Miyakoji Hop Garden Brewery

Miyakoji Hop Garden Brewery in Tamura City is on a different scale. The representative, Makoto Homma, used to be a salaried employee at an electric power company. He quit his job and founded Hop Japan in 2015 after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

He is from Tendo City in Yamagata Prefecture, and after the disaster shook up his values, he studied in the United States. There he encountered distinctive craft beer and a free-spirited lifestyle, and apparently thought, 'This is it!'

Miyakoji became an evacuation area after the earthquake, and there was a public facility called Green Park Miyakoji that had been almost dormant. In 2020, they revived it as a brewery. Now hop fields and barley fields stand side by side, and during harvest season you can even experience picking hops.

The beer is interesting too. 'Abukuma GREEN' is a fresh hop IPA made with 100% hops grown by the company. They also make 'Abukuma BLACK,' a Black IPA, 'Abukuma GOLD,' a session hazy IPA, and 'Sakura SAKE Lager,' a lager that blends sake and beer, using Yaezakura from Date City and sake rice 'Fukunoka' from Ono Town.

Brewing manager Mr. Takeishi is the one behind it, and 'Yuzu-Fragrant White' also feels very Fukushima. The product lineup themed around the five elements of yin-yang is unusual too. And they even have a circular-theme-park concept that reuses beer lees as fertilizer and feed.

What's more, they also have a beer restaurant a 3-minute walk from Koriyama Station and a taproom on the 3rd floor of S-PAL in Iwaki Station, so you can drink it even if you can't get there in person. It's so popular that weekends are booked solid with reservations.