The Last of the Heisei Era

The 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 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

Like all worlds, the sake world has its luminaries, its celebrities, and its legendary figures. It would stand to reason that such personages are usually the creators of sake with great reputations; in other words, we would naturally expect that most sake celebrities would be toji, the master brewers behind great brands of sake. However, quite paradoxically, oftentimes the very people that would qualify for such reputations are too humble to claim them. But there have been a few whose presence and reputation loom so large that they end up becoming reluctant legends.

Several years ago in this newsletter, I wrote about one such individual, Mr. Naohiko Noguchi. That article can be found here, but here is a bit more about the man himself, and his most recent endeavor.

Mr. Noguchi is a toji of the Noto guild, centered in Ishikawa Prefecture, as was his father and grandfather before him. He began brewing at age 16, and after short stints at kura in Shizuoka in Mie, in 1961 he was hired as the toji at Kikuhime back in Ishikawa. The brewery Kikuhime was very small back then, and their customer base consisted of mostly lumberjacks. Like, literally; lumberjacks. Not for them the light and delicate style that sake Mr. Noguchi was accustomed to making in Shizuoka and Mie! So he had to change things up a bit, and fast.

At that time, the yamahai methods – which lead to richer and more umami-laden sake – had all but disappeared from use, since the new (for that time) methods were faster and more predictable. So Mr. Noguchi found a kura in Kyoto still making the yamahai style that would teach him the ins and outs of actually brewing it.

Which he did, and did well. This had the multi-faceted benefit of making the lumberjacks happy, launching the reputation of his employer Kikuhime as well as that of the yamahai style of sake, and his own prowess as a toji to boot.

He reigned at Kikuhime until the retirement age of 65, garnering countless accolades along the way, and finally stepping down in 1997. The next year – yes – the very next year, he came out of “retirement” to work at nearby Kano Shuzo making the well-known sake Jokigen. This he did for 14 years, until 2012. Do that math: he retired the second time at 79.

Mind you, sake brewing is not exactly a desk job. As much as I love sake, I have known since the beginning that I am far too wimpy and far too easily distracted to even attempt a full season at a kura, much less a lifetime. But Mr. Noguchi did it until he was 79.

And then, he did it some more. There was one more short-lived, ill-fated project with which he was involved the next year, then he took a couple of years off. And in 2017 he came out of retirement one more time.

Why, you might ask? In his own words, “If I am not brewing sake, I get physically ill,” which in fact did happen. So it was back to sake brewing, this time as the toji at a newly constructed brewery, called “Noguchi Naohiko Kenkyu-jo,” a name which refers to the kura as a research center.

This is fitting since he hired seven younger people to work and study along with him as they brewed sake. This was at age 85, and this year they began their second brewing season, with Mr. Noguchi being 86. That’s eighty-six. Eighty. Six.

In January of this year I had the chance to visit the brewery, watch them brew for a while, and then – together with three industry colleagues – enjoy an audience with Mr. Noguchi. It was, undoubtedly, one of the most amazing encounters I have had in this industry. I had in fact met him once before about ten years ago, when I found him focused, strong-willed, yet light-hearted. But this time he seemed so much more immortal.

He has always impressed me as lucid, sharp, and articulate. Ironically, he speaks in a local dialect, Noto-ben, that is quite difficult for me to follow. In spite of that, his eloquence and clarity always show through.

But still, I had been expecting him to just be giving orders, grunting and pointing fingers to direct the brewing staff, and be hunched over charts of data curves. I did not expect him to be out in the mix, actually doing the brewing work.

But there he was: quick, dexterous and strong. Together with the young’uns, he was hauling just-steamed rice bundled in cloth, moving with speed and purpose. Later, he was in the koji-making rooms, which are kept between 35C and 45C (!) and at highly humid conditions, working on breaking up rice clumps and spreading and mixing koji mold. It is hard for a normal human being to just be in such an environment, and much harder to actually move and work in one. But there he was, looking as natural and at-home as he could be, exuding the comfort of one who knows just where he truly wants to be.

