If you’re in Fukuoka and you’re into beer, you’re probably going to want to check out the Asahi Brewery tour.
For one thing, it’s absolutely free and there’s quite a bit of beer to sample at the end of the tour, so just based on that alone, it’s probably worth doing.
You have to call them to book a spot in one of their tours; I think they offer a few English tours, though there wasn’t one on the day I booked. Instead, I downloaded an audio guide app that let me (basically) follow along with what the tour guide was saying.
The tour is, for the most part, pretty much exactly what you’d expect — there’s some information on the Asahi company in general, and a very broad overview on how beer is made.
The most interesting stuff comes in the second half of the tour, when you actually get a glimpse at the production process (from behind glass).
You don’t get to watch any of the actual brewing, sadly, but the tour gets to see some of the bottling process, as well as a room where the beer gets purified.
Plus: free beer! At the end of the tour, the group gets to sample three beers: Asahi Super Dry, Asahi Super Dry Extra Cold, and Asahi Black.
Like at the Kirin brewery, I enjoyed the two lagers, and found the third, darker beer to be a bit too thin.
Also like at the Kirin brewery, we were given a little packet of snacks, and an extra can of beer to bring home. I really don’t understand why these Japanese factory tours are so generous, but I’m certainly not complaining.
Location: 3-chōme-1-1 Takeshita, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, 812-0895
How to find it: Once you’re in the area, you’ll see signs pointing the way.