Heisei Brewing

Hey, Heisei Brewing in Nagaoka has a ridiculously interesting backstory. The parent company, Hokusyoku, is a company with more than 400 years of soy sauce-making history, and they converted the storage space of their liquor shop "Heiseido" into a brewery.

It's a tiny space of about 77 square meters, with four 500-liter tanks. And the person who handles all the brewing by himself is Masashi Sato. He’s unusual too: he’s from Yokohama and originally worked in IT, but after discovering craft beer and being moved by it, he jumped into the brewing world.

Right. And apparently Sato originally wasn't good with alcohol. But he was shocked by the diversity of craft beer, then honed his skills as brewmaster for six years at the now-closed Strange Brewing in Minamiuonuma before launching this place in 2022.

There are four regular beers: "Garyu Chosei," an American pale ale with grapefruit aroma; "Jozai Senjo," a dry IPA; "Echigo Unkai," a juicy citrusy hazy IPA; and "Uonuma Soba," a wheat ale brewed with roasted soba kernels from Yamamotoyama in Ojiya. The names are all so cool.

They also do seasonal releases like "Kagura Nanban IPA," made with Yamakoshi chili peppers, and "Uonuma Sake Lees NEIPA," which includes local sake lees. Even the brewing water is soft water from the Shinano River, and they even inspect the source upstream and adjust the water quality for each label. That's a brewing style that really shows Sato's IT background and data-driven mindset.

They do. There's a beer in the lineup inspired by Nagaoka's famous ginger soy sauce ramen. It's the best kind of thing when the soy sauce shop's DNA shows up in places like that. With six taps rotating all the time, you get a new encounter every time you visit.