The second spot report on craft beers is that of Tama-no-megumi Beer produced by Ishikawa Brewery (Ishikawa-shuzo). Tama-no-megumi means “the blessing of Tama” which is the name of an area where the brewery is located and also the name of a river in the area.
Access: Tokyo (local train 0:52) Haijima (walk 0:15) @
A bottle of Tama-no-megumi beer with Tama-gawa River
Ishikawa Brewery is an old sake brewery since 1863. And they started brewing beer in 1998.
Before going to the brew pub, Webmaster joined a brewery tour which took for about one hour.
Hongura Warehouse built in 1880 and tanks in the warehouse. It smelled of “fermentation” there. According to the guide, as the wall is very thick the inside temperature is naturally kept stable throughout the year which is one of important factors for brewing sake with quality.
This is the microbrewery of beer. One of old warehouses called Mukogura is used for the purpose.
Ishikawa Brewery once started brewing beer in 1887 but it didn’t last long because the market was not matured enough. This huge iron pot was used for brewing beer in those days and is adorned here to commemorate the history.
Besides them, there are many historic and impressive buildings and monuments.
This is the shop named “Sake cellar”.
At the end of the tour, webmaster had sake tasting of three kinds at one corner of the shop.
The line-up of craft beers sold in the shop. Of course they sell sake, too.
After the tour, webmaster took the craft beer with my friend at the brew-pub/restaurant named Fussano-biru-goya in the same precincts.
In fact the foods and drinks were very nice and we ordered many dishes and, of course, other glasses of beer. However, as we concentrated on drinking, eating and talking, few photos were taken. Sorry…
I was time to leave.
When we left, the warehouse still stands there with dignity.
End.