COEDO Brewery

COEDO Brewery is a must when talking about Saitama's craft beer scene. Its start was completely different from a typical local beer maker.

The parent company, Kyodo Shoji, has been into organic farming since the 1970s. There was a tradition in Kawagoe where farmers planted barley as a secondary crop to keep the soil healthy, and that's where the idea for brewing beer came from. Then, in 1996, they obtained a brewing license and made a "sweet potato lager" using sweet potatoes from Kawagoe. That's the origin. It became today's Beniaka.

It wasn't normal. What's more, in 1997 they brought in Christian Mitterbauer from Germany, a brewmaster who was the fourth generation in his family business, and had him drill them thoroughly in authentic techniques for five years. I think that five years is what made the quality what it is today.

The results showed up in international competitions. Beniaka won a silver medal at the World Beer Cup 2010, and at the European Beer Star it won medals for four consecutive years from 2009 through 2012. They were among the pioneers in getting Japanese craft beer recognized worldwide.

Ruri is a clear pilsner, Kyara is in the amber lager family, Shiro is a wheat weizen, Shikkoku is a black lager, and Marihana is a session IPA that also uses HKTS02 hops from Hokuto, Yamanashi. Including the sweet potato-based Beniaka, there are six standard beers. It's nice that you can choose by color.

On top of that, they're working with Bio'c, a koji mold starter manufacturer, on a beer development project that uses koji-based saccharification technology. Because it can saccharify even unmalted grains, it will make it possible to use more locally grown ingredients in beer.