The brewery is set up for observation by visitors, with a long hallway with a glass wall facing the brewing area of the kura, raised to the level of the top of the tanks. The other wall is a long, granite tapestry of a gallery that highlights Mr. Noguchi’s life, career, and accomplishments.

By looking at that, one gets a sense of just how dedicated he has been to his craft over the years. On display were brewing texts, dog-eared and faded, filled with notes and highlights. He was said to have studied such texts so thoroughly that he memorized their content.

During our chat with him, as we discussed his career, he nonchalantly touched upon concepts like, “If you’re going to bother do something, you might as well strive to be the best at it,” and “At the end of the day, it’s the size of your dreams that counts.” He has a second career writing motivational books, I thought.

All of the above adulation notwithstanding, it is important to point out that I am just an admiring, doting fan. I never had to work under the gentleman. He was notoriously strict, having earned the nickname “demon.” In fact, his 2003 autobiography was entitled “Demon’s Sake.” So I might not be quite so gushing had I actually had that experience. Still, I am sure the level of respect would be just as high, albeit laced with a few more emotions. But what do I know?

I do have a friend that did in fact work under Mr. Noguchi for a good 20 years or so at Kikuhime. He did not say much about the experience, nor did I ask. But he did say that, even having worked in the same brewery together, he could not even speak directly to him while working for him, and in fact not even until about ten years after both had left the company. I’m just sayin’.

In interviews and press conferences held prior to the opening of this brewery, Mr. Noguchi has said several times, “It is my wish to die brewing sake.” Let us hope his wish does not come true for many years to come.

Mr. Noguchi is not the only great toji out there, nor is he the only famous toji. Far from it! The sake world has its own celebrities, more understated then their western counterparts though they may be. But their presence and aura invigorates the sake world, and makes it all that more interesting for all of us.

You can read a bit more about Mr. Noguchi here in this article that I wrote just as the kura opening was announced.

Also, the company with which he is now working is doing a great job of marketing (surely his presence make that easy!), and there is much about Mr. Noguchi in Japanese media.

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Sake Professional Course in San Francisco, September 2019

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

In mid-September in San Francisco I will hold the next Sake Professional Course, the 49th running of the course. The final details have yet to be set in stone, and as such the course has not been formally announced. Nevertheless, I can take tentative reservations. If interested, please send me an email for more information.

For more information on the course, for now, you can check out the information on the just-finished Chicago course, which is here.

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 beverages 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.

How big is ideal?

There are countless factors that determine how good a batch of sake will end up being. Some are directly controllable by brewers; others less so. And there are, nor surprisingly, countless opinions amongst brewers about each and every one of those factors. There are methods or practices that some brewers consider indispensable or key, yet other brewers will downplay or even outright contradict them with diametrically opposed philosophies. Like, 180 degrees. It can be odd, actually. Depending on your threshold for vagueness, it can either be frustrating or fascinating.

One of these factors is the size of the batch. Big batches behave differently than small batches, not surprisingly. A batch is called a “shikomi,” and its size is measured in kilos of dry, milled rice that went into a given tank to create that batch of sake. While there are of course myriad other ways a batch could be measured, the weight of the dry rice is how it is done in the sake world.

Off on a bit of tangent, why is that? Because just how much water the rice is allowed to

absorb, or how much water is added, or what the yields are will vary based on many things as well. Basing size on the weight of the dry milled rice presents one parameter that can be used as a point of comparison for all tanks, all batches, and all brewers.

Perhaps the most commonly encountered size of a typical shikomi is a ton to a ton-and-a-half (a metric ton, mind you, so 1000 kg or 2200 pounds) of all the rice that went into the tank, be it sraight steamed rice or koji rice (the rice that has had koji mold propagated upon it). But there are many brewers of the opinion that much smaller shikomi, say 600 kg or so, are infinitely better for super premium sake.

Perhaps the smallest size I have seen is 500kg on a practical level. (Experimental batches notwithstanding, of course. I have seen batches of sake in a desktop Pyrex jar.) But done at this scale, yields are quite low. The economics of sake brewing are, of course, important, and brewers need to ask themselves, from that point of view, are tiny batches worth it in the end?

