Hino Brewing

Hino Brewing is wild from the concept alone. "The more you drink, the better the festival gets" - craft beer made by festival lovers, for festivals.

The founder, Hiroaki Tanaka, is the sixth-generation owner of Sueya Chumoto Honten, a liquor store in Hino Town that has been around since the Meiji era. He originally studied architecture at an arts university, worked in design for a housing manufacturer in Osaka, and later did machiya townhouse renovation work in Kyoto. He returned to his hometown at 30 to take over the family business.

Tanaka was so devoted to festivals that he even served as a young men's leader for the Hino Festival, and he would choose the Hino Festival over Golden Week. But festival operations were getting harder every year because of funding shortages and a lack of people, and the liquor store was also being squeezed by competition from mass retailers. So he thought, "Could beer solve both problems?"

What's more, the team is international. There's Tom Vincent, a Brit who loves beer and festivals; Sean Humienki, a Pole with brewing experience in the U.S. and Poland; and Tanaka. They began brewing in 2018 using a vacant facility at Blume no Oka, an agricultural park in Hino Town.

And all the beer names are festival chants. "Yare Yare Ale" is an American pale ale named after the chant for a mikoshi portable shrine. "Baka Lager" is a Czech lager named after bakabayashi festival music. "Dontoyare IPA" is a hazy IPA named after the "don't-yare" carrying shout.

Their brewing setup uses open fermentation tanks to aim for dynamic expression of aroma and flavor. They also made "Hobonichi Pale Ale" in collaboration with Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shimbun, and they released a Polish Pale Ale tied to the Expo. They are working with the vision of bringing beer to festivals all across Japan.