Milestone Brewing

You know, the story of Makoto Ohnishi of Milestone Brewing really gets to me.

He spent many years working in hospitals as a clinical engineer and nurse. He was a specialist in ECMO, the cardiopulmonary bypass machine used in heart surgery. He retired at 60 and started a brewery as his second career.

The trigger was apparently more than 15 years ago, when he was traveling with colleagues and tried Ise Kadoya craft beer in Mie Prefecture. He took one sip and was hit with, "What is this?!"

From there he kept going to Kibi Dote-shita Beer Brewery in Okayama and apprenticed on weekends, eventually getting his brewing license. When retirement came, he decided, "If I work five more years on reemployment, I won't have the energy left to take on a challenge," and his children encouraged him, saying he should spend it on what he loves.

He opened in 2018 in a prime location, just a 40-second walk from the south exit of JR Higashi-Kakogawa Station, with the brewery on the first floor and a taproom on the second. "Milestone IPA" is the flagship, built around American IPA. "MSB HAZY IPA" stands out for its citrusy aroma, and there are also experimental brews like "MSB BLACK IPA".

They brew more than 20 varieties in about 30 batches a year. What’s interesting is that they brought the idea of a "magnet hospital" from Ohnishi’s hospital days into beer, aiming for a "magnet brewery." They want it to be a place where both the brewers and the people who gather there draw each other in.