Best Breweries in Japan 2016

Definitely a good idea. I’m going to ask the people I did last year. Will contact the people I know soon and would encourage everyone else to do so too.

Oh, and I guess I should do my list too...

I’d like to hear more people’s opinions from Kansai as well. I know I headed up most of the poll last year but only really reached out to Kanto drinkers. Would love to see if you Kansai guys could get a few beer heads involved (Japanese people as well) who wouldn’t mind submitting.

Took me a while but I’m done I think.

1. Kyoto
2. Yorocco
3. Shiga Kogen
4. Zakkoku
5. Nihonkai
6. Shonan
7. Y Market
8. Fujizakura
9. Daisen
10. Oh La Ho

Bit of a change from last year for me.

Originally posted by TimE
Fujizakura
Y Market
Shiga Kogen
Yorocco
Shonan
Ajb
Devil craft
Kyoto
Hitachino
Song Bird

Lots of other good breweries but I largely didn’t try their beers this year, or they didn’t put out anything new that I tried,so can’t put them on the list.

Tim

Hmm, tough:

Kyoto
Yorocco
Nihonkai
Shiga
Fujizakura
Baeren
Shonan
Y Market
Oni Denstesu
Devil Craft

This was a hard list for me to come up with as outside of a few fest (Ibaraki Bakuon and Craft Beer Holiday) 2016 was mostly memorable for me in terms of hitting Denver and Montreal-Toronto-Vermont, I didn’t go out as much for J-craft this year and while the overall quality has creeped up most places still aren’t really pushing boundaries but all in the above list had at least a few beers in 2016 I rated highly.

I also went down to Miyazaki this year so Hideji almost made the cut. I’ll order them when I have the chance. Shiga Kogen to me was a pleasant surprise in 2016 with Itton, Isseki Sancho and re-releases of Takashi Ichiro coming out throughout the spring/summer taking me by surprise plus the great Hop & Brett.

Cheers KBL. I’ll add it to the list. Guess we should start pressing the other people who might have an opinion about this. I’ll get some top tens from some people up here and add them and would encourage others to do the same.

Cheers!

I base this list on beers I’ve drank and i havent drank as many,this year.



1) DevilCraft.
As far as I’m concerned, thee guys, despite pumping out the brews, havent made an awful beer once. Most range of styles, hitting the styles each time. Beers range from ok to excellent and lets not forget that World Beer Cup gold medal and yes, that impy stout was excellent.
Perhaps the fact that its hard to get Dc beers outside of their taprooms factors into most of your decisions. Im basing mine on actual beers I’ve had.
Disclaimer. The three Devils are friends of mine and have been friends since they were fellow homebrewers.



2) Nihonkai.
Similar reasoning. not as many beers out there but all good to excellent. I can testify that you can drink these beers for days on end and not get bored with them. amazing pilsner right now and dark lager plus lots ofinteresting experimentation. not everything works. The weizen is very drinkable but not a classic example. Stil, great sutff and an interesting variety of styles to choose from.



3) Yorocco.
Tought to choose between this and nihonkai but yorocco have made a few beers i wouldnt buy again. Not horrible, just not my perfect beers. But they are trying to make a wide variety. Yorocco just keeps on improving and experimenting and i love that. Akio is a good freind but being honest, they arent yet top two (for me) but top three is still fucking awesome. IMO way off being top one until they improve their selections and occasionally flavors as some new beers are perhaps experimentations. Applause for the experimentation. Certainly the saison kings of Japan, hands down.



Kyoto - I know and understand why they do it (business safety and being careful) but dont we all just wish they’d stop playing it safe and give Chris and yasunori a chance to flex their creative muscles? Still it makes sense to ’play safe’ and we all know their beers taste good anyhoo, even if we dont know which is which, at times. (>_-). Still, excelent beers and no real stinkers from them.



4) Fujisakura.
Normally good but nothing special but i think they’ve worked hard this year, bringing out some new beers and improving old ones. Pilsner is now excellent whereas it was boring before. However, that shcwarz weizen, not for me.



5) Baird.
another surprise omission from most people. Last year, nope. This year they have improved and continue to improve, beer quality wise. Beer flavor is coming bakc to its heyday and some of the new beers I tried these last few weeks have been pretty good. West Coast Wheat wine in particular. workingmans dark mild, harajuku ale, fire in thebelly all excellent. Some others though still have rom for improvment, imo.
Still, things are getting better for Baird, IMO and they look like improving still.



6) Shiga.
tough one between baird, shiga and y market. Shiga still make enough excellent beers but i acknowledge the bottle carbonation issues that are clear to everyone that is apart from shiga themselves. Still, hitting that harvest fest was amazing and all beers there were excellent. They stil got it when they want to but they are being made to work harder for that recognition.
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8) Y Market. They scored higher for me last year because I drank more of their beers. They promised so much but frankly some beers didnt do it for me. I know that craft brewers dont make beers just for Chuwy and I know my palate and taste is very fussy. Some y market beers have seemed a little strange, to style but some have as always, tasted great. Usually the hoppy beers and some dark beers have been great. The grape beer (niagara grape?) was amazing, for me in Nagoya. i had three pints. I couldnt believe so much pure flavor could go into a beer. As a grape flavored beer, i thought it was close to perfect.
When you promise so much the year before, it is natural for some people to be disappointed the next year. They still make great beers and will be back in the top 5 soon.

.
9) AJB A varied barrel aged program that basically made everyone wonder wether to sign up for it again but great people to talk to and interestingly their house beers are very good and agree wiht tim in that they should learn from this barrel aged thing and improve next year. Keep the faith, they will eventually be the barrel aged guys in japan. shiga does interesting stuff but tom has passion for barrels like no other.


10) Atsugi.
What? shut up!
You try hopslave, this year? small brewery that has shown some real promise this year. Still occasional boring to not good beers (kolsch yeast?) but more hits than misses and under represented in bars, like many other small breweries.

Hard to choose between atsugi and loco. another brewery doing good things now.

honorable mentions to h

another honorable mention to marca, whose first beer i tried was so disgusting. but since then the three or four others have hsown some promise but stil a similar base beer being used for ales.
also tokorozawa. their red ale i had last week was the best beer of the evening, even including knee deep
Also noboribetsu who are improving year after year,