Ash Head Brewery

Ash Head Brewery is in Kirishima City, Kagoshima, and head brewer Shohei Nagakawa has such an interesting background. He used to be an engineer, but while working overseas, he was deeply impressed by craft beer cultures around the world and jumped into brewing.

What's more, he went to Portland, Oregon, and trained at two local breweries. Portland is like a holy city for craft beer, so he learned authentic techniques there.

Nagakawa's ambition is to "brew local culture through his own beer." He's from Kagoshima, after all. Even after returning to Japan, he spent five years working as a phantom brewer without owning his own brewery, pouring his beers at events and beer bars and helping root beer culture in Kirishima.

He raised funds through crowdfunding and set up his brewery inside a mixed-use facility called Obama Village in Kirishima City. And then there's the flagship IPA, MIST ISLAND, which is incredible too.

It's 6.5% ABV with 50 IBU, and it has a great balance of citrus- and mango-like hop aroma with a toasty malt character. On the very first batch, they even used brewing water from the famous shochu distillery Manzen Shuzo. It's extremely soft water with almost no iron, filtered through the shirasu layers of the Kirishima mountain range, which lets the hop aroma stand out beautifully.

They also make a hazy IPA called "he he he," which is 5.5% ABV and only 10 IBU, so the bitterness is restrained. "Sound Of PDX" is an American IPA inspired by the sound of Portland, clocking in at 7% ABV with a pineapple-like fruitiness. PDX is the airport code for Portland.