had sake when the guy at the Hibachi restaurant squirts in my mouth,
Timothy Sullivan: 5:53
Oh no,
Todd Bellamy: 5:54
absolutely it happens, uh, every single day. The tap room’s open. Uh, and So,
John Puma: 6:01
my, my note there is Hibachi, a little bit more popular in Massachusetts,
Todd Bellamy: 6:06
yeah, absolutely. There, there are a lot of restaurants here that are. In the suburbs of Boston that are fairly large restaurants. So they have a sushi bar, the whole hibachi setup, and they have a thriving alcohol like drinks bar. Uh, and so apparently I’ve never been to a hibachi place, in America, but apparently the guy sometimes squirts sake from squeeze bottle in your mouth. and so we hear that basically every day. and then the other thing is we have almost every day we’re open. We have at least one person who says, I’ve never ever had sake and I don’t know what to expect.
John Puma: 6:47
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 6:47
Wow. So you guys are really on the front lines of educating everyday Americans. For sake, what does your education program look like? What types of education are you doing in the tap room? Is it just talking with people one-on-one, or do you have classes, or what are you doing there for education?
Todd Bellamy: 7:04
Yeah, we haven’t started classes yet, but that’s something that we’re currently designing. Um, I’ve also talked with some existing sake educators and offered our tap room for a place for them to host their classes. Yeah. Yep. And then, just talking to people at the bar, which is how a lot of people learned about a lot of drinks. So, uh, luckily, it’s not quite busy yet enough that I can still work the bar. So we don’t have any employees to work the bar. so, uh, my wife and I still work the bar Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. so I actually talk to almost every single customer who comes in.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:46
That is, that is direct customer feedback.
John Puma: 7:49
Yeah.
Todd Bellamy: 7:49
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s helpful for us. Yeah, of course
Timothy Sullivan: 7:52
Yeah, sure. Absolutely
Todd Bellamy: 7:54
Yeah.
John Puma: 7:55
Nice now. you’ve got your tap room set up. People come in there and they, a lot of time apparently you’re getting their first, either their first sake experience at all or, or perhaps their first non squeeze bottle sake experience, And they get to drink sake on tap, which is, uh, which is a really like, unique thing. When I think about sake, I. You know, all the years of going to Japan, it’s always a bottle thing in the tap room. And, and the actual sake from the tap is, is to me, in my mind, a uniquely western sake experience. So, what’s some of the most popular items you’ve got kind of on the tap room side of things to, to introduce these people to.
Todd Bellamy: 8:34
Yeah, so the cool thing about the tap room is that, I built the brewery with the tap room in mind. So we have larger production tanks for bottling, but we do have some smaller tanks that are just for small batches and experiments and all that. So we’re doing a couple of things. We have two bottled sake out in the world, but we have two additional sake here currently that aren’t in bottles. You can only get at the tap room and they’re very traditionally minded sake, but they’re just a different style and everything. we currently have, a nigori sake with omachi rice. which we don’t use in any of our bottle sake. And then we have a house genshu So a big full strength, no holds barred sake, um, that we also use for warm sake in the taproom.
John Puma: 9:22
Ah,
Todd Bellamy: 9:24
but then addition to that, we always keep two flavors of sake on. So we’re also experimenting with infusing sake with flavors. so far we opened the tap room, Memorial Day, weekends of the end of May. And since then, we’ve never repeated a flavor.
John Puma: 9:41
Oh, that’s cool.
Todd Bellamy: 9:42
Yeah, so we’re on like flavor number 30. and the reason we can do that is we, I’m literally flavoring sake in a 20 liter keg. And then when that keg is gone, we just replace it with another keg. that’s something I always wanted to do. kind of comes from the beer world, uh, in the old days. A lot of breweries used to put a cask of beer on, uh, and which is a traditional carbonation and pouring method, but they would stick something else in the cask. They would take a regular beer they had and put it on coffee beans or put it on fresh hops or whatever, and then they would open that. You know, usually like Thursday night they would tap it and then when it was gone, it was gone. And then next week there would be something else. Uh, so I really love that, uh, kind of ephemeral nature of the flavors. we will repeat ourselves at some point cuz we did create some stuff that bares repeating. So, uh, yeah. But it’s just a, it’s a whole lot of fun and it just gives a different aspect to sake.
John Puma: 10:41
Sounds fun. we have heard from, from other brewers in North America do similar things, that this is like a, a nice way to, to get somebody’s feet wet, who might be a little bit intimidated by sake. It’s like, well, here’s this flavor that you’re familiar with.