When considering the time required to do each of the many steps, then have it take up tank space, press it and filter it when fermentation is complete, bottle it and care for it and more – it would be so much more economical to double, triple or quadruple one’s yields; yea, verily I say unto thee multiply them by ten-fold for true efficiency. And, of course, many breweries function at such large economies of scale.

Naturally, though, as economically sound as larger batches can be at some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in with a vicious vengeance and quality begins to noticeably suffer. But just where that occurs, and how each brewery factors that into their lineup varies hugely.

For example, some brewers not think that smaller batches are always better, citing the truth that it is much harder to control parameters such as temperature in those smaller tanks over the long run. To achieve a given flavor and aromatic profile, brewers guide the moromi (fermenting mash) along a very tight temperature curve. Smaller batches are more subject to various factors that might send them out of spec, so to speak. For a really small tank, a warm day outside might let the moromi get too warm, adversely affecting the final product.

Conversely, a largish tank would lumber along much more sluggishly so that wild swings in temperature et al would not likely happen. A warm day outside is nothing to a ton-and-a-half of fermenting rice. Such a tank would look askance at the weather outside, secure in its sheer mass.

But of course the other side of this coin is that if the temperature and other parameters stray from the fold of the ideal, it is easy to bring them back into alignment with small batches, back to where they should be, whereas in big batches, there is nothing to little that a brewer can do once things have gotten too out of spec.

Yet more dissention abounds. One hugely famous toji of almost unmatched accomplishment insists that larger batches of about 1.5 tons are ideal. He also insists on slightly customizing the shape of the fermentation tanks he uses, so that the sake in his brewery circulates natural as it ferments. This means that they do not have to mess with using long poles to mix it up. It all occurs naturally in his kura as, inside the tanks, carbon dioxide bubbles stick to dissolving rice particles and the countless yeast cells, rising to the top, where the gas is released and the now-dense glob sinks again. And if your shikomi size is right, it all circulates perfectly, around and around and around…

Having said all this, though, it is a fact that almost always the more premium grades of sake are indeed made in comparatively smaller batches, compared that is to the shikomi size of the lower grades of sake for a given brewer. And contest sake, too, is almost without exception made in smaller batches. Certainly this is due to the aforementioned ability to tightly control key parameters.

Admittedly, this information is more than most of us need or want to know. Most folks are more into tasting sake than the under-the-hood workings of the brewing process. But lately I have come across this information on the back labels of one or two sake bottles: they actually tell us the size of the shikomi!

In truth, I think such information is superfluous and even intimidating. I mean, really; who cares? In the end, the flavors and aromas of a sake before us are either appealing, or they are not. Biasing our minds with such information before tasting could actually encumber our enjoyment by unnecessarily prejudicing it.

But as always, there are a myriad of opinions. One big gun of a distributor in the Tokyo/Yokohama metropolis insists that sake must be made in 600 kg or smaller batches to even be decent. He cites his ten-year convincing effort focused on one famous kura to lower their shikomi size from a ton to 600 kg, and when they did, they won a major international award. True, the smaller shikomi size might have had something to do with it, but so might a gazillion other things. But hey, what do I know.

So enjoy your sake for its flavors and aromas. Should you come across the shikomi size on a label or in a kura, bear in mind its significance, and its potential liabilities.

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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.

Here we are in the depths of winter. Although the days have begun to grow minutely if incrementally longer again, they continue to grow colder as all around us remains in hibernation. But this is just the time when the sake-brewing season is traditionally at its peak.

With actual brewing of initial batches having begun in November, most (if not all) breweries have pressed their first several batches of the season. Naturally this does not apply to large brewers that brew year-round, and there are also many that start earlier or even later than the average. But traditionally and statistically, the first few weeks of November see the pressing of the first tank of the year at many breweries. Being January now, most breweries are in the thickest part of the season, finishing batches and starting new ones on daily or almost-daily basis.

And along with this first pressing comes a handful of terms – with greatly overlapping meanings – to describe the resulting sake.

