Tono Brewing

Tono Brewing has a founding story that feels like a movie. The representative, Daisuke Hakamada, used to be a Uniqlo store manager.

During his student days, he traveled to 30 countries and was blown away by craft beer around the world. He quit Uniqlo, learned brewing at a beer company in Yokohama, and decided to move to Tono after getting involved through a regional revitalization program called Next Commons Lab Tono. His co-founders, Mutsumi Ota and Junichi Tamura, were both former employees of major companies too - Ota was a researcher, and Tamura had worked at Recruit on new business development. All three of them are newcomers to Tono.

This is the key part: Tono is Japan’s top hop-producing region. It has over 50 years of hop cultivation history. Most beer is made with dried pellet hops, but in Tono they can get fresh hops. They’re also working directly with farmer Mr. Shiraiwa and experimentally growing ten hop varieties together.

Exactly. Their recently released DANK IPA is a bold brew with 7% ABV, solid bitterness, and a rich, full-bodied character. And the brand-new Sanriku Ginger Golden, released just yesterday, is a golden ale made by combining Tono-grown IBUKI hops with Sanriku Ginger, a ginger from Rikuzentakata. That kind of pairing of local Tohoku ingredients is what makes a brewery in a production region so strong.

It’s a taproom about a 3-minute walk from Tono Station, renovated from a former liquor store, with around 25 seats total between the counter and tables. Through the glass, you can see four fermentation tanks, so you can drink while watching the brewing process right in front of you.