Golden Rabbit Beer

Golden Rabbit Beer is a brewery in Naramachi, Nara, and its founder, Ken Ichihashi, is actually a current employee at Rohto Pharmaceutical.

Yes. He worked in liquid formulation and quality control in Rohto Pharmaceutical's manufacturing division, and used the company's side-job system to launch the brewery. During the 2010 Heijo Capital 1300th Anniversary Festival, he noticed that there wasn't a single craft brewery in Nara, which is considered the birthplace of sake, so he won the 2013 Nara City business plan contest and got things moving.

And all of the beers here are named after "makurakotoba" from the Manyoshu and Kojiki. "Soramitsu" is a Bohemian pilsner made with 100% Czech Saaz hops, "Aoniyoshi" is an American red ale with Amarillo hops, and "Chihayafuru" is an IPA.

That Chihayafuru won gold at the Japan Great Beer Awards 2022. The label design is also carefully done, with the colors of Prince Shotoku's Twelve Cap and Rank System assigned to each beer. It's like a history textbook packed into a single bottle of beer.

They also put a lot of care into the ingredients, growing Nara's branded rice called "Hinohikari" themselves from planting to harvest and using it to make rice beer. They also grow two-row barley on their own. What's more, they were the first craft brewery to join the Sakae-ko at Omiwa Shrine. It's one of Japan's oldest shrines and a place that enshrines the deity of sake brewing.

On top of that, under the sub-brand SOSEINO, they also work on upcycling discarded ingredients into beer. In the spirit of mottainai, they collaborate with Horiuchi Fruit Farm and Imuraya to turn surplus fruit and sake lees into beer. They make around 40 kinds of beer a year, so you can discover new flavors every time you visit.