Natural Roots Studio

Hata Shoma from Repubrew. He’s from Kawasaki, studied brewing at a technical school in Tokyo, trained at a brewery in Izu, and then, at just 25, suddenly opened a brewpub in an underground space in front of Numazu Station.

When he visited San Diego, he was struck by how brewpubs were just a normal part of city life, and thought, 'I want a place in Japan where people can brew beer in front of a station and drink it on the spot.' Repubrew is short for Republic + Pub + Brew, so even the name reflects a community-minded philosophy. It started with a 350-liter brewhouse, and in 2023 they built a new brewery in Mishima called Natural Roots Studio, about ten times larger.

NRS is fascinating too. They put solar panels on the roof and generate 75% of their electricity themselves. They made it happen by raising 7.6 million yen through crowdfunding. All spent malt is provided to local livestock farmers as compost and feed, and spent hops and yeast are distilled into alcohol for disinfectant. A still for craft gin has already been installed, and they’re even looking ahead to gin production in the future.

And the beer itself is wild. Their latest release, Wano Daku IPA, is a hazy IPA brewed with Kyokai No. 1801, a sake yeast. It combines Ekuanot, Huell Melon, Idaho 7, and Mosaic, with a creamy mouthfeel like nigori sake and a honeydew-like sweetness. It was brewed as part of a nationwide collaboration project led by Choryo Brewery in Nara, involving ten breweries.

Their flagship, 69 IPA, is a West Coast IPA with aromas of pink grapefruit and mango, and it’s a great entry point. Their saison called PLATINUM 99.9 undergoes bottle conditioning with Champagne yeast, which is rare in Japanese craft beer. The concept is that '99.9% is completed by us, and the remaining 0.1% is completed by the drinker’s experience.'

Also, Hata openly shares his recipes with other brewers. He believes that 'if the entire craft beer market grows, everyone benefits more than if one company keeps secrets.' As a vice director of the Shizuoka Craft Beer Cooperative, he is also advancing a joint import project for five South African hop varieties. Their brewing water comes from Mt. Fuji snowmelt spring water in Mishima, and they use fish bone powder from deep-sea fish caught at Numazu Port as an unusual technique to adjust water hardness.

Numazu Port is famous for deep-sea fish, so it’s the ultimate local ingredient. They also hold an open factory day in May, and Slider House in Mishima, a 24-tap burger shop, serves as NRS’s directly operated taproom. Starting from a brewpub in front of the station, the 25-year-old challenge has now grown into a solar-powered brewery aiming to make gin too. It’s quite a story, isn’t it?