Blue Master

Address
Fukuoka City, Jonan Ward, Fukuoka, 1-19-1 Beppu
Area
Fukuoka Fukuoka City, Jonan Ward

What kind of brewery is Blue Master?

hop excitedHop Bro

Blue Master is one of the essential names in Fukuoka craft beer. The founder, Hidenori Kato, has a pretty interesting background too. He originally worked at a can manufacturing company, doing research and development on beer cans.

mugi surprisedMugi

What! He started from the can side, not the beer-making side?

hop normalHop Bro

Exactly. While ordering beer cans from small American breweries for work, he was shocked and thought, 'There are so many different kinds of beer.' In 1993, he visited more than 20 breweries in California, and that was when the switch really flipped.

mugi movedMugi

Falling in love with brewing because of cans is kind of dramatic!

hop proudHop Bro

After that, he quit his company, studied brewing in Los Angeles, and founded the brewery in Fukuoka in 2001 with his wife. And he did it right when the local beer boom had already completely faded. What Kato absolutely wanted to make was fruit beer, and since there were almost no decent fruit beers in Japan at the time, he decided, 'I'll make it myself.'

mugi surprisedMugi

They started it as a couple in the middle of all that headwind...? So what kind of fruit beers do they make?

hop excitedHop Bro

The signature one is 'Kabosu & Honey.' It's a beer made with kabosu from Oita Prefecture and honey, and it won the Yokohama Mayor's Award at the Japan Beer Festival Yokohama. Another is 'Amaou Noble Sweet,' made with Fukuoka's famous Amaou strawberries. That one also won the Food Action Nippon Award.

mugi happyMugi

Beer made with Amaou strawberries!? That has to be delicious! I want to try it!

hop thinkingHop Bro

It is not just fruit, either. They also make 'Healing Time,' a coffee porter brewed with organic coffee beans, and the standard 'EXPORT IPA,' a hop-forward IPA. Their ingredient range is incredibly broad. There is even a story that they have tried every fruit except watermelon and pear.

mugi surprisedMugi

A coffee porter too! That range is amazing...

hop proudHop Bro

Kato is not just a brewer; he also served as the executive committee chair for beer festivals and helped grow one event to the scale of 100,000 attendees. He says that organizing events is his life's work, and he has helped spread Fukuoka's craft beer culture itself. The brewery is within walking distance of Beppu Station on the Nanakuma Subway Line, and you can drink in a taproom where the equipment is visible through the glass.

mugi excitedMugi

So the maker has helped build the whole scene, right? I want to drink Kabosu & Honey in the taproom! I'm going!

Signature beers: Kabosu & HoneyAmaou Noble SweetEXPORT IPAHealing Time

articles about bars serving beers from Blue Master

Fukuoka craft beer spots in

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