OUR PHANTOM BREWERY
Hokkaido looms large in my imagination: jagged mountains, deep snow, and pristine forests full of wild animals. As a brewer, Hokkaido is especially close to my heart. The farmers there grow a highly-prized rice used in making traditional Japanese beer and sake. I feel fortunate, in my travels, to have lived there twice. Like any place bounded by wilderness, it harbors mysteries.
When I was a child growing up in Tokyo, my mother would tell me Japanese fairy tales about supernatural creatures called Yokai. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of different kinds of Yokai, spirits who haunt the mountains, forests, and oceans of Japan—each with their own purpose of creating either good luck, mischief, or harm.
As I’ve moved around the world, that sense of Hokkaido and those childhood fairy tales have always traveled with me. And now, living in Bozeman, Montana, I feel these two parts of my imagination have combined to inspire something new. A new adventure in joining flavors from anywhere in the world. A New Hokkaido, of sorts. I’m hoping it just might lead to something really good to drink.