(Ibaraki-Ken, JAPAN) – Hitachino Nest Ancient Nipponia will make its debut later this year.

B. United will import around 900 cases (12 * 550 ml bottles) to the States in June or July. 6.5% ABV.

Here is the history behind this ancient ale:

“Kiuchi Brewery succeeded in reproducing ‘Kaneko Golden,’ the first beer malt in Japan. This Nipponia is brewed using only this malt.

We use ‘Sorachi Ace’ as the hop, one which was once breeding in Hookaido and now is cultivated in Washington D.C.

The color Nipponia is gold, worthy of the name, and the flavour is like a lemon produced by Sorachi Ace.

About 180 years ago, beer was brought into Japan from Holland and USA. At that time, Japan closed the country to foreigners.

Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu tasted beer and was surprised at the taste. And some men started to brew beer in Japan.

But at that time there was no barley for beer in Japan so they used barley for noodle. After opening the country, William Copland started beer brewing as business in Yokohoma, which is the origin of Kirin beer. Soon he noticed that they need to cultivate the original barley for beer which matches with Japanese weather.

Mr. Kaneko who was a big farmer started to make a new seed of barley by mixing Japanese ancient barley for noodle and imported barley for beer. He found mixing Shikoku, good barley for noodle, and Golden Melon, American barley, was good and he named this new barley as Kaneko Golden.

This Kaneko golden became popular in Japan before the Second World War. After the Second World War, Japanese government ordered to combine some beer companies and made big Kirin beer. Sapporo beer and Asahi beer, and they requested to cultivate more economical barley for farmers. So Kaneko Golden disappeared in the 1960s.

A few years ago Mr. Kiuchi acquired sixteen seeds (16!) from the Department of Agricultural History in Japan. He started to plant those sixteen seeds on a two sq. ft area about five years ago. After the first harvest, they planted all new seeds again …. and did the same the next year and so forth. Last year’s harvest yielded, for the first time, enough Kaneko Golden Malt [6T = 6 tons?] to brew the first batch of ‘Ancient Nipponia.’

This is our challenge but we hope to brew ancient and traditional beer from Japanese materials.”