If you were to divide the population of Japanese cities by the number of craft beer breweries and bars in those respective cities, you’d discover some surprising results. Sure, Tokyo seems to be overflowing with craft beer bars, but its bars-per-capita ratio is hurt by the massiveness of the city. Yokohama may have the largest concentration of brewpubs and bars in a central area, but the suburbs have few options. Osaka is finally heating up with several new openings, but still has a long way to go. Kyoto boasts four breweries, but still begs for more places serving craft. Maybe Sapporo sits atop the throne? Nope, probably Atsugi, Kanagawa.

For such a small town to have three breweries and a handful of bars serving craft doesn’t really owe to the nearby American military base. The good Kanagawa water that services several other breweries in the prefecture helps. So does relatively cheaper land. In the end, however, it seems more like a simple matter of fate.

Atsugi Beer is naturally associated with the city because of shared name, though its fame as a brewery of boldly flavored beers has spread like a ripple across Japan. Chalk some of that up to the popularity of Hopslave, a super-hoppy high-alcohol palate bomb born of collaboration between Thrashzone, Yokohama’s Katsuki Koichi (who designed the hop blend) and brewer Mochizuki Hideki. At the Japan Craft Beer Selection festival in November, 2010, the beer won top honors and has been a darling of beer geeks since. But don’t attribute its quality and popularity to its hop character alone. Mochizuki asserts that the secret to all his beers is in the yeast.

Yeast is certainly the component to a beer’s flavor profile that’s often overlooked by average drinkers typically more prone to pick up on the hops or malt flavors. Mochizuki considers yeast the key to flavor and has been experimenting for years with various strains and even unique blends of yeast.

“I believe you should cultivate yeast yourself because it’s so important to the flavor, and for that same reason making blends also has a lot of meaning to me as a brewer.”

The original brewer at Echigo beer, Bawa Demuyakor, impressed on Mochizuki the importance of yeast, apparently cautioning him not to go half-assed in his studies and cultivation. Mochizuki developed most of his brewing knowledge at Yamato Budôshû, a winery in Yamanashi that also began producing craft beer in the late 90s. Before joining, Mochizuki was just a salary man looking for a new way in life.

“A German brewer came and taught us for a couple of months and then for the next two years, I made German beer.”

After his time in Yamanashi, he returned home to Atsugi, where his family was. As fate would have it, Atsugi beer, launched by prefectural congressman Horie Noriyuki, was in need of another brewer. Mochizuki signed on and then transitioned from making German beers to Belgian-style ones. Atsugi Beer still sells itself as Belgian-style, though the nine beers Mochizuki currently makes are as varied as his Hopslave is bold.

The brewpub and restaurant is a little off the beaten track, and Atsugi is a small town, so selling beer has not been easy for Mochizuki. His current focus, consequently, is soliciting house beers for bars that want their very own brew. It’s a new trend and with his great success in this so far, it seems likely he’ll have a few more customers soon.

Many might not have known that Sankt Gallen is based in Atsugi, though it’s certainly the biggest, most high-profile brewery in the region. Their beers are among the most drinkable in the industry—well-balanced and approachable, with flavors especially popular among those new to craft beer, or those not partial to the more extreme beers on the market. Choosing to produce a subtler line of beers has brought Sankt Gallen notable success. So has astute marketing. But perhaps the greatest reason for the brewery’s rise to prominence has been owner/brewer Iwamoto Nobuhisa’s years of dedication.

In this year’s winter issue, we reported that Echigo was Japan’s first craft brewery. True, they were the first to register in Japan after the tax laws changed in 1994 to allow for smaller scale brewing. But Sankt Gallen can perhaps call itself the original craft brewery.

Iwamoto’s father, Mitsuo, traveled to the U.S. in 1989 where he discovered craft beer and later started homebrewing, hoping one day to have a brewpub in Japan. Laws in Japan at the time, unfortunately, only allowed licenses for breweries that could produce two million liters a year—only big breweries, in effect. He cleverly saw a way around the daunting obstacle.

In 1992 he went back to the U.S. to apply for a license, finally receiving it in 1993. With some brewing training of his own under his belt, Nobuhisa meanwhile opened a brewpub in Roppongi that would make non-alcohol beer—Japan’s tax laws didn’t prohibit that. Then Mitsuo began producing beer in the U.S. and exporting it to Japan to be served in the brewpub where Nobuhisa was brewing the non-alcoholic beer. What was the point?

“We wanted people to have the brewpub experience, to see how beer was actually made. But we also had the real beer, imported from America.”

It was a brilliant plan with some interesting lore: Bryan Baird of the now-famous Baird Beer used to come to the brewpub to help and learn, years before he had his own brewery! The operation carried them until 1997, when they closed down the brewpub, bought all new equipment and set up their brewery in Atsugi. Seemingly poised for success, Sankt Gallen nevertheless struggled.

