Meiji's spirit of entrepreneurship and the history of Japan's industrial modernism

The name of the beer brewed here at the time is Kabuto Beer. Mechanical engineers and brewing engineers had been coming from Germany at the dawn of Japan's beer brewing to satiate the country's thirst for brewing knowledge, and this helped to spark Kabuto Beer, a company with an entrepreneur spirit as it sought to become a large-scale brewer when beer was not as widely popular as it is today. In 1900, during the Paris Expo, Kabuto Beer even took the Gold Medal as proof of its high quality flavors. However, during the Pacific War, production halted as the Handa Red Brick Building became a hangar for the Nakajima Aircraft Company. It then became a cornstarch factory after the war, but came into possession of Red Brick Club Handa, an organization working to preserve the structure's architecture, in 2005 and brought back the brewing of Kabuto Beer. The limited amount of 3,000 bottles sell out in no time, now earning the beer the nickname the "Ghost Beer".

Drink daft Kabuto beer at a cafe and peruse the quaint shop

The Handa Red Brick Building reopened after renovations in 2015 to withstand earthquakes. It now also offers visitors cuisine using local ingredients as well as draft Kabuto Beer at Cafe and Beer Hall Re-BRICK. A shop too now resides in the building with specialty items from the surrounding Chita Peninsula as well as the Kabuto Beer—the Ghost Beer—itself.