Twenty years ago, the dismissal bell at Mosetsuri Elementary School rang for the final time. The simple blue and white school house would sit silent at the bottom of a valley in an eastern Hokkaido valley from then on, shuttered due to depopulation and a lack of students to take in for class.
That is until Hiromi Uetake, 38, found his way to Tsurui, a village just outside of the city of Kushiro, with aspirations of creating a craft beer brewery. With a referral from a friend, Uetake jumped at the chance to renovate Mosetsuri, and in early 2021 in the former school’s gym, Brassiere Knot was born.
Where children once played tag, towering vats for brewing and fermenting now stand. On the same stage where principals conferred graduation diplomas, staff now fill growlers. The hallways have been painted over in muted grays with amber lights — a design aesthetic married to Brassiere Knot’s philosophy on flavor: balance. Never overpowering but never underwhelming, not flashy but refined.
“This place matches our lifestyle,” Uetake says. “We value that connection to nature.”
Brassiere Knot is not an outlier but rather a symbol of how the spirit of craft beer is thriving in northern Japan, where pioneers both old and new are forging new paths in Japan’s historic frontiers. Craft beer, once confined to asphalt jungles of central Honshu, is now enjoyed by new drinkers both young and old in the deep north. While traditional sips like nihonshu (sake) and shōchū (Japan’s indigenous distilled spirit) still have their devotees, beer drinkers in these occasionally frozen lands now enjoy flavors infused with deep stories and their home prefectures’ splendid natural beauty.
In 2007, Gareth Burns, 39, traded the art of defusing bombs for the United States Air Force for the dream of brewing craft beer. Following the end of his military career at Misawa Air Force Base in Aomori, Burns stayed local — at first, he opened an English school and then sought to parlay the school’s success in 2014 into his own craft brewery. But before production could commence, he had to navigate the complicated wiring of Japan’s banking system and its occasional reticence to lend out to foreign residents starting their own businesses.
“I have no problem if you turn me down after you listen to everything I have to say,” Burns recalls saying to one bank willing to listen.
That began a yearlong back and forth until he asked for a meeting with the branch manager, guarantor and a host of guests. Burns brought three drinks for a blind taste test. In one cup was a random ji-biru, or local beer, another an Asahi Super Dry and, in the last cup, his own beer that was brewed in buckets at his home. He won.
From its Hirosaki brewery about an hour’s drive outside of Aomori, Be Easy Brewing released its first batch soon after in 2016. Originally, Burns’ business model produced kegs and supplied them directly to breweries around the country. However, with the advent of the pandemic and taprooms across the country closing down, he bought a simple canning machine and grew into selling online.
Burns has since opened up a taproom above his brewery in Hirosaki. Mainstays on tap such as Aomori Ale, awarded a bronze medal at the 2019 International Beer Cup, are complemented by seasonal beers and handmade food. Burns has even used kōji, a key ingredient in brewing Japanese sake, to enhance the dryness of his Aomori ale. In 2020, Burns expanded with Be Easy’s Aomori Brew Pub located just five minutes from the city’s main station.
“I knew craft beer was going to become a normal mainstay of daily life,” Burns says. “Usually things come to Aomori last — I wanted to do it before the boom that we're in now.”
Even before Burns and Uetake, there was an earlier pioneer in Hokkaido craft beer, still active today, in even farther north and frigid frontiers.
When Phred Kaufman, 69, booked a one-way ticket to Japan back in the 1970s, the American had a singular goal: “Not to kill any Vietnamese people.” Avoiding the draft for the Vietnam War landed Kaufman in Tokyo, but the hot weather drove him north to Sapporo for six months. In 1973, Kaufman returned to America, but his time in college brought him back to Waseda University, where the mild summers of Japan’s far north continued to call to him. After relocating back to Sapporo, in 1980 he opened Beer Inn Mugishutei, a cozy basement hideaway with walls lined in the historical record of craft beer in Japan. Located on the outer edges of the Susukino entertainment district, the bar attracts beer pilgrims of all backgrounds, many who revel in the glow of the wall-sized cooler with over 300 unique craft beers.
