Yellow Beer Works

Yellow Beer Works is seriously an interesting brewery. It started when a couple who run Kato Farm, the largest rice farm in Fukushima City with more than 40 hectares of rice paddies, launched a brewery.

Mr. Koji Kato and his wife Emi left salaried jobs in 2009 to take over the rice farm. After the 2011 earthquake, they saw neighboring farmers quitting one after another, and their desire to protect the farmland grew stronger. From there, they began growing hops and barley in Minamisoma, spent about a year commuting to Riot Beer in Tokyo every week to learn brewing, and opened in 2020.

Yes! The concept is "beer that makes you smile without meaning to, with a punk rock spirit." And all the label art is drawn by Perander Yellow of Peelander-Z, the Japanese punk band based in New York. Even the shop wall mural was finished with a live painting session.

They've brewed more than 132 styles since opening, but the flagship is "ZASO IPA." It's a hazy IPA named after the Oosaso area, made to be highly drinkable. "Yellow Castle" is another hazy IPA made with HBC 1019 and Superdelic, with layers of mango, pineapple, and peach. It has a strong 3.93 rating on Untappd.

That's actually where they really shine. "Squeezy Peach" is a milk ale made with Fukushima peaches, in collaboration with Black Tide Brewing from Kesennuma. "Mango Peach Lassi Sour" has a top Untappd rating of 4.09. The backstory is that Emi, Koji's wife, doesn't like strong alcohol, so they ended up with a strong lineup of easy-to-drink sour beers.

Exactly. It's a rice lager made with Ten no Tsubu, a Fukushima rice variety. At their direct-run stand on Bunka-dori, they serve it with rice onigiri made from that same rice. Apparently, the 12-tap wall-mounted draft system was the first of its kind in Fukushima Prefecture. It's amazing how far this brewery has come, starting from a six-tatami room.