Shibetsu Samurai Brewery

The person behind Shibetsu Samurai Brewery, Ken Kazama, has had a life that seems to have been a straight line toward beer. He is from Nayoro, started out aiming to become a pâtissier, worked at a cake shop in Sapporo, then switched to a real estate company in Tokyo, and there he discovered craft beer, which changed his life.

He completely switched on at a craft beer event in Yokohama and, amazingly, set out on a journey touring breweries while cycling all the way around Japan. When he shared that trip on social media, he caught the attention of the owner of a brewery in Bifuka Town, and from 2019 he began learning brewing there in earnest.

While he was honing his skills there, Masashi Kawabata and others from Shibetsu City visited the Bifuka factory and recruited Kazama. That led to the birth of Shibetsu Samurai Brewery in December 2021.

It's a brewery that was fully renovated from a 93-year-old stone warehouse located just a 3-minute walk from Shibetsu Station. What used to be a stone agricultural warehouse was reborn as a beer factory. The brewing water comes from the source of the Teshio River, and they use wheat and barley from Shibetsu, plus fruits from nearby areas as adjuncts.

They have three standard beers. "Kou" is a golden ale that showcases the quality of Shibetsu's water in a straightforward way. "Miyabi" is an IPA with a strong hop presence. "Chou" is a wheat ale that brings out the softness of the wheat. The fact that all the brand names are single kanji characters also gives it a nice samurai feel.

During the day, Kazama is brewing at the brewery, and at night he runs his own beer bar called Malt Rip in nearby Nayoro, where he serves his own beer. He really pours everything into beer: the delicacy of a pâtissier, the drive to cycle around Japan, all of it.