In a recent newsletter about aged sake, I read about how the system used to tax sake brewers that was in place from the late 1800s until just after WWII was one that indirectly but strongly discouraged brewers from even thinking about trying to age sake. While this system is long defunct, it left the industry with decades of catch-up self-education on the results of aging, yet at the same time shaped the sake we enjoy today.

In short, back then brewers had to pay tax to the government on sake as soon as it was pressed, in other words, as soon as the rice lees has been filtered away after fermentation was complete, i.e. as soon as it became proper sake. Note, it did not matter whether the stuff ever got sold. As soon as it came into existence, the government demanded its due taxes.

The problem was – especially back then – what if it went bad after that, or if a tank leaked or it got spilled. Too bad, intoned the Ministry of Taxation. And so ensued clandestine tactics.

In order to make sure that every taxable drop was accounted for, the government would measure everything at every stage. (They still do, more or less, today.) They operated on the basic assumption that brewers were fundamentally trying to avoid paying taxes. And so genmai (unmilled, “brown” rice), white (i.e. milled) rice, koji, liters of moto (yeast starter), and liters of moromi (fermenting mash) all had to be carefully measured and recorded for each batch.

After reading the article, I spoke to the author, a now semi-retired (one never really leaves the sake world!) former director of a large-ish, dignified and diverse brewery of some means. He explained the details of how things proceeded.

“Back then,” he began, “it was a game, really. Everyone was doing it!” His smile was laced with some embarrassment, much like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as he continued.

“In truth, we felt we had to – or at least had the right to – make up for what was sure to be at least some inevitable losses, be it from inadvertent spillage or leakage, sake going bad from incomplete pasteurization, or just other unexpected mishaps. We had to at least make up for what we were sure we would lose!”

So the brewers would try to hide part of the moromi, or hide the sake as it was being pressed, and went w-a-y out of their way to come up with creative ways of doing this. And of course, there were in fact occasionally incidences of the moto or moromi spilling or leaking. But it was hard to convince the tax man of the veracity of this.

They would have none of that nonsense, and would scour the kura looking for where it was being hidden. Never limiting their searches to the main brewing facilities, they would go into the living quarters of the kuramoto (the owning family) and poke around in closets and storage rooms, and if they did not find anything there, they would search for the unaccounted volumes in the homes of neighbors and relatives. It seems to have been quite the game!

The drag for the brewers was that, again, from time to time there were real accidents. The wooden tanks in use back then might have cracks, so that months after filling a tank with sake for maturation, they could open the tank and find it empty. Whoops! Or the wooden stopper at the bottom, if not properly inserted, might pop out and a whole tank’s worth of ambrosia could disappear in a couple of hours. Or warmer-than-expected temperatures could spoil a sake not yet pasteurized. Yet they could expect no redress from the tax man for this. Hence the perceived need to pre-emptively account for that via whatever means available to them.

And this is why the Zoukokuzei system was so hard on the brewers. Fortunately, the government is more reasonable these days, and brewers are now taxed on what they sell and when they sell it. And this has opened up brewers’ willingness to at least experiment with aging sake. We can at least understand their reticence of brewers long ago, since once they have paid taxes, if the aging thing did not go well, they were out a significant amount.

This seems to me to have affected sake as we enjoy it today. Very little sake is matured today, much less than might have been had brewers been permitted the leeway to experiment over the decades. As such, sake has developed in such a way that it is best enjoyed relatively young, albeit with some exceptions.

And I, for one, am OK with that.

Kanagawa, just below Tokyo, is not exactly a hotbed of hot brewers. Sure, there is good sake from amongst the prefecture’s comparatively scant 16 kura. But it is not a region most sake fans would gravitate toward when it comes to selecting recently hip sake. Then there is Tensei.

Tensei is made by Kumazawa Shuzo, a great example of what fresh, new, youthful thinking that is decidedly out of the box can do in turning around one company – and by extension – the industry.

Their story is a long-ish one, and best saved for its own limelight. But in order to inch our way back to the topic here, one of the ways Tensei got back on track was to start a club, a simple pre-sale of a tank of sake.

Those of us that have over the past 20 years supported Tensei will pay a modest sum for three bottles of sake. But we pay in advance, and give the toji total freedom to pull out all the stops. He will use the best rice, yeast and methods he can. And it usually goes very well. But since we have supported him by paying in advance, if it falls short, we have supported him with a lesson learned.

Most years it is great. But last year, i.e. the three bottles I got in June of 2012, were decidedly thinner, and the aromas were laced with what is called ethyl caproate, giving it a bit of apple but underpinned by a bitter layer. OK, fine, I thought. If he does not push the envelope once in a while, he will not get better.

And I drank ‘em. All three. They were fine, if not the rockin’ and interesting stuff I have come to expect from Tensei. I usually drink their junmai ginjo, and that has remained steady and unchanged, so no real problem.

And then came this year. I had subconsciously lowered my expectations for the club stuff. And when it arrived, I gave it the fair shot, full professional concentration applied. And, boy, did it rock. I mean, outstanding. “Hodo hodo” is the term in Japanese; just enough, but not too much. Just enough umami, maturity, breadth, aroma… I really found it great.
And as such wasted no time in emailing the toji to let him know as much. I simply expressed how balanced it was, compared to last year. He responded almost immediately.

