Aozora Ale

Have you heard of "Aozora Ale" in the Tachibanadori entertainment district of Miyazaki? It’s a brewpub started as a second life project by Yasuo Maeda, a former Miyazaki Prefectural Government employee, after his retirement.

He graduated from Waseda and spent many years working at the prefectural office. Then, after reading an article about Mugazakkoku Kobo in Saitama, he became fascinated with brewing, trained at Tochigi Microbrewery, and after touring brewpubs across Japan on the way back, opened his own place in Miyazaki.

The name has a nice story too. It comes from "Aozora Ichiba," which was established in 1950 as Miyazaki Prefecture’s first shopping mall, and the concept is "the engawa of Tachibanadori." They want it to be a place where people can stop by casually, chat, and enjoy beer.

The beer is made in very small batches, brewed just once or twice a week. It’s unpasteurized and unfiltered, so the yeast is still alive. Their standard pale ale uses hyuganatsu citrus peel from Miyazaki Prefecture, giving it a bright citrus freshness, and their brown ale includes herbs from within the prefecture.

Their NEIPA won gold in the Juicy & Hazy IPA category at the Japan Great Beer Awards 2021 Spring, and the brown ale took silver in the Spicy & Herb category. On top of that, local farmers sometimes bring in seasonal fruit, which can inspire entirely new beers.