Search Results for: ginjo

Climate Change and its Effect on Sake Brewing

Warmer temperatures and strong storms are not to be trivialized!

The weather has been warmer the past few decades, and the environment has been much less stable overall. Japan is experiencing this as much as anywhere else, and while its effect on the sake world is not yet huge, everyone is aware of the changes and how they could impact things in the future. Sake production itself and, of course, rice growing are the two main things to consider.

Let’s look at production first. Of course, temperature is hugely important during sake production, as a difference of just a couple degrees during fermentation would lead to a completely different sake, in terms of both flavor and aroma. Basically, ginjo and daiginjo call for lower temperatures so as to stress out the yeast and extract all those fruity essences. Not that this kind of sake is the only game in town. But you know; I’m just sayin’.

But note, the industry pretty much has that covered. In the old days, sake brewing was much more at the mercy of nature. Kura (breweries) are built to be cold in the winter, and cooler than the outside in the summer. Thick earthen walls help that cause to some degree of course.

Jacketed tanksBut today, temperature control is much easier than in the past. Tanks can be concentrated into smaller space than in the past, and those rooms within the kura can be further insulated and cooled with modern climate control equipment, no problem. Individual tanks themselves can be chilled too, with all kind of tools now available such as jackets through which coolant can be run. Jury-rigged versions like garden hoses running chilled water can also be used for more budget-conscious breweries.

So proper, well thought-out industrial design can solve a lot of these problems. On top of that, there are also those breweries (like Taketsuru in Hiroshima) that take the philosophy that it is better to just let nature have her way, and let that be expressed in the year’s sake.

In truth, it’s not really this simple, since temperature control calls for more resources and energy. As time passes, we all need to be increasingly aware of that too as it can be part of the problem. The sake industry is not a large industry, and is just a drop in the bucket of energy consumption. But we still need to be conscious of such things.

Rice growing is another issue altogether. While changes are indeed apparent, thus far they are manageable rather than massive. But even bigger changes are afoot for sure.

For example, even though the climate has changed, the best Yamada Nishiki still comes from the same microclimates – such as Tojo and Yokawa – in Hyogo Prefecture, and the amount of top-quality rice that is harvested each year has not declined.

Surely modern technology in all areas helps this. For example, weather radar lenabled everyone to see the massive typhoon Hagibis that engulfed Japan in early October. This allowed the farmers growing Yamada Nishiki to quickly harvest the rice – albeit a bit earlier than they would normally have done it. An early harvest is much better than a ruined one. More significantly, though, climate change affects things in ways beyond higher temperatures.

There are other adaptations to the changing climate that are happening as well. For example, most good sake rice strains do not like colder temperatures, and so not much good sake rice has been grown in the northern parts of Japan. But as things warm up, the northernmost limit is getting nudged even further north.

Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands, was long known for having not-so-good rice, to put it mildly. One brewer from there told me he found a company advertisement from the 80s that bragged – not stated but bragged – that all of their sake was made with rice grown on the main island of Japan, and not in Hokkaido!

But over the past decade or so, things have changed. There are several very good strains of sake rice being grown in Hokkaido, and the rice-growing industry there is actively marketing it to the rest of the country, and successfully so.

As an interesting anecdote related to this, Saga Prefecture is part of Japan’s southernmost of the four major islands, Kyushu. Plenty of good sake rice is grown there, including the aforementioned and sometimes overly adulated Yamada Nishiki. But one brewer I spoke to from Saga is going out of his way to buy and brew with rice from Hokkaido. Why would he bother with this when there is so much good rice locally available?

Yamada before harvestBecause he has his eye on the future. He feels that in time, good sake rice production may move further north. So he wants to get experience with the rice from that region and learn to make increasingly better sake with it. And, furthermore, he wants to open the channel of distribution and establish a relationship with the rice-producing industry up there, so that when Hokkaido rice gets more attention, he will enjoy the benefits of having developed a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship that will afford him preferential status.

Hopefully, we will all act in concert to slow down climate change and take better care of the planet. But the sake brewing industry is already pondering a handful of Plan B options. Let us see how it unfolds over time.

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Announcing the launch of a new sake publication, Sake Industry News, a twice-monthly newsletter covering news from within the sake industry in Japan. Free until December 1! Subscribe before then and enjoy an 20% discount for ever. Learn more here.

 

Sake Brewing in Shrines and Temples

An important period in the history of sake

When looking at the history of sake, both culturally and from the point of technical developments, there is a period in the “dark ages” during which sake brewing was done mainly in shrines and temples in Japan. Interestingly, this was a period of huge strides in brewing methods and technology. But unfortunately, this period of sake history tends to get conveyed in a very abbreviated and minimalist form. It usually takes a back seat to issues such as knowing the grades and types, or how sake is brewed.

While admittedly conversations about how to know just what it is you are drinking, or how to discover your preferences, are more relevant today than the stories of the days of olde, sake’s foray into and back out of the religious ranks is an interesting one.

To follow and understand it all, however, one first needs a perfunctory knowledge of Japan’s history. Until the 8th Century or so Japan was ruled fairly well by an extended imperial court, replete with the emperor and other royals. During this time, most sake was brewed by this court (they had their own brewery on the premises of the palace in Nara) for their own consumption, although much of this was also made for festivals and ceremonies rather than frivolity.

But slowly, aristocratic warrior classes took over the de-facto ruling of the country, although the imperial court continued to rule in name only. Seeing the inherent opportunity, the military government allowed production to extend into the private sector, with sake taxes first being applied in A.D. 878. They continue today.

But sake also – not surprisingly – has religious applications as well, at least in the indigenous religion of Japan, Shinto. (Shinto is Rice paddy sunsetcharacterized by the veneration of spirits in nature and nature’s manifestations, as well as ancestors, and is refreshingly free of anything remotely resembling a formal dogma.) There is a Shinto ceremony called O-miki performed with a Shinto priest in a shrine, and using unique white porcelain flasks (called miki-dokkuri) and cups that can be seen on the altars of shrines everywhere. In this ceremony, a small amount of sake is drunk in a prayerful act of symbolic unification with the gods.

