Free Spirits Brewing

Free Spirits Brewing has a pretty interesting founder story, actually.

He was originally a trading company employee, and while stationed in the U.S., he discovered California's homebrewing culture and got hooked hard on beer's bitterness. After returning to Japan, he trained at a craft beer company in Kobe, then went back to his hometown of Harima and opened a brewery in Himeji.

The motivation is great, too. He thought, 'It's sad that a city with the World Heritage site Himeji Castle doesn't have a craft beer brewery.' He was inspired by the fact that there are more than 8,000 breweries in the U.S., while Himeji had none.

Their signature White Castle Ale is a fruit ale made with Hyogo-grown yuzu and sansho pepper, inspired by Himeji Castle. Mariposa IPA is a dry beer finished with three hop varieties: Chinook, Amarillo, and Mosaic.

The building is distinctive too. It's a three-level setup about a five-minute walk from Himeji Station: the first floor is the brewery, the second floor is the restaurant, and the third floor is a rooftop beer garden. The style of drinking upstairs while looking through glass at the brewing process is pure American brewpub.

They also provide the spent grain after brewing to a local ranch as cattle feed. They brew while saying, 'As someone born and raised in Harima, I want to energize this region.' Every glass is filled with that feeling.