Hansharo Beer

Hansharo Beer is, I think, one of the most adventurous breweries in Shizuoka's craft beer scene right now. Their brewery is right next to the Nirayama Reverberatory Furnace, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.

The operating company, Kuraya Narusawa, is an old-established business that has run a souvenir shop at the reverberatory furnace since the Taisho era, and it also has a history of running a sake brewery. It started brewing beer in 1997 and uses high-quality spring water that rises from the grounds as brewing water. That water has long been used for sake brewing too.

The beer names are stylish too. "Tarozaemon" is an English pale ale named after Hidetatsu Egawa, the late Edo-period Nirayama magistrate who built the reverberatory furnace. "Yoritomo" comes from Minamoto no Yoritomo and is a brown porter. "Soun" is named after Hojo Soun and is an American pale ale. They use English malt and hops from the UK, the US, and New Zealand, and serve them unfiltered and unpasteurized.

You know your stuff! Daiginjo Masako is a beer brewed with daiginjo sake yeast, and it bears the name of Hojo Masako. It’s a one-of-a-kind brew made possible only because of their sake-brewing history. And their limited beer "New World Kölsch" won the world's highest gold award at the World Beer Awards 2023. It even made the news when Brewmaster Yamada went to report the achievement to the mayor of Izunokuni City.

They make about 50 varieties a year, and they keep pushing forward by releasing things like IRON BURTON, a modern take on 19th-century British Burton ale, or "M Shake - Matcha Flavor -" in collaboration with IBREW in Ginza, and by holding anniversary events with new canned beers and brewery tours. They're always pushing the envelope.

The beer stand has the regular Soun, Yoritomo, and Tarozaemon, plus about five limited releases, so you'd better be prepared if you plan to drink them all. See the World Heritage site, then drink beer made with historic spring water. It's hard to beat that experience.