So, even the military ruling elite gave the gods a tax break, and tax-free sake began to proliferate in Shinto shrines, ostensibly for religious purposes only. But Buddhism was also gaining ground in Japan, and as a result of some unique blend of vagueness and tolerance, very often Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples lovingly shared the same grounds. While the two religions have very different tenets, they coexisted very peacefully. “Hey, it’s all good, man” is what the clergy of old likely muttered about. This continued until the Meiji era, when Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples were forcibly separated by decree of the new Meiji government.

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Know more. Appreciate more.
Announcing the launch of a new sake publication, Sake Industry News, a twice-monthly newsletter covering news from within the sake industry in Japan. Free until December 1! Subscibe before then and enjoy an 80% discount for ever. Learn more here.

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And so, while alcohol is not a part of Buddhist worship, since they shared ground, they shared sake, and they shared the brewing workload. And while, officially, no partaking of the libation was permitted outside of the religious ceremonies, no doubt they were nipping at the product here and there. In fact, they even had a nickname for it to obfuscate the truth from outsiders. Sake drunk by the clergy in temples was known as “Hanyatou,” which (very) loosely translates into “the warm water of wisdom and truth.” How true; how true.

So, for a few hundred years – beginning in the 10th or 11th century and continuing to some degree into the 15th – much sake brewing was centered in temples and shrines. During this time, the monks of the temples in Nara would occasionally travel to China for Buddhist instruction, and a lot of the brewing technology of that time originated from what those monks picked up while in China, and later modified to suit local tastes and objectives.

Making sakeAnd so it was here that brewing methods were developed that led to much better sake, a definition that includes (as well it should) significantly higher alcohol levels. Most significantly, it was about this time when the rice, koji and water were added to the fermenting mash in two separate doses to help keep the yeast population at levels high enough to defeat bacterial intruders through sheer numbers. (This later evolved into three additions, as it remains today.) A form of yeast starter known as “Bodai-moto” was also developed by these clever clerics, and this is considered to be the roots of the kimoto yeast starter method, widely recognized as the original yeast starter method of modern sake brewing. Other significant technical developments from the Nara Buddhist temples include pasteurization and milling both the koji rice and the regular rice.

But in 1420, the military rulers made it officially illegal for Buddhist monks to drink, or for sake to be brought into Shinto shrines. While it is unclear how this was enforced, sake brewing began to move more actively into the then-equivalent of the private sector.

Still, these medieval entrepreneurs took the clerically developed technical advances and ran with them, slowly but surely improving both quality and economies of scale. Soon enough, places like Itami and then Nada (both in nearby Hyogo prefecture) rose as very prominent regions of sake production. But they had to attribute much of their success to the monks and priests of the temples and shrines.

Today, there are about ten Shinto shrines that still make a form of sake for religious purposes. But it is hardly the kind of sake we consumers normally enjoy. It is more like a wildly fizzy rice-dosed very thick nigori-zake (cloudy sake). Kind of like nigori on steroids.

Although all of this is a far cry from most ohttps://sake-world.com/sin/f the ginjo and other premium sake we all enjoy today, in a sense we owe a debt and at least an acknowledging thought of gratitude to the Buddhist and Shinto priests of old.

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Know more. Appreciate more.
Announcing the launch of a new sake publication, Sake Industry News, a twice-monthly newsletter covering news from within the sake industry in Japan. Free until December 1! Subscibe before then and enjoy an 80% discount for ever. Learn more here.

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Milling: Less Can Be More

Again: More Milling is NOT unequivocally better!

In last month’s issue of this newsletter, we pointed out how the rice milling wars are essentially over. In other words, the race to have the most highly milled rice has been won, with one brewer in Miyagi (brewers of Atagonomatsu sake) making a sake with a 0 percent milling rate. This is possible since the number representing the seimai-buai (a number which indicates what remains after milling) is rounded down, so that 0.9 percent can be expressed as 0 percent. This piece of technical one-upmanship took them beyond a kura in Yamagata (brewers of Tatenokawa sake) and their one percent seimai-buai sake.

So that has been done. But more significantly, based on the “more milling is better” concept – which has its merits to a certain degree – the drive to make, seek and drink only sake made with highly milled rice has pretty much hit its limit.

In other words, even though milling to 50 percent is enough for a sake to qualify for the technically highest grades of daiginjo and junmai daiginjo, in pursuit of quality – and perhaps a bit of healthy competition – brewers began to push that limit and we have seen sake made with rice milled to 35, 23, 18, 8, 7, as well as the aforementioned one and zero percent sake. Obviously, that is as far as it will go.

However, in all truth, many people pay far too much attention to the seimai-buai number. Yes, it does determine much about the way a

Sake rice: note the opaque center where the starch is concentrated.

sake will taste and smell. And yes, the various grades of sake are defined most significantly by the seimai-buai. So it is of course important. But while the seimai-buai does in fact define much about the final nature and quality of a sake, it is not entirely accurate to say that one milling rate is unequivocally better than another. Not by any stretch of the imagination, does it.

This tendency to place over importance on that number is certainly a bigger issue in Japan than it is overseas – much to the dismay of sake brewers. This is because distributors and restaurants often determine the maximum they are willing to pay based largely on the seimai-buai. They often do not take into account the basic flavor and aromatic profiles, their quality or appeal, or the myriad of other factors above and beyond the milling that went into make a sake as good as it is. But that rabbit-hole discussion is for another day.

So more milling is not necessarily better. And there are a handful of angles from which this can be assessed.

