Kiuchi Brewery
In Japan, Monday January 8, 2007 was Coming of Age Day. This is a holiday that celebrates all the boys and girls throughout Japan who become 20 year olds during the previous year (or is it the year to come). The importance of this is that 20 years old is majority in Japan. That means it is legal for these former children to go into a bar and drink a beer or whatever.
This is actually a public holiday in Japan and many communities celebrate the coming of age of these young adults. On this day, 20 year olds dress in their best kimono and gather at official celebration points. I should have taken pictures, and I am sorry I didn’t… Many, many beautiful kimono were on parade.
Since it was a public holiday, I did not have to go to work. How should one celebrate coming of age day? Why of course, go to a brewery and brew your own beer! OK, maybe not, but that’s what I did.
I went to Kiuchi Brewery in Kounosu near Mito.
Like many breweries, people can tour the facility and sample all the fantastic beers. As Kiuchi also makes Nihon shu and shochu, one can sample those as well. I tried several Nihon shu, for those not in the know, Nihon shu is what is commonly called sake or rice wine. Shochu is essentially a vodka distilled spirit. The Nihon shu are also very wonderful.
Kiuchi has a unique program where interested people can use their small batch facilities to brew their own beer. It’s a program called Brew on Premises.
My beer cooking in lucky number 7.
They guide the novice though the brewing process, though the various stages right up to adding yeast. They take care of the fermentation process and the bottling and ship it to you three weeks later.
So I spent my Coming of Age day making my own unique brew that I’ve named “Sharra’s Peculiar Nana Dark Pale Ale”. I also designed a custom label with Nana’s picture.
FYI this is Nana.
I can’t wait to try it. I have two weeks to go. I was told that many young couples come up to Kiuchi before their wedding day and create a custom beer together to serve at their wedding reception. They create custom labels to commemorate their special day. It seems to me a very nice thing to do.
By the way, the Kiuchi Brewery is a beautiful old facility (see the pictures above). The Kiuchi Brewery was established in 1823 by Kiuchi Gihei, the headman of Kounosu village. I am surprised that the Kiuchi brewery does not have more photos on their website of the brewery because it is truly a historic place. The link to the website is http://www.kodawari.cc/. They have an English web page. All the information is accurate, even if it hasn’t been updated recently.
I’ve stolen some of their pictures for this entry as I didn’t take too many pictures when I went there. If you go, watch out for the low doorways, remember this was built in 1823! And if you go, be sure to try Kiuchi’s Hitachino White Beer, it is very delicious.