Hokkoku Kaido Beer

The Komoro-juku Brewery of Hokkoku Kaido Beer is the first craft beer brewery in Komoro City. And the founder, Yoichi Onodera, has quite an impressive background.

He originally came from Sendai and worked as an engineer for a major electronics manufacturer in Tokyo. Then, from his mid-30s, his business trips overseas increased, and in the U.S. and Europe he encountered craft beers whose flavors were completely different from place to place, which really shocked him.

He quit the company, jumped into the craft beer industry, and even served as the head brewer at a brewery in Ginza. From there, at 61, he opened his own brewery in Komoro.

He also had great taste in choosing the location. "Komoro-juku" on the Hokkoku Kaido is a post town where buildings from the Edo period still remain, and he converted a former winery space into a brewery. There's an Un Winery next door, and they also have a technical partnership between wine and beer.

Their regular lineup includes four kinds: lager, IPA, weizen, and black, and they also release limited editions like yuzu sour ale. They're all lightly carbonated, unfiltered, and unpasteurized, so the yeast is alive in the bottle. They're beers designed to go with food.

Mr. Onodera says, "I want people to walk around Komoro with a craft beer in hand," and just imagining a drink while taking in the nostalgic feel of Kaikoen and the castle town is wonderful.