Todd Bellamy: 10:54
Oh yeah, absolutely. It gives, somebody that is a non sake fan or has no idea about sake. It gives them a bridge, you know, to go, oh, Well, you know, you have a sake on infused with coffee. I like coffee, I’ll try that. You know, that kinda thing. And then of course, uh, flights are probably the most important and, for educational tool, but also just popularity of, customers buying it. You get three smaller pours in a flight instead of a full glass of sake. And that allows people to try three different things.
John Puma: 11:26
Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:27
Yeah, that really takes some of the risk out of it for customers, right? They don’t have to order a whole glass of something, not knowing if they’re gonna like it or hate it, and the little samples are great. What, what’s some examples of some of the flavored sakes that you’ve done in the past that were really popular? I’m just kind of curious.
Todd Bellamy: 11:41
yeah, that’s okay. Right now we actually have, a super popular sake on it’s unfiltered sake, so nigori with ube, which is a purple sweet potato from the Philippines. So not only does it have like these beautiful, kind of sweet cotton candy notes and things like that, but it’s like shockingly purple. I had a conversation with a good friend of ours who’s an artist, uh, Dan, my friend Dan Golden, and I ended up making these notes a couple years ago about this conversation we had, and I created a sake out of it. And so that’s, Most popular sake, flavor-wise, uh, was called dang orange, and, uh, it was fresh orange peel nectar on hops and chilies. So it, it was like really bright and citrusy, but then had a little heat at the back.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:32
Wow,
Todd Bellamy: 12:33
to answer your question even more, sorry. We’ve done coffee, maple, uh, pomegranate blueberry. uh, I did pear elderflower. I’ve done You name it, we’ve done Honey and shichimi, which is a chili based spice from Japan. Uh, yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:50
So the sky is the limit.
Todd Bellamy: 12:52
Totally. The sky’s the limit. My only thing as a brewer with flavored sake is that our flavored sakes have to still taste like sake, right? The flavor can’t overwhelm the brew. You’ve gotta get both things.
John Puma: 13:08
mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:09
Awesome. Now, you sell these infused sakes and some things on tap that are super fresh, but you also have two sakes. You mentioned you have a little bit larger tanks there, or you’re making two sakes for distribution in Massachusetts only. Right.
Todd Bellamy: 13:26
Right, so we have a filtered, drier, more complex style, and then we have an unfiltered fruitier, sweeter rounder style. And that’s, to me, kind of both ends of the spectrum
John Puma: 13:38
Mm-hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 13:39
of what we’d like to build as a market.
John Puma: 13:42
Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:42
I got some good news. John and I both have these sakes in front of us. So, uh, if you’ll indulge us, we’d love to taste these sakes together with you
Todd Bellamy: 13:53
Absolutely. I did wanna mention, so we, for our bottled sake currently, uh, both are made with Yamadanishiki, 70%.
John Puma: 14:02
Mm-hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 14:03
So they’re both kind of the bottom of premium sake and all of our rice comes from Isbell Farms in Arkansas. Uh, yeah, so our Koji is always yamadanishiki. So if I use nigori, that’s made omachi that we have on draft, it still has yamadanishiki koji.
John Puma: 14:19
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:20
Now before we even open this bottle, I have to remark on the branding farthest star sake,
Todd Bellamy: 14:30
Right.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:31
branding is distinctly sci-fi in nature. What what inspired you to go this route? And I also wanna remark, of course, on the bottle size as well. This is 207 milliliters, so it’s a small single serving bottle size. What’s behind that?
Todd Bellamy: 14:49
Yeah, so I really wanted our sake brewery to be about accessibility. and when I was trying to come up with a brand, I of course am a huge sci-fi nerd, but um, I was trying to come up with a cool brand and everybody who comes in the tap room, it’s sake’s new to them. They’re embarking on this cool journey and all of my favorite sci-fi that I watch. Is about this real call to adventure, right? And so there’s a hero and he lives in the middle of nowhere and there’s a real call to adventure. And often, you know, there’s a time where they’re looking up to the stars thinking there’s gotta be something better up there for me. There’s this, you know, it’s so far away. And then when they get up there into space and have all their adventures, they realize there’s like a whole universe beyond where they thought was this incredibly far away thing. So, uh, yeah, we thought farthest star was kind of cool. as like an aspirational, that kind of call to adventure branding. Uh, the other thing I do wanna remark on cuz I’m such a nerd, is that a lot of great sci-fi to me is, uh, both new and old at the same time. Uh, and so is sake. Sake is this kind of really old beverage tradition, but in America it’s like the next thing. It’s like right on the cusp of becoming this next thing. And so great sci-fi is the same way. I mean, star Wars is the best example, right? It’s a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, right? So it’s a long, long time ago, but they have spaceships. So I feel like, you know, there’s a lot of parallels there for sci-fi and, uh, sake.
