Ichimaru Yon Brewery

In Toki City, Gifu, there's a brewery opened by a former automotive design engineer. It's called 104 BREWERY (Ichimaru Yon Brewery).

The brewmaster, Daichi Hayashi, originally worked in automotive design engineering. When he visited a beer workshop in Aichi, he got completely hooked on the fermentation and brewing process. After two years of training, he set up his brewery in his hometown of Toki City.

"Toki" can be read as the numbers 10 and 4, so it's named "104." It's a name packed with love and gratitude for Toki, the place where he comes from. The beers are numbered too, with names like No. 1 and No. 2.

Exactly. They call it "craft beer made by a design professional," and their style is all about designing with numbers in mind: ingredient ratios, temperature, water quality, pressure, and more. Their most popular beer is No. 2, the HAZY Pale Ale. It has a soft tropical fruit aroma, almost no bitterness, and a juice-like drinkability that makes it really easy for beer beginners to enjoy.

They also have beers like Coffee Porter and Lemon White, and everything is designed around being easy to drink first. Also, a new beer called "OWW" won a silver medal at the Japan Great Beer Awards 2026. Their regular No. 4 also won bronze.

There's a beer stand inside the brewery, so you can drink freshly poured beer while looking at the tanks. They even have board games, and outside food is allowed too. It feels like a very rational, engineer-like space.