Yo-Ho Brewing, producer of the popular Yona Yona Ale, is one of Japan’s largest and most publicly visible craft breweries. From its iconic hand pumps in bars that basically paved the way for Real Ale in Japan to its eye-catching cans available even in grocery and convenience stores, there are few craft beer consumers in Japan that don’t know about the company.

But fame is one thing, quality, another. Yo-Ho Brewing thankfully succeeds at the latter as well, and has recently begun diversifying its lineup to the delight of many drinkers. With its opening of Beer Kitchen, too, excitement about the brewery is running high. People seem to have forgotten worries that the quality might change with a new brewer at the helm.

A new brewery director is probably a concern for any brewery, but Morita has ably taken the reigns this year and appears eager to help guide Yo-Ho Brewing in ambitious new directions. He’s got confidence, ability and more than a few good ideas he and Inagaki of the marketing division were willing to share with us recently over some beers.

We’ve seen a lot of new beers from you recently. What’s behind that?

The purpose of the zenryaku (“dispensing with the preliminaries”) series is to challenge ourselves to develop new variations to our standard line-up and release them one after another. Beyond that, though, we’re not really expanding our line-up. Yona Yona is still our flagship beer.

How did you get into craft beer originally?

My first encounter with beer was Bass Pale Ale at a British pub in 2002 in Ibaraki, where I was going to school. I had no idea there existed a beer with such rich caramel flavor like that and so I turned to drinking ales. I guess I was lucky to be drinking at that time because Hitachino Nest then won a gold medal at the World Beer Cup (2004; they had also won in 2000)—I heard about that, and that they were brewing in Ibaraki, too, so I turned my attention to craft beer after that. In the beginning, I was drinking quite a bit of Nest! I still remember the flavor of their White Ale even now.

And that’s what made you want to be a brewer?

Yes, even before I graduated I wanted to convey to others the pleasures of ale. I started studying while still in school, basically through books because that’s all there was at the time. Homebrewing was illegal and I was too straight-laced to try. So I approached brewing from the perspective of ingredients. I conducted research on barley specifically because I wanted to eventually join a beer company. I tried to determine why Japanese barley is generally not very good. Most breweries import their malt because of the low quality. I researched the same topic for two years in graduate school as well.

So what’s the culprit?

The monsoon season. Basically the rain falls for so long that the proteins in the barley increase beyond what’s ideal in most cases.

After so many years of research, I guess you have a pretty good idea about the quality of the import malt you get, right?

Yes. I place very high demands on the quality. I guess I expect the same of all the ingredients I use, though.

To take a step back, when did you actually learn practical brewing?

After I joined Yo-Ho in 2008. I learned from the head brewer, who was Ishii Toshiyuki at the time. There was also a veteran of Kirin beer there who was in his 60s—the old guy had quite a bit of knowledge. He was there everyday and used to teach me a lot.

Is there anything that they taught you then that still stands out in your mind?

Ahh, Toshi told me you have to brew with heart and never fail. The older guy taught me that you do have to put in time every day—that was really important for me, actually.

You became the head brewer at the end of last year. Has that come with a lot of pressure?

I don’t really feel any on a day-to-day basis in the brewery, but there’s some when it comes to marketing. Or rather, it’s more like a sense of responsibility–that we’ve got to continually put out really awesome ales.

As the head brewer, to what extent are you able to use your own ideas when creating new beers? Often with larger breweries, the decisions about beer come from the owners not the brewers.

We’ve got a good balance at Yo-Ho Brewing. We work as a team. There are times when the marketing side comes to us with ideas and there are times when we tell them what we’d like to make. There’s no frustration from not being able to make something and at the same time we willingly make stuff for them. We trade ideas back and forth, too.

What ideas has the marketing side brought you?

They’ve asked us to make something with distinctly Japanese ingredients that have never been used in beer. At first they wanted us to use chrysanthemum flowers in something (laughter). That didn’t move forward, but it did inspire us to think about such ingredients–like katsuobushi (bonito flakes), for example.

And what about ideas you brought to them that they thought would be marketable?

The zenryaku series is a prime example. The brewers came up with several ideas and we tried them out on our pilot system. All five of the variations we made were delicious so they got adopted. We plan on releasing them one after another. One example is a sake-inspired beer that uses sake lees and malted rice.

Is there anything that really characterizes Yoho Brewing’s beers?

I think our beers possess a particularly malty flavor. That’s the Yo-Ho-esque character you can taste. We make our beer hoppy, but they always return to that maltiness. Our amber is a good example of that.

What kind of beers would you like to make, but haven’t attempted yet?

There are some things we can’t share at this point, but we definitely want to continue making Japanese-style beers, like something with shiso, for example. We also want to focus more on beers that use Japanese hops. Finally, sour ales. But for now, we’re going to focus on improving what we’re currently brewing.

Will you be brewing any special beers for the new Yona Yona Beer Kitchen in Akasaka-mitsuke?

We’d like to, but we’re still in planning stages. We’ve reserved four taps there for that purpose.

Opening your first taproom was a big accomplishment, but do you have any other large-scale goals on the horizon?

We’re considering lots of things but basically we just want to expand the domestic market. We want to be able to reach people who until now have only had lager beers. That’s our primary goal. And achieving that goal will absolutely involve our penetrating more convenience stores and selling successfully there. That remains a big challenge for us.

Do you drink beers from other breweries and think, wow, I’d like to make something like this?

All the time. Recently, for example, I’ve thought that about Shiga Kogen’s House IPA, Swan Lake’s Imperial Stout, and Coedo’s Session Ale. I also like Daisen G’s Weizen and Gotemba’s as well. Among overseas breweries, I’d say Firestone Walker first. They are wonderful. I go to their festival every year and talk to their brewmaster, Matt Brynildson.

What kind of valuable advice have you gotten from him?

You have to be very precise when brewing beer. Like with yeast, for example, you absolutely have to use the perfect amount of perfect yeast. He’s also taught me barrel aging and dry-hopping techniques–he’s known for that. I’ve learned some good hopping techniques from the guys at Bear Republic, too– their Racer Five is really well done. And from Vinnie at Russian River.

Those are three of some of the most impressive breweries on the U.S. West Coast, if not in all of America. If Yo-Ho Brewing had a festival with them, do you think that your beers could stand shoulder to shoulder with theirs?

I want my beers to be able to. I’m going to try my best. That’s the reason why I’m here, why I’m brewing. I don’t want to simply expand our domestic market, but brew beers to world-class standards.

We think you can do it. Good luck!

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This article was published in Japan Beer Times # () and is among the limited content available online. Order your copy through our online shop or download the digital version from the iTunes store to access the full contents of this issue.