Since the advent of Japanese beer brewing in the late 1800s, "traditional" beer meant German-style beer. Even after brewing regulations changed to allow microbrewing, it was only natural that most early companies hardly strayed from the familiar German trifecta of weizen, alt and pilsner. For Fujizakura Heights Beer the quality of their German-style brews has kept the company going strong, even as current trends in Japanese and global craft beer markets have shifted away from German beers.
Fujizakura is a part of the much larger Fuji Kanko Kaihatsu group, which owns several golf courses, ski resorts and restaurants near Mount Fuji. Fujizakura's head brewer, Hiromichi Miyashita, known affectionately as Tentsu-san, started at Fuji Kanko a couple years before the brewery opened. Initially working in other sectors of the resort corporation, Miyashita was called in for a meeting with the president.
"The president said to me, 'You like beer, right?' so I said 'Yes, of course,'" Miyashita says.