North Alps Brewery

What’s interesting about North Alps Brewery is the combination of the founding members. Head brewer Shuhei Matsuura was originally a coffee artisan.

After training at Tokyo’s famous Cafe Bach, he ran a home-roasted coffee shop in Omachi City from 2009, and the North Alps water was so delicious that he wondered, "What would beer taste like if it were made with this water?" That curiosity was the start of the brewing journey.

Omachi’s water is ultra-soft water refined over 20 to 30 years through the Northern Alps mountains, with almost no impurities. The city’s tap water has even won the Grand Gold Medal from Monde Selection. And this brewery deliberately does not adjust the water quality. Its policy is to bring out the full potential of the natural water as it is.

Representative Taro Ujiie is from Nara Prefecture. He originally founded a company involved in ski resort development and worked with Kashimayari Ski Resort. He has since stepped back from that work, but wanting to help revitalize Omachi, which had taken care of him, he and Matsuura and one other person launched the brewery.

The standard lineup is the "Glacier" series, with lager, pale ale, IPA, and stout, but the one to watch is "Coffee Punch." It was brewed by Matsuura, who had been a coffee artisan, choosing beans with no regard for cost, and it won gold at the International Beer Cup 2020.

Glacier Stout also won gold at IBC 2020, and Glacier Lager won silver at JGBA 2020. Even though it has a strong awards record, its flavor is often described as "round and soft." The ultra-soft water is really doing the work. Inside, the ceiling is high, with Canadian wood and concrete, and it’s a space where you can drink beer while looking at the brewing tanks.