Mokumoku Craft Beer Workshop

Mokumoku Craft Beer Workshop opened in 1995, and it was one of the oldest of the old guard, the first local beer in the three Tokai prefectures. What's more, its origins are unique: it started as an agricultural cooperative corporation funded by 20 pig farmers.

There's an agricultural park called "Iga no Sato Mokumoku Handmade Farm," and the beer workshop is inside it. They also make their own sausages, and at the barbecue restaurant they serve their own pork together with their own beer. It's an integrated food-and-farming operation.

And they even have their own malting equipment. They buy barley grown in Higashiomi, Shiga Prefecture, and start by turning it into malt themselves. The "Golden Pilsner" brewed from that malt is literally a beer that starts from making the grain.

It's quite rare in Japan. At the time of founding, they invited three brewers from the Czech Republic for brewing instruction, and that heavily influenced the recipe for Iga-Sanroku Pilsner. Today, brewery head Yoshiharu Hattori and brewmaster Yumika Morishita lead the brewing.

Morishita-san is someone who carefully explains everything from ingredients to the production process to how to pour the beer. At the Japan Great Beer Awards 2020, "Haru Urara" and "Seven Hop Lager" won silver, and "Spring Pilsner" won bronze, giving them three awards at once. As the name suggests, "Seven Hop Lager" uses seven kinds of hops, producing a rich aroma like passion fruit.

All of them are unpasteurized and unfiltered, so the yeast is alive in the bottle. You can walk around the farm, see the pigs, eat sausages, drink beer, and head home. Iga isn't just about ninjas, you know.