Tokorozawa Brewery

So, Tokorozawa Beer’s brewmaster, Satoshi Ogata, came from a completely unrelated background before this - canoe manufacturing, metalworking, and auto development.

He apparently felt that he couldn’t fully make use of his ideas at a big company, so he decided to start his own business. Then he turned his attention to beer, something familiar to him, and apprenticed under the craft beer legend Tomo Niwa. He also trained at Outsider Brewing in Kofu.

What’s more, he’s the type who does everything himself, from piping for the brewing equipment to electrical work. That’s the old engineer in him, right? And their flagship beer, Pharaoh, is amazing. It’s a smoked porter, and the beechwood smoke aroma and the sweetness of the dark beer come together beautifully. It won silver at the International Beer Cup 2015, and bronze the following year too.

Exactly. Their pale ale Bitches Brew also won silver in the blonde ale category at the Japan Great Beer Awards 2019. Taking the name from a famous jazz album really shows Ogata’s sense of style.

That’s exactly what their Tokorozawa Golden is about: they grow barley together with farmers in Tokorozawa City and brew it with that barley. It’s a beer named after Tokorozawa’s old name, Yoro, and it was their starting point - first contract brewed in 2011, then switched to in-house brewing in 2014.

Jumping in from another industry and building everything by hand. Tokorozawa Beer really feels like a sturdy brewery - a 'brewery built by a craftsman alone.'