For example, there are various milling techniques that affect the significance of the final seimai-buai number. One is called “flat milling,” or henpei seimai. When this method is used, rice is milled down in such a way that it maintains its original shape, that of a squashed rugby ball, rather than becoming round. Since the starch packet in the center (called the “shimpaku”) has that same almost-oblong shape, henpei seimai milling removes more fat from the sides of the rice, where fat and protein are more accumulated, and less from the ends.

What this really means for us is that for a given seimai-buai number, if the milling was done by henpei seimai, the resulting rice will have a lower fat/protein to starch ratio, i.e. henpei seimai removes a larger proportion of fat and protein than regular milling. So milling to 50 percent using the henpei seimai method might be equivalent to a 40 done by a normal machine.

So why doesn’t everyone use henpei seimai? Because it’s a pain-in-the-butt, that’s why. There are other variations too that accomplish the same goal, that of making rice more suitable for brewing with less actual milling.

imada yamadanishiki 70 / 35Yet another reason more milling is not necessarily advantageous is that once you’ve milled away all that fat and protein, your just diggin’ into the starch packet. Sure, there will always be a bit of fat and protein remaining but with more and more milling one can come closer and closer to eliminating it entirely. But at a certain point it loses touch with brewing reality and ceases to make a difference in the final product.

Of course, to be sure, more milling does in fact lead to lighter and more refined flavor profiles. And if light and refined sake is your preference, then you’re golden. More milling is your thing.

But in truth, elegant-and-refined is only one figure of merit in sake. Only one. There are so many more to which to pay attention. For example: Breadth. Depth. Reverb. Resonance. Umami. Richness. Weight. Intensity. These are all wonderful aspects of great sake, and often more milling means less of these. If you like sake with these particular qualities, you will find them more often in sake made with less highly milled rice.

Also, beyond the question of milling, there are a multitude of things to consider in a given sake. For example, what rice was used? What

Precision Soaking

grade of that rice and from what region? What year was it brewed, how was it stored, what about pasteurization or the lack thereof? What methods of brewing were used? And of course there are so many more. To only base preferences and decisions on the seimai-buai number is to basically ignore so much pertinent information.

Note, though that this is not to diss daiginjo or sake made with very highly milled rice. That is not my intention at all! Such sake are perfectly valid and invariably well made. It is instead a call to not get wowed solely by the bling of a low number.

We hear this all the time: If you like it, it’s a good sake. And for most of us, what we like will change with time as preferences evolve, and so therefore our definition of what make a good sake will change with time as well. You may find yourself moving away from light, fruity ginjo and toward sturdier, tarter sake. Or you may end up hanging out with daiginjo forever. As long as you find it tasty and enjoyable, you are drinking the best available.

So drink what you like. Do not be afraid of low milling rates like a seimai-buai of 60, 70 or even 80 or more from some producers. Nor should one shy away from the ones and zeroes – if you can find them and if they fit into your budget. It’s all good sake if you like the associated style. Just don’t get blinded by the light.

 

Sake Professional Course, September 25-27, in San Francisco

Currently, only 15 seats remain available. Reserve yours today!

From Wednesday, September 25 to Friday, September 27, 2019, I will hold the 33rd stateside running of the Sake Professional Course in San Francisco. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

The course will be followed the next day by the True Sake “Sake Day” event, for which SPC attendees will receive a discount. Learn more here: Sake Professional Course in San Francisco

National New Sake Tasting Competition Results

The Last of the Heisei Era

Men at workThe last Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai (Officially, the Japan Sake Awards, but more descriptively, the National New Sake Competition) of the Heisei Era was held last month, and the results were recently announced.

Lamentably, the awareness of this historically, culturally and technically significant event on the part of the consuming public, the average Taro on the street, is dismally low. Like, next to nothing. That really is a shame as it is such a cool, important event within the industry.

I have written about this contest each year for perhaps 20 years, often at length with peripheral topics like rule changes, politics, and the actual mechanics of the tasting. All of those can be found in the newsletter archives, which are necessarily split up across several locations, the list of which has been collated and presented at the end of this newsletter. If you are interested in more detail on the event, by all means please check that out here.

This year was the 107th running of the contest, which has run each year but two over the last 109 years. Each brewery is permitted only one submission per brewing license. (So those breweries with more than one brewing facility can submit one per brewery.) Of approximately 1200 active sake breweries in the country, 857 submitted a sake.

Almost always it is a daiginjo, although junmai daiginjo are becoming more common. Almost always it has been brewed especially for this contest, i.e. not a sake on the market. And almost always it is fairly intense in flavors, aromas, with exquisite balance. Think “daiginjo on steroids.”

Of those 857 entries, 416 received an award, and of those 237 were gold medals (the remaining 179 being the equivalent of silver, although different nomenclature is used).

There were several notable accomplishments this year. Takashimizu (they have several facilities, but their Goshono Brewery is the one of which I write here) of Akita and Koganezawa of Miyagi upped there industry-leading record to 16 consecutive gold medals in a row. Considering that there are breweries that have never won a single gold medal at all over their entire history, and that winning consecutively is a fairly big accomplishment, that many in a row is quite amazing. Furthermore, the brewery making Urakasumi sake in Miyagi extended their industry leading total to 38, although not consecutively of course.

And, of even further significance, Fukushima Prefecture won more gold medals than any other prefecture for an unprecedented seventh year in a row! In truth, this needs to be conveyed together with the fact that there a lot of producers in Fukushima, third in number behind Niigata and Nagano. So that helps.

For example, Akita prefecture has about half the number of kura that Fukushima has, and scored enough golds to have the highest ratio of golds to submissions. That, too, is really significant; perhaps even more so. I’m just sayin’.

But still, they have this contest dialed in up there in Fukushima, and the quality of their contest sake drips down (no pun intended!) to raise the overall level of their sake on the market.

Fukushima sake has the utmost respect of the industry overall, and let’s hope this spreads even more to the sake-loving contingent all across Japan.

