Mamemame Beer Brewery

Do you know "Mamemame Beer" on Shodoshima? It's the island's only brewery.

Exactly. It's a double meaning: the "mame" in Shodoshima and the idea of brewing diligently. Brewery founder Masaya Nakata is from Osaka, and when he traveled to New York as a university student, he was blown away by Brooklyn Brewery and fell deeply into the world of craft beer.

After working at a company, he trained for about a year at Kibidote Beer Brewery in Okayama, then opened on Shodoshima in 2017. The brewery is in a renovated old house on a hill overlooking Sakate Port, with an L-shaped counter inside the tiled-roof building where you can stand and drink. The sea spreads out right in front of you.

The beer is interesting too. The four standard offerings are all in the "mamemame" series. "Akamemame" is a red ale made with Cascade hops and island citrus, while "Shiromemame" is a white ale made with two kinds of herbs, citrus, and naked barley. Both really make use of Shodoshima ingredients.

"Kuromemame" is amazing. It's a sweet stout made with moromi from Yamaroku Shoyu on Shodoshima, a brewery famous for its wooden barrel fermentation. A black beer with moromi in it exists only here in the world.

It tastes like the roasted malt character layered with the richness of the moromi. And "Kinmemame" is a freestyle brew made with rice koji from the island's Mori Seikohjo and Shodoshima rice. Even at 7%, it's strangely easy to drink. The labels were also designed by UMA/design farm in Osaka, so the whole visual world feels very unified.