Island Brewery

Have you heard of Island Brewery on Iki Island? They promote themselves as "the craft beer that pairs best with fish in Japan," and it is honestly fascinating.

That is what makes this brewery so distinctive. It is run by Tomonori Harada, the fifth-generation successor to Harada Sake Brewery, a long-established shochu distillery founded in 1887.

After graduating from the brewing department at Tokyo University of Agriculture, Harada helped launch three Tokyo locations for a yakiniku chain. After learning the ropes of business, he returned to his family brewery and spent 18 years making shochu. He later went independent and started brewing beer.

One of the triggers for becoming independent was that, at the time, Nagasaki was the only one of Japan's 47 prefectures without a craft brewery. Iki is an island famous for seafood, so the idea became, "Then let us make beer that goes with fish."

This is the impressive part: they add white koji, which is used in shochu production, to the beer. White koji contains a lot of citric acid, giving the beer a crisp acidity like white wine. It was an idea they arrived at after tasting 50 different beers.

Their flagship Golden Ale is designed to go with sashimi and sushi, and the Yuzu Koji Ale is made for dishes with yuzu. They also make beers like Island Red Ale using Iki-grown beets, and everything is brewed by starting from what it will be eaten with.