Asahi Brewery in Moriya

It's a fairly open secret that all of Japan's leading beer manufacturers (Asahi, Kirin, Suntory and Sapporo) conduct free tours of each of their brewery facilities nationwide. Having frequented such tours by most of them, it's fun to see how competitive they are at putting on the best tour possible and Asahi's efforts at their Moriya facility are no exception.

Like most of these tours, the Asahi Moriya tour takes a familiar schedule, starting with a 10 minute video introduction, before a wider 30-40 minute tour begins, roughly following the beer production lifecycle, from hop to glass. Learn about how and where they source their ingredients (essentially malted barley, hops and water, sourced from the 'Asahi Forest' in Hiroshima) before moving on to learn about the distillation, filtration and fermentation processes used at the factory plant.

Next up comes canning, packaging and some insight into recycling efficiency in the production process, where Asahi is proud to reveal they recycle 100% of materials used in the production process. If you visit on a weekend, often the production line will be switched off so you may not have a chance to visually appreciate the ridiculously fast rate at which beer can be produced, aside from the video demonstrations.

The brewery in Moriya, Ibaraki, can claim to be Asahi's state-of-the-art flagship brewery, being the largest and the newest. Built back in 1991, this facility serves most of the Kanto area, with dozens of shiny, metallic storage tanks on site looking after the sheer volumes of beer produced each day. Each one stores over 4000 years worth of beer for a single person (if they were to consume one can per day).

Of course, most of the tour proceedings just drag out the inevitable wait for what is arguably the main event: free beer! As the tour finishes, guests are escorted to the top-floor sky bar to relax over a couple of drinks. Here you'll get to try perhaps the freshest draft Asahi Super Dry you can get your hands on, alongside degree panoramic views over central Ibaraki with Mount Tsukuba on the horizon – simply stunning on clear day. It is a great way to finish off the tour, and several varieties of Asahi beers are available to try. You're limited to 3 alcoholic drinks over a 20 minute period, alongside a wider range of unlimited soft drinks that Asahi also produce.

Whilst the tour itself is in conducted in Japanese, the tour path is well sign-posted with useful information in English, Chinese and Korean too, making it easy understand for overseas visitors. From my experience, this is not usually the case so this is definitely an indication of the facility's modern approach and its relatively easy access to visitors.

If you are the 'designated driver' when visiting by car, you will have to wear a special pass which excludes you from drinking any alcoholic options – also relevant for cyclists. However, the facility is not far from Moriya Station (Tsukuba Express) and there is also a shuttle bus available that can ferry visitors back and forth.