Kirishima Highlands Beer

Have you heard of Kirishima Highlands Beer? It's in Kirishima, Kagoshima, and the founder, Masahiro Yamamoto, is an incredible person. He specialized in applied microbiology at the University of Tokyo Graduate School and is a fermentation expert.

Yamamoto's family runs Kawachi Genichiro Shoten, a long-established company that makes the starter koji used by most shochu distilleries in Kagoshima. In other words, he's fermentation royalty. He fell in love with Czech beer brewing and launched the brewery in 1994.

Exactly. And the commitment is on another level: the malt, hops, and brewing equipment were all imported directly from the Czech Republic. For brewing, they use the decoction method, an old classic technique that's almost gone even in the Czech Republic itself. It takes extra work because the mash is boiled in two separate stages, but the richness and foam stability are completely different.

They also use open fermentation tanks and let the beer ferment slowly for a long time at low temperatures. Their flagship, Bohemian Blond, is a pilsner made that way, with a perfect balance of hop bitterness and refreshing character. Another beer, Bohemian Garnet, is a dark pilsner, and its visual impact is amazing too.

In 1999, he became the first Japanese person to receive a commendation from the Czech Foreign Minister. That means the Czech government officially recognized the taste. The brewery is inside a facility called Barrel Valley Praha & GEN, which feels like a Czech village, and you can drink beer brewed with Kirishima's excellent spring water right there on site.