Last year,” he began, “based on our initial findings, we expected the rice to dissolve quickly and thoroughly.” Each year, sake brewers begin the season with lower grades, partly to feel out the year’s rice. How did weather affect things? Will it dissolve quickly, leading to full flavors, or out-of-control rough ones if not reined in? Or will it resist dissolving, be hard, which could lead to not enough flavor and an overall tight profile unless coaxed into dissolving via higher moisture content and other methods.

“And so,” he continued, “we treated it as such, keeping the moisture in check so as to eliminate any overbearing or sloppy flavors in the final product. However, when we got to our top daiginjo, the rice did not cooperate. Hence the narrow flavor profile.” And this is why sake brewing is so challenging and interesting. One can have reams of data, but if the fickle micro-organisms and other elements do not feel like going along with that data, the result may go off on a tangent. Textbooks alone will simply not cut it.

“This year, he added, “it behaved as we expected, and everything worked like a charm. Hence the great balance, ideal level of fullness and umami, and as-predicted maturity.”
“Be sure,” he concluded, “to save one for at least six month. The real umami and richness will become even more apparent!” And so I will.

I think that rice is not considered to change much from year to year, when it fact, it does vary hugely. And these variations do have an effect on the final product from year to year. However, so much manhandling of the raw materials takes place after harvest that good craftsmen can and do smooth out these differences in favor of the year-to-year consistence that is, in fact, their goal.

Interestingly, most brewers cover these year-to-year changes on the fly. The sake in which they are most evident are sake from impossibly tiny brewers (which the brewery that makes Tensei is not) and one-off sake such as this club sake, or contest sake. It is harder to blend differences into oblivion, or tweak them away when working with little else to use in blending, or sake that changes from year to year.

Rice is awfully hard to second guess. Yes, it varies. And yes, good brewers can work with that variation. But no, it cannot be done based on rules or textbooks, at least not as well as it can be done via experience and intuition.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sake Professional Course in Las Vegas October 28 to 30~~~~~~~~~~

The next Sake Professional Course will take place October 28 to 30 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. Finish off an intense sake education by spending Halloween in Vegas!

More about the seminar, its content and day-to-day schedule, can be found here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spclv.html

The Sake Professional Course, with Sake Education Council-recognized Certified Sake Professional certification testing, is by far the most intensive, immersing, comprehensive sake educational program in existence. The three-day seminar leaves “no sake stone unturned.”

The tuition for the course is $825. Feel free to contact me directly at sakeguy@gol.com with any questions about the course, or to make a reservation.

It’s complicated…

Last time, we looked at the idiosyncratic rice distribution system in Japan, and how that affects the 1.4% of all rice that sake rice represents, with the main points being that brewers themselves almost never own the fields, and that the majority of sake rice, by far, is distributed by powerful agricultural cooperatives, a system that has its attendant strengths and weaknesses.

As rice distribution in Japan is deeply rooted in all that Japan is, a comprehensive study would extend beyond the interest and attention span of even the most ardent readers and sake fans. So let us keep close to how it relates to sake in what follows here.

In truth, there is a lack of clarity related to all things rice-distribution in Japan, much of which affects the sake world. For example, while the rice for top grades of sake is fairly easy to order and trace, remember that most sake is not premium, and the rice that goes into that lion’s share of sake on the market – while cheaper than top-grade sake rice – is a driving element in the sake industry. In other word, most of the sake on the market is made of this somewhat lesser, significantly less expensive rice. So when the supply of that is threatened, the effect on the market is huge.

And that is what we have happening right now. There is a system of supplying rice within the current distribution system in which brewers can specify a minimum of information about the rice as a request, but what they get may be different. But it won’t matter, at the level at which they are using it. The system refers to such rice as “kakomai,” but let us call it the “cheap rice system” here, abbreviated CRS.

So, what is purchased through the CRS is somehow subsidized by local prefectural governments. And the rice itself can be a blend of stuff that was left over from higher than expected yields or lower than expected orders, or perhaps some of the less-carefully grown stuff. And all mixed together as well. But it is very inexpensive, comparatively speaking.

But in truth, as mentioned above, it won’t really matters as it will be used for cheaper sake, and it will do fine. Having said this, though, remember that cheaper sake is 65 percent of the market.

Who can grow what, and how much of it, is strictly controlled by the government so as to avoid having excess stock and thereby adversely affecting market stability. However, there are some gaps and loopholes and options open to the farmers. There is no obligation to grow rice that would be used in the CRS system. And over the past couple of years we have seen more farmers move away from rice that could be used for sake brewing and growing vastly inferior rice that can be used for animal feed.

Why? Because government subsidies for fertilizers and insecticides and the like are higher for fields allotted to the animal-feed rice. On top of that, fields on which such animal-feed rice are grown do count toward the allotment of land upon which a farmer is permitted to grow rice. So, they get more subsidies, and can grow as much as they want. No wonder they choose that over rice that could go through the CRS and be used for sake.

Why would animal-feed rice be favored? Because that limits the need to import it, helping to offset trade imbalances, as well as assisting local agricultural. Good reasons to be sure! But the effects on sake could be big. How big? Hm. Once source has said that only 30 percent of the orders can be filled with inexpensive CRS rice, and that the cost of said rice would increase by as much as 25 percent. That will undoubtedly affect the brewing industry in both profitability (to the degree that it actually exists!) and consumer prices too. Apparently the situation is fairly grave.

