Alberta craft beer importer Soltice Trading International has announced that they will be donating all profits from the sale of Hitachino Nest products toward Japanese earthquake/tsunami relief. A new shipment of Hitachino Nest, Brewed by Kiuchi Brewery in Ibaraki, has just arrived in Alberta. Soltice will fore-go all revenues from this shipment.

For the operators of Soltice, this is about more than business. They spent a number of years living in Japan and have family and friends there. I can imagine it has been a stressful and worrying time for them. Soltice acknowledges the donated profits are a small gesture, but they felt they needed to do something. For their part, Kiuchi, which is located about 200 km south of the region with the worst damage, reports some minor damage to their brewery. They have ceased production and instead are shipping bottled water up to the most affected zones.

Obviously the production and export of beer is secondary in horrible situations like this. We should feel fortunate to remain unscathed and to be able to consume craft beer, especially beer from Japan. So this is my suggestion to you – go buy some Hitachino Nest and when you get home and open a bottle, also open up your cheque book and donate some money yourself so that we can compound the effort Soltice is making.