Congratulations to all award winners! The organization behind the competition, the National Research Institute of Brewing, publishes the results in both Japanese and, in recent years, English. You can see the results here, in Japanese. And a scant few days ago the NRIB also published the results from there English-language website and those results are here.

 

Sake Professional Course, September 25-27, in San Francisco

From Wednesday, September 25 to Friday, September 27, 2019, I will hold the 33rd stateside running of the Sake Professional Course in San Francisco. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

The course will be followed the next day by the True Sake “Sake Day” event, for which SPC attendees will receive a discount. Learn more here: Sake Professional Course in San Francisco

The Milling Wars Are Officially Over!

The Verdict: More Milling is NOT unequivocally better!

So, it’s official. The milling wars are over.

In the past few decades, we have seen increasingly frequent appearances on the market of sake made with rice that has been milled further and further. Well, they did it: this has been taken to the absolute extreme degree to which it could be taken.

Readers certainly recall that rice is milled to remove fat and protein, and that the more this is done, the cleaner and more refined the final sake can be. And readers surely also recall that the term referring to the milling rate is the seimai-buai, and that the number expressed refers to the percentage of rice that remains after milling. And lastly, surely we all recall that the various grades of rice are most visibly defined by that seimai-buai; the more the rice is milled, i.e. the lower the number, the higher the technical grade.

Legally, a brewer has no need to go beyond 50 percent. That will qualify the resulting sake as a daiginjo, and there is nothing higher, at least in terms of legal classifications. But as milling technology and brewing technology advanced in the 1970s and beyond, naturally enough a few brewers wanted to push that envelope for any one of several reasons.

Why would they want to do that? Because – make no mistake – more milling does make a difference, but only to a point. The more one mills before brewing the more elegant and refined the resulting sake will be.

Elegance and refinement are collectively only one figure of merit in sake. There are many others. Breadth. Depth. Richness. Intensity. Resonance. Weight. They are all valid, loveable aspects of sake, and more milling means less of these. But more milling does mean more challenges, and that has its appeal.

And so push that envelope they did, down to about 35 percent. Soon, that number became the de facto maximum, the line beyond which even the most maniacal brewers felt no gain in going beyond. Until they did.

Eventually one brewer milled to 27, but was largely ignored. Then one took it to 25, with pretty much the same non-result. Then along came Dassai, who milled the rice to make their iconic

Sake rice

“Niwari-sanbu” product (a fancy way of saying 23 percent). From the start, Dassai did what Dassai does well, and daiginjo made with highly milled rice became much more familiar to us all.

In time, of course, some enterprising kuramoto had to push beyond that as well. Soon wesaw a seimai-buai of 18%, then 17%, then 8% and even 7%. (Not sure where those numbers, as targets, actually came from.) There are a couple of brewers that put effort into these things, like Tatenokawa Shuzo of Yamagata (brewers of Tatenokawa) and Niizawa Shuzoten of Miyagi (brewers of Atago no Matsu), but there are others that dabble in it as well.

And then it happened: as reported in the October 2017 issue of this newsletter, the aforementioned Tatenokawa made a sake with a one percent seimai-buai! The product name is Tatenokawa Komyo, and in order to achieve the one percent, the milling machines ran for two and a half months straight! In the end, the rice was milled for a total of about 1800 hours. For a daiginjo milled to 35 percent, this usually takes about 72 to 100 hours.

“OK, well, that’s been done. Let’s move on,” is what most would be content to think. But, of course, it did not stop there.

In the legal definition of the number used to express the seimai-buai, the final number is rounded down. So, for example, a 35 percent seimai-buai could really actually be as much as a 35.9 percent seimai-buai. Astute readers will have already seen where this is going: if a brewer can mill rice down to, say, 0.9%, then that leaves the door open to create a sake made with rice that has a zero percent seimai-buai.

Yep; it exists: a sake made with rice milled down to zero percent of its original size!

The sake is made by the also aforementioned Niizawa Shuzo in Miyagi, and it redefines “extreme” in sake brewing. The rice was milled for 5297 hours and 34 minutes (that accuracy in reporting is very Japanese!), which is 220 days. That is over seven months of straight milling – compared to three days for most daiginjo, and maybe eight hours for your average junmai-shu. Geezus. The product is called Reikyo, and in English Absolute Zero, and retails for 350,000 yen, or about US$3500 a bottle.

In truth, there is no technical merit to milling down that far. There; I said it. Most would say going beyond 40 percent has no benefit, since by then your have removed all the fat and protein you can, and you begin to eat into the shimpaku, the starch packet in the center. That is porous and fragile, and the rice will break up if you go that far. Also, as you begin to mill away the stuff that would actually give the sake flavor, then things have to be changed in the brewing process to ensure there is actually some flavor in the final sake.

And this, of course, can be done. And it is done, when making sake like that. But some would ask, why? What’s the point? Why not just mill less to begin with?

The answer is, not surprisingly, marketing. Stories sell, and extreme stories sell extremely. It’s something to talk about; it’s newsworthy. People will remember your brand. In that sense, it is brilliant. As the folks at Dassai have said, “we make the 23 to sell more of the 50.” And certainly, it works.

So yes, milling to such extremes as eight, seven, one and zero will demonstrate technical prowess. It will express attention to detail in its extreme. It will state clearly that yes, we can; yes we dare. And yes, we did. But will the sake itself be unequivocally better because of it? No; it will not.

And, at zero percent seimai-buai, you cannot be outdone. Or so you’d think. But never say never in the sake world. The only thing that I can imagine that can happen beyond this would need to incorporate quantum mechanics; like, the rice simultaneously exists and does not exist at a given point in time and space. Don’t put it past the sake world to achieve that! But until the main milling machine companies like Satake or Shin Nakano figure that one out, we are good.

