Konishi Brewing

Konishi Brewing was founded in 1550, so it's a sake brewery with over 470 years of history. But they also take craft beer incredibly seriously.

The trigger was pretty interesting. In 1985, Itami City formed a sister-city partnership with Hasselt in Belgium. At that time, Belgium had over 1,000 kinds of beer, and after encountering that culture, they thought, "What if we combined Japanese sake-making techniques with Belgian brewing?"

For example, they adapted the "kai-bo" used in sake brewing for stirring malt to reduce off-flavors, and they used sake yeast in Belgian-style beer. They call this "JAPAN ALE." Brewer Kei Tadakuma is the one behind this fusion.

They make a Belgian-style white beer called Snow Blanche, and it won the top Champion award at BIIA 2011, the world's oldest international beer competition. It also took gold at the European Beer Star, Europe's largest competition, and has won for three consecutive years.

Then in 2018, they were recognized for their contribution to spreading Belgian beer culture and were awarded the Order of the Crown, Commander by the King of Belgium. It's incredible that a Japanese sake brewery was honored by the Belgian king.

The KONISHI ITAMI BEER series uses orange peel and coriander in the Japan Ale White, sake-brewing rice and sake yeast in the Gold, and lemongrass and cardamom in the Spice. They also use hops like Columbus and Chinook, so all five standard varieties have clearly distinct personalities.