John Puma: 16:32
Nice. All right. So, as, as Tim pointed out, the, uh, the bottle size is a little bit unique, but so is the shape,
Todd Bellamy: 16:39
Yeah, so I love single serve packaging. Also an astute observer of the sake Industry in America will note that single serve packaging. Is really flying off store shows, um, larger bottles, not as fast. And so it’s because of its smaller size, you can keep the price lower and the cost of entry for new drinkers is lower and allows people to just try, know? Yeah.
John Puma: 17:12
like it.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:13
Okay. John, do you wanna give us the stats for the first sake in a Strange Land.
John Puma: 17:19
that sounds like a great idea. So, in a strange land, is, Junmai using yamadanishiki milled down to 70% of its original size. The sake meter value is plus five, so a, a touch dry and the alcohol percentage is 16%.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:39
Anything that inspired the name in a strange land?
Todd Bellamy: 17:42
Um, yeah, I mean, Stranger In A Strange Land is one of my favorite science fiction books of all time. Uh, and how much stranger could we get than a guy that looks like me making sake in Massachusetts?
Timothy Sullivan: 17:57
All right. Well, okay, so we’ve got it in the glass. So talk us through what we should look for here
Todd Bellamy: 18:03
Yeah. Uh, so, uh, in a strange land is made with hard water and two yeast strains. so I, we use 901 and 1601. Uh, and so we’ve got some of the kind of strawberry fruitiness from 901 and a little bit of the spicy from 1601. Uh, and I just really wanted to make an approachable sake that had a lot of complexity, so a lot of fruit and spice in the nose. Super duper clean, dry finish. And a little bit of richness coming from Yamahainishiki and the fact that we’re using hard water for this particular sake.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:44
All right. Well, let’s give it a smell.
Todd Bellamy: 18:46
Yeah,
John Puma: 18:46
Hmm,
Timothy Sullivan: 18:47
Hmm. It does smell a little bit fruity,
John Puma: 18:51
there is, but it’s, the stone fruits, not the tropical fruits.
Todd Bellamy: 18:55
right.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:55
yeah, the aroma is not overly simple either. It feels like there’s some complexity there. I get a little bit of, of a rice note as well, so it’s not like overwhelmingly fruity. There’s great balance there. So let’s give it a taste
Todd Bellamy: 19:10
thanks.
John Puma: 19:13
Hmm,
Timothy Sullivan: 19:13
Hmm.
John Puma: 19:16
You know, Tim, the first thing that registers with me on this is the, is the texture of the mouthfeel.
Todd Bellamy: 19:20
Yeah, so super hard water. Uh, so we actually filter all of our water in the brewery and then modify the water chemistry per style in the tank
John Puma: 19:30
Hm.
Todd Bellamy: 19:31
So that allows us to, yeah, absolutely. It’s, it’s a thing that’s very common in the beer world, so that allows us to make a variety of styles of sake and modify the, the water chemistry, for what we want.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:46
It’s very smooth and what strikes me initially is that the finish is really clean, and seems like it’s a refreshing kind of finish and it would be very good with food and, uh, just a nice round mouth feel as well. So it, there’s no wateriness or not, it’s not too light. There’s good weight on the front of the palate and then it finishes clean and pretty refreshing and, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s overall kind of a, a cleaner style. Is that how you would describe it or,
Todd Bellamy: 20:17
Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, The change, to using yamadanishiki 70. Some of the sake I’ve brewed in the past is Yamadanishiki 60 or lower. and I kind of like that Junmai style, you know, it’s, you can make a super clean sake, but it still has like a little backbone. It still has some richness. You kind of need that to hold up against some of the foods, uh, that we eat, especially here in the Northeast, right? So, you know, this, this, and basically anything you take off the grill, you know, steaks and chicken and that kind of fried clams is really awesome. pizza and tacos and all those kinds of things. So, yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:00
So this must be like a real foundational sake for your brewery, like you can build a lot of things off of this, right?
Todd Bellamy: 21:05
absolutely. Yeah. I would love to try to brew something like this with some different yeast, strains, see how, you know, to show customers how different yeast affects the brew. but yeah, it’s just, it’s really what I wanted to brew as a brewer. Like this is the kind of sake I wanna drink on a daily basis.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:24
So if I come into the tap room, can I get in a strange land as well, or is this only available in the bottles?
