A brewery on an island of 40 people begins with a welcome home

Okayama Prefecture lies in western Honshu, Japan, facing the Seto Inland Sea. Off the coast of Kasaoka in the south-west of the prefecture stretch the Kasaoka Islands, and the southernmost of them is Mushima. The island, known for the oldest lighthouse in the prefecture, has a population of only about 40. At the harbour, a hand-painted sign reading “Okaeri” (a Japanese greeting meaning “welcome back”) greets people as they step off the boat. In 2019, a craft brewery, Mushima Hama Brewery, opened on the island. It was founded by Ryuhei Izeki, 42, from Osaka. A Mainichi Shimbun series that follows communities as their populations shrink looked at the path Izeki has taken.

One glass of happoshu changed his course

Izeki was born and raised in Osaka. After university he took a sales job at a food wholesaler, but chasing sales figures day after day left him wondering whether he could do this work for the rest of his life. When he was 24, his mother told him that the festival on Mushima apparently did not have enough people to carry the mikoshi (a portable shrine for the gods, which many people shoulder and parade through the streets at festivals). His great-grandfather had had a house on Mushima, and as a child he had visited every year on a day trip from Osaka to visit the family grave. It was a comfortable place where time passed slowly.

When he crossed to the island for the first time in a long while, the festival was the next day, yet there was hardly anyone at the harbour. As he walked along the shore, islanders who were warming themselves around an oil-drum fire called out to him. When he said he was the grandson of a grandmother born on the island, they said “Okaeri” and handed him a cold happoshu. Happoshu is a beer-like drink made with a low proportion of malt. That one glass stayed with him, and Izeki began to consider whether he should choose the island, with its warmth between people, or the city, with its fierce competition.

From community support volunteer to brewer

About ten years ago, Izeki came to Mushima as a member of the Community Revitalisation Cooperation Corps and stayed on. The Corps is a Japanese national programme in which people living in cities spend a set period in sparsely populated areas, working on activities for the benefit of the community. After moving, he set up the brewery in 2019, and he still carries on activities to bring the island to life. Even so, Izeki says he feels reserved about being someone from outside the island and does not yet feel accepted by the islanders. “I’ve always thought of myself as an ‘invader’,” he says.

The Brewers Association, the US craft beer trade body, defines a craft brewer as “small and independent”. It also cites, as a related idea, being “connected to the local community”. Izeki’s work, brewing beer on an island of 40 people, can be seen as putting this idea into practice in a very small community.

A way of looking at it when you drink in Europe

It is not clear from this report whether Mushima Hama Brewery’s beer can be bought in Europe. Still, there is a way of looking at things that can help when choosing Japanese craft beer. Check the brewery’s name and location on the label, and find out where and how the beer came to be made before you drink it; the same glass may taste different. Like sake breweries, many small Japanese breweries are closely tied to the life of their locality. You might think of a beer born on an island in the Seto Inland Sea as you pair it with a seafood dish.