193 VALLEY BREWING

What’s especially interesting about 193 VALLEY BREWING is the origin of the name. 1 = I, 9 = Ku, 3 = Mi, so it becomes "Ikumi." They converted the name of Ikumi, a mountain village in Shimada City, into numbers.

The representative, Hiroki Kobayashi, is unusual too. He went to Panama with JICA’s overseas cooperation program, served as executive director of the Fujieda Tourism Association, and has always worked in regional revitalization. At first, he only planned to grow hops and supply them to breweries in Shizuoka, but then...

Exactly. Then a turning point came in his 50s. In 2019, he went to watch the Rugby World Cup and saw people gathered around beer, having a great time. He felt that "beer connects people" and decided to start his own brewery.

The head brewer, Takeshi Watanabe, is interesting too. He graduated from Tokyo University of Agriculture, and his previous job was as a systems engineer. He moved to Shimada as a member of the regional revitalization cooperation team and is in charge of brewing. He applies the analytical skills from his SE background to fermentation temperature control and hop timing.

They do. "Spring Rain" is an IPA brewed with their homegrown hops. "Shimada Pale Ale" uses organic shaded tea from local Ikumi, and "Sleepless in Shimada" is also a tea-infused ale. They brew with spring water from the Oi River basin. Kobayashi says, "Just because something is local doesn't mean you should use it," so he insists on using ingredients only when they match the quality of the beer.

It's in the mountains, about 30 minutes by car from central Shimada, along the Ikumi River, a tributary of the Oi River. The building was originally a local agricultural products processing facility and a soba shop, and has since been renovated. Since 2022, they have also been running the "193 Beer BBQ Terrace," where you can drink freshly brewed beer while sitting around Weber grills by the river. They also hold a regular Craft Marche, bringing together local artists and food producers. They even won the grand prize in the Shida Business Plan Competition.