Echigo Beer

Echigo Beer was actually Japan's first craft beer. It was the first company in the country to obtain a local beer brewing license, back in 1995.

Exactly. Bourbon Group acquired the former Sapporo Brewery Nasu plant, and it began operating in 2026 as Echigo Beer’s second base. It’s a full-scale facility with 40 fermentation and maturation tanks, and it can also handle decoction brewing.

And what’s more, the founder, Seiichiro Uehara, was quite an interesting person. He originally performed dance and theater in Europe.

He met his wife, a German picture-book author, and it was in her hometown of Regensburg that he became deeply immersed in beer culture. The goat logo on the cans was actually drawn by his wife. In Germany, goats are symbols of prosperity and thriving business.

The first brew at the Nasu plant, "Sparkling Beer That Brings Smiles Together," is especially great. It’s a lager made with Tochigi-grown two-row barley called "New Sachiho Golden" and sake rice from Niigata, with German hops that give it a champagne-like, festive aroma.

Their standard FLYING IPA and the "Double Dragon IPA," dry-hopped with two hop varieties, Sabro and Mosaic, are also impressive. Nasu is a major production area for Tochigi two-row barley, so they’ll probably keep releasing more new beers that make the most of local ingredients.