For more than two years, the BCI Japan chapter had only held a few “online beer parties,” but of course that wasn’t quite the same as meeting in person. Shinuemon Konishi, a highly deserving member of BierConvent International since 1997, therefore invited our chapter to visit his Konishi Brewery in Itami City at the end of October.

Itami is located on the outskirts of Osaka, near the old Osaka Airport. His company dates back to 1550 and has always produced high-quality sake, rice wine. In 1985, Itami City and Hasselt in Belgium became sister cities. In 1994, Shinuemon Konishi started importing Belgian beer to Japan and in 1995 he started brewing his own craft beers in his brewery. Since 2010, Shinuemon Konishi has been organizing the “Belgian Beer Weekend” in various cities in Japan and he himself serves as chairman of the executive committee.

He and his charming wife Nobuko were gracious hosts and took us on a tour of the entire Konishi Brewery facilities. First we visited the “Fujiyama-kura” where traditional sake is brewed with extreme care. Finally, in the adjacent building, we witnessed the production of craft beer – and here, too, the meticulous craftsmanship was more than impressive. We then marveled at the “Choju-gura,” which had been used as a sake factory for 250 years and renovated into a museum with its own restaurant in 1995. In an exhibition about the traditional history of sake brewing, we marveled at the 130 tools used for sake production and finally we moved to the adjacent restaurant. The chef had conjured up a sumptuous menu especially for us, accompanied by many, many different kinds of beer and sake. Simply delicious!

An all-around successful, happy trip that we will all remember for a long time.