After the tank of rice, water, koji and yeast has run the course of fermentation, the clear sake must be separated from the white slurry of rice solids that remain. This step is usually done by a machine that forces the slurry though fine mesh panels, catching the solids and letting the amber ambrosia pass through. There are of course other, more labor intensive, quality-imparting methods then these machines.

Regardless of the method, this pressing step is known as “ shibori.” and the first pressing of the brewing season is “ hatsu-shibori.” We can often find sake labeled “ shibori-tate,” meaning “just pressed” on shelves of sake retail shops.

Another term greeting us from sake labels early in the new year is “ shinshu,” or “new sake,” which is sake that is, well, new. Most sake is aged after pressing for from about six months to about 18 months, although there is great variation in this as well from brewery to brewery. Aging sake like this allows the just-pressed new-sake brashness to mellow and round out, not unlike what happens with wine. Shinshu is sake released without this maturation, and as such has a fresh and brash youthfulness to the flavor.

So, one might ask, what is the difference between the two terms used above, shibori-tate and shinshu? The main inference is that a shibori-tate is just out of the presses, with all of the attendant brashness that implies, whereas a shinshu may have been pasteurized, filtered, and tweaked, but simply has not been aged for long, if at all. And yes, there is a whole lot of overlap there.

Much sake released now is also nama-zake, which is sake that has not been pasteurized. Pasteurization in sake means temporarily heating it gently to deactivate enzymes that could alter the flavor. These active enzymes could send the sake awry and out of balance if it is not kept cold. Sake that has not been pasteurized (i.e. nama-zake) has a zingy, fresh, appealing lilt to the fragrance and flavor, although this aspect can overpower the true nature of the sake if it is not kept in check during production.

Much shibori-tate is nama-zake as well, as is much shinshu.

Not enough terminology for ya? Thirsty for more? Here are a few more that, while by no means limited to this time of the year, may be a bit more common to this season.

Genshu is sake that has not been cut with water after brewing. Sake ferments naturally to about 20 percent alcohol, which is a bit high to allow the fine nuances to come through. It is therefore usually cut with water to bring it down to about 16 percent alcohol. Genshu has not had water added, and therefore is a bit stronger. This often complements the rough-and-tumble brashness of shibori-tate sake.

“Muroka” unfiltered, in the sense that it has not been charcoal filtered. Most sake, after pressing, is at some point in time filtered using powdered active charcoal to fine-tune the flavor and remove unwanted aspects. (This filtering process is curious to watch, as they actually dump a bunch of fine, black powder into this lovely sake, then filter it out.) Muroka sake has a wider range of flavor components, and again refraining from filtering augments the appeal of freshly-pressed sake. It all works together.

Note that often several of these terms can be found one label. For example, you can have a shiboritate nama muroka genshu, and it would not be at all uncommon or strange, even if it is a mouthful (in more than one sense of the word).

But in the end, the terminology is ancillary in importance, and all that really matters is enjoying freshly-made sake when it is best: now.

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Amidst all these terms is one more, self-explanatory (if you understand Japanese, that is) very rarely seen – Gantan Shibori. Gantan is the word for New Year’s Day. So a sake marketed as Gantan Shibori will have been pressed on January 1, and shipped out immediately so as to be enjoyed on that day or very soon thereafter.

While of course this tells us nothing about the grade of the sake, it will surely be nama, muroka, and most likely genshu. And it will of course be shibori-tate and shinshu too! So you kind of the whole kit-n-caboodle in a bottle of Gantan Shibori.

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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.

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.

Along with the arrival of the season’s first sake comes the proliferation of sugidama. If you are in Japan, certainly you have seen these here and there, the large globes of tightly bound sugi (Japanese cedar, or more accurately, cryptomeria) leaves that are usually about 50cm ( 18 inches or so) in diameter, suspended by a cord in front of sakagura (breweries), sake pubs and sake retailers.

Sugidama are also known as sakabayashi, and originated in the Edo period (1604-868). Historically, they were hung out in front of sake breweries just when the first batch of sake is pressed each year. It’s a sign to local sake fans that says “Yeppir, the new sake is ready!” Over time, sugidama came to be used by sake dealers and sake-serving pubs to let customers know that “yes, indeed, sake can be found here, so shimmy on in and get some!”