So the seimai-buai war is semi-officially over. Postwar rebuilding will take time, but let us hope that rebuilding includes provisions for recognizing how much more less milling can be. More on that next month.

Please be sure to check out this space at least one more time, next month, where I will address the other side of this issue. I will actually diss the seimai-buai, suggest we are all better paying less attention to more milling and showing what we miss out on by jumping on the highly-milled rice bandwagon. A short spoiler would be, there is so much better sake to drink out there!

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Sake Professional Course, September 25-27, in San Francisco

From Wednesday, September 25 to Friday, September 27, 2019, I will hold the 33rd stateside running of the Sake Professional Course in San Francisco. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

The course will be followed the next day by the True Sake “Sake Day” event, for which SPC attendees will receive a discount. Learn more here: Sake Professional Course in San Francisco

One Part Apple to Two Parts Banana

A proven formula for great ginjo?

What makes a good ginjo sake? In terms of the aromas and flavors, apparently it is “one part apple to two parts banana.”

Fukushima Prefecture is currently the sake-brewing region garnering the most attention, at least as far as the industry is concerned. Consumers, of course, may not have the same figures of merit as those that brew and assess sake. There are of course many very famous Fukushima sake amongst consumers as well, but when it comes to technical prowess, most consumers could care less. But the industry pays attention to that stuff, and unquestionably, Fukushima rocks.

They so rock, in fact, that they are set to win more gold medals in the National New Sake Tasting Competition than any other prefecture for the seventh year in a row. Furthermore they have reached that pinnacle nine times in the last twelve years. There are a number of reasons for this, including cooperation amongst the brewers themselves, but also support from the local prefectural government. And that support is spearheaded by Mr. Kenji Suzuki of the Technical Support Center of the Fukushima Prefecture High Tech Plaza.

A magazine called Sarai that targets middle-aged men that like to keep up on interesting things (it really is a great publication, my flippancy notwithstanding) published an issue focused on sake a few months ago. It was chock-full of articles on sake and sake brewers, and one of those was a brief article on the basics of sake assessing that included a short interview of Mr. Suzuki. In it, he gave tips on how to taste sake, and learn to taste it better.

He emphasized that the main thing is balance between the aromas and flavors. In other words, what you smell in a sake should give you an inkling of how it will taste. If there is too large of a disconnect, it might not be such a great sake, but when that gossamer thread of consistency runs perceivably through the aromas to the flavors, many people in general tend to find that appealing.

The article also described the concrete characteristics that are found in those sake that regularly do well in blind tastings. And Mr. Suzuki explained that sake that does well in such events tends to have aromas and flavors that are characterized by about twice as much isoamyl acetate as ethyl caproate.

Unappetizing as that may sound, both of those are aromatic compounds created by the yeast during fermentation. Note too that these are not limited to sake; they are found in wine and other Yeast Starterbeverages as well, at least to some degree. But they are large part of modern sake aromatic and flavor profiles. And in short, isoamyl acetate smells a lot like banana, and ethyl caproate smells a lot like apple, although it can also come across as strawberry, tropical fruit or even anise.

So a more memorable and practical way to describe ginjo and daiginjo that often win awards is “one part apple to two parts banana.”

In fact, quite a lot of research goes into these things. I recall reading somewhere that apparently there is no animal (including us, of course) that dislikes the smell of banana. (Don’t go quotin’ me on that, since I do not recall where I read it.) So we can see why that is an integral part of the aromatic profile of popular sake.

Remember that this does not apply to all sake! Ginjo and daiginjo tend to be aroma-driven, or at least, if people are paying for such sake they want aromas to be prominent. Which is fine. But such sake is not the only type of sake worth drinking, and in fact, many sake fans prefer less aromatically ostentatious sake. Pronounced aromas are not obligatory.

Bear in mind always that personal preference always tops any other standard that may be out there. If you like it, then you like it. It doesn’t matter if it is one part apple to two parts banana, two parts apple to one part banana, or one part racoon loins to two parts cigarette butts. De gustibus non est disputandum (about taste there is no dispute).

However, in blind tastings on the ginjo and daiginjo level, results tend to favor the above-described formula. And, really, the main point here is that these things can be scientifically categorized, and this gives sake brewers a “strike zone” for which to aim, if brewing such sake is their goal.

Over time, aromatic profiles in sake – and in particular in the ginjo and daiginjo grades – tend to become more prominent, then less so, with different aromas falling in and out of popularity. But at least for lively styles of sake, “one part apple to two parts banana” seems to have maintained its appeal over the years.

A Radical Notion for 2019: Drink more futsu-shu and honjozo!

To open the last year of the second decade of the still-new millennium, I want to offer a somewhat bold suggestion. It may go against much you have learned about sake, but here it is: from here on out, drink more futsu-shu and honjozo. Not exclusively, mind you; just more.

I’m not issuing a challenge; it’s not like that. It is nothing more than an idea, a suggestion for this year, for those that have the willingness, and the means – as dictated by availability. Starting in 2019, drink more honjozo and futsu-shu.

As a quick, new-year’s review, amongst the handful of ways to “divide all sake into two groups,” one is tokutei meishoshu, or “special designation sake,” and the rest is, well, everything else, i.e. sake that does not qualify for a special designation. And since it does not qualify for one of eight special terms, it’s kind of just regular sake.

That “regular sake” is called futsu-shu, which means – not surprisingly – regular sake, and comprises between 60 and 65 percent of the market. As the sake market continues its rapid shift toward more premium products, futsu-shu consumption is dropping fast. Tokutei Meishoshu, or “special designation” sake, is “special” by virtue of how much the rice was milled before brewing, and further divided up by whether or not distilled alcohol was used. You can learn a bit more about the grades here, and with an at-a-glance version here.

