About
Built at the foot of Mount Tsukuba in Ishioka City, Ibaraki Prefecture. Operated by Kiuchi Brewery (est. 1823), famous for Hitachino Nest Beer. Distillation began spring 2020. Building renovated from old community center using local wood. Uses 'Kaneko Golden' Japanese barley revived from craft beer production. Whisky brand 'Hinomaru Whisky' launched 2022. Visitor Center opened November 2023. Aspires to use only Ibaraki-grown barley.
Production Details
The Yasato Tale
At the foot of Mount Tsukuba, where the sacred twin peaks have watched over Ibaraki Prefecture for millennia, an old community center found new purpose in 2020. The Kiuchi family, brewers since 1823, saw possibility in the weathered building—its bones strong enough to house copper stills, its location blessed by the mountain's pure groundwater.
The renovation honored both past and future. Local wood replaced worn beams, creating a stillhouse that breathed with the rhythms of its landscape. This was monozukuri in its truest form—the patient craft of making things right, not merely making things. The Kiuchi family had spent two centuries perfecting this philosophy with their Hitachino Nest Beer, and now they would apply the same devotion to whisky.
When the first distillation began in spring 2020, Mount Tsukuba's groundwater flowed through copper as it had flowed through stone for ages. But the true innovation lay in their choice of grain. Kaneko Golden barley, a Japanese variety they had rescued from near-extinction for their brewing, would now find new life in whisky. Each kernel carried the DNA of Ibaraki's soil, the memory of seasons spent growing under Tsukuba's shadow.
The stillhouse operates with quiet precision, each run guided by principles learned through generations of fermentation. There is no rush here, no compromise with tradition for the sake of speed. The copper speaks in its own time, the barley yields its sugars when ready, the mountain water carries its mineral story into every drop.
In 2022, their whisky emerged under the Hinomaru name—a declaration of place as much as product. By 2023, they opened their doors to visitors, sharing not just their process but their vision: a future where every grain of barley springs from Ibaraki earth, where whisky becomes the liquid expression of this particular corner of Japan.
The stills stand patient beneath Tsukuba's gaze, transforming local grain and ancient water into something entirely new, yet rooted in two centuries of family craft and the eternal rhythm of the mountain.