A few years ago, our good friends Zach and April, hosted a beer tournament at their home for Zach’s birthday. It was a bracket style tournament and the rules were that each guest brought a six pack of beer, which April poured into small unmarked containers. Then at each round of the bracket, everyone tasted two different beers and voted on the winner, which would progress until the next round. It was a lot of fun and after many many rounds, a winner was declared: Hitochino White (which coincidentally, had been my entry). Ever since then, it has been high on my list of favorite beers so when we learned that the brewery was close to where we would be, we knew we had to go!
After some internet investigation, I learned that 1) the brewery was damaged quite heavily in the earthquake but had just reopened, 2)all of the products had recently been verified to be radiation-free and 3) it required three trains to get there because it was located in the middle of nowhere. So upon leaving Nikko, we asked the friendly JR (Japan Railway) agent to book us tickets on all of the necessary trains, then we set off with our big backpacks in tow. A few hours later, we arrived at the proper station, which is in the middle of a field, with a wood working shop nearby and not much else. We had seen a big sign (with a small map) for Kiuchi Brewery so we knew we were in the right area and we took off walking.
We arrived 15 minutes and later, and the staff had no idea what to do with us. In the sleepy town of Hitachi-Konousu, they aren’t used to English-speaking backpackers stumbling in with all their gear. They did their best to accommodate us and they dragged a woman up front the back office to be our host because she spoke the most English. We got it across that although the brewery was known for sake, we really wanted to taste all the different beers and so we did… and they were wonderful. Halfway through, a young japanese couple and their friend came in too, and after striking up a brief conversation, they bought us an extremely expensive glass of 1986 sake.
The brewery was a lot of fun, but we knew it was time to finally head to Tokyo because Amanda’s friend Stefanie had now arrived. So we filled our bags with bottles of beer and sake and took off back to the train station.
On another Hitachino note, I recently tried their 3-Day – it’s beer that had to be abandoned in the mash and boil stage when everyone evacuated after the earthquake. When they returned after 3 days, the plan was to discard the mixture, but after some tasting, they loved it and bottled it. Apparently only 8,000 bottles were produced, only 5,000 sent to the US. I got one at City Beer a few weeks ago – very good!!