Very often Tokutei Meishoshu is called premium sake. This is fine, and technically speaking it is basically true. This line has been drawn by the industry, and we need to make sake easily understandable and approachable the world. But such nomenclature automatically implies that anything not in the Tokutei Meishoshu club is non-premium, which implies it is not so good – and that is simply a misperception. Or at least, it’s just not that simple.

To cut to the chase, let’s just state it: there is plenty of good, very enjoyable futsu-shu out there. Lots. Sure, there are some dodgy ones in the market as well. But many kura brew simple, straightforward, unassuming, not ostentatious futsu-shu that is easy to drink and very reasonably priced.

Also, as we go up the arbitrarily ascending scale of Special Designation sake, the first one we come to is honjozo. Like futsu-shu, distilled alcohol has been added, but the allowed limits are much lower. However, honjozo also has a minimum milling rate that must be observed (70 percent), usually rendering it more refined and delicate. And like futsu-shu, there is a lot of really good honjozo out there. Tons of it. Lakes of it.

Honjozo is currently only about nine percent of the market now, but that market share is lamentably contracting very quickly, even more so than futsu-shu. Why is this? What is behind this rapid decline?

In my opinion, honjozo – which is, by the way, a full-fledged Tokutei Meishoshu – just has a bad rep. People misunderstand how enjoyable it can be, and miss its outstanding price performance. Consumers like things simple, and therefore tend to polarize things. So if someone wants to drink cheap sake, honjozo is passed over for futsu-shu. If someone wants to drink premium, just a few more coins will get them into the ginjo realm. So honjozo tends to get overlooked.

Regardless, what is important to bear in mind is that there are plenty of very good sake in each of these classifications, even though they are not the glitterati of the sake industry.
Often, we all tend to go right for the ginjo – and that includes this guy. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is certainly closer to a safe bet, and it is the fastest way to get someone interested in sake – if not instantly hooked. But the truth, especially with sake, is never that simple. There is really just so much great futsu-shu and honjozo out there that is well worth exploring. And that is what I want to encourage in 2019.

But really, why bother? Ginjo is a safe bet, more easily available overseas, and the word is easier to remember, even. Why put out actual effort to drink less expensive, less ostentatious sake? Here are five reasons.

One, it will help you expand your sake horizons. The more variety you include in the repertoire of sake that you drink, the more you will learn about sake in general. If you drink only ginjo, or only junmai styles, you’ll not learn nearly as much as if you include a good dollop of honjozo and futsu-shu into the mix.

Two, by trying a wide range of styles, when you find the types and grades of sake you enjoy the most, you’ll enjoy them even more after having made the rounds and come back to them. Worded less romantically, your ginjo will taste better if you drink futsuu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

Three, there are tons of great honjozo and futsu-shu out there. Oodles and oodles of ‘em. Certainly they are not as ostentatious as much ginjo-shu – they’re not supposed to be. But they can be extremely enjoyable, quite tasty, and very well suited to simple, unfettered drinking sessions. I cannot emphasize this point enough!

And four, if you want to learn about a particularly brewery and what their sake-brewing philosophy is all about, drink their futsu-shu. Sure, ginjo is good. But ginjo flavor profiles tend to converge; futsu-shu maintains much more of the character of the individual brewery. So by tasting a brewery’s futsu-shu, you’ll learn much more about their approach to sake brewing.

There is that fifth reason too, albeit a less appealing one: you’ll help the industry. The overall industry is in decline, and that decline is led by futsu-shu and honjozo: they drop every year. Drinking more of them will help bolster the industry and help make it easier for us to enjoy our Tokubei Meishoshu from amongst the currently active 1200 or so brewers. The more of them we lose, the less we have to choose from. So we can help keep things interesting by enjoying more futsu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

So next time, at least for 2019, resist the urge to go straight for the ginjo. Tokutei Meishoshu is great; junmai and the four ginjo types are of course wonderful sake, and they deserve to be in the spotlight as they are. But bear in mind that sake that do not qualify for those grades are no less wonderful sake, and drinking a bit more of them – in particular futsu-shu and honjozo – can be enjoyable and worthwhile in so many ways.

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Sake Professional Course in Chicago
April 23 ~ 25, 2019

From Tuesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 25, 2019, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the restaurant Sunda, in Chicago, Illinois. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.

The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

 

Tohoku Time! Just why the region is so cool, sake-wise…

The sake of the Tohoku region in Japan has been showered with much-deserved attention over the past five to ten years. Certainly, it is worth it to learn a bit more about the area, and why their sake is so highly regarded.

Regionality in the sake world is fascinating to study, but it may be a bit further than most people want to go. Honjozo, junmai daiginjo, and “the glass in front in front of me now” may be plenty of sake study for most folks. And that’s fine; it is all about enjoyment after all. But like most things sake, a little study goes a long, long way. And it might not be so interesting to start by learning 47 new prefecture place names. But just one or two big-ass regions? Sure, we can do that.

If we are going to talk region, by all rights we should start with the Kansai region, wherein sits Hyogo (and therein Nada), Kyoto (and within it Fushimi), and Osaka. The first two (Nada and Fushimi) are the largest producing regions of sake in the country, and historically the most significant. But since Tohoku is “big in Japan” right about now, let us start there.

Where is the Tohoku region? It’s easy to remember: it is the top third of the main island of Japan. It consists of six of Japan’s 47 prefectures, all larger than average. (The cheap-looking photo was taken in the office of the Tohoku region Tax Office in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, when I was up there as a judge last week.) Those are Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima.

Let us look at why the sake of Tohoku – as a region overall – is so popular, and also at what the main identifying characteristics of the various prefectures are.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons the sake of Tohoku is so well known is the region’s success in the Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai, or “National New Sake Tasting Competion,” held each May in Japan. (The official English translation is the Japan Sake Awards, but I like my unofficial but more direct translation better.)

