By the numbers

by | Oct 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

As you’ve heard from me and anyone else watching the sake industry, the price of everything breweries need (rice, obviously, but also fuel, packaging, logistics, salaries and other necessities) has risen sharply enough that they can no longer absorb it by...

The rise and fall of foam

by | Oct 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

You’ve probably all heard of Association Yeast, Society Yeast–or, to give it its trademarked name, Kyokai Yeast. The Brewing Society of Japan (Nihon Jо̄zо̄ Kyо̄kai, 日本醸造協会, BSJ) held an online seminar on 24 Oct 2025 to highlight their sake yeast strains,...

There’s a word for that

by | Oct 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

The brewing season is underway and lots of breweries are documenting it online, including some terminology specifically linked to to starting up the brewing process. Tsuchida Sake Brewery in Gunma Prefecture posted a short video featuring the ubiquitous Woodson rice...

Testing, testing

by | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

How does a new sake yeast move from the lab into the kura?  As mentioned above in the article on bitterness, one step it usually goes through is test brewing, where a small number of breweries are asked to use the new yeast and report back to the developers on how...

Now that’s crowdfunding

by | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

We’ve seen breweries use crowdfunding for everything from limited releases and equipment upgrades to total reconstruction after disasters. Now Nagano Prefecture has raised the stakes with a goal of JPY 2 million to be funded through furusato...

Something missing

by | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan

Much as I hesitate to introduce another existential risk to the sake industry, let’s talk about drinking. As in drinking alcohol at all. A 2024 survey by Hakuhodo Seikatsu Souken revealed that 1 in 3 Japanese respondents never drink alcohol. A Fukuoka beer...