Tamba-Sasayama Zigzag Brewery

Zigzag Brewery in Tamba-Sasayama has a story that is especially interesting.

It’s run by Naoki Yamatori. He’s from Fukusumi locally, worked at a company in one of Kansai’s major cities, then returned home after moving back. After that, while running a Kobe Shimbun newspaper sales office, he finally realized the microbrewery dream he had long been nurturing.

He had been interested in microbreweries since before 1994 and even visited the U.S. to study them. Then he opened in 2012. The brewery is in a renovated former newspaper sales office building.

Fukusumi is a historic post town that was designated a Traditional Buildings Preservation District in 2014, and that’s where they started the first craft beer brewery in the Tamba-Sasayama area. With technical support from Kibidotezage Beer Brewery in Okayama, they produce a small variety of beers in small batches using 200-liter tanks.

Their flagship is Black Soybean Imperial IPA. They use local Tamba-Sasayama black soybeans as a secondary ingredient, balancing the roasted aroma of the black soybeans with the firm bitterness of the IPA. They also offer English Red Ale, Weizen, ESB, and Hazy IPA. Everything is unfiltered and unpasteurized, so the yeast stays alive.

On April 4 and 5, they’re also scheduled to hold a hanami beer garden at Untopia Sasayama. Their spring Hazy IPA will apparently be a tropical, juicy release.