Komatsu Brewing

The owner's background here is amazing. He's a former Japan Air Self-Defense Force pilot.

Apparently he got into homebrewing while stationed in the U.S. After retiring, he returned to his hometown of Komatsu and opened the brewery in November 2025. It's still a shiny new upstart, not even a year old yet.

Here’s the cool part: they renovated a 75-year-old komatsu machiya townhouse. It used to be a candle shop, and the wide earthen floor and large atrium remain, so you’ve got brewing tanks lined up inside a traditional building.

About an 8-minute walk. It's the only craft beer brewery in Komatsu City. Their first brew, "Yuzu Bitter No. 1," uses yuzu harvested in the owner’s hometown of Gokokuji Town, and it brings a refreshing citrus note with a light bitterness you don't usually expect from beer.

They also plan to use barley and wheat grown in Komatsu, and even beers made with local pears. Their belief is "terroir" - expressing the character of the land through beer. They want to create a glass that can only come from that place, brewed with Hokuriku water and Komatsu ingredients.

There's something really great about a pilot coming down from the sky to work with local ingredients in a machiya. I think this could become one of Komatsu's new faces.