The Kiuchi Brewery was established in 1823 by Kiuchi Gihei, the headman of Kounosu village. His family was collecting rice from farmers as land taxes for the Mito Tokugawa family. He began his brewery with the idea of using the remaining rice stocks in the warehouse. At this time in Japan a new political movement began to reform the Tokugawa regime. Fujita Toko, one of the movement's activists, advocated an ideology to build a new organizational government with a reverence of the emperor, and his thought led to the Meiji Restoration.
Fujita was a close friend of Kiuchi, who named one of his sakes "KIKUSAKARI" as a respect to the emperor. KIKU (chrysanthemum) is a crest of the imperial household, and SAKARI means 'property'.
Mikio Kiuchi inherited the brewery legacy in 1950. At that time the sake industry flourished with the rapid growth of Japan's economy after World War II. Although many sake breweries started mass producing low quality sake due to increased demand, Kiuchi Brewery maintained their policy of pursuing the best quality of sake with the optimum ingredients and craftsman-ship.
Kiuchi started their beer brewing business in autumn of 1996 and named the brand "HITACHINO NEST BEER" with the unique owl character logo. Over the years, Kiuchi Brewery has gained Japanese and worldwide attention by winning awards at numerous world beer competitions.
Kiuchi then built a distillation facility in March 2003. to aid with recycling and reducing waste, beginning with the production of "Shochu Kiuchi", a distilled liquor made from Sakekasu (Sake lees), which is the by-product of Sake Brewing.
The latest project for Kiuchi is a winery where they have purchased 4000 square meters of land next to the brewery. The grape seedlings, Merlot and Chardonnay, were imported from France and the first crop was produced in 2000.
Please Note - Western Australian Distribution Only
Click on any of the above images to view the wonderful beers of Kiuchi