Todd Bellamy: 21:30
Oh no. We have in a strange Land and our other, flagship sake, mountains on the moon, on draft all the time. Uh, and then, and depending on when you come into the tap room, we might have some fun things like a single keg of, in a strange land, but NAMA or.
John Puma: 21:46
Mm.
Todd Bellamy: 21:47
or we might have a single keg of, in a strange land with the alcohol unadjusted.
John Puma: 21:53
Nice
Timothy Sullivan: 21:53
Well, that’s even more motivation, John, for us to get to the tap room.
John Puma: 21:58
All we have to do is get up to Boston and then 45 minutes we’re there.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:04
All right, well we have one more sake,
John Puma: 22:06
you, you drive Tim
Timothy Sullivan: 22:07
We have one more sake to taste. Uh, John, do you want to give us the stats for the second sake? We’re tasting.
John Puma: 22:14
Sure. The uh, second sake we’re gonna talk about today is Mountains on the Moon. Uh, this one also uses that yamadanishiki also milled to 70%, but this one is a nigori and the sake meter value is minus 10. So we’re looking at something pretty sweet, uh, and the alcohol percentage is 14. Brings it down a couple of notches.
Todd Bellamy: 22:35
So I gotta say minus 10 with caveats. Uh, it
John Puma: 22:39
With caveat too. I like caveats.
Todd Bellamy: 22:42
Uh, with caveats, by the way. It might be a name of a sake. uh, it’s, I’m gonna write that down right now. so yeah, mountains on the moon. I gotta say before I brewed sake, I didn’t really care for nigori sake Um, a lot of the Japanese nigori, like the traditional stuff, it’s well-crafted. It’s just not what I personally wanna drink. It’s kind of heavy and sweet, and then because it’s sake, there’s nowhere else to go. So, uh, so, um, from brewing a lot of nigori because customers really like it. I sort of develop. I don’t wanna call it my own style cuz I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to do it. But, my particular expression of nigori, I use super soft water. and so I use water straight out of the filter without adjustment. And what that does is it gives you a sake with a slightly higher acid. And so acid actually helps balance out the minus 10. So start Sweet still has that round thing, but it’s a little more lively, and that makes it a little more food friendly, a little more drinkable to me.
John Puma: 23:55
And therein lies the caveat. Alright, well I’ve got mine mixed up, I think.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:03
so mountains on the moon. Anything behind this name of this
Todd Bellamy: 24:07
Uh, uh, it’s a little bit of a tongue in cheek name, but uh, Ty sake has always been, linked to the full moon viewing festival in japan. cause you’re looking into a glass of white liquid, and we use, a yeast, from Japan for this sake. Let’s just say is a mountainous yeast. I don’t wanna say anything more about it. Uh, but let’s say it’s, uh, that’s, that’s the yeast. So it was a tongue in cheek combination of those two things.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:37
it. All right. So this is, uh, nigori cloudy style. So it’s, uh, opaque in the glass, kind of pearlescent white in color. Let’s
John Puma: 24:46
Mm-hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 24:48
You’re looking for fruit
Timothy Sullivan: 24:50
Hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 24:52
and rice?
Timothy Sullivan: 24:53
And rice,
John Puma: 24:54
definitely. First thing I got was the rice.
Todd Bellamy: 24:57
it’s pretty rice-y. not so much in the flavor, but the aroma. Yeah, it’s like a, it’s really rice-y,
John Puma: 25:01
And there’s the fruit, the fruit’s there.
Todd Bellamy: 25:03
it’s there
Timothy Sullivan: 25:04
Hmm.
John Puma: 25:05
Hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 25:06
The funny thing is when I smell it, I just smell the brewery It just smells like the brewery when you’re brewing.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:14
So it has a wonderfully creamy mouth feel to it. It does coat the palate a little bit and has a nice creaminess, bit of a longer finish than the, in a strange land Junmai for me. But again, very balanced, very smooth, very clean. Nothing that is going to affront anybody like this is approachable nigori,
Todd Bellamy: 25:37
that’s, you know exactly what I want to do as a brewer, right? I wanna make sake for everybody. I don’t wanna make sake for people who just have a proclivity to learn all the nerdy stuff about sake. Those people are awesome, but like you gotta have your regular people living out here in the suburbs, drinking sake too
Timothy Sullivan: 25:56
Yeah. Now I gotta ask you, John, follow up on the minus 10. This is a SMV minus 10. That’s again the, gravity of the sake or the density of the sake. And normally that would be an indication. Oh, you may wanna look for some sweetness here. John, what do you think about the sugar profile?
