日本語で読む | This is the English version of a bilingual article.
Today’s Pairing
- Craft beer: Monkey Mountain “Porter” — English-style porter, 5% ABV, 330ml, brewed with pale malt, hops and ale yeast; a toasty, coffee-like aroma with a firm bitterness and a crisp finish that keeps shifting as it warms in the glass. Awarded bronze at the International Beer Cup 2020 / Monkey Mountain Co., Ltd. (2-4-15 Funai-machi, Oita City, Oita Prefecture)
Official site: https://www.monkeybeer.co.jp/ - Music: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu2gAqn4I2A
▶ If the player above doesn’t play, open it on YouTube
The Story of the Brewery
Darren Everberg, who runs Monkey Mountain, grew up in Oregon in the thick of American craft beer culture and started brewing his own beer at around 20. He worked for years as a semiconductor engineer while keeping up homebrewing as a hobby for nearly two decades. At 39, he moved to Japan, to his wife’s home country — only to find that homebrewing simply wasn’t legal under Japan’s liquor tax law, forcing him to set the hobby aside.
After eventually settling in Oita City, Darren decided to get his own brewing license and open a shop. He began preparing in 2017 with help from an acquaintance, but understanding Japan’s regulations and lining up distribution and a storefront took what locals describe as “two years, start to finish.” He incorporated Monkey Mountain Co., Ltd. in June 2018, and on February 1, 2019, opened a small, roughly 50-square-metre taproom and brewery in Funai-machi, Oita’s downtown district within walking distance of the train station. He cultivates three strains of yeast himself and switches between them depending on the beer, and is exacting about malt quality and hop freshness. Darren himself has said that the water nurtured by Oita’s mountains is close to the water quality back home in Oregon. One of his flagship beers, Porter, is built on pale malt for a toasty, coffee-like aroma, with a firm bitterness and a crisp finish — and it won bronze at the International Beer Cup 2020.
The Story of the Land
The brewery’s name, Monkey Mountain, comes from one of Oita City’s landmarks: Takasakiyama. Takasakiyama Natural Zoo, which opened on March 15, 1953, is a place where wild Japanese macaques simply live as free-ranging troops. After feeding the monkeys there succeeded starting in 1952, researchers from Kyoto University became the first in the world to identify individual wild monkeys within a troop and record their social rank. The zoo opened with just one troop of 220 monkeys, Troop A; Troop B split off from it in August 1959, and Troop C split off again in March 1964 — new troops continuing to form on the same mountain ever since. Long known in English simply as “Monkey Mountain,” this is the very mountain the brewery is named after.
Takasakiyama sits on the border between Oita City and Beppu City, along National Route 10. It’s about a 20-minute drive from the brewery in Funai-machi — and continuing on from there takes you into Beppu, one of Japan’s premier hot spring resort towns.
The Story of the Song
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was written by the celebrated Motown songwriting duo Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Released as a duet single by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in April 1967 and included on their album United, it reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1970, Diana Ross recorded a solo cover that went on to hit number one on both the US pop and R&B charts, making the song far more widely known. Its lyrics — that no mountain is high enough, no valley low enough, and no river wide enough to keep the singer from reaching the one they’re going to — are about an unshakeable resolve to arrive, no matter the obstacle.
Why This Pairing
For Darren, the “mountain” was both the literal distance across the Pacific and the regulatory wall of Japan’s liquor tax law. He held onto the skills he’d built in America, pushed through the “two years, start to finish” it took to get licensed, and finally opened his own shop in 2019. Set against that path, the song’s line — that no mountain, no river, is wide enough to stop me from getting there — lines up almost exactly with the road he walked.
Takasakiyama, the mountain the brewery is named after, tells a different kind of story: generations of monkeys have been born, split into new troops, and carried on there for more than 70 years — a story of simply staying put, generation after generation. Someone who crossed an ocean to arrive, and troops of monkeys that have never left the mountain at all: the directions are opposite, but both stories stand on the same word, mountain.
Where to Find This Beer
The Rakuten Ichiba link below is an affiliate link.
- Brewery official site：https://www.monkeybeer.co.jp/
- Search on Rakuten Ichiba：see results for “Monkey Mountain ポーター”
These are Japanese storefronts. If you are visiting the brewery, drinking it fresh at their own taproom is by far the best option.
Pairing Dishes Worth Trying
- Dango-jiru
An Oita specialty: flat, hand-stretched wheat dumplings simmered with root vegetables like taro and burdock in a miso-based broth. The Porter’s toasty roast and light bitterness cut cleanly through the miso’s umami and the vegetables’ sweetness.
Recipe: Cookpad, “Oita’s Local Dish: Dango-jiru” (Japanese) - Yaseuma
Another Oita specialty: flat, noodle-like wheat dough, boiled and dusted with roasted soybean flour (kinako) and sugar for a sweet snack. Kinako’s toasty aroma and the Porter’s coffee-like roastedness echo each other along the same “roasted” axis.
Recipe: Cookpad, “Oita’s Local Dish: Yaseuma” (Japanese)
A note on the science: the Porter’s roasted aroma comes from melanoidins, aroma compounds produced when sugars and amino acids react during the Maillard reaction as the malt is roasted. Kinako (roasted soybean flour) undergoes the same Maillard reaction, producing toasty pyrazine compounds of its own — which is why the two pair so naturally along a shared “roasted” note. In dango-jiru, the beer’s firm bitterness and carbonation cut cleanly through the richness of the miso’s umami (glutamate), lightening the finish.
Visiting the Brewery
Monkey Mountain
2-4-15 Funai-machi, Oita City, Oita Prefecture. A small, roughly 50-square-metre taproom and brewery in the downtown district, within walking distance of JR Oita Station.
Sights Nearby
- Takasakiyama Natural Zoo / Kanzaki, Oita City | ~20 min by car from the brewery
Opened on March 15, 1953, this is a zoo where wild Japanese macaques simply live as free-ranging troops. The brewery’s name, Monkey Mountain, comes straight from the English-language nickname long used for this very mountain, Takasakiyama. It’s a place where you can go see the origin of the brewery’s own name in person.
Hot Springs Nearby
- Takegawara Onsen / Motomachi, Beppu | ~20-25 min by car from the brewery
Founded in 1879, with its current karahafu-roofed building dating to 1938, this public bathhouse is considered a symbol of Beppu Onsen, famous for what’s said to be the largest indoor sand bath in western Japan. Regular baths run 6:30-22:30, the sand bath 8:00-22:30 (last entry 21:30), closed on the third Wednesday of each month.
Opening hours, closing days and day-use bathing availability can change. Please check each facility’s official information before visiting.
A Quick Glossary of Beer Terms
- Craft beer: Beer made by small breweries that put the character of the maker front and centre, as opposed to the uniformity of mass production.
- Ale: Beer made by top fermentation, with the yeast working near the surface at close to room temperature. It tends toward fruity aromas and a fuller body.
- Stout: A near-black beer built on deeply roasted malt, with coffee and chocolate notes and a firm roasted bitterness.
- Hops: The cones of a climbing plant, which give beer its bitterness and aroma. Depending on the variety, that aroma can read as citrus, tropical fruit or open grassland.
- Malt: Germinated barley. It forms the foundation of a beer’s sweetness, colour and body; how deeply it is roasted determines colour and toastiness.
- ABV: Alcohol By Volume. Beer typically runs around 5%; above 8% is considered a strong, heavier-drinking beer.
Sources
- Monkey Mountain, official site
- Monkey Mountain, “Story”
- Monkey Mountain, “Company”
- Monkey Mountain, “Lineup” (Porter details)
- Rakuten Ichiba, “Oita Craft Beer Porter 330ml,” Onsenken Oita Online Shop
- Oita Keizai Shimbun, “American-run craft beer shop ‘Monkey Mountain’ opens in Oita City” (Japanese)
- Takasakiyama Natural Zoo, official site
- Takasakiyama Natural Zoo — Wikipedia (Japanese)
- Takegawara Onsen, Beppu City official site
- “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” — Wikipedia
If you notice any errors in this article, please don’t hesitate to reach out at info@soundrecords.jp.
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Read this article in Japanese: どんな山も、海も越えて