The sugi (cryptomeria) tree holds religious significance in the Shinto religion, particularly in connection with O-Miwa Jinja in Nara Prefecture, which houses a deity of sake brewing. Traditionally, the leaves from the sugi on the grounds of this shrine were used to make all the sugidama for sake brewers everywhere. Or at least, so it has been said.

Sugi is used in many places in a sake brewery, and at many steps in the process. Until about 70 years ago, tanks for sake brewing were made of sugi wood (now they are porcelain-lined steel), and in fact for the few batches made each year in wooden tanks, sugi is still used. The walls of the koji-making room are most often made of sugi, as are the trays and boxes in which the koji is kept as it goes through the 48-odd hour preparation process. Although one rarely seas wooden rice steaming vats anymore, those puppies too were made of sugi. And, once the sake is done, for centuries it was shipped in 72-liter casks called taru and then drunk from small single serving wooden boxes called masu. And – yes, you guessed it – both taru and masu are traditionally made from sugi.

Although there are several stories, one says that if the leaves of sugi are dipped into a tank of sake, that sake will not go bad. But more practically, this wood is seen as best for protecting the sake from spoiling. But also, sugi is the one type of wood that does not impart a woody smell to the koji, or the moromi (fermenting mash), or the completed sake. Other wood varieties would make sake taste and smell woody, but sugi minimizes that effect.

Back to the iconic sugidama: since they are made in late fall or early winter, the needle-like leaves are still green. Over the next several months, however, the green needles turn brown. Originally, it was said that when the color had changed to brown, the sake had aged enough to be optimally ready for drinking. So one would enjoy the hanging of a sugidama outside a brewer, and wait with great anticipation until it turned brown and the sake was ready to drink.

I recall a visit to a kura in Yamagata Prefecture named Kamenoi Shuzo, brewers of the sake Kudokijozu, during which the president Mr. Imai pointed to a large sugidama hanging by the entrance. “See that, there? As you know, it should turn brown by the fall. Well, back in 1995, we had a sugidama that somehow miraculously stayed green; it never changed colors. While that alone was a mystery, that particular year the rice harvest was horrendous, and as such the sake that year was bad as well. Somehow, the sugidama knew the sake was never quite ready to drink, and so it never turned brown.”

I dunno; stories like that kind of link sake to the rest of nature in a very cool way, one that almost makes veracity a secondary point.

Often, I have wondered how they were actually made. My inquiries were met with, “Well, ya just keep stuffin’ more and more sugi leaves in there, and trim it ‘till it’s round enough…” But only recently did I see a work in progress when visiting a brewery that was just about to press its first batch of the year.

In the old days, the experienced guys would ball up a bunch of boughs and stuff everything else into that. These days, many if not most use a ball of wire or styrofoam at the center.  I was genuinely surprised to learn that it was that simple.

Although accounts differ subtly from source to source on the details, the above is the basic gist of the saga of the sugidama. But it has evolved in its use if not its symbolism. Today, sugidama appear not only in front of kura (breweries), but also in front of sake retail shops, as well as sake pubs and other places serving sake all over the country. A few are even found outside of Japan.

One of the most charming sites of winter – if you are into sake – must be a sugidama with freshly fallen snow resting on the top. If it doesn’t evoke an inner warmth, try viewing it with a glass of sake. It soon will. 　

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The next Sake Professional Course will be held April 23-25, 2019 in Chicago Illinois. You can learn more here, and make a reservation with an email to me at sakeguy@gol.com. Hope to see you there! 

No Sake Stone Remains Left Unturned!

Sake Rice Survived a Couple of Typhoons, But How Did it Fare Otherwise?

In late October, the National Research Institute of Brewing in Japan released their annual rice report, loosely translated as the Suitability of This Year’s Rice to Sake Brewing Report. In short, the report analyzes the weather patterns of the previous summer, comparing it to analytical data, and predicts how well (or not well) this year’s rice harvest will dissolve in the fermenting mash.

