The main raw materials of sake are rice and water, and rice is the only fermentable material used in its production. And just as the grapes used to make good wine are significantly different from those bought at the supermarket, the rice used to make premium sake is significantly different from that which we find sitting under the fish in sushi, or in bowls in meals.

In truth, most sake – perhaps 75 percent of all produced – is actually made from regular table rice. And a lot of this is perfectly tasty sake. But when we meander into the realm of premium sake, especially ginjo, almost always it is made with proper sake rice, which is significantly different from regular table rice.

While there are many ways that sake rice differs from other types (size of the stalk, size of the grains, more starch, less fat and protein), the most talked about of them is surely the presence of a shinpaku.

In proper sake rice, the higher-than-normal starch content is mostly concentrated in the center of the grains. Why is this so heart-warmingly special? Because we want to get at the starch, which will be converted to sugar and then into alcohol. But we don’t want the fat and protein, which would lead to off-flavors and contribute rough elements to the sake. So with the starch neatly concentrated in the center, all we need to do is to mill away more and more of the outside of the grain, and by doing that we remove the fat and protein and leave only the starchy goodies behind.

That packet of starch in the center is called the shinpaku. The word itself is written with the characters for “heart” and “white,” and not surprisingly, when one looks at sake rice, you can clearly see that the heart of the grain is an opaque white, with everything around that being somewhat translucent. In regular rice, however, the color is uniform throughout since the starch, fat and protein are more mixed up and uniformly distributed.

Why does sake rice have the starch in the center, and fat and protein around that? Part of it is just the nature of those strains. But it also has to do with climate and growing conditions. Regions with hot days and cold nights are best for sake rice production, as the cold nights coerce the plant to send the starch to the center of the grains. In “bad years” for rice, seasons being too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, or when the night and day temperatures had less variance, fewer grains will have a decent shinpaku.

What is interesting is that it is not the starch itself that makes the center of the grains white. What happens is that the starch molecules are round at the ends, and as they rush to get to the middle they don’t interlock well, and they leave tiny air pockets between their ends. These diffuse light passing through, giving the opaque appearance we see.

Beyond different varieties or strains of rice, within each type there are grades based upon how well it was grown. This is a function of locale, climate, and skill of the producer. And one of the big points of assessment is the percentage of grains with a visible shinpaku. This is also one of the standards in the official assessment of sake rice versus table rice in general.

There are many more factors beyond the shinpaku and its size that are involved in qualifying good sake rice. But the shinpaku is the most visible, if not the most talked about.

Note, too, that one can make decent-to-good sake from regular rice. It takes a good toji and good tools, but just a few of the many examples of table rice from which decent sake is brewed are Koshihikari, Sasanishiki, the illustrious Kame no O. So one can indeed make decent sake from table rice. It’s just easier to do so with real sake rice.

Finally, the question often arises, if a brewer is using table rice, why do they bother to mill down to 70, 60 or even 50 percent of the original size? If table rice has no shinpaku, isn’t that meaningless and wasteful?

The answer lies in the fact that in truth, all rice to some degree has more starch in the center and more fat and protein near the surface, whether or not this is manifested in a visible shinpaku. It is just that this is all more distinct in sake rice; much more starch is in the center, and much more of the fat and protein is near the outside of the grains.

So more milling will have a positive effect on table rice as well when it is used in sake brewing, just not as pronounced as with good sake rice. As usual with sake-related things, it’s all a tad vague.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sake Professional Course
in Japan 

Tuesday, January 10 ~ Saturday, January 14, 2017
Recognized by the Sake Education Council

No sake stone remains left unturned

“Quite simply, the best and most thorough sake education on the planet.”

From Tuesday, January 10 to Saturday, January 14,  I will hold the 14th  running (and 38th overall) of the Sake Professional Course in Japan.

The Sake Professional Course in Japan is far and away the best possible sake education in existence. Three days of lecture and tasting, each evening capped off with dinner and fine, fine sake, followed by two days spent visiting four sake breweries of different size and scale – punctuated again with fine sake and a great meal each evening make this course as comprehensive as it could be. If you are serious about sake, and especially about working with sake, there is no other course for you; this is it. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

The course is recognized by the not-for-profit organization The Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered near the end of the week.

The course will be held from the morning of Tuesday, January 10 to the evening of Saturday, January 14,2017, and will be focused in Tokyo, but with a two- day excursion to the Osaka – Kyoto – Kobe area to visit four sake breweries of various scale. Geared toward professionals, but open to anyone with an interest in sake, this course will begin with the basics, and will provide the environment for a focused, intense, and concerted training period. It will consist of classroom sessions on all things sake-related, followed by relevant tasting sessions, four sake brewery visits, and exposure to countless brands and styles in several settings, both in comparison to other sake, and with food. Participants will stay together at hotels in Tokyo and Osaka. Lectures will take place in a comfortable classroom, and evening meals will be off-site at various sake- related establishments.

The goal of this course is that “no sake stone remains left unturned,” and the motto is “exceed expectations.”

During the three classroom days, we will discuss various aspects of sake and the sake world, including grades, production, rice, yeast, koji, water and more. Tastings specific to the just-discussed topics follow each lecture, thereby allowing participants to understand with their senses the theory just presented. Participants will not simply hear about differences based on rice types or yeast types, they will taste and smell them. Students will not only absorb technical data about yamahai, kimoto, nama genshu, aged sake and regionality, they will absorb the pertinent flavors and aromas within the related sake as well.

