Two Rabbits Brewing

Two Rabbits Brewing is a brewery founded in Omihachiman in 2018 by Sean Collett, an Australian Kyoto University MBA graduate, and Bato, a Mongolian.

The two met in the MBA program at Kyoto University and hit it off over music. Sean had been seriously homebrewing in Australia for 10 years, and when Bato found out, he asked, "I want to start a craft beer business in Mongolia, can you teach me?" Sean replied with a counterproposal: "Why don't we do it together in Japan?"

Exactly. Sean even retrained and obtained a brewer's license at a vocational school in Australia, while Bato handled the preparations on the Japanese side. They did serious MBA-style market research and chose Omihachiman. They took the name from the proverb "If you chase two rabbits, you catch neither," to express their determination to master one thing at a time.

Their staple, "KINKAN WIT," is a Belgian wit brewed with domestic kumquats and coriander, so it's fruity and refreshing. Their IPA uses New Zealand hops, giving it tropical aromas of passion fruit and citrus. Using NZ and Australian hops so well really reflects Sean's background.

They've really been putting out impressive stuff. There's "NUE HOP JUICE IPA," a new addition to their y?kai series made with cold-pressed hops from New Zealand. Then there's "Vintage Ale Sherry," aged for a year in sherry casks, and "Vintage Ale Bourbon" aged in bourbon barrels. They're really going all-in on barrel aging too.

The brewery is near Hachiman-bori, and there's also a beer cafe converted from an old Edo-period storehouse just a 30-second walk away. They raised renovation funds through crowdfunding on Makuake, and the fact that the storehouse had originally been an art gallery feels very Omihachiman, doesn't it?