Ramen chain AFURI teams up with a Chigasaki brewery on a new IPA

AFURI BREWING, the beer division of AFURI Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture), which is known for its yuzu-accented ramen, released a new craft beer, NEO CLASSIC, on 1 October 2026. It was brewed in collaboration with Barbaric WORKS, a small brewery in Chigasaki, a seaside town on the Shonan coast. Kanagawa Prefecture lies just south-west of Tokyo; Atsugi is inland, while Chigasaki is known as a surfing town. The style is a classic American IPA with an alcohol content of 5.5% and a restrained 28 on the IBU scale, the measure of bitterness. The ingredients are British malt, hops and orange peel. The 350 ml cans are sold at AFURI’s restaurants, on its official online shop and at some retailers, while the draught version is served at venues such as the directly run shop of Ando Shoten, a liquor retailer in Fujisawa. It is a limited-quantity release and will end once stocks run out.

Hand-crumbled whole hops

At the heart of this beer are the whole hops that Barbaric WORKS uses in almost all of its brews. Japanese breweries generally use pellets, made by grinding and compressing the hops, but some of the aroma compounds are said to be lost in that processing. Whole hops are the harvested cones simply dried, and this time too the brewers crumbled them by hand, one at a time, before adding them. The aim was not an intense aroma or bitterness, but the soft, natural fragrance of the hop itself. The finished beer is described as an easy-drinking IPA: a showy aroma reminiscent of citrus and tropical fruit, layered with a fresh pine and herbal note, a gentle bitterness and a pleasant body.

A friendship born of surfing and a glass of beer

Naoki Inoue and Tatsuya Inoue, the brewers at AFURI BREWING, had long travelled to Chigasaki to surf. It began when a local senior, Mr Tanaka, who runs a glass shop, took them to Gold’nBuB. The brewery attached to that venue is Barbaric WORKS, and drinking with its owner, Pancho, eventually led to the request for a joint brew. Although its equipment is modern, Barbaric WORKS deliberately values the handwork of earlier generations, upholding what it calls “irrational effort”, and has built a distinctive world of its own that extends to its venue and culture. For the AFURI side, it had long been something to admire.

A collaboration on the road to its own brewery

AFURI BREWING is currently working towards launching its own brewery, gaining experience through contract and collaborative brewing with breweries across the country. Even with contract brews, its own brewers are involved in designing the recipe, and they are trying to transfer to beer the ideas they have honed in ramen making: “designing aroma”, “depth and finish” and “harmony with food”. A ramen restaurant entering beer in earnest is one example of how the distance between Japanese food and drink and craft beer is narrowing.

For European readers, chances of getting hold of this limited can directly will be few. Still, what deserves attention is the commitment of a small Japanese brewery to handling whole hops by hand rather than using pellets. IPAs made with whole hops can also be found in Europe, so it may be worth tasting one alongside a pellet-based IPA to compare the softness of the aroma and the character of the bitterness, which could reveal the direction this beer was aiming for. Its citrus and herbal aromas also seem well suited to dishes made with yuzu or ginger, and to light, salt-based noodle dishes.