Note too that not absolutely everyone is affected. A few large and stable breweries have the economies of scale in buying power to negotiate cheap enough prices for high enough volumes where they do not need such rice. So they are immune. And some premium brewers do not mess with that rice either, using only contract-grown rice or top-grade sake rice. But most of the 1350 breweries remaining will be affected.

Also, the impending developments related to the multinational economic agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, may drastically affect things as well by opening up Japan to very cheap rice imports – if, that is, Japan chooses to fully participate. When I asked one brewer about it, he insisted it was a very good thing, and that Japan’s rice system desparately needed to change, and that despite the short term pain in would be good for Japan in the long run. However, became so passionate (read: irate) that I could not longer understand his rant, fading off into a local accent as he did. So the details were lost on me but I got the gist.

Next, remember, brewers have to buy all that rice up front. Which means, every autumn, many have to significantly strain their finances just to start the season, the return on which they will not begin to see for a year at least. Securing and backing the requisite support in a fragile economy for a contracting industry is another big issue.

There are more vagaries that the rice growing cartel, er, communities employ, and often the sake brewers themselves do not fully understand. I remember one brewer from Shiga, near Kyoto, telling me that they were finally able to grow Yamada Nishiki in Shiga. “You mean, you could not grow it here before? But I know I have had Shiga sake made with Shiga-grown Yamada Nishiki,” I asked inquisitively.

“Well,” he stammered, “you can, but you cannot put it on the label – until now.”

“Oh?,” I continued. “Who controls that?” I asked out of sincere interest. Rice growing is controlled by one industry, sake labeling by another. I sensed a disconnect. And so did he.

He thought a second, and said, “Wow. I don’t know. That’s just what the farmers told me. Let me check on that and get back to you!”

Yet another brewer from Yamagata told me that he had been told that one could not put the name of the rice on the label unless the seeds came from an official source, i.e. the cooperative. Huh? Sez who? And enforced by who? Is this the law, I asked?

“It’s, uh, vague,” said my Yamagata brewer friend. “And the frustrating thing is that the folks distributing the rice keep it that way. Those that know keep it vague! I could explore it further, and challenge it, but I have other higher priorities. So we just deal with it,” he acquiesced.

Sake is unique in many ways. For better or for worse, the extremely high cost of the raw material is one of those ways. And the byzantine distribution system – while it serves some purpose indeed – is yet another. Let your understanding of this add to your appreciation of all that goes into the glass of sake before you!

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Dallas, Texas, August 8~10, 2013

The next Sake Professional Course will take place August 8-10, in conjunction with TEXSOM 2013 at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas

More about the seminar, its content and day-to-day schedule, can be found here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spc_texsom_2013.html

The Sake Professional Course, with Sake Education Council-recognized Certified Sake Professional certification testing, is by far the most intensive, immersing, comprehensive sake educational program in existence. The three-day seminar leaves “no sake stone unturned.”

The tuition for the course is $825. Feel free to contact me directly at sakeguy@gol.com with any questions about the course, or to make a reservation.

Now, that’s using your head!

Long before the days of thermometers, hydrometers and barometers, brewers relied entirely on their senses to gauge the progress of a fermenting tank of sake. They might not have known the scientific causes, but experience and intuition told them how to interpret what they saw, tasted and smelled.

One of the most reliable of these empirical yardsticks — one that is still used today — is the appearance of foam on the top of the moromi (fermenting mash). Throughout the 18- to 35-day ferment, the foam will change appearance quite regularly — and very clearly reflect what is taking place inside the tank. Over the centuries, names were given to the foam at each stage, making it easy to assess and convey the status of the work in progress.

After the yeast starter has been created, and after water, rice and koji have been added over four days, foam will begin to develop as the yeast cells process the sugars in the tank and give off carbon dioxide. This will rise to the surface, often dragging yeast cells with it. This is why the foam has 2 1/2 times as many yeast cells in it as the liquid beneath.

Two or three days into the ferment, small striations will appear on the surface, similar to taut muscle under skin; hence the term suji-awa (muscle foam). Next, a thick layer of soft foam will begin to cover the entire tank; this is known as mizu-awa (water foam).

The timing of these changes, of course, depends on myriad factors, such as how much the rice has been milled or the tank’s temperature. But soon after this, the ferment will enter its most active stage, and foam will rise in great swaths, so that it looks like huge boulders tumbling over each other. This is known as iwa-awa (rock foam).

This continues into the highest stage of foam, known as taka-awa, when the bubbles themselves become very small and fine. This usually occurs around the 10th day or so, but there is great variation.

The foam rises so high that brewers usually use a simple rig consisting of a piece of wire that gently spins on a motor. Its sole purpose is to beat down the foam gradually, which spares them the need for high-walled tanks. It also aids in sanitation, as one of the greatest sources of sake-spoiling bacteria is foam that has dried on the tank’s interior.

As the fermentation begins to wane, the foam too falls back, leading to the stage known as ochi-awa (falling foam). This segues into a stage with very large, soapy-looking bubbles known as tama-awa (ball foam).

After this foam also fades away, the moromi’s surface is referred to as ji (ground). This stage has many sub-conditions with their own names. Small wrinkles in the surface are referred to as chiri-men (a type of rough cloth). A totally smooth surface is known as bozu, in reference to the shaved head of a priest. If rice solids that did not ferment have risen to the surface, it may look like a lid is on the moromi, and this is referred to as futa (lid).

