Ogresse Quete

There’s a brewery called Brasserie Ogresse Quete on the Oga Peninsula, and all of its beer names are puns based on Oga’s sightseeing spots.

The flagship is "GOD ZOOM LOVE IN ONE" - that’s a nod to Gojira Rock, a bizarre rock formation in Oga that looks like Godzilla. Then "GO SHARE DO" is Goshado, "TO BACK KEY" is Tsubaki, and "CAMP JUMP" is Kanpuzan. It’s a setup that lets you learn Oga’s landmarks while drinking beer.

It’s an OGA SALT ALE, and the point is that it uses Oga salt. The GO SHARE DO version is an OGA SALT IPA, combining five kinds of hops with salt from Oga and coriander seed. It’s a pretty distinctive drink, with bitterness like young tomatoes layered over lactic-acid fermentation sourness.

The owner, Hidetoshi Hiragata. He runs a Belgian beer specialty shop called ZOT in front of Akita Station, and he launched the brewery in 2023 to help energize his hometown of Oga. What I like is that the trigger was, "Let’s make a beer my wife, who’s beside me, will say tastes good."

Right. So the goal is to make beers that are easy to drink even for people who aren’t into beer. The first floor is the brewery, and the second floor is a cafe and bar with an ocean view, and they also serve European-style pizza baked in a 500°C pellet oven.

In Oga there’s also a craft sake brewery called Ineto Agave, so the Oga Peninsula is becoming a kind of holy ground for craft beverages. It’s definitely an area to watch.