Nobuhisa laments, “It was really rough in the beginning. We opened right as the boom was ending. We had bought lots of equipment, thinking to produce at high volume for lower price, but sales in the industry were steadily dropping. 2000 was the worst.”

Circumstances so deteriorated, in fact, that they couldn’t pay their taxes and thus couldn’t extend their license. The brewery closed.

With something of his father’s spirit, though, Nobuhisa was determined to make it work. He reapplied for his license in 2001 and after receiving it again in 2002, threw himself into it.

He laughs now, “I’ve actually had to apply for my brewing license four times now: once in the U.S., once at Roppongi, and twice with this brewery.”

From 2002 he committed to focusing on quality and worked mostly without much help, until 2005 when he started making more money and was able to bring on new staff. The brewery has been resolutely humming since then. A great part of that business success must be attributed to Nakagawa Miki, who handles marketing for the company.

Widely recognized for her skill in the game, Nakagawa has initiated some of their most successful beers. After professing that she liked chocolate notes, the two came up with the seasonal chocolate stout in 2006, which is ridiculously popular around Valentine’s Day. She’s also done marvels for the company’s sales with savvy internet marketing and other multi-media exposure. Roughly 70% of Sankt Gallen’s sales come from bottles, which Nobuhisa notes is “very important for pushing our brand.”

While Nakagawa can claim marketing and branding clout, the beers themselves deserve credit. Yokohama XPA is both a branding coup and a good beer born when Takashimaya department store contacted them about producing something for Yokohama. Iwamoto suggested using Yokohama water, which they got from the city water department. The recently popular Shonan Gold uses oranges of the same name for a delightfully refreshing, slightly sweet brew.

Sankt Gallen seems to be approaching capacity, and it’s unclear what the brewery will do if they become even more successful. Says Nobuhisa, “I don’t know if I want to expand. I like the size of it now. It feels like my company—I work with my people in this intimate environment.” Said like a true craft brewer!

Most casual consumers of craft beer would be forgiven for not knowing Sagami Beer. It’s not widely available and the brewery, Koganei Shuzô, is better known for having produced sake since 1818. The brewery is still owned by the Koganei family, though current president, Koganei Yasumi, is actually a doctor whose small country hospital is right beside the brewery! He is still involved in the craft beer scene and has been acting as the chairman of the Japan Brewers Association for a couple of years.

Tucked into the rural, mountainous area beyond Atsugi city, Sagami Beer has been producing very basic, but very clean and drinkable beers since 1998: alt, kölsch, pale ale, stout and a seasonal weizen. Koganei decided to embark on beer brewing as a way to lift the area and to complement their line-up of traditional alcoholic beverages.

Explains Koganei, “Sake and shochu have always been brewed during the winter season, but I wanted to demonstrate that we could brew year round. Also, during the hot summer months, I wanted to have some additional products to sell. Those ideas came together and I kind of thought, well, why not have beer made by a sake brewery? And that’s how this came about.”

The beer is sold to a number of hotels in the region, while the company’s Italian restaurant, Selvaggina, located within sight of the brewery, unloads a considerable volume. With a ¥2000 all-you-can-drink special, how could they not? Throw in their oven-fired pizzas and you have quite a feast.

Sagami Beer head brewer Iizuka Eiji is also in charge of brewing operations for nihonshû and shôchu, and brings considerable knowledge to the process. For his brews he uses the Tanzawa area’s delicious water, dry yeast, Canadian malt and German hop. Assistant brewer Kiyono Hiroki also provides worthy support. A graduate of Nôdai in Tokyo, where he learned brewing techniques, Kiyono used to travel widely by bicycle, sampling beers where he stopped. He confesses to really wanting to develop his own recipe and brew a strong, hoppy American-style beer, but it seems unlikely the conservative Koganei will relent. There’s always homebrewing!

The brewery occasionally offers tours followed by an all-you-can-eat-and-drink course at the restaurant for just ¥3500. If you’re traveling all the way out, you may want to consider some of the many hot spring resorts in the Tanzawa area. Trekking courses weave through the mountains, too. Nothing like beer after a long hike.

Atsugi city seems to be finally catching on to craft beer. Beyond Atsugi Beer’s brewpub, Green Bud is a bona fide craft beer bar with eight to fourteen taps and about seventy bottles of some of the best craft selections available in Japan. The curiously named “café & bar a# 1:07”, or simply “A-sharp”, is a funky little joint with three taps and roughly 100 bottles of beer. For great food options, Sunface serves up scrumptious Italian to pair with a selection from either Sankt Gallen or Atsugi. Bar Amaro has a slightly larger selection of draft and also serves Italian-inspired food.