New-Generation Sake

Kojima Sohonten, Yamagata PrefecturePHOTO: VINE CONNECTIONS

Sake is booming internationally, to the surprise of some Japanese drinks fans who still think of it as the boring tipple of juiced-up Japanese elders. A cohort of experimental brewers are upending fixed ideas about sake classifications, rice polishing ratios, flavor additions, desirable aromas, and acidity profiles—and in the process, ushering in an exciting, boundary-pushing era.  

Since the advent of Japan’s modern Meiji era (1868 to 1912), the goal of Japanese sake makers has been to brew a uniformly excellent product that tastes the same, year in and year out. Customers prize predictability, and for local sake, or jizake, they want a craft sake that matches the local cuisine.

Makers have also thought it natural to source the best sake rice available, regardless of where in Japan it was grown. Sake is brewed from dried and polished rice, so transporting top-grade rice varieties from their native prefectures does not diminish the quality of the final product. 

But this thinking is changing. Some brewers are going all-in on growing their own heirloom or hybrid rice varieties, or contracting local farmers to do it for them. Some are labeling sakes by vintage, aging them, or leaving natural CO2 sparkle in the bottle. Some want an all-local sake they can slap an increasingly popular geographical indication label on, signifying a product made from the rice, water, yeast, and koji from within a single prefecture. Many of these experimentalists are French wine fans, and their innovations are a nod to French viticulture traditions. 

The following are three breweries rethinking notions of what constitutes top-grade sake and inviting the public to follow them into the “Wild East” (and sometimes yeasts) of modern sake.

Kenichiro Kojima PHOTO: VINE CONNECTIONS

Ultimate Unpolished-Rice Sake

Chobei Yamamoto, 13th-generation owner/brewer at Yucho Shuzo (“shuzo” means “brewery” in Japanese) in Gose, Nara Prefecture, is both steeped in sake brewing history and one of the most innovative brewers at work today. While in the past, sake brewery owners relied on seasonal tojis, or master brewers, to make their sake, he notes that this is “an era where owners themselves are deeply involved in sake brewing.” He’s proud the techniques that form the basis of modern sake brewing were first laid down in the Buddhist temples of Nara during the 15th century; his goal is to continue that tradition of innovation and “play a role in the evolution of sake into the next era.” 

Yucho Shuzo’s ALPHA 8, which carries a !00% semai buai (polishing ratio)! Photo courtesy of Chobei Yamamoto.

Yucho’s Kaze no Mori label, launched 25 years ago by Yamamoto’s father, is known for its light fruitiness, pleasing acidity, residual carbon dioxide tickle, and textural richness. Most of the line is unpasteurized, though some export labels are lightly pasteurized. The most boundary-pushing sakes of the line are those that the younger Chobei launched, the ALPHA series. His latest, ALPHA 8, is the most out-there so far. Known as “Power of the Earth,” ALPHA 8  is the first modern sake to use only unpolished brown rice, making its rice-polishing ratio an unheard-of 100 percent. Since the rise of elegant, light ginjo and daiginjo sakes in the early 1980s, aficionados have favored increasingly highly polished rice, or lower rice-polishing ratio numbers. The ultimate was Niizawa Brewery’s Reikyo Absolute Zero, which features rice polished down to 0.85 percent of its original size. Yamamoto represents a strengthening trend in the opposite direction, toward richer, bigger, and more savory flavors. Here you’ll find a mixture of slight sourness alongside umami and roasted rice notes. 

Striving for Low-ABV Complexity

Kenichiro Kojima is the 24th-generation president of Kojima Sohonten (maker of the Toko label), founded in 1597 in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture. Though he’s not an owner/master brewer, he is heavily involved in setting the brewing direction and initiating innovation. He credits owner/brewer Akitsuna Takagi of Takagi Shuzo (maker of the Juyondai brand) and Asahi Brewery’s third- and fourth-generation presidents Hiroshi and Kazuhiro Sakurai (Dassai) for setting this new course for the modern brewery president.

Kojima familyPHOTO: VINE CONNECTIONS

Kojima Sohonten’s “Untitled” does not list a polishing ratio on the bottle because, as Kojima explains, it’s no longer as relevant. “Two or three decades ago, creating fruity, aromatic ginjo-style sakes was a true technical challenge. But this is no longer true, especially with the arrival of highly aromatic sake yeasts.” He adds, “Rice-polishing ratio has become equated with value, when it is really just a style.” Aiming for a low-alcohol sake, but with depth and complexity, he returned to the ancient tradition of re-brewing sake, known as saishikomi. In the last of an unusual four-stage (instead of the typical three-stage) process, finished sake is swapped in for water. A brief rest in cedar barrels adds complexity to a sake that’s woodsily aromatic, layered, and refined. 

Like a number of other brewers embracing older, pre-industrial ways of sake-making, Kojima has incorporated the use of wooden fermenting tanks. But he’s pushing boundaries even further by experimenting with fermenting in both 400-year-old and newly made 200-liter ceramic pots fired in the rustic, unglazed Bizen style of the Okayama Prefecture. 

Expressing Ancient Rice and Fruits of the Region

At Heiwa Shuzo in temperate southwestern Wakayama Prefecture, President Norimasa Yamamoto has transformed his family brewery from a maker of mass-produced everyday sake to a highly decorated craft sake maker with a playful spirit captured by its “Kid” brand. “I see my role as thinking about how to build a team, and introducing technology into the sake-making process to achieve high-quality manufacturing,” he says rather seriously. 

Master brewer Hidemichi Shibata, Yamamoto adds, “is indispensable for technical guidance and team building,” and they work in close coordination. In addition to adding a popular craft beer arm to the business, he’s opened a brew pub in the Kabutocho neighborhood of Tokyo specializing in doburoku, or old-fashioned, completely unfiltered sake, which he hopes will help spread a love for the beverage. There you’ll find sakes made with azuki or black beans, mint, and even beer hops. 

Much of the brewery’s innovation is an attempt to express the charm of its region and its ancient rice-growing and sake-making traditions, which stretch back as far as 300 BC. Heiwa’s savory, sweet, and tart “Aka Kid,” or “Red Kid,” sake is brewed with a red rice that’s been cultivated in those parts since prehistoric times.

Heiwa Shuzo’s Aka Kid. Photo: Heiwa Shuzo

The brewery’s “Tsuru-ume” series incorporates the best-loved fruits of the region, including ume—the tart, astringent hard green fruit that appears in early spring. For its 10-year-old “Furu Tsuru Ume” plum sake, the fruit is steeped in sake for four months, tank-aged for two years, then aged for at least another eight years in several different types of wooden barrels, including rum, whiskey, bourbon, and sherry.

Read it online at Plate Magazine.