Heiwa Craft

Heiwa Craft is a beer brand made by Heiwa Shuzo, the brewery known for the sake "KID".

It's a long-established brewery founded in 1928, now led by the fourth-generation owner, Norimasa Yamamoto. The trigger was the presence of one employee. In 2011, Kanako Takagi, a graduate of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, joined the company, and she loved beer so much that she had even been torn between working at a craft beer brewery or at Heiwa Shuzo.

Seeing her passion, Mr. Yamamoto decided, "Then let's brew beer here," acquired the license in 2014, and started sales in 2016. Takagi built it from scratch as the head brewer.

And get this: Takagi and another brewer, Saki Hatono, brew all of it with just the two of them, even hand-applying every label. On top of that, they have kept winning on the world stage: Red Ale won gold at the World Beer Cup 2022, IPA won gold at the International Beer Cup 2017, and A Study in Pink won gold in 2024.

The brewing water is soft, clear groundwater from the Kishigawa River, whose source is Mount Koya. In addition to the standard Pale Ale and IPA, they also make a White Ale with Wakayama yuzu peel and a Sour Ale with Nanko plums.

What's interesting is that Heiwa Craft beer is positioned as an "appetizer to sake." You start with beer, then move on to KID. That's an idea you only get from a sake brewery, and the water from Mount Koya underlies both the sake and the beer.