Chatan Harbor Brewery

Right near Chatan's yacht harbor, there's a brewery called Chatan Harbor Brewery & Restaurant.

From the terrace seats you can see the sea and the sunset, and it's a resort-style seaside brewery complex with a catamaran boat cruise attached. Even the logo is modeled after a ship's sail and barley, the beer ingredient.

And the head brewer here is a female brewer named Shinobu Majikina. She studied food functional chemistry in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of the Ryukyus, and after a part-time job during college led her to join a local beer company. After also working for a fruit wine company, she joined the launch of this brewery in 2014.

What's amazing is that on her very first brew, she won a silver medal at the Asia Beer Cup 2016. After that, she kept getting results in domestic and international competitions, with the pale ale taking silver at the International Beer Cup 2017 and the IPA winning gold at the Japan Great Beer Awards 2019.

The concept is "Okinawa's nature." What's interesting is that the pale ale uses a hop called "Sorachi Ace." It was born in Sorachi, Hokkaido, was highly regarded in the U.S., and was then brought back to Japan, which makes it a perfect fit for Chatan, a town where Japanese and American histories overlap.

The lager is a crisp type that expresses a tropical island vibe, the hefeweizen has the sweetness of wheat and a banana aroma, and the stout has roasted bitterness but still finishes clean. They're all designed to make you want to drink them in Okinawa's hot climate.