Oryzae Brewing

Oryzae Brewing is, you know, completely different in its thinking from other breweries.

"Oryzae" is Aspergillus oryzae, the scientific name for koji mold. Here, they make beer without using any malt at all, using homemade koji as the main ingredient. It's the world's first.

And the background of the representative, Nobuyuki Kinoshita, is amazing too. After graduating from university and working for two years at a soy sauce maker in Wakayama, he moved to Tokyo and was active as a bassist in music.

At 28, he put music behind him and moved through a miso and amazake maker in Kumamoto and a sake brewery in Fukuoka, becoming a koji-making professional. He returned to Wakayama in 2014 and opened in 2019. Soy sauce, miso, sake, and music-all of that experience is poured into every glass of beer.

Wakayama is the birthplace of soy sauce and katsuobushi, a place where Japan's fermentation culture has taken root. Kinoshita returned to that history of fermentation, saying he wanted to pursue a new kind of brewing only he could do.

Their flagship Oryzae Pale Ale is made by turning homemade barley koji into amazake, filtering it, adding hops, and fermenting it. Because it's gluten-free, people with wheat allergies can drink it too. They also make Parallels IPA, Japanese White No. 9, and Black Head IPA made with black koji. They've won awards repeatedly at the International Beer Cup too.