The Japanese beer-maker turning brewing waste into jeans

Hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan's Sapporo Breweries is trying to win over new customers, not by launching a new beer, but by selling its own next-generation jeans. The famous beer-maker has turned to upcycling to transform waste from the brewing process into a genuine fashion creation.

The brewery partnered with Shima Denim Works -- a company that makes clothing from bagasse, a waste product from sugarcane processing -- to create its first jeans. The beer brewing waste was first turned into washi, a traditional Japanese paper, which then serves as the basis for spinning and weaving this future denim. The whole lot comes from Sapporo's emblematic Black Label beer, providing the drink with some great publicity in the process.

Nikkei Asia says the brewery added no less than 30 pairs of jeans made using this method to its online store in April. Priced at 41,800 yen (around $310), the Black Label Malt & Hops jeans attracted some 1,600 purchase applications. And this promising start suggests that customers might need to step up their beer consumption quickly -- although always in moderation -- to enable the brewery to launch larger-scale production.