Sake brewed just for this contest (i.e. not normal sake you can buy at the store) is submitted and blindly tasted and judged. While many consumers do not even know this contest exists, it is a very prestigious event in the sake world. And over the past ten or fifteen years, Tohoku sake has done very, very well.

In particular, Fukushima Prefecture has won more gold medals than any other prefecture for the last four years in a row, and in seven out of the last ten years. Only vaunted Niigata and Tohoku Making sakeneighbor Yamagata are close to that performance. This contest demonstrates brewers’ command of the highest levels of brewing skill, and as the results might suggest, currently this brings lots of attention to the sake of Tohoku.

The Japan national competition is one big one, but there are a handful of other competitions both in and outside of Japan to which many people pay attention. If you look at the results of these blind tasting competitions, there are a handful of brands that very often rise to the top. Quite often, these are of a light, fine-grained, bright and aromatic style. And this style is precisely what Tohoku does well.

While the style of sake that often does well in such contests is far, oh-so-very-far, from the be-all end-all of what makes a good sake, or what everyone likes, the results do indicate what is consistently popular based on one figure of merit.

But the point is that the style of sake made by many of the brewers in the Tohoku region is that kind of fine-grained, light and clean style; it is a style that is approachable and likeable. And this is yet another explanation of why the region is popular and worthy of attention: it makes the kind of sake that people these days like.

It is extremely important to emphasize that this is only one style. Many sake fans from the western half of Japan would find Tohoku sake too light, with no body, umami, or earthiness, and perhaps find it challenging to pair with food – especially in comparison to the rich, broad, umami-laden sake of their own region. We are only looking at one snapshot of all the great sake that is out there.

Rice paddy sunsetWhat makes the sake of the region taste this way? Many things, of course. One is climate. It’s colder up there, and when you brew and subsequently mature at colder temperatures, you end up with lighter, cleaner sake. Higher temperatures give fuller bodies. Think lagers and ales.

Next would be the support of the prefectural governments. While all regions in Japan have this to some degree, Fukushima, Yamagata, and Akita in particular have very active sake research organizations. These are run by the local governmental industrial research center or tax administration, and crank out sake-brewing technology, new rice strains and new yeast strains that constantly and consistently raise the Tohoku bar.

Then there is rice itself, of course. Most of the Tohoku prefectures are large rice-producing prefectures as well. While most of this is for eating, they all produce plenty of one variety or another of sake rice. The aforementioned colder climate means the indigenous strains of rice are generally smaller than their western-Japan counterparts, leading to the more narrow flavor profiles of the area.

Each of the six prefectures of the Tohoku region has plenty that could be said bout them. A “sake readers digest” version might look something like the below.

Fukushima has about 70 active breweries, ensuring a wide range of styles, and three distinct geographies: an oceanside, planes and mountains, with most breweries in the prefecture located in the last of these. Miyagi has about 40 breweries, and an inordinately large amount of what they make is junmai. Yamagata right next door makes just as inordinately large amount of ginjo compared to other types, and has lots of fragrant, light sake coming from the 40 or so kura there. Iwate is the home of the most prominent and accomplished guild of toji (master brewers), the Nanbu guild, but only 25 active kura. Much of their sake is light, but a few rich, reverberating deep sake are made there too.Akita sake, made by the 50-odd active breweries there, is often rich but seems quite fine-grained to me, with of course the requisite exceptions. And at the very top of the region is Aomori, with 20 breweries making a richer, sweeter style than the rest of the region.

While the above-described styles are of course vague, with exceptions and variation across each prefecture, the region in general does confirm to the light, crisp, aromatic style that is quite popular today. And while each prefecture is much deserving of detailed study, knowing a bit about the region goes along way too. It is, after all, Tohoku time.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29.  As of today, only three (3) seats remain open.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

Tojo and Yokawa: The Tale of Two Yamada Nishiki(s)

Fall can be fun, but fall can be tiring. One sake tasting after another means so much other work does not get done. The traditional fall tasting season mercifully ends soon, but making the rounds is both important and fun.

One of the last for me this year was a tasting of Yamaguchi Prefecture sake. There are 28 or so breweries there, 20 of which gathered for the event. And as I am always reminded, tasting the sake is fun, but one can learn ten times as much from chatting with the brewers. Therein lies the value and appeal of these tastings.

And at the Yamaguchi tasting the other day I made my way round to the eponymous Taka, brewed by the company called Nagayama Honke. The owner/toji Taka Nagayama himself was there to pour and greet.

I know his stuff well and zipped through them, but the last one got my attention. It was a junmai daiginjo, but made with Tojo Yamada Nishiki. While not overly assertive in flavor, the breadth and the reverb permeating the overall flavor profile were outstanding – but not surprising. Afterall, it was Tojo Yamada.

Tojo was the former name of the village in which this outstanding rice is grown, but a spate of annexations saw the town itself become annexed into another one a few years ago. So even though the town of Tojo is long gone, the term Tojo Yamada Nishiki was safely trademarked, and good thing too.

Like any agricultural product, there are certain regions and even microclimates in which each strain of sake rice will thrive. And this of course applies to what is almost universally considered to be the best sake rice, Yamada Nishiki. This variety is grown in 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, but the overwhelming consensus is that it grows best in Hyogo Prefecture. And deep in the mountains of this prefecture, where the days are hot and the nights are cold, is a village formerly known as Tojo, and another village named Yokawa. And it is these two areas from which the best Yamada Nishiki comes. Tojo tends to command a higher price than Yokawa, but the latter is exceptional to be sure, especially in comparison to that rice grown in other regions.

And Taka, our sake-pouring owner-toji friend from the opening paragraph, lavished praise upon Tojo Yamada. “Yeah, you can’t really top it, can you! It’s as good as it gets, and the price of the rice reflects that. But I have done a good job of keeping the retail price as low as I can so folks can enjoy it.

