Disabled people brew up a storm in Osaka's former slum

Award-winning brewery start-up helps ex-addicts and other 'unemployables' change gear

Building a brewery in an area once notorious for alcohol-fuelled riots may not seem like the most sensible idea. But Derailleur Brew Works, a craft brewery in the Japanese city of Osaka, is helping transform this unfashionable district with the help of men and women who once thought they were unemployable.

The brewery grew out of Cyclo, a nursing-care provider based in Nishinari, a deprived ward of Osaka long associated with day labourers, dosshouses and social unrest.