Fukuoka Craft Brewing

Wouldn't you be a little surprised to hear that a Mexican restaurant gave birth to a craft beer brewery? I'm talking about Fukuoka Craft Brewing.

Representative Yoshifumi Sugiyama was originally a company employee, but he fell in love with Mexican cuisine and went alone to Mexico in 1999 to train for two years. He learned more than 500 dishes and opened a Mexican restaurant called El Borracho in Daimyo, Fukuoka in 2002. On top of that, he even made his own tequila in Mexico, "Shizuku," making him the first Japanese maker of Mexican tequila.

As he kept going to Mexico every year, he witnessed the rapid growth of the local craft beer culture and was inspired after also visiting Portland. And the head brewer is interesting too. David Victor from Michigan, USA. He came to Japan as an exchange student at Kyushu University, spent four years in Oita on the JET Program, then worked in technical translation. But he quit because it didn't feel rewarding, trained at DevilCraft in Tokyo and Outsider Brewing in Yamanashi, and made the leap to becoming a brewer.

David calls himself "the brewer who uses the most hops in Kyushu," and he makes beer hard and fast with brewing equipment made by Portland Kettle Works. The brewery in Okagaki Town is one of the largest in Kyushu, with three 3,000-liter tanks, and produces around 80 to 100 varieties a year.

The standard pale ale uses three types of hops from the UK, Germany, the US, and Australia, giving it a bright citrus aroma. The hazy IPA uses three to five times the usual amount of hops for a tropical finish. For something fun, they also make "RAMEN BOY," packed with sesame and inspired by Hakata tonkotsu ramen, and "Chikappa Kiretoru Ken IPA," named in Hakata dialect. At the JAPAN GREAT BEER AWARDS 2026, their Pale Ale and Spring Breeze won awards.

It's a brewery in the middle of rice fields, less than 1 km from the sea. You can drink on the terrace while looking at the brewing tanks. They provide the spent grain to a local tomato farmer as fertilizer, and they use hard groundwater from Okagaki Town for the brewing water. With a winery and a sake brewery nearby, the area is becoming a craft beverage tourism zone.