Basically speaking, the more sunlight and heat the rice plant absorbs as it grows, the harder the grains will be when harvested. The harder the grains are, not surprisingly, the more stubbornly and slowly it will dissolve in the mash. This is pretty much a function of sunlight and average temperatures in primarily August and September.

So colder summers lead to softer rice that dissolves comparatively faster and leads to bigger and bouncier flavors, and hotter summers lead to slowly dissolving rice that leads to cleaner, more narrow flavor profiles. One is not unequivocally better than the other; it is all a matter of what kind of sake a brewer is trying to make, and getting the rice at hand to dovetail with the rest of the processes involved.

Of course, just how fast or slow a rice dissolves depends on a myriad of factors. How much water the rice was allowed to absorb, the amount and type of enzymes created by the koji, and the temperature of the fermenting mash are just a few of those. So in truth the best a report like this can do is to say, “in comparison to an average year, rice can be expected to dissolve in this way…” Brewers can then take into consideration the factors unique to their facility and methods to get an idea of what to expect.

Having information like this is extremely helpful to sake brewers. Why is this? Because the faster the rice dissolves, the fuller and more rambunctious the flavor of the sake will be. If the rice is expected to dissolve more readily than most years, brewers may want to rein that in. Conversely, if the rice is expected to dissolve more slowly, brewers might want to do what they can to hasten that dissolution.

What can they actually do as a countermeasure? Considering that most brewing decisions for a given product will remain the same, the most visible activity is adjusting the moisture content of the rice. That is accomplished by adjusting the amount of time the rice is soaked in water, and the precision with which that step is undertaken. There are of course other steps, but this is their first line of defense.

More often that not, brewers are loathe to let the rice absorb too much water. If anything err on the side of less moisture, and a slower dissolution. It is easier to speed it up later than to slow it down, or at least it is easier to make up for too little flavor than to rid a moromi (fermenting mash) of too much such sloppiness.

Of course, brewers – and toji (brewmasters) in particular – are not oblivious to the weather. Many will follow it closely and are in the rice fields and getting reports regularly throughout the season. So many may not feel the need to read this short four-page report. In truth, I have no idea! However, what is interesting is that this information is also there, and surely it is considered handy by many brewers in the country.

So what did the report say about the rice grown in 2018?

Interestingly, the report assesses the rice based on two things, where in Japan it grows, and when the ears of rice begin to appear on the rice plant. Naturally, these are related to how much heat and sunlight are absorbed. The sooner it is planted, the sooner the ears appear, and the more sunlight and heat it will be exposed to during a given summer. And this, of course, leads to hardness or softness in the rice grains once they are harvested.

And, so, the report reads thusly.

For early-harvest rice such as Gohyakumangoku for which the ears appear in mid-July, the rice is expected to be harder, and will not dissolve as readily as most years. But for rice in which the ears appear in the first ten days of August, typically grown in Northern Japan, the rice is expected to dissolve more readily than a typical year. And for rice that is particularly late harvest, like that grown in Western Japan (as is much of the best sake rice), in which the ears appear in late August – for the most part will be like a normal year, and compared to last year either the same or little bit harder.

These were the generalizations for the major growing regions. After this the report addressed a handful of smaller rice producing regions, and all were expected to dissolve more slowly excepting Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan’s main four. Normally very cold, global warming is affecting rice growing up there, and Hokkaido rice is expected to dissolve comparatively readily.

The main point here is not to have people look out for Yamada Nishiki’s dissolution rate to be normal in next year’s sake while to be prepared to notice that Gohyakmangoku’s will be slower – all while enjoying sake and sushi with friends. Nah. Forget that; leave that to the brewers. Rather, it is interesting to see the connection between sake quality and climate. With sake, sometimes that can get overlooked.

For those that are interested the report can be read and downloaded here, although it is only in Japanese.

Sake Professional Course 

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Chicago, April 23rd to 25th. It will be the 48th running of the course, and will be held on the second floor of the wonderful restaurant Sunda. While details are not yet complete, the generalities are set to the degree that I can respond to inquiries and accept reservations. To learn more about the Sake Professional Course, go here. To inquire about the Chicago course, go here and also please send me an email at sakeguy@gol.com . 

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 neighbor 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.

What 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.