“And,” he continued, “what is amazing is how well it stands up to time. It basically does not hineru,” he asserted. Hineru refers to a sake starting to taste old from, well, getting old. The difference between hineru and nice maturation is a fine line, of course, but I digress.

“Even Yokawa,” he continued without being prompted, “as good as it is, that will show maturity pretty quickly; but not Tojo. That’s why I think Yokawa Yamada Nishiki might be good for super premium sake bound for overseas markets – it will remain stable for a long time,” he concluded.

The point here is not that one should drink Tojo over Yokawa, or that one region is superior to another. Those are worthwhile discussions too. But rather, what is interesting is how fundamentally different the same strain of rice can be from two regions that are so close. Tojo and Yokawa are right next to each other. They are perhaps a couple of kilometers apart; that’s all. But the slight differences in the mineral makeup of the soil and of course minute climactic differences lead to the best and second best examples of the mighty Yamada Nishiki to be noticeably and consistently different.

What is wild about this to me is that, yes, the choice of rice is connected to the final flavor profile of a sake. But that connection is not nearly as tight as the connection between the grape variety and the final flavor of the wine. Ten brewers can take the same rice, milled to the same degree, and make ten completely different sake. How the koji was made, the yeast used, the fermentation temperature and number of days, and how the sake was pressed and later handled all contribute huge differences.

Yet, in spite of all this, the basic nature of the rice will shine through, and that basic nature can be quite different on a subtle but measurable level, even for the same strain grown just a few kilometers apart.

Similar differences can, in fact, be demonstrated in other strains of rice from other parts of Japan. In fact, there are a handful of brewers now doing things like brewing sake using the rice of only one rice field, and not blending them, to make the most of the differences that invariably exist from one rice field to the next.

Surely these efforts will garner more attention as time goes on, although few will be as prominent as the tale of two Yamadas as told by Taka. It’s all fascinating stuff, and it all demonstrates how much there is to learn – and unlearn – about sake

*  *  *

Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29.  As of today, only three (3) seats remain open.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

Toji – Then and Now

Men at workI have been hanging out with a lot of toji (master brewer) lately. No particular reason, just one tasting and event after another, interacting and listening to what they have to say. Here are a couple interesting anecdotes from a couple of interesting toji.

In June, at the Iida Sake Brewing Seminar about which I wrote last month, Philip Harper, the toji at Kinoshita Shuzo on Kyoto – brewers of Tamagawa sake – talked about his take on how to make good sake. Naturally enough, there was much talk of toji. While the term translates loosely as “master brewer,” there is a lot more to it. And what is “to it” has changed over the decades.

Long ago, the toji was responsible for not only brewing the sake, but hiring, firing, and buying the rice as well. The kuramoto, or brewery owner, gave him a chunk of change and left everything in his fine hands. These days, he or she might not do all of that, but in exchange has to keep in mind the larger picture of marketing, pricing, and product differentiation.

Limiting it just to technical stuff, though, the toji of today have all kinds of modern measurement equipment at their disposal. Scales, thermometers, sensors of all kinds, and computers to combine it into a useful form from which brewers can make decisions to precisely target what they want. It’s all pretty neat, really.

But long ago, there was none of that. Fingertips were thermometers, noses and tongues were hydrometers and alcohol sensors, and brushes and ink were the computers. Sounds pretty primitive, doesn’t it?

As a point in passing, Mr. Harper mentioned something that astounded me to hear. Curious researchers noted the measurements made within the brewing process, such as temperature and moisture and many other factors, by older toji who brewed without depending on modern tools, but instead their own five senses. And these were compared to those made with modern technology.

And guess what? Lo and behold, the measurements made by the tool-less toji relying o their senses were found to be within one percent of those made by modern technological tools. Within. One. Percent. And that shows the power of experience and intuition.

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Last month at a Hiroshima sake lecture and tasting, Tatsuya Ishikawa, the toji at the brewery making Taketsuru sake, presented his take on being a toji, and brewing local sake in Hiroshima.

He is a strong-willed yet light-hearted individual with well formed opinions on how sake should be brewed and the importance of regionality and terroir in sake brewing. And as one point in evidence, I was surprised to hear that he applies almost no temperature control at all to his fermenting tanks of sake.

While many – if not most – brewers will chill down tanks of fermenting ginjo to minimize bacterial havoc and promote cleaner flavors, Ishikawa Toji is having none of that. He lets it run at whatever the ambient temperature in the kura is, leading to his unique sake.
“If we are going to manipulate the environment and negate the effects of the climate,” he explains, “what is the point of making local Hiroshima sake?” Indeed, his strong feelings for tradition and it significance are clear. He continued by explaining that he cannot really get behind the concept of a toji that takes too much direction from the brewery owner. Long ago, the owner did not even enter into the brewery, much less suggest to the toji what sake to brew.

But these days, it is of course normal for the owner and the toji (when they are not the same person, which they often are these days) to discuss with each other what kind of sake to brew. Not this guy. It was part of his arrangement with his employer when he took over as toji. “I brew what I want, with no well-meaning direction or influence from you or anyone else.”

As I wrote about in this newsletter a few months ago, the old guilds’ significance is waning, and their influence is not at all what it used to be. Not that this is a completely negative thing; it is just the way things have become in response to the changes of modern times. But Ishikawa-san has his opinions.

“If the boss is going to direct everything about how the sake is brewed, what is the point of having a toji? Allowing such a situation to exist defeats the purpose of having a toji in the first place, and detracts from what terroir the sake might have.”

Certainly, both philosophies have their points. Much has changed, especially market realities and environments. And adapting to these is of utmost importance. But then again, so is maintaining the important and useful aspects of tradition.

In the end, the toji of olde and the toji of today each have had their unique set of circumstances and attendant challenges. It is not really fair or even possible to directly compare them. But it sure can be interesting to try!

Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29. Learn more here, and if you are interested in reserving a spot, please send me an email.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.