KOHACHI beerworks

KOHACHI beerworks is a brewery started in a mountain hamlet in Miyazu by Belgian Julien Codron and his Japanese wife, Nobuko. It’s in Kamiseya, a settlement with fewer than 30 residents.

There is. Julien originally worked in infographics at the Natural Science Museum in Brussels. Ever since his ship-captain grandfather gave him a Musashi Miyamoto novel when he was 11, he had dreamed of Japan, and he moved to Kyoto in 2017. He met Nobuko at a vegan restaurant.

Apparently, when he was touring the Kyoto countryside on weekends, he fell in love with Kamiseya’s terraced rice fields and way of life. He moved there in 2019 and initially planned to open a guesthouse, but COVID forced a change in direction. Julien had been doing home fermentation since his student days in Belgium, so he decided to use that experience and pivot to a brewery.

The flagship, 'A Saison in Tango,' is a Belgian wheat saison made with organic wheat from nearby SORA Farm. It blends Belgian tradition with Japan’s local climate and has a mellow, rounded flavor. 'Seya Amber' is a Belgian amber brewed with black rice grown in the local terraced fields, which gives it a purplish hue. The brewing water comes from the springs of the Seya Highlands.

There’s also a chocolate stout called 'Oni ni Kanabo,' which uses cacao from a chocolatier friend. The IPA called 'Kikori Sanpo' apparently has a forest-like nuance from cedar from the mountain behind the brewery. Everything is handmade in small 350-liter tanks.

That’s the part that really gets me. The spent grain is returned to local farmers as fertilizer, a washi paper artisan makes bookmarks for the labels, an indigo dyer creates original tenugui towels, a hunter makes game canned goods, and a woodworker carves cedar beer caddies. Their motto is 'From soil to beer, from beer to soil,' and it’s a circular brewery.