If there’s one place to grab a beer in Hokkaido, the Sapporo Beer Museum is it. The name “museum” makes it sounds like a place with the beer behind glass with little placards, but that’s pretty far from the truth. Here we could sample all the beers Sapporo wants to win over consumers with in a friendly environment and low priced glasses while it extolls the storied history of Sapporo’s most amazing product. In other words, I came expecting a lesson in brand communication, but instead learned the early history of Hokkaido development because Sapporo Beer is a part of that history. (And also drank a bunch of beer.)

The beer museum is in Sapporo Beer’s former Daini Koba (Plant No.2) malt factory; originally a beet sugar factory erected in 1890 and taken over by Sapporo Beer in 1903. Architecturally it’s the kind of very German-looking red brick factory I find attractive. Before entering I circled the building to capture it from every angle and one of the things that stood out was the red star motif around the building. Not just the big red one on the stack, but worked into glass windows and at the peak of gables. Why a comrade-pleasing red star?

The premium tour we’d signed up for explained that and more. We were three days into our Hokkaido history trip but it wasn’t until this beer museum that I’d been told the story of the Kaitakushi. (Kaitakushi had been tangentially explained in Abashiri and Otaru so I didn’t know its story.)

Ezo had been claimed by Matsumae Domain for centuries but never developed and it was populated almost entirely by indigenous Ainu people. When the Meiji Restoration occurred in 1868 the new Imperial government wanted to shore up their claim to the island and its bountiful resources. To this end Ezo was renamed Hokkaido and the Kaitakushi, Hokkaido colonization or development office, was formed to develop it the following year. (“Kaitaku” is literally “pioneering” so the exact translation is never precise and seems to shift with decades and official policy.)

The Japanese had little experience pioneering so Kaitakushi Director Gen. Kuroda Kiyotaka hired U.S. Agricultural Commissioner Horace Capron to advise them. They turned to America for support because of the nation’s experience taming frontiers, familiarity with the climate and because the U.S. lacked the Far Eastern colonial ambitions of the European powers that may have wanted Hokkaido for themselves.

Capron and his team recommended numerous new industries that the Kaitakushi could undertake to best utilize Hokkaido’s resources and leverage its geography and climate to their advantage, which is comparable to the Midwest. Among these industries was beer brewing.

The red star on the beer label and on the smokestack is the same star on the Kaitakushi flag. In its day the red Pole Star was the ubiquitous brand mark for all products from beer to canned salmon that came from the Kaitakushi factories.

Nakagawa Seibei, a Japanese expat who’d become a brew master in Germany was hired to begin brewing lager for the Kaitakushi Brewing Company in 1876 at its first brewery in Sapporo. (The beer museum shows a dramatic video about Nakagawa and his interesting life story.)

The beer museum takes the story from there all the way to the modern day, sharing the highs, lows and struggles of what would become Sapporo Beer. I was less interested in the later parts but it was still a good story and I’d learned about the early development of both Hokkaido and Sapporo in the process. As a bonus they have a wall of old beer ads going back almost a century and I’m a sucker for vintage advertising. Also, it had beer.

Sapporo beer produces a good number of beers that are only sold on Hokkaido and one, Kaitakushi Beer, is only sold in this museum as it recreates one of the original beers. Just for more premium-ness, the draft 1876 lager which recreates Nakagawa’s original beer can only be had by taking the premium tour.

Both beers are excellent and the premium tour is the only way to go. The draft lager was exciting because I rarely get to try historic beers. It was not what I expected. The flavor was mild and slightly sweet with just a touch of sourness on the finish, which was not unpleasant. It’s just a shame that the tour only comes with one glass and no refills because I could drink like a pioneer all day long.

Not that pioneers could afford beer, it was a relatively expensive and difficult to ship and store product in the days before modern refrigeration. According to Sapporo’s somehow not-a-beer museum in Hita, Kumamoto Prefecture, in 1904 a bottle of beer cost 20 sen (the cent to the yen’s dollar), or 10 bowls of soba noodles. So eat dinner and lunch for a week, or have a beer. Tough call.

Surrounding the beer museum and inside part of the old factory are multiple Sapporo Beer restaurants, each with a different atmosphere and meal options. We ate at Lilac and tried its Genghis Khan, which is do-it-yourself Mongolian barbeque. I think it’s the unofficial prefectural dish of Hokkaido. Lamb and beef were two other industries that came to Hokkaido by way of the Kaitakushi’s American advisors. They recommended new industries that didn’t really exist in Japan and sadly it would be decades before markets developed for them due to the rather conservative Japanese palate.

We came at what is probably the most beautiful time for the beer museum, mid-winter. Snow is on the ground and the area lights up like Christmas after dark.

Is the Sapporo Beer Museum an excursion in marketing? Very much so, but a surprisingly informative one that made for a great evening. The museum can be toured for free, but the guided tour (Japanese brand communicator and English translations) with 1876 lager tasting is 500 yen and I recommend signing up a little earlier in the week to guarantee a spot. Beside the 1876 lager it also came with a full glass of Sapporo black label so it’s a guided tour with two beers, essentially the cost of admission pays for the beer. For those taking the free tour the museum itself is entirely bilingual.

ADDRESS
9 Chome-1-１ Kita 7 Johigashi, Sapporo, Hokkaido 065-8633
011-748-1876
http://www.sapporobeer.jp/brewery/english/s_museum/index.html