This past winter, Ecliptic Brewing‘s owner and brewmaster John Harris announced a forthcoming Moon Room special release series devoted to lagers.

The series launched in April with a global classic Vienna-style lager, March, called for a German-style Märzen (“March” in German), and in April it took off. Harris unveiled two rice-forward Japanese-style lagers, named Rice Lager & Rice Lager Jasmine. Both turned out like craft versions of Asahi Super Dry—the best-selling beer in Japan—or Sapporo, the best-selling Japanese beer in America.

Both of these lagers defied the Bavarian Purity Law that mandates barley malt as the sole source of fermentable sugars.

“At the beginning of this micro-craft revolution, we were doing everything we could to separate (ourselves) from big, macro beer.” Harris told the Portland Mercury. “Now we just want to be innovative.”

The first fermented beverages made from rice were actually brewed in China 9,000 years ago. Craft brewing emerged as a reaction to the industrial breweries that used rice and corn to cheapen the grain bill and provide lighter beer.

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