At the end of June, one month before our 3rd annual B2B marketing event, Bigbeat LIVE, our employees and supporters woke up early in the morning and gathered  in the middle of Tokyo. 

They were going to Izumi Brewery.

The goal of this early gathering at the brewery was not to drink beer and have fun, but to craft our own original beer to be given out at the end of Bigbeat LIVE. So, this blog details the process we went through to decide the beer that we wanted to give to the attendees of our conference. You can also learn about the brewing process by reading this article! 

This original beer which was given out at the end of the conference and the networking party was an important part of the story we were telling at Bigbeat LIVE. And we used it to craft one of the final scenes after the closing of the last seminar. 

Setting the scene: A toast with everyone

In early May, out manager of Marketing told our CEO ‘I want to make an original beer for Bigbeat LIVE.’ Our CEO told him to ‘Go for it.’

Using this beer, we would create the ending scene of Bigbeat LIVE before the networking party. We held a toast with several hundred people holding our own Bigbeat LIVE beer. With this scene in our mind, our staff and supporters went to the brewery. 
We received the cooperation of Izumi Brewery, which is a microbrewery in Komae-shi Tokyo. The owner and head brewer, Mr. Izumi studied beer brewing in Portland, Oregon and has a connection with one of our employees at Bigbeat. 

When making a new beer, you first need to decide the type you will make. There were 6 beer types we could choose as the base at Izumi Brewery. 

They were: 

・Lager Beer 
・Saison 
・Fruit Saison
・Pale Ale 
・Belgium IPA
・Porter 

After tasting the 6 types available, we narrowed the selection down to lager, Saison, and Belgium IPA. 

Deciding the base

To decide between those 3 bases, we held a blind taste testing and vote at our pre-event speaker gathering on June 17th.  (Here is our blog post on this meeting). 

And the winner of the vote was…….

...THE LAGER! 

With Bigbeat LIVE taking place in the middle of the hot summer, the lager with its light taste and flavor was perfect for the event. After the base type was decided we now had to think of the recipe we would use to make the original drink.

We wanted to make a beer that had a flavor and aroma that resonated with the Bigbeat identity. Which is why we relied on our own gourmet food and drink expert…

....Segawa!

A beer that resonates Bigbeat 

In order to create a beer that expressed the Bigbeat character and personality, Segawa was very particular on the impression left after drinking (Translation: He was very particular on the flavor and aroma). 

Segawa: ‘I think I would like to have a tangy flavor. What do you think about yams and black pepper? `

Izumi: ‘We can try it.’  

But you cannot just put yams and black pepper into beer and expect it to taste good, it would overpower the beer taste. We worked for days on how to get the best recipe that also left the best parts of the beer base. 

Brewing the beer

And now we return to the original scene at the beginning of this blog post: brewing day. Our employees and supporters gathered early in the morning on a Saturday to create and an original Bigbeat beer from scratch in order to create the ending scene of our B2B marketing conference. 

First you grind the malt. 

You continue mashing the malt and mix it with hot water and let it starch. 

Once the mash has starched, it is filtered and boiled. 

The mash is boiled for over an hour. During this time we held a taste testing of lagers that we had asked Izumi Brewery to brew using different herbs and spices. But what combination was the best? 

The best lager was made from Japanese pepper and apple mint. And so, the recipe of our original Bigbeat beer was decided. 

After the taste testing, the hops were then put into the brew. 

The mash is then cooled and put into the brewing tank, where it is fermented for 2 to 3 weeks and the flavors soak into the beer.

Bottling the beer

Our original beer was complete. The name of it was ‘go for it!' (the theme of this year’s Bigbeat LIVE). The beer was then bottled after several weeks of fermenting. When you poured the beer into a glass you could taste the Japanese pepper and the aroma of the apple mint came out more if you drank directly from the bottle. We created a light and refreshing lager. 

With 3 days to go until Bigbeat LIVE, our employees, with the help of Izumi Brewery, applied each ‘go for it!’ label onto the bottles one by one. With this done, we had prepared for our final scene at Bigbeat LIVE: the moment when we all say cheers and clink our bottles together. 

Our final scene.

Bigbeat LIVE was August 2nd, when the the temperature was a high of 35 C. Despite this heat, a large number of people came to our event at 10am and stayed until its end at 7 pm. After the last seminar ended, our employees passed out ‘go for it!’ and we had come to the last scene of the event which had taken over 3 months of work to prepare for. 

Everyone (attendees, Bigbeat employees, and our partners) held their drink in their hands.

‘3,  2,  1, CHEERS!'



Our original beer was just one part of our Bigbeat LIVE story. We gave a toast with everybody from different backgrounds but want to change something about their company through marketing. The scene was a highlight of Bigbeat LIVE and as the host we are proud to say we were able to craft that scene and make it come true. 

Thank you to everyone who came to Bigbeat LIVE this year. We hope that you were able to find the trigger that will lead to change for you. 
 

Below, you can read Japan B2B Marketing event reports;

1st stage	2nd stage	3rd stage
Creating Customer Success	Organizations change with Empathy	establishing the core role of a marketer
Special stage: Local stage	Special stage: Global stage	Bigbeat LIVE
Why local governments need marketing	Overseas Expansion	Marketing is the greatest tool of management