Kaufman saw an opening in the market in 1992 and started Ezo Beer, which imported brews from Oregon-based Rogue Ales. Today, Ezo has expanded to selling other West Coast beers such as Caldera Brewing, Lost Coast and Ex Novo. Kaufman’s arsenal also includes craft tequila from Mexico — a foreign yet warming remedy for frozen Hokkaido nights.
From humble beginnings, Kaufman’s long-standing reputation and wide network also led him to invest in Brassiere Knot, an indication that the craft beer scene in Japan’s deep north is a much warmer fraternity than Hokkaido’s frigid winters might suggest.
Two brews forward, one brew back
In 2019, there were about 300 licensed breweries around Japan, though recent reports suggest that numbers have continued to grow, with nearly 700 as of 2022.
While the number of craft breweries is steadily increasing, Burns says there is an increasing lack of correlation between good capital and good flavor.
“It is easy to open up a new brewery,” he says, “but it's very difficult to make good beer.”
While craft beer still only occupies a small portion of the market, Burns fears rapid market growth could continue at an unhealthy rate and, coupled with the lack of education, could throw craft beer in Japan back to its primitive post-war roots when regional resorts without much expertise churned out branded brews as marketing tools.
Uetake shares this anxiety, saying that the craft beer movement in Hokkaido might kneecap itself with an oversaturation of bad flavors.
“I’m afraid that if those new to craft beer try beer that isn’t good, they might think all craft beer is bad.”
Local tastes
Compared to American craft beers, which are louder and bolder, craft beer in Japan tends to be subtle and simple. At Be Easy Brewing, Burns drew on his experience living in Japan from the age of 18 to create Debbie’s Pale Ale, a punchy beverage named after Burns’ mother that excites but doesn’t overwhelm the drinker (Debbie’s Pale Ale won a gold medal at Japan’s 2020 Beer1 Grand Prix). Similarly, Brassiere Knot’s Flower is a Belgian White that balances fruity notes and citrus aromas in a clear flavor.
A delicate game of first impressions is at play for Japanese beer drinkers who rely on middle-of-the-road mainstays like Sapporo, Kirin and Asahi to satisfy their thirsts. Large companies exert a great force on the taste buds of domestic consumers through labeling, as Kaufman jokes: “There are craft beers and then crafty beers.”
For Burns, a simple approach proved fruitful.
“Japanese people enjoy finer details (and) subtle flavors, unlike the American craft beer movement where everything is so bold and in your face,” he says.
Brassiere Knot’s flavors convey Uetake’s goal to first create great beers that happen to be local — rather than a local brew that glides on its provinciality. His background in biotechnology and over a decade of brewmaster experience led him to eastern Hokkaido, where his staff of eight enjoy access to nature that reflects their standard of brewing Uetake says is “rooted in east Hokkaido.”
Brassiere Knot’s Doto (meaning “east Hokkaido”) is a Belgian IPA that relies on a complex balance between Belgian yeast and hops mixed from Europe and America. While not their most bitter beer (that being Moon, a double IPA that comes in at 8% alcohol by volume and 70 on the International Bitter Units scale), Doto is their most ambitious in its strong bite.
Brassiere Knot hopes to one day expand its renovation of Mosetsuri Elementary School from the gym and turn the classrooms, which still sit empty, into taprooms. Due to the school's age, any plans rest on further modernizing for earthquakes.
Likewise, Be Easy’s new taproom in Aomori signals room for growth, but Burns notes the struggle of selling special craft beers made in collaboration with other brewers. The inflated price point at around ¥1,500 for a limited-run beer might not attract as many drinkers.
Still, this doesn’t dissuade Burns from taking risks and exploring new flavors, such as combining his Aomori Ale with apples from local farms. Pushing the envelope as to what the beverage can be without outpacing the desires of loyal fans is synonymous with craft beer’s soul, and in five years, Burns hopes a broader education on flavors will ferment and customers will enjoy beer regardless of cost.
The arc is wide for craft beer in northern Japan. The community is tightknit and supportive of its own. The future is bright — good beer will write the rest of the story.