John Puma: 26:14
Well, I think the caveats that Todd mentioned are definitely in full effect here. Uh, it doesn’t, it does not present as, you know, we’ve, we’ve had some minus 10 sake on the show before, and, you know, in our, in our lives probably more than that, and this does not present. That way. It, it’s, uh, as we’ve seen this trick before, that sometimes the acidity can counterbalance and lead to just a nice a nice clean, uh, fun to drink sake. It’s still, the sweetness is still there. Absolutely. it doesn’t drink like a typical nigori as, as I believe, we’ve all pointed at this point, does have a lot more. I hate to use the word lightness to it, but a bit more light. you know, it’s lighter than your typical nigori. Even though it is pretty cloudy. Like it’s not, um, it is not lacking in particulate.
Todd Bellamy: 26:59
Yeah. Some of that is how we make it. Um, so our press, presses the sake out clear. And there’s no way, without changing over the entire press, there’s no way to have the sake come out cloudy. And so what we do is we hand sieve a portion of the moromi, the mash into um, the holding tank. And then when the clear sake comes out and goes in the tank, it mixes with that much thicker, sieved- out liquid. And so, because we’re doing that by hand with, stainless steel screens, we can vary the screen size, and control the amount of thicker stuff we put in the tank. So not only can I control the amount of particulate in the brew, but I can control the size of the particle.
John Puma: 27:52
Nice
Todd Bellamy: 27:53
so we are specifically, doing a certain size screen at a certain amount, to achieve, you know, this?
Timothy Sullivan: 28:01
Awesome.
John Puma: 28:01
cool, Todd, thank you very much for, uh, for sipping with us. I have a question though. What, what’s next for father star sake? What’s next for the tap room? What’s next for Todd Bellomy?
Todd Bellamy: 28:12
so for the tap room, we’re just trying to the number of food pop-ups we have. since we’re in the suburbs, people really love. We have chefs who come pop up in our tap room. last weekend we had a hotdog popup from Rey’s plate. And we’re starting to build a roster of popup chefs in the tap room, which is really great. It just gives people another dimension and reason to come to the tap room. for farthest star sake, we’re just, we’re in 85 accounts and we’re trying to build that roster as quick as we can. and we’re starting to talk to distributors to get our sake out of state. So, um, we will hopefully by the summertime be in a few other New England states around us.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:56
Awesome.
John Puma: 28:57
Hmm.
Todd Bellamy: 28:58
And what’s next for me is, another hundred hour week in a warehouse,
Timothy Sullivan: 29:05
Well, I have to ask you if you would consider a Sake Revolution. Pop up some weekend. How about That, John
Todd Bellamy: 29:10
That, would be amazing. I mean, we could do, uh, a live podcast from the taproom. That would be, I’m 100% in in favor of that
Timothy Sullivan: 29:21
All right. Well, if people wanna learn more about Farthest Star Sake, where to find you or learn more about you, where can people find you? On the web and on the socials?
Todd Bellamy: 29:31
Absolutely. So FarthestStarSake.com is our website. there’s a logbook on there, which is kind of like a blog, and there are buttons in the top right hand corner for all of our socials. So Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, including an email icon that just comes to me because no one else would really answer it.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:54
When you’re not at the bar or making the sake, you’re
Todd Bellamy: 29:57
That’s right. That’s right. Sometimes I’m doing two or three of those things concurrently, so yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:03
Awesome. Well, this has been great, Todd. It’s been so nice to talk with you, learn about Father Star Sake and to taste your delicious sakes. This was a great Negri and a fabulous Junmai. Congratulations for everything you you’ve achieved in under a year. This is amazing.
Todd Bellamy: 30:18
Yeah, thank you. We had a couple construction setbacks, but, uh, super happy to be open and getting people hyper fresh sake is just the best job of the world.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:29
Well, congratulations again. So good to taste with you and thanks for joining us.
Todd Bellamy: 30:34
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:36
I’d also like to take a moment and thank our patrons. And if you would like to learn more, you can visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolution to learn how you can support the revolution.
John Puma: 30:48
uh, And another way that you can support our show is through the wonderful world of. Leaving reviews on Apple Podcast, believe it or not, it gets that word out even more than telling your friends and your family, which we know you love to do.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:00
And if you would like to see our show notes, be sure to visit SakeRevolution.com. We’ll have all the links to learn about Farthest Star Sake and where you can find Todd on the web. And we also have a wonderful transcript of each and every episode, so be sure to check out our website as well.
John Puma: 31:20
So until next time, please raise a glass. Remember to keep a drinking sake and Kanpai.