Azumino Brewery

Azumino Brewery is different from most other breweries in how it was founded. It was started by three rice farmers: Takeo Saito, Haruki Furuhata, and Naotoshi Hosoda.

The three have known each other since their parents’ generation. The spark came in the winter of 2015, when Azumino City’s agricultural policy division asked them, “Why not try growing hops?” The following year, they launched the “Association for Producing Azumino-Grown Hops,” reclaimed idle farmland, and began cultivating hops.

That’s the core of this brewery. Not only hops, but also brewing barley called Koharu Nijo are grown by the team themselves, and the brewing water comes from the underflow of the Northern Alps. Hops, malt, and water, all 100% from Azumino. There are hardly any breweries in Japan that can do that.

The flagship beer, "Sui," is a pale ale, and its name carries the meanings of "water," "refined," and "ears of grain." It’s a gently bitter beer that brings out the aroma of their homegrown hop variety, Shinshuwase. They also serve it on tap in the TapRoom.

This is where it gets interesting: "Shiso Aroma IPA" uses pesticide-free red shiso from Azumino, "Forest Starlight IPA" uses pine and yomogi, "Pumpkin Porter" uses Azumino-grown pumpkin, and "Refreshing Breeze Saison" uses Kaza-Sayaka rice from Nagano Prefecture. Everything is made with local ingredients.

You can drink while watching the brewing process at the TapRoom in front of JR Hotaka Station. In March, they also had a booth at the "Snow Beer Festival" in Tsugaike, so they were doing a craft beer event in the snowy mountains too.