Much can be told about the quality of the sake at this stage from observing this surface. For example, if the lid is thick, it indicates that a significant amount of wild yeast ended up in the moromi and survived. This is because the rice fibers tend to attach themselves to many types of wild yeast and rise to the surface when pulled by the carbon dioxide molecules, giving that thick-lidded appearance. Brewers know, then, that a thick-lidded moromi in its final stages will often lead to a sake that is rough, acidic and less refined.

Naturally, today these observations are combined with chemical measurements, such as acidity, residual sugar and temperature, to create the precise and wonderful flavor profiles.

Note, there are yeast strains that do not foam up, which has several advantages, including permitting brewers to get higher yields out of their tanks, since they do not have to worry about leaving room for the rising foam. Let us look at these non-foaming yeasts in more depth in the near future.

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Sake Professional Course Sake Pro Course NYC 2013

Kikizake-joko – Official Tasting Glasses

Dallas, Texas, August 8~10, 2013

The next Sake Professional Course will take place August 8-10, in conjunction with TEXSOM 2013 at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas

More about the seminar, its content and day-to-day schedule, can be found here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spc_texsom_2013.html

The Sake Professional Course, with Sake Education Council-recognized Certified Sake Professional certification testing, is by far the most intensive, immersing, comprehensive sake educational program in existence. The three-day seminar leaves “no sake stone unturned.”

The tuition for the course is $825. Feel free to contact me directly at sakeguy@gol.com with any questions about the course, or to make a reservation.

I have long known that Nara Prefecture, which borders Osaka and Kyoto in western Japan, has been known as the birthplace of sake. But I got majorly schooled during a recent visit there.

Nara, in fact, holds major significance in Japan’s history, and was even the capital from 710 to 784. During that time, there was a brewing department within the walls of the imperial palace in Nara. Sake back then, however, was a far cry from what we enjoy today (for one, it had much less alcohol), and the “Imperial Brewing Department” (the “IBD”?) focused its efforts for the most part on sake used in ceremonies and events. In fact, the IBD produced upwards of a dozen different types of sake, some colored with ash of black, red or white hues, with varying degrees of alcohol content, mostly for use in ceremonies.

Let us first look at a bit more of the history of sake in Nara. In time, like a few hundred years (things moved much more slowly back then) sake-brewing moved into the many Buddhist temples of the Nara region, as they had brought back their initial brewing technology back from China on their, um, supposedly religious expeditions to that mainland.

At this particular juncture of Japanese history (Heian era into Kamakura era, 9th to 13th centuries, roughly), there was a bit of a lull in political and military power, as it moved from the Fujiwara clan to the dueling Taira and Minamoto (Heike and Genji) clans. So there was a bit of a vacuum, or at least a low pressure zone, for a while. The resident monks of the numerous temples, in order to protect both themselves and their interests, militarized a bit. They trained and mobilized themselves, and undertook economic activities as well, including some sake brewing.

As time passed, they took sides out of necessity, and as power went back and forth, this means they inevitably found themselves on the wrong side of a vengeful, if temporary, victor. Revenge was often mercilessly exacted, and many, many temples were burned down and destroyed. Just about this time is when the brewing moved from what remained of the temples to the nearby Ikeda area, of modern-day Osaka. This is admittedly a bit of an oversimplification, but will do for our purposes here.

The source of my recent schooling was a temple called Shorakuji (http://shoryakuji.jp/ even ancient Buddhist temples are on the internet these days) on a mountain called Boudaisen. As I made my way up the mountain toward the temple, I was surrounded by dozens of terraced plots, the leveled earth supported by short stone embankments averaging five to six hundred years old. A temple once graced each of these plots, but after the vengeful fires of long ago, only Shorakuji remains. These temples, here on Bodasen mountain in Nara, are where the yeast starter known as Bodai-moto was created. More on this below…

If sake existed before this, and flourished after this period, why is it said that Nara is the birthplace of sake? Because so many of the basic methods and building-blocks of sake as we know it today were developed there at that time. Let us look a few of these.

Morohaku
Long ago, the rice used for koji was not milled before growing koji mold on it. These days, if anything, that rice is milled more than the straight rice added (known as kakemai). But it was in Nara back then that sake first came to be made with both koji rice and the straight rice being milled before being used. This was known as morohaku, or “both white.” It has since been the norm.

Dangake
This is a fancy (albeit seldom used any longer) word that means to add the rice, water and koji in stages so as to let the yeast enjoy the best environment for brewing, and letting the alcohol go up to twenty percent or so. And ever since this was developed in Nara, it too is the norm. Today, three stages are used, and the three-stage addition process is known as sandan-shikomi.

Pasteurization
Brewers in Nara were the first (records show in 1568) to heat sake up to about 65C, to remove the evil humours. Louis Pasteur lent his name to this process centuries later, but he gets all the credit; the brewers of ancient Nara get none.

Filtering off the lees
Until Nara, all sake was nigori, or cloudy. Clear sake, or sumizake, was first invented in Nara, as this is where they first passed the fermented mash though a mesh to hold back the dregs and let the clear sake through. Curiously, the nearby region of Itami claims this too; however, there are temple records that show that, before Itami was making sake, the monks of Nara were selling the lees (known as kasu) for making pickles. If they were selling sake kasu, they had to have been filtering it out, or they’d have none to sell. So give this one to Nara too.

Yeast starter (Moto)
The step of making a small starter batch with a very high concentration of yeast is an indispensible part of what sake brewing is today. And this, too, started in Nara with what was known as Bodai-moto, which was the precursor to yamahai and kimoto yeast starters, which were the precursors to today’s methods.

So clearly, the fundamentals of all that sake brewing is today were laid down in Nara long ago, hence the deserving title of “the birthplace of sake.”

Just one more thing: The above-mentioned Bodai-moto was invented at one of the temples on the aforementioned Bodaisen mountain, where only Shorakuji remains. It was made using the water of the river that runs down that mountain, and it seems that water holds some special species of lactic bacteria. ‘Course, there is plenty of that stuff in the air, so it is hard to know if the stuff in the river are really that special.

But in any event, Bodai moto was made by mixing water and raw rice, after which the lactic bacteria would proliferate, giving lactic acid that dosed the water, making it safe for sake yeast. Easier and better methods made this obsolete, but about 20 years ago, ten Nara brewers revived the technique. All ten make a tank or two of Bodai moto sake, the moto (yeast starter) only of which is made at Shorakuji and distributed to the ten brewers. So that makes Shorakuji the only Buddhist temple in the world with a sake-brewing license.

To learn more about the sake of Nara – including what brands are available – check out this old article in the archives of Sake World. Note, it offers different and augmenting information than the above, should Nara interest you sufficiently.

In any event, let us carry our newfound respect for Nara as the birthplace of sake into each cup we drink, tying us back to the history and culture of 600-odd years past.

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Learn more about sake and become a Certified Sake Professional at the Sake Professional Course in New York, May 8 to 10. Learn more here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spcny.html

While visiting an old, very prestigious brewer, I was looking at their lineup. There was no junmai amongst their ginjo offerings. While they had their share of junmai-shu itself, once you got into their ginjo world, there was only non-junmai ginjo products.

I inquired as to why this might be, since it was clearly not just a coincidence. I actually sorta knew, but wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. And since no reason was being openly offered, I dared to ask.

I promptly got torn a new… well, let’s just say I was instructed as to the nature of my misperceptions.

By the way, Ginjo, in this usage refers to all types of ginjo, i.e. including daiginjo manifestations (basically, ginjo to dai for, so to speak!). And non-junmai here refers to types of sake to which a li’l bit of pure ethyl alcohol (most often distilled from sugar cane) has been added after fermentation, not for economical reasons, but for sound technical reasons. These include, but are not limited to, drawing out more flavors and aromas, and improved shelf life.

Back to their retooling of my perceptions, I was told: “There is no such thing as junmai-ginjo. Not here anyway. Never has been. And those that make it do not really understand what ginjo is all about. Nor do we care what the Ministry of Taxation says on the issue; their priorities are different than ours.” They expounded a bit, but the point was well taken.

And that point is that super premium sake like ginjo and its to-die-for manifestation daiginjo were developed with the addition of alcohol as an integrated and necessary step. The whole “junmai” version came later, and this particular brewer’s point is that the whole hullabaloo about junmai being more pure came later, and is actually not so traditional, as far as the brewing industry itself is concerned. And who’s to argue with them?

Certainly not I.

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The 2013 Sake Professional Course in New York will be held May 8 ~ 10, 2013. Learn more and make a reservation here: http://www.sake-world.com/html/spcny.html
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I am definitely not anti junmai at all. Far from it; very far from it. Nor do I question the

Traditional Sakagura (sake brewery)

validity of junmai ginjo and junmai daiginjo. I’m just sayin’…you know. I’m just sayin’ that non-junmai types – those made with a bit of pure, distilled alcohol added during the process – are not only valid, not only worthy of our support, but as far as ginjo is concerned, one could say that they are even more traditional. Or at least hold some brewers.

I dunno… I guess it seems to me that, in the sake brewing process, yeast makes alcohol. And some brewers, for some sake, will then add alcohol. It does not fortify the product, as just a little bit is added, and more water is added later to bring the alcohol content back down to “normal” levels. And what is added is pure ethyl alcohol. It’s the same stuff that is already in there. They just add a bit to temporarily (remember that!) raise the overall alcohol content for technical reasons. Just because it was made outside of the process and brought in does not make it unsavory. And no matter what some folks insist, no one can really tell the difference, at least not in premium sake (remember that too!).

So, I am, if anything, anti-anti-junmai, and double negatives notwithstanding, that almost means pro-added-alcohol.

Why? Because very often it makes the sake better – better flavor, better aromas, better shelf life, and very often, a better value. What’s to diss?

All I am saying is give non-junmai a chance; especially in the realm of ginjo.

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The 2013 Sake Professional Course in New York will be held May 8 ~ 10, 2013. Learn more and make a reservation here: http://www.sake-world.com/html/spcny.html
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 More in common than you might think!

Soon after beginning to study sake, one comes to realize there are many varieties of sake

rice. And while not all sake is made from “official” sake rice (and it is a legal definition – as compared to “regular” rice for eating), most premium sake is indeed brewed from one of the hundred-odd strains of sakamai, or sake rice.

Note this does not mean that without proper sake rice one cannot make good sake. It is, actually, quite possible to make decent sake with run of the mill regular rice. But it is just much, much easier to make good sake from proper sake rice. And in truth, to make the best sake, you must use proper sake rice.

Much like grapes used in wine, while there are many varieties of sake rice out there, if you know about a dozen, you will know most of the rice varieties you will encounter. And rice varieties do contribute greatly to the flavors of the final sake, not surprisingly. However, the connection between rice and final sake is not nearly as tight as the connection between grape varieties and the final flavors in a wine.

This is, methinks, an important point. Sake rice leads to sake flavors; yes. However, as important as good rice is, it is but half the battle. Just how the rice is handled – milled, soaked, steamed, propagated with mold, coaxed via temperature et al along a particular fermentation path – will have a huge amount of say in determining the nature of the final sake.

As a very simple example, the same Yamada Nishiki rice milled to the same 40%, for example, might go to two brewers. One would let it absorb more water, thereby helping it dissolve more quickly in the fermenting mash, thereby leading to a richer, broader, heavier flavor than the other. Or, one might have more koji mold propagated upon it, thereby dosing it with more sugar-creating enzymes, thereby enabling the yeast to go on a feeding frenzy, leading to a significantly drier sake. So the process itself contributes so much to the final sake. It is about much more than just the rice, although that is important as well.

I often liken it to coffee beans, and making coffee.

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Coffee is my second favorite liquid on the planet, with pure water beinga d-i-s-t-a-n-t third. Kind of the yang to sake’s yin in my daily life. And it recently struck me that good coffee beans are to good coffee as good sake rice is to good sake.

In other words, to make good coffee, you need to start with good beans. These will come from one of a handful of good growing regions. And each of the major varieties of coffee beans will have its own main characteristics: some are more acidic than others, some are fuller and richer. But the bean alone does not the coffee make!

We can start with the same coffee beans and end up with a very wide range of coffees. For example, beans can be lightly roasted, more thoroughly roasted, or mercilessly charred. This will lead to light coffee, richer coffee, or charred-flavor coffee.

On top of that, one can use an espresso maker, or drip press the coffee.

And even among those two extremes – and everything in between – there are little choices and decisions, like the water temperature (too hot, or just right?) or one-holed or three-holed cones. There is no one right decision; rather, each choice will lead to a different taste in spite of having started with the same beans. Even before that comes into play, bear in mind the grind: a find grind and a coarse grind will affect things massively as well.

So, you have the roast, the grind, the method, the machine, the water temperature, the apparatus, and the “touch” of the person making it all. You can start with good beans, but you have to do everything else right too. And what is right is not set in stone either. Very often, what one “master” considers anathema is precisely what makes another’s coffee so good. Go figure!

With good tools and methods, you can make a decent cup of coffee with mediocre beans. However, it is much, much easier to make good coffee if you start with good beans. And, to make the best coffee, you must start with good beans. And therein lies the connection between good sake and sake rice.

Restating: It is possible to make decent sake with run of the mill regular rice. But it is just much, much easier to make good sake from proper sake rice. And in truth, to make the best sake, you must use proper sake rice.

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Sake rice’s tenuous connection to its soulmate, the coffee bean, notwithstanding, the above might naturally give rise to the question, with all the manhandling of the rice, and the variations used in brewing methods, it it possible to assign “typical” flavor profiles to rice types, and is it possible to identify them in blind tastings like wine grapes?

The answer is yes, it is possible, but not with great accuracy, and it does take a bit of experience. I recall a tasting put on by the Japan Agriculture Co-Op of Okayama Prefecture, wherein we tasted about 100 Yamada Nishiki-based sake, followed by about 100 Omachi-based sake, from all over Japan. What they had in common was that the Yamada Nishiki and Omachi used were both grown in Okayama. After tasting one hundred sake made from one rice, you got a feel for that rice. Then moving on to the other rice was like entering a totally different universe.

However, if I had just one or two of each, and was asked “which is the Omachi, and which is the Yamada?,” it perhaps might have been more difficult.

So yes, the rice-to-sake connection is there; but no, it is not as tight as the grapes-to-wine connection. And yes, the rice is massively important in making great sake. But no, it is not the only factor involved. As is usually the case in sake-related topics, it is delightfully vague.

I don’t always drink beer. But when I do, it’s usually Pilsner Urquell.

OK, that’s not true. It is usually from one of Japan’s quite passable large brewing companies. But without a doubt, my favorite beer in the world is Pilsner Urquell. And that tells you a lot about my preferences.

Sure, I enjoy Belgians, double-secret-probation stouts, and hopped-to-bejeezus IPAs as well. They can be very interesting. But when no one else is around and I reach for a beer, if left to my own devices, I tend to gravitate toward simple, clean but far from insipid styles like Czech pilsners. Subtle and quaffable. ‘Nuff said.

Pilsner Urquell typifies these qualities. The clean, light backdrop lets the Saaz hops present flavors and aromas that are just present enough, but not overbearing. “Hodo-hodo” is the term in Japanese. Just enough – not too much.

I don’t always drink beer. In fact, I usually drink sake. And my preferences are of the same vein. In other words, I find aged sake, nama-zake, muroka nama genshu (read: the 2×4-upside-the-head of sake) intense yamahai sake, and other less orthodox styles to be fascinating. I never pass on tasting something, no matter how much funk may have overcome it – or be designed into it. They are all interesting, and almost all enjoyable, and all have their time and place.

But when no one else is around, and I want to quaff as I am wont to do, I reach for simple, subtle, hodo-hodo sake – like Koro.

Fortunately, there are many, many sake like Koro out there. So on any given day my options abound! And in truth, I do not drink Koro that often. But I single it out as it is made using Yeast Number Nine. In fact, the folks at Koro created Yeast Number Nine, or at least first isolated it. And they brew their sake to exemplify all that Nine can be.

I have written about Yeast No. 9 fairly recently in this blog; my point today is that Koro is to sake what Pilsner Urquell is to beer. Everything I said about P.U. applies to Koro: simple, subtle, sippable, yet refined and exquisitely balanced. “Separated at birth,” so to speak. And, they were recently sighted together, a very rare occurrence, at a San Francisco establishment.

Neither stayed around very long, as you might imagine, but I did manage to get a rare shot of them together. They tend to hang in different circles, so it might be a while before we see them together again. Except at my house, that is.

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Announcing the 10th
Sake Professional Course
to be held in Tokyo Japan, January 21 – 25, 2012 

From Monday, January 21, until Friday January 25, 2013, I will hold the 10th Japan-based Sake  Professional Course in Tokyo, with a side trip to the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe region. This is it: the most important thing I do all year, and beyond any doubt the best opportunity on the planet to learn about sake.e” No Sake Stone Remains Left Unturned” is the motto, and “exceed expectations in that” is my goal.  If you want to learn all you need to know about sake to function consummately as a sake professional at work, or if you are simply a sake lover with an insatiable appetite for sake-related knowledge, then this is the course for you.  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. Go here for more information. To reserve a spot, send an email to sakeguy@gol.com .

“Perhaps a hundred.”

That is the simplest answer to the question, “how many types of sake rice are there?” At any one given time, there are about a hundred.

Why the vague answer? First of all, because we are dealing with sake. It’s just the way it is. But also, I say “perhaps a hundred” because at any one time, there are about a hundred being grown across Japan. Each year, few more sake rice types are created through crossbreeding or spontaneous change, and a few are abandoned by the growing and brewing communities. So, it might be 90, it might be 110, but about a hundred are used each year.

Of those one hundred or so, kind of like grapes used in winemaking, if you know of the top dozen or so, you’re fine. Those dozen will make up the lion’s share of the rice used. The usual suspects: Yamada Nishiki, Omachi, Gohyakumangoku, Miyama Nishiki, Hattan Nishiki – these are the most visible and oft-encountered varieties.

A natural progression along the lines of this topic will eventually meander to, “Do they ever blend these rice varieties?” And the short answer is, “no.”

Basically, a sake will most often be made with one rice and one rice only. Are there exeptions? Of course there are. There are always exceptions in the sake world. But most of the sake out there is made with one and only one rice.

Why? Why not blend? The biggest reason is that different rice types behave differently. The way they behave when being milled, being soaked and steamed, having mold grown upon them, and most importantly the way they dissolved in the moromi (fermentation mash) are different. And if brewers want one thing during sake making, it is some semblance of predictability, a way to know that things are proceeding in the way they hope.

Living things like moromi (fermenting mash) do not always behave like we expect, so the way to counter that is to remove what variables you can. And if you have two different rice types going about their own business with their own idiosyncrasies in the same tank, it is much harder to deal with the other countless variables, and create the sake with an aimed-for level of consistency.

There are other reasons as well, but in the end, more than one rice is not usually used in a given tank. But as stated above, there are exceptions. What of those exceptions? Why and how? In short, very often a better rice is used for the koji, and a lesser rice is used for the kakemai. In other words…

Many readers surely recall that about 25% of all the rice going into a

given batch of sake has a mold (aspergillus oryzae) grown onto it. The resultant moldy rice is called koji, and from it come the enzymes that chop the starch in all the rice into sugar, which can then be fermented by the yeast. The remaining 75% of the rice added to the batch contributes more starch albeit no more enzymes, and is known as kakemai. And it is the koji, and by extension the rice used to make it, that holds much more leverage over the nature of the final sake.

So back to our blending topic, in the rare occasions that we do see more than one rice used in a single batch, the most common example is that a better rice is used for the koji (the more important moldy stuff), and a lesser for the kakemai (the still-important-but- less-so starch-contributing stuff).

Stated conversely and perhaps a bit less appealingly, one way to lower the cost of a sake is to use a lesser rice for the kakemai. And this is when we might see blending.

Note that rice is almost never blended for flavor-related reasons, like grapes might be. Sure, while different rice types do have differing flavor profiles, the rice-to-sake flavor connection is not as tight as the grapes-to-wine flavor connection. So the practice of blending would not yield such pronounced or predictable results. But note, to this principle too, there are some exceptions.

Also, as a quick yet deceivingly important point: note that sake brewers are not obligated to list the name of the rice used on the label. Many do, especially for premium sake, but there is no obligation to do so. But if they do in fact choose to list the name of the rice, they are then obligated to say what percent of the total amount of rice used corresponds to the listed rice. “Yamada Nishiki 100 percent,” for example. Or “Yamada Nishiki 25 percent, Kita Nishiki 75 percent,” might be another commonly seen example.

Finally, this might change. I have heard from more than one brewer that – especially for small, boutique brewers, blends of individual tanks that yield the most enjoyable, unique and premium sake – may be the way of the future. There is nothing preventing this, and I personally think it would be a welcomed move that would improve sake’s appeal and specialness.

Still, at least for now, blending rice types and blending discrete tanks for one-of-a-kind flavor reasons is not at all a common practice in sake brewing. Just beware the exceptions.

Last month, I gave a presentation in Boston and then Chicago on trends and changes of late in teh sake world. In preparing and delivering that presentation, I realized and was otherwise told a few things about the state of the industry that are very worth observing.

Over the past decade or so, a very clear changing of the guard has taken
place, in that the past generation of brewers has handed the baton off to the next generation, seemingly en masse. It really does seem to me that everywhere in the industry, 60-year olds have just handed the operations of the company to their 30 to 40 year old sons (or daughters, in some cases).

Of course, 1300 companies could not be in generational sync like that. But it sure seems to me that a whole lot of them are. When I first got involved in the industry about 18 years ago, I was by far the youngest of any group I ran with. Now, I am almost without exception the oldest. ‘Course, I put on 18 years during these past 18 years, so that has to be factored in too! But still, the sweeping and clear-cut change in generation seems very apparent to me. 
 
And as I took the time to look around and think about it, I realized that the generation of kuramoto (brewery owners) currently in charge lives, brews and sells in a totally different world than their fathers. The market is different. The economy is different. The brewing landscape too, is different. What worked before, just a scant couple of decades previous, will not work now.

I recall a few years ago visiting one of the largest ten brewers in the country. The president told me that back in the day, like the mid-70’s to mid-80’s, the phone would ring in the office.

“Don’t answer it,” said someone across the room. “It’s probably an order; we can’t fill it anyways.” In other words, sake was flying off the shelves faster than they could make it. Those were the days. But alas, they are long gone, ne’er to return.

And as such, philosophies, ways of doing business, and sensibilities all have changed for the better. How has this manifested itself? Partly in design. Labels are flashier, sexier, more attractive and infinitely more informative than in the past, methinks. (This does not necessarily mean they are easier to decipher to those that do not know much about sake, but one step at a time!)

Marketing methods and sales channels have expanded as well. Many brewers bypass the middleman these days, much more than in the past. Direct sales to consumers too, via mailers and the internet, are far more common as well. And brewers are much more visible at tastings, gathered in groups of one demographic or another – region, age group, philosophy and hair color are just a few groupings we see.

And finally, the sake itself has been changing. Perhaps not that much in terms of how they drink, but what the average brewer offers has expanded significantly, it seems. Many brewers experiment with more varieties of rice, various degrees of milling, myriad yeast types, and subtly different brewing methods, tweaked a bit here and there, than what we would have seen from their predecessors. It’s all very interesting, actually.

Everything from milling rates to new machines, from myriad permutations of variations on pasteurization to new rice types and combinations of the same – it is all enjoyably difficult to keep up with!

Undoubtedly, the younger generation now is technically more adept then the previous one. There is just so much more information readily available for those that want to learn. And many more owner-inherits are embracing brewing technology and know-how rather than just sales. And this gets them much more involved, leading to more variation.

One brewer yanked me aside after one presentation, and augmented the information I had just presented. He was, actually, one of the “hold-outs,” i.e. one of the older generation that had not handed off the reins yet. And he explained a nuance I had not considered before.

“Just 20 or 30 years ago,” he began,” we kuramoto had little say in what came out of our kura. Sure, we could decide how many tanks and for the most part what grades. But the selection of rice, yeast, and methods therein were pretty much left up to the toji. In some cases, it was entirely left up to the toji.

“And what we got at the end of the season was what we got. We just had to go and sell it.” He almost seemed envious of what the current young’ns could do.

“Now, these guys can get in there, get their hands dirty, and even if they are leaving it up to the toji, they can have their say. They can dictate what rice is used, what yeasts are used, and what tricks-of-the-trade are used.” Very often, these “tricks” recommendations from friends and classmates at other breweries. It’s technology exchange in a modern format.

 While this may not seem like a big deal, in the sake world, little things make big differences.

 As a couple of concrete examples, I was told by one brewer in Shimane that they had never used a great rice called Omachi because it did not suit the way that the koji mold is propagated on rice by the local guild of toji. “Omachi does not like the heavier, slightly wetter koji that the Izumo guild uses.” So until this guy came along and took over, no Omachi. And no questions about it. Do not question the toji. Do not pass go; do not collect 200 yen.

 But the young buck, just back from brewing school, knew how it could be done. And he made it happen, so now we have a wonderful Omachi sake from Rihaku.

Another example from up north was a young brewer that wanted to make a sake with no added yeast; in other words, just let it drop in from the ambient environment. Where did he get this cockamamie idea? One of his buddies in another part of the country has been making sake that way for decades. 

 “Please,” began his journeyman toji, “don’t ask me to do that!” But ask he did. And it ended up not only fine, but very interesting, and also gained a fantastic sales point along the way. Yet another fresh idea that never would have happened just a generation ago.

 As such, we have a ton of very interesting new facets of sake to pay attention to and learn about these days, thanks in large part to a changing of the guard. Be sure to engage any brewer you might encounter on the sake trail along which you tread. You’re sure to be enlightened at least a bit.