Otaru Beer

Otaru Beer Zenibako Brewery is quite unusual even among Hokkaido craft breweries. It is a brewery that seriously follows Germany's 1516 Reinheitsgebot.

It was a law enacted in Germany more than 500 years ago that says beer may only be made from four ingredients: malt, hops, yeast, and water. Otaru Beer follows this faithfully, with no additives at all. That's why it must be refrigerated and has a shelf life of just up to four weeks.

The brewing director is Johannes Braun, a German whose family near Frankfurt has been making beer since 1753. He studied for five years at a brewing university in Munich and holds the qualification of "Braumeister," and he even studied whisky production at the University of Edinburgh.

It all began when Akio Shoji, the founder of the restaurant chain Aleph, was inspired by beer culture on a trip to Germany, and started the brewery when small-scale brewing was legalized in the 1994 revision of the Liquor Tax Law. Braun handles everything from sourcing the malt and hops to supervising the brewing.

Pilsner, Weiss, Dunkel, and Bamberger Spezial, a Rauchbier. It's a smoky beer made with smoked malt, and it really captures the authentic flavor.

They also export overseas to Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia. The Zenibako brewery has an annual production capacity of 2,000 kiloliters, and if you make a reservation, you can tour it one group at a time. You can also drink it at the beer pub "Otaru Warehouse No. 1" along the Otaru Canal, but the best experience is drinking it freshly brewed at the Zenibako factory.