Food and sake, the state of the sake-brewing industry, the culture and history suffusing sake are regionality are just a few more of the wide range of topics to be covered. Every conceivable sake-related topic will be touched upon, and each lecture will be complimented and augmented by a relevant tasting session.

Participants will also be presented with a certificate of completion at the end of the course.

The Tokyo classroom venue is the Japan Sake and Shochu Producers Association in the Shimbashi area.

The cost for this five-day educational experience is ¥190,000. This includes all instruction and materials, as well as evening meals with plenty of sake each night. Other meals, transportation to and from as well as within Japan, and hotel are not included in the tuition. To make a reservation or if you have any questions at all, please send an email to John Gauntner at sakeguy@gol.com .

For more information, a downloadable pdf announcement and a view of the daily syllabus, please go here . Testimonials from past participants can be found here as well.

The government in Japan, in particular the National Tax Administration, monitors trends in sake preferences amongst consumers, as expressed by trends in sake production. The results of the analysis of data from last year’s sake was released a short while ago. While it is nothing shocking, it is interesting to see how things change. Here are a couple of tendencies culled from that slurry of data.

1. Drier junmai-shu

Junmai-shu continues to grow in popularity, although not as fast as a few years ago. But it has also continued to become drier on the average.

2. Richer sake

Junmai-shu also has a higher amino acid content than other types, not surprisingly. But all sake in general is getting richer, as measured by a higher average amino acid content.

3. Increased levels of ethyl caproate

Again, hardly surprising, but the level of the ester ethyl caproate, which leads to aromas like ripe apple, tropical fruit and licorice or anise, has been on the increase. Curse it. This is hardly surprising considering that ginjo and daiginjo continue to grow very strongly in popularity.

4. Decreasing alcohol content in futsuu-shu

Non-premium sake has seen a decrease in alcohol content overall. Ginjo et cetera has seen alcohol levels stay fairly high, likely for increased impact, but in non-premium futsuu-shu alcohol has dropped a bit on the average. I am not sure what the significance of this point is, though, nor was it elucidated upon in the government report.

While most of these mini-trends are predicitble extensions of sake’s growth and popularity these days, it is fun to check the pulse of sake from time to time.

What else makes your sake taste and smell as it does?

In a previous post, we began talking about the “flavor elements of sake,” i.e. what things – ingredients, methods and “after-care” – combine in various ways to make the sake before you taste and smell the way it does. And last month we looked at the main ingredients and their contributions. Rice, water, yeast and koji all play their roles, and those roles are intertwined. If you missed that, you can check it out here.

This time around, let us consider the following brewing processes, the choice of which will alter the path a sake-in-waiting will tread. While there is potentially no end to the points would could consider, let us narrow it down to six: milling, yeast starter, pressing, pasteurization, whether or not added alcohol has been used, and aging.

And just like the ingredients side of things, none of these six processes have an absolutely guaranteed air-tight cause and effect relationship with the final sake. All are intertwined with the many other choices involved. But there are tendencies for sake made with these methods to end up tasting and smelling a certain way. So let us look at those admittedly tenuous-yet-valid connections.

Milling
More than anything else, milling affects lightness: the more the rice is milled before brewing begins, the lighter and more refined the sake will be. But milling affects more than just the lightness as well – more highly milled rice can indirectly lead to more fruity aromas. And other things affect lightness or heaviness as well. But in general, the more you mill the rice, the lighter and more refined the sake will be.

This is because milling the rice more takes away increasingly more of the fat and protein lurking near the surface that lead to richer, fuller flavors.

Note that more milling is not always better, even though that point is used often in product marketing. Lighter sake is not unequivocally better than richer sake; not at all. And more milling does not guarantee a lighter sake. But the tendency is in fact there.

Yeast Starter
More than anything else, the choice of yeast starter affects flavor elements like sweetness, acidity and umami, expressed perhaps as “clean-ness versus richness.”

This section could be expanded to fill several books, at least. But since we do not have that luxury now, let us break it down a bit. There are three main ways of preparing the yeast starter, a few less mainstream but very valid ways, and tons of variations beyond that.

What are those three main methods? Wincing at how inappropriate it is to constrain them to a single paragraph, they are: sokujo, kimoto and yamahai. Sokuju the most modern (yet still over a hundred years old), used to make 99 percent of all sake out there, and leads to clean sake.

Kimoto is the oldest and most traditional, very little is made, and leads to richer sake, often with a bright (almost tart) acidity and fine-grained flavor.

Yamahai is also about 100 years old and often yields richer, wilder sake with higher sweetness and acidity.

However, the above three descriptions are just tendencies, albeit solid ones to be sure. But not all yamahai is wild, not all kimoto is fine-grained, and not all sokujo is squeaky clean.

Note these three methods are also affected by everything else: milling, rice, yeast, water and more. The choice of yeast starter alone does not guarantee anything.

And the method chosen affects other things than the over-simplistic flavor profiles described above. But in short, the choice of yeast starter method affects clean-ness versus richness.

Pressing Method
More than anything else, the choice of pressing method affects expressiveness and intensity.

After a month-long fermentation period, the mash is pressed through a mesh, removing the remaining rice solids and sending the completed sake through. Not surprisingly there are a few main methods in use for this pressing step, and just as unsurprisingly they lead to different type of sake.

Machine press
Most sake is pressed using a machine that does this very efficiently. The fermented mash is forced through mesh panels leaving the dregs clinging to the mesh and the golden ambrosia comes out the other end. This machine does a great job and saves untold amounts of labor.

Fune (box press)
However, a brewer can perform this step in other ways too. One such method involves pouring several liters of the fermented mash into a meter-long cloth bag, and then piling those bags into a large, sturdy box maybe two-across, twenty-long, and ten-high – or thereabouts. The lid is then cranked down and into the box, and the sake comes out a hole in the bottom. Sake pressed in this method is usually called funa-shibori and is often more pronounced, expressive and aromatic.

Shizuku
For those brewers and sake for which this is just not going far enough, the same bags o’ mash can be tied off and hung, and not squeezed at all. This drip-pressing method is called shizuku, And the sake that drips out is even more extravagantly aromatic, expressive and definitely intense.

However, many other things affect the expressiveness and intensity of a sake; the pressing method is just one of ‘em.

So in short, machine press – just fine; funashibori (box press) –  more lively and aromatic; shizuku (drip press)  – even more intense and expressive.

Pasteurization
Most sake is pasteurized by heating it to about 60C or so for a short time. This stabilizes the product by killing off lactic bacteria and stifling enzymes that would otherwise feed those bacteria. When sake is not pasteurized it is called nama-zake, and is a very different animal.

Nama-zake can be livelier and more vibrant, often with more pronounced characteristic aromas. These aromas may be woody at first, and cheesy if the sake is not kept cold and away from oxygen.

While many find properly cared for nama to be more appealing, it is not unequivocally better – just different. Furthermore, nama-zake will mature much more quickly than pasteurized sake.

So, in short, nama is usually livelier in aromas, and pasteurized sake more settled and deep. But of course, there are exceptions.

Junmai vs. Jon-Junmai
Junmai means the sake was made with rice, water and koji only. If the junmai word is not on the bottle, then a bit of distilled alcohol has been added just after fermentation and before pressing to help extract more flavor and aroma, lighten the sake a bit, and improve shelf life as well. (Admittedly, in cheap sake lots is added to stretch yields, but in premium stuff this is neither the goal nor the result.)

Junmai types are often richer and fuller, especially compared to their non-junmai counterparts. So junmai ginjo is richer than (added-alcohol) ginjo, and junmai daiginjo is richer than (added-alcohol) daiginjo. Unless it isn’t.

Sometimes, that is simply not the case, and many people cannot tell the difference in most situations.

Ergo, in a nutshell, junmai types are slightly richer than added alcohol types. Usually.

Aging
This is the simplest of the method-related generalizations here: aged sake takes on color, a sherry-like quality, earthiness and more pronounced flavors. Many factors affect this: the milling of the original sake, whether it is junmai or added-alcohol, time, temperature and vessel.

But in its simplest form, the more mature a sake is, the more intense and sherry-like its flavors and aromas become – most of the time, that is.

Most sake is shipped and meant to be consumed young: within a year or two. Very, very little is aged for more than a couple of years. While that rabbit hole, too, is deep, fascinating and enjoyable, it is a very small part of the market for now.

Along with last month’s assessment of the main ingredients of sake, the above runs down a few of the many options a brewer has in making sake, and how those choice will more than likely – but not absolutely – affect the fine nature of the sake. A quick review of the last line in each section should suffice as a quick-n-simple assessment of how each step affects the final product, and should hopefully be useful in knowing why your sake tastes the way it does, or what to expect based on the info on the label.

But superseding this all is the warm-n-fuzzy elusive nature of sake. As soon as we think we got it figured out, it hoses our hubris. And therein lies the fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fond of doing things at the last minute? Then check out the Sake Professional Course to be held in Toronto October 3, 4 and 5. Learn more here.

What is it that makes a sake taste and smell the way it does? What goes into and drives the myriad flavors and aromas we enjoy in today’s sake? We could get really technical. We good go chemical if want to, but it would not likely be pretty.

But what if we take a step or two back, and from a simple ingredients-to-results point of view ask “why’s it taste and smell like that? What makes it sweet or dry or rich or thin or fruity are ricey or sharp or round?”

Again: we could get technical. But in truth, a caveat-augmented simple explanation is more than enough. In other words, we can present the most general reasoning, the one that represents 70 percent of the truth, and then acknowledge that the remaining 30 percent exists as exceptions.

So let us look at what affects the way a sake tastes, smells and otherwise presents itself to us. The sources of those elements will be one of three things: ingredients, brewing methods, and after-care, or post-brewing handling methods. While there are countless ways of assessing the nature of sake, let’s narrow it down to those three.

And breaking it down further, let the ingredients be narrowed down to rice, water, koji and yeast. (Actually, since those are the extent of sake’s ingredients, that ain’t really narrowing it down, but you know…) And let us consider the following steps as the brewing methods that affect the nature of the sake: milling, yeast starter methods, pressing methods, pasteurization, whether or not alcohol has been added (i.e. whether or not it is a junmai style) and aging.

And finally, (But wait, there’s more!) we have region and final specs like the nihonshu-do (or SMV) and acidity. While these are more results than causes, we can extract info from them.

Since this is far too much for one enjoyable reading session, let us approach this over a couple of newsletters, and let us start this time with the basic ingredients of sake: rice, water, koji and yeast. And breaking it down to its most welcoming presentation, it might look like this.

I. Rice = Flavor
In short, rice affects flavor. But rice affects more than just flavor – umami and mouth feel for example. And other things affect flavor other than rice. But more than anything else, the choice of rice affects flavor.

There are about 400 types of short grain “Japonica” rice grown in Japan, and about 100 of the are sake rice types. While not all are distinctive in the flavors they provide, many are. Bear in mind that the rice-to-final-sake connection is not nearly as tight as the grape-to-final-wine connection. Much more affects the sake along its evolution in the kura. But the connection is still an important one.

Some rice will give sake balance and fullness, others will indeed affect specific flavors like sweetness or characters like acidity. Some lead to broader mouthfeels while others are much more narrow in their unfolding. And some lead to no discernible qualities other than lightness.

II. Yeast = Aroma
In short, yeast affects aromas. But yeast affects more than just aromas – acidity and alcohol for example. And other things affect aromas other than yeast. But more than anything else, the choice of yeast affects aromas.

Do you smell melon? It’s due to the yeast. Banana? That would be yet another yeast. Apple and licorice? That is from yet another family of yeast strains. Is it entirely this simple? Oh, God no. But basically, aromas are a result of the choice of yeast.

III. Koji = sweetness/dryness and umami.
In short, the way the koji is made will affect how sweet or dry the sake will be. Also, since the higher the ratio of koji to plain steamed rice, the more the amino acids, the more umami the sake will have.

But koji affects more than just sweetness and umami. And other things affect sweetness and umai. But more than anything else, koji affects sweetness/dryness and umami.

Koji provides enzymes that convert starch to sugar. Just how strong those enzymes are, and at what stage of the brewing process they are most active, will determine how sweet or dry the sake is. If the koji leads to lots of starch-to-sugar conversion early on, that sugar will be readily converted to alcohol leading to a dry sake. If sugar comes along later in the process when the yeast is petering out, it will remain in the sake and lead to sweetness. In truth, this too is more complicated. But therein lies the gist.

Also, the more koji that goes into the batch, the richer and fuller the sake will be, expressed in terms of umami, that sixth taste, the concept of which is becoming much more familiar to the world at large.

Of course, koji leads to other aspects of the sake, and if not created properly can lead to faults as well. But basically, sweet-or-dry and umami are tied to koji.

IV. Water = mouth feel.
In short, the water – and in particular the mineral content of the water – affects mouth feel. But water affects more than just mouth feel – like how vigorous or lackadaisacal the fermentation proceeds. And other things affect mouth feel besides the source of water. But more than anything else, water affects mouth feel.

Soft water yields a softer, more absorbing mouth feel, and is actually more suited to ginjo production as well. Harder water often leads to a fuller mouth feel with a quicker finish.

Men at Work at Rihaku Brewery

As alluded to above, there is much more that affects how the sake ends up. Just how the ingredients are coaxed and guided during the brewing process is the next phase of all this. We will look at that next month, but for now, remember that rice leads to flavor, yeast yields aromas, koji leads to sweetness or dryness, as well as umami, and water leads to mouth feel. Basically. Sort of.

It all rests comfortably in the vagueness of all that sake is. Fortunately, we need deal with none of this to enjoy it.

The most prestigious contest in the industry

In May, the 103rd Zenkoku Shinshu Kanpyoukai was held in Japan. The official translation of this contest is the Japan Sake Awards, but the literal translation is much more descriptive if slightly unwieldy: the National New Sake Appraisal Competition. It is the longest running competition of its kind, and I write about it each year. Those interested can search the archives for the June or July issues of this newsletter over the past decade or so.

For the click-averse, here is a summary of the main points of this vaunted competition.

• It is by far the most prestigious sake tasting in Japan

• The sake submitted is not stuff you can normally buy, but added-alcohol daiginjo made specifically for this contest. It is brewed to have a minimum of faults, but still stand out. How’s that for a challenge?!

• Between 800 and 900 of Japan’s 1200 sakagura will submit an entry to the contest. Each company is allowed to submit one sake per brewing license, i.e. one per brewing facility owned. Some big companies own more than one facility so they would be permitted one for each.

• Sake is tasted blind in round one, and about half make it to round two.

They are then tasted blind again, and about half of these will be designated as gold, the rest that made it into the second round are designated as prize-winners (the term “silver” is not used, although the gist is the same).

• So about 220 win gold each year, and while prestigious, it is not that commonly used in marketing as the average consumer has no idea this contest even exists.

• For the sixth time in ten years, and fourth in a row, Fukushima Prefecture won more golds than any other prefecture, and as has been the case for the past decade, the entire Tohoku region did very, very well.

• This year, due to the hot summer, it was expected that many of the submissions would have too much flavor, or be too sloppy in the flavors, i.e. less restrained. But this concern proved unwarranted.

• Much winning sake was on the sweet side, with extra glucose to balance out bitterness contributed by yeasts that give fruity aromas. But the finish on much of this sake was clean and balanced, so all was in order.

• To me, the most interesting occurrence was that Aramasa from Akita won a gold medal, but did it with the oldest yeast in continuous use, Number 6, which is not known for the modern tropical fruity and anise-esque aromatics that normally win the attention of the judges. Furthermore it was a kimoto sake, i.e. brewed in a way that usually leads to more umami and gaminess, not typically what one finds in prize-winning sake at this competition. As I am seeing more and more in the sake world, “what is old is new again.”

• While the sake submitted is not normal market sake, the flavors, aromas, styles and leading prefectures are a harbinger of where sake is currently headed. Therein lies the contest’s appeal.

There is so much to be said about this competition: the changes over the years, the remarkably-few-yet-still-there-to-some-degree politics, the history, the records, the reasons it came to be. Much of that can be dug up in the archives of this newsletter, but more importantly it seems as though amidst today’s sake popularity, at least a few more people are showing an interest in this historically and culturally significant competition.

At these links, you can see the results and more in English (!).

From whence does the added alcohol come?

In recent years, the line between junmai-types vs. non-junnmai-types divide seems to be strengthening, in many senses. One such sense is sake style. Brewers that focus on junmai seem, at least to me, to be making the richer and fuller styles that junmai types can be, and those that make non-junmai, i.e. added-added alcohol types, seem to be making lighter, more aromatic and seamless sake styles that added alcohol affords.

While there is a lot of information out there on these two divisions of the sake market, here is a semi-brief synopsis. About 80 percent of all sake has pure distilled alcohol added to it just after fermentation. Water is later added to bring the alcohol back down, so it is not really fortified. When alcohol is not added the term junmai is put on the label.

So junmai-shu, junmai ginjo-shu and junmai daiginjo-shu are the three premium types of rice-only sake. Honjozo-shu, ginjo-shu and daiginjgo-shu are the three types of added alcohol premium sake. For the 65 percent of the market that is non-premium sake, this addition of alcohol done for economic reasons. For the 15 percent of the market that is premium and non-junmai (honjozo, ginjo-shu and daiginjgo-shu), this added alcohol is done for good technical reasons: it helps extract flavor and aromas, and predisposes the sake to time in the bottle.

In recent years, the junmai types have grown in popularity, but the non-junmai types have been a bit maligned, unfairly so in the opinion of many, myself included. Those that are anti-added-alcohol say they can taste it, it gives them a hangover, it is somehow cheating, and other unfounded arguments. While a rant is not the aim of this article, the topic is one about which many in Japan feel passionate.

However, interestingly, in blind tastings many ostensibly dedicated junmai fans will choose non-junmai sake over junmai sake. This I have seen again and again. But like I said, this is not intended to be a rant.

Beyond the untenable arguments above, though, there are a couple of valid positions. Namely, whether or not sake is made from rice, and whether or not the ingredients are domestically sourced. For example, brewers must list on the label the source of rice. They are permitted to use imported rice (very, very few do, and only for very, very cheap sake), but in the ingredients list it must say “domestic rice” or “imported rice.” The same stipulation is not, however, applied to added alcohol.

Almost without exception, the alcohol used when making non-junmai sake is roughly distilled from sugar cane, imported into Japan, and then distilled again for purity. By the time it gets to the brewers it is pure ethyl alcohol, blended with water for safety reasons. So it is not made from rice, and it is not from Japan. To have a product like sake – the national drink of Japan – which is known as a rice-based product – be made with something other than rice, and other than Japan-based ingredients can be a sore point with some folks.

Again; not me. I enjoy sake completely unfettered from such concerns. Perhaps I am just a hedonistic simpleton. But I digress.

So yes, junmai types are growing in popularity in Japan, but so is an understanding of the very positive aspects of added alcohol sake.

And related to all of this: I recently saw in an industry publication a very interesting idea that has arisen of late.

In order to make premium sake, inspected rice must be used. Inspection ensures certain levels of quality in the rice, which will vary from rice to rice. And in any event, rice in general is just expensive in Japan.

But what if the alcohol used for making non-junmai were to be distilled from really, really cheap rice – broken stuff or rice that did not pass inspection. Again, since it is taken down to being pure ethyl alcohol, the quality of the original rice should not matter.

Surely this is more expensive than sugar-cane based alcohol. But the other side of the coin is that by using this, the entire product can be rice based, and one hundred percent domestic. Surely this will help the agricultural sector as well, since even schlock rice has a use.

What I am curious about is, if premium sake were to be made using added alcohol, but that alcohol was made from domestic rice, would the junmai jihadists concur on its validity as sake? Certainly the quality would be there, or at least, there is no technical reason it would not be so. If so, the idea holds potential for the sake world in bringing non-junmai types back to the fold, and the rice-growing industry would benefit as well.

Making non-junmai using alcohol distilled from domestic rice, even domestic schlock rice, would not be cheap. Surely it would be more expensive than using imported sugar-cane based alcohol. But just as surely there is a market for such products.

And, equally as surely, there is a sector of the market that does not care, only cares about price, enjoys cheap sake – and deserves to have it. So to insist all sake be made in that way would not be fair to all brewers or all consumers. But I see a compromise.

What if cheap sake were to continue to use imported ethyl alcohol and premium sake, i.e. honjozo, ginjo and daiginjo, were to be limited to added alcohol made from domestic rice? This could be indicated on the label, just like the source of the rice.

While I think this is a great idea, it is clear there would be humongous challenges. It would be hard to regulate or enforce. Brewers might be reticent to try this for a handful of reasons, from technical to image-related to economic. Many consumers might not be convinced, won over, or trusting. They may choose to stick with their junmai-only mentality – which of course is their prerogative.

Furthermore, sake brewers are – for the most part – an intelligent lot. Something tells me that someone somewhere along the line has thought of this. If it has not been realized, there must be a good reason. As an indication of this, there are a few brewers that distill their own junmai-shu and use that as the alcohol they add to their sake. So some experimentation has taken place, but nothing remotely resembling widespread adoption.

Finally, as almost all premium sake that is exported is of the junmai varieties, this is not a problem that will resonate with many. It is not exactly rocking the sake world. It is, however, an interesting potential solution that may present opportunities to a handful of challenges at once. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out over the next few years.

How many producers, how much sake?

As interest in sake grows around the world, naturally enough more and more people express curiosity about the sake industry at its source and origin: Japan.

There are many angles from which the industry can be viewed and analyzed. Certainly sales growth and production numbers are one such metric. And as important as they are, those numbers are in constant flux these days. Sales of premium sake grows but overall production still drops as the older generation that was the main market for inexpensive sake gradually passes on. Certainly the growth of premium sake is a more appealing number, and surely it is a better indicator of what to expect in the future.

Another metric, one that is more tied to the traditional infrastructure of sake brewing, is the number of brewers active in the industry. And even these numbers can be confusing and open to interpretation.

For example, one survey on sake exports mentioned that of 1613 companies surveyed, 1526 responded. However, there certainly are not 1613 active sake brewers. It makes more sense when we realize that some companies that just bottle product also need licenses. Furthermore, there are a good-sized handful of kura that are no longer brewing, but refuse to throw in the towel, and so are “taking a break” from sake-producing activities. And, there are some companies – I would estimate ten percent – that have more than one facility, each calling for a separate license. So bundle all those together and perhaps we will get to 1613 or so.

Another survey by the National Tax Administration determined that during the brewing season that ended in July of 2015, there were 1225 sake-brewing facilities, down 11 from the previous year. However: there are breweries in existence that do not actually brew themselves, for any one of a myriad of reasons. They instead outsource it from factories that are under-capacity, and bottle it and sell it as their own. Some do this with only part of their lineup, others do it for all the sake they sell.

Practices like this are good for small companies with a local market but that might not have the manpower or capital to actually produce it anymore. It can also be helpful to the outsourcing company as well. So while not everyone would enthusiastically support this sector, it fills a need.

When I arrived in Japan in 1988, there were 2055 kura selling sake. Now there are 1225. So we are down 830 sakagura in 28 years.

Based on estimates from traveling the country, working in the industry, and actually counting breweries all around the country (I have a lot of time on my hands…), all observations indicate that there are probably close to 1000 sake companies actually making sake. And that may be a high-end estimate.

So, how many sake breweries are there in Japan? About 1600 with licenses, about 1200 selling product, and about 1000 actually brewing the stuff.

Amongst those thousand, how much sake is being made? About 550 thousand kiloliters a year (of recent). Let that number sink in: over half a million kiloliters. Of that, 13 percent is ginjo (including its four subclasses), and 12 percent is junmai-shu. Interestingly, just a scant 20 years ago, both ginjo and junmai were but four percent of production each.

How much rice did the industry use last year? About 250 thousand tons of genmai (unmilled rice), or 164 thousand tons of milled rice. Let that number sink in too. The average seimai-buai (milling rate) was 65 percent.

Of the 1225 kura out there, 41 are considered large, i.e. 1300kl or more. All 41 of these companies export sake. Of the small companies, the tiny craft brewers sector, 93 percent export sake. But still, 70 percent of all sake exports come from the big 41 kura. Indeed, the polarization of the sake industry is very interesting.

In spite of all this, only three percent of all sake brewed is exported. Only. Three. Compare that with the twenty to thirty percent of French and Italian wines that are exported from those respective countires. Or, compare that with scotch whiskey, for which 90 percent of all production is exported. Wow. Either we have a lot of catching up to do (the sake glass is half empty!) or the sake future is so bright, we gotta wear shades when we drink it (the sake glass is half full!).

Either way you look at it, start by filling the sake glass up back to the brim, and enjoy it. If everyone does that, the sake future is indeed a bright one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas Nevada, August 8~10, 2016.

No sake stone remains left unturned! Learn more here . Interested? Please send an email to sakeguy@gol.com today.

The 2015-2016 brewing season is drawing to a close. This month and next, most of the 1200 brewers in the country will be pressing their last batches and cleaning their tools, then closing shop until the fall of this year. As I look back at the kura I visited, one particularly interesting place sticks out in my mind.

In February I visited a brewer making a sake called Kirei, written with the characters for turtle and age. Tortoises live a long time, hence the auspicious connotations. It is a tiny company in Nagano called Okazaki Shouten, with the brewing being done by two people, the husband-and-wife team that own it. They do, in fact, have a little bit of part-time help along the way.

Obviously, they cannot make very much sake. In fact, it is a true micro-kura, with their yearly production being only 100 koku. A koku is a traditional unit equaling 180 liters, so that means they only make the equivalent of 10,000 large 1.8 liter bottles, or 2000 nine-liter cases.

There are hundreds of such small kura around Japan. Such places may barely eke out an existence, which is just fine by (at least some of) them. Their sake might range from “fair to middling” or it might be great like Kirei, and they may in fact have other sources of income. It doesn’t matter. They love doing what they are doing. And that is all that matters.

However, in the case of Kirei, their smallness has not crimped their quality at all. Not. At. All. On the contrary, the reason they are so interesting is that last year their sake was the top sake in the government-sponsored tasting for the Kanto-Shinetsu region of Japan, which includes not only venerable Nagano but revered Niigata Prefecture as well. And Shinshu Kirei was tops. Wow. That is impressive.

But with such a small production, obviously there is not much of this sake to go around. Certainly the opportunity is there for them to expand, grow, develop, invest, hire – and all that stuff. Many would think they would ride this wave, and certainly they could. Some folks might think that any businessperson in his or her right mind would do so, right?

Sure. But sometimes it’s not about that.

As Okazaki-san, husband-half of the dynamic duo, led me around the kura, the conversation naturally moved in that direction, and of his own accord he addressed the questions that he must get so often get asked. Why not make more sake? Why not grow, develop, expand?

“I dunno,” he begins. “Sure, we could hire someone and increase our production at least a little bit. But the risk is for a company of our scale is huge. This new hire would then be a full one-third of our labor. Should something happen, we would immediately lose a huge chunk of our staff.”

As we moved amongst the two rows of tanks of moromi (fermenting mash) they use in the small fermentation room, he continued.

“But it’s not only that. If we were to hire people, I would necessarily need to go into management of our staff, and do other things related to maintaining and managing growth. While that is all perfectly valid and good work, it is not what I want to be doing day-to-day.

“In other words,” he summed it up, “if we try to grow much, I will not be able to look after the moromi.” So maybe he loses out on a chance for growth, but he’s going to be happier doing what he loves, and that energy will get conveyed into his sake.

Very cool. They know what they want to be doing and are aware of the consequences of their choice to do that, as well as those of choosing something different – to grow. And they daily make a conscious and rational decision: they choose the merits of staying small.

I’ll drink to that.

Note, there is also a brand Kirei in Saijo in Hiroshima. The brand name and characters are the same as the company introduced above, so to eschew confusion they often add the traditional name of Nagano Prefecture, Shinshu, to the name of this sake, i.e. Shinshu Kirei.

Note, too, their sake is light and young, with great balance and breadth rather than just impact, and perhaps more defined by banana and melon aromas than the wilder fragrances of many modern ginjo sake.

Yeast is a crucial ingredients in sake.

The three main ingredients of sake are usually given as water, rice and koji, which is steamed rice with a mold grown upon it that converts starch to sugar. But although not usually listed as an ingredient, yeast is crucial in that it converts that sugar into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and many other things that make a sake taste and smell the way it does.

Yeast does and will occur naturally in the environment, but is – with only a couple of exceptions – manually added. More than anything else the choice of yeast determines the aromas of the final sake, although as we have come to expect with sake, it ain’t quite that simple.

There are hundreds if not thousands of yeasts used in sake brewing today.

Tons of ‘em. Oodles and oodles of ‘em. I am fond of saying that “everybody and his brother has a proprietary or special yeast.” Many (if not most) of them are recently developed and are to some degree experimental; if the resulting sake is a hit, great. If not, the brewer may move on to other yeast choices. As such, many are not long for this world. Indeed, few will last the test of time.

Not that it has always been this way. The surge in proprietary and specially developed yeast strains is about 25 years old now, I reckon. Before that the industry focused more on a handful of tried and true yeast strains that have been around for about a century. And before that, everyone depended on their own in-house ambient yeast, which alone could make or break a kura’s reputation.

Where do they come from? With so many out there, obviously there must be multiple sources. But it is probably safe to say that most sake in Japan is made using a yeast obtained from the Nippon Jozo Kyokai, known officially in English as the Brewing Society of Japan.

The “BSJ” has been around since 1906, originally as a group of researchers that had recently graduated from a governmental sake production course.

Their main functions are R&D, and of course stocking and distributing microorganisms, mainly sake yeast. The yeast strains themselves were for the most part discovered in sake breweries around Japan, and most have been around for decades and decades.

They are meticulously reproduced and kept pure year after year, providing stable and dependable fermentation to sake breweries all over Japan. While yeasts can have all kinds of names, those from the BSJ are recognizable by their very simple nomenclature, such as #6, #7, and #9 – which belie their significance in the industry.

While numbers one to five do exist, they are no longer distributed due to what is considered to be excessive acidity. In fact, amongst the handful of yeast strains that are actively supplied, the main ones to remember are numbers 6, 7, 9, 14 and 18-01. They were named in order of discovery, and the higher the number, the more ostentatious the aromatics. (Sorta. It’s not quite that simple, but for sound-byte purposes, that’ll do in a pinch.)

In terms of how these are reproduced, it varies a bit from yeast to yeast. But basically, stock yeast cells are put into an environment that encourages reproduction. Kind of like a love hotel for yeast, I guess. The resulting yeast cells are harvested, and washed with sterilized water, analyzed for purity and quality, and then bottled in little glass ampules.

Yeast cells mutate very quickly, and so the cells must be checked to be sure

the compounds they produce and the other characteristics are true to the original. Otherwise the acids, esters and alcohols could change, and brewers would end up with sake that is totally different from what was sought.

Once these ampules arrive at the kura, brewers will then use them by pouring the pure yeast directly into a yeast starter, or alternatively, giving the yeast cells a kick-start via a nutrient solution of koji and water. There are also other ways, of course.

However, as alluded to above, the BSJ is not the only source of yeast. Far from it! Many prefectures have their own research organizations that develop yeast strains for use by local breweries, and many breweries have their own proprietary strains as well. “Developing” yeasts really means isolating them from amongst countless strains naturally occurring in the air. (No genetic modification is done at all.)

But for almost all of these modern yeast types, rather than being a yeast that rose naturally to the top both literally and figuratively, they were the result of an active search for particular qualities like fruity aromas. Certainly there is nothing wrong with this; it is still a natural process. But many of these more modern yeast type are comparatively ostentatious in their aromatic profiles, with apple and licorice and tropical fruit more apparent than the banana and melon of olde.

Furthermore, many of these new whippersnappers amongst the ranks of yeast do not tolerate time well, in other words, the sake made using them changes comparatively quickly in the bottle, sometimes leading to bitterness in the background of the sake.

This is not to discredit or criticize their use, nor the sake to which they lead. Much of it is wonderful and popular, to be sure. The only point here is to highlight some of the differences.

However: it does seem to be that the modern yeasts, for all their lively aromatics, are very slowly falling out of favor. Perhaps a more correct way to say that is that there seems to be a slow but evident return to the more classic yeast types, in particular #6, #7 and #9, with a dollop of #14 in the daiginjo department.

Is this clearly measurable? Nah; not yet. It is still a fledgling trend. And it may not gather critical mass, and the tendency to use modern yeasts may continue. As such, not much is clear on the yeastern front at all. Vibrant ginjo aromas are still popular, even if less pretentious sake does seem to be making a comeback.

It is important to emphasize again that there is no one superior yeast or group of yeasts. As long as the sake is enjoyable by a significant number of people, anything goes. “It’s all good,” as they say. But the slight trend toward the classics, both in terms of aromas, choice of yeast, and brewing methods such as kimoto that tie in well with more less brazen yeasts, is interesting to observe.

More and more producers are providing yeast information for the sake available both in Japan and overseas. Be sure to take note of this information – and your own observations – as you enjoy sake from here on out. It can only enhance your sake experiences.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interested in Sake? Pick up a copy of my latest book, Sake Confidential, A Beyond-the-Basics Guide to Understanding, Tasting, Selection, and Enjoyment.

Learn more here.

In the movie (and play), “A Bronx Tale,” the members of a particular fraternal organization centered around their ethnicity ran a bar into which a group of members of another fraternal organization, this one centered on their preference for two-wheeled vehicles, attempted to enter.

“It’s a private club,” they were told. “You have to leave, you have to leave.”

“But we want nothing more than to have a drink in your fine establishment, sir. We mean to cause no trouble,” came the response.

“Fine,” they were told by the semi-philosophical owner. “You are free to have a drink.”

Well, not five seconds after getting beer in hand, the bar exploded into pandemonium, with the bikers shaking and shooting their beer and creating every kind of ruckus imaginable.  At which point the head wise guy shuts the door ominously, looks around the room, and says, “Now youse can’t leave.”

Immediately, as if on cue, a dozen or so club-wielding affiliate members poured out of the back room and exacted justice.

“Now youse can’t leave.” The movie, as good as it was, has been relegated to the attics of my mind, save for that one line. “Now youse can’t leave.” And so it is with some of my sake.

Backing gingerly back into the realm of sake-talk, we are often told “the rules” of sake care and such, but it is very important to remember that in the world of sake there are countless exceptions to every rule. One of those is the rule of drinking your sake young. Sure, it is true that almost all sake is meant to be consumed young, and that traditionally and historically it has always been done so (again, with some exceptions notwithstanding).

Of course, all this naturally leads to questions relating to how young is still young enough, or conversely stated, how old is too old? In actuality, there is no simple answer, which is why following the “younger is better, don’t mess around with aging sake at home” philosophy is best at first. But the ultimate truth is a bit higher than that.

The fact is that well matured sake can be very interesting, if you are into it, if you are open minded about what constitutes good, and if you have a sense of humor (for those inevitable mis-judgements).

There are several vaults for sake in my office, some cold, some not. Over the course of time, the nature of my work dictates that many a bottle finds its way to me. Try as I might (and oh, I do try), I cannot drink them all in a timely manner. So I often find myself peering into a three-level storage bin six bottles deep and as many wide, pondering what has to go next. And inevitably, I will find one or two that I feel should be tasted soon or they could potentially begin that long, slow, downhill slide.

But one of the great joys of this process is to find one or two that definitely should have been consumed a couple of months earlier. And if I think they can stand up to it, I look at ‘em and say with a forced sinister smile, “Now youse can’t leave.” And I deliberately lay them down for months or more, knowing full well the risk I am taking in doing so. Sometimes I am pleased with the results; other times I just tell myself that I am.

My point is decidedly not to suggest you indiscriminately leave your sake laying around. Rather, I simply want to point out that the world of aged sake does in fact exist. While it may be a small percentage of all sake made, and while few brewers make it, and even fewer apply an organized approach to producing it regularly, it can be a fascinating part of the sake world.

Aged sake is not unequivocally better, nor any more special, and in general only commands slightly higher prices. It is not really collectible and does not increase with value. And like most of us, it does not much resemble what it was in its youth. However, aged sake is in fact very interesting and worth checking out whenever you might come across it.

Tanks of sake awaiting perfect maturity

Should you come across an aged sake, by all means try it. Should you find one that has been forgotten, or one to which you did not get around to drinking after purchasing it years ago, do not despair! Lower your expectations, raise your sense of humor, and try it. You may be very pleased with the results, and if not, you have gained a useful education on how sake ages.

Such are the idiosyncrasies of the sometimes frustrating, often-times interesting, always one-step-ahead-of-human-intellect world of sake.
This kind of vagueness does not stop at aging sake; it keeps us all guessing at every step. After a certain period of time, after crossing a vague threshold of sake understanding, we become so interested in sake’s intricacies and exceptions that even if we wanted to stop studying it, we find we cannot.

This is the point in time when sake itself looks us all in the eye and says, “Now youse can’t leave.”

****************************************************************************************

Three holiday sake gift ideas:

(1) A subscription to the magazine Sake Today http://ow.ly/VOYWi

(2) the book Sake Confidential http://ow.ly/VOZ24

(3) the 99-cent app The Sake Dictionary http://ow.ly/VOZ6c

The only question is, how much do you – or that special someone – want to read?