by Arline Lyons | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
While most of my activity is based around information about sake in Japanese that has not yet made it into English–this one has! I was honoured to translate a report written by Nami Goto (former head of the National Research Institute of Brewing (NRIB) and current...
by Arline Lyons | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
Bitterness… is it really always a bad thing? Not according to Toshihiko Koseki, special advisor to the Yamagata Prefecture Brewers Association, who went so far as to develop a special variety of yeast that produces more bitter compounds! An article in Nikkei...
by Arline Lyons | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
Although the worst case scenario of US tariffs of 25% did not come to pass, the increase from 2% to 15% will still pose huge problems for breweries who export heavily to America. President Honda of Kumamoto brewery Chiyosono Shuzō (千代の園酒造) has seen his sake make...
by Arline Lyons | Aug 18, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
As predicted, the Japanese government started accepting applications for stockpiled rice to be released for “processing” to make products such as sake and miso on 1 August 2025. The decision was made after appeals from industry organisations. 75,000 tons...
by Arline Lyons | Jun 30, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
What to do about US tariffs? One option open to larger breweries is to simply produce in the USA, so that their sake becomes a domestic product. Nikkei business reports that big Niigata brewer Hakkaisan are considering exactly this, as it already increased prices in...
by Arline Lyons | Jun 30, 2025 | Sake News from Japan
For sake brewers (and presumably many other food and drