Only 7 monasteries produce Trappist beer, 6 in Belgium (Orval, Chimay, Westvleteren, Rochefort, Westmalle and Achel) and one in the Netherlands (Koningshoeven). All the rest are Abbaye.
For the beers, the criteria that make them what they are comprise the following:
The beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist abbey, by or under control of Trappist monks.
The brewery, the choices of brewing, and the commercial orientations must obviously depend on the monastic community.
The economic purpose of the brewery must be directed toward assistance and not toward financial profit. keep to the Fen Causeway
I've had good Japanese microbrews before, but they are incredibly hard to find. A couple times, I had some really solid beers from Hokkaido at a traveling "Foods of Hokkaido" fair in Tokyo, and when I was in Nagano I had a quality ale and a good dark beer, both brewed locally.
Chichibu has a local soba (buckwheat) beer, but it's pretty foul.
I've been to a lot of drinking establishments in my little town, and in Tokyo, and I've yet to see any smaller Japanese brews on sale, ever. I don't really know what it is. Maybe the big guys have the distributor chains completely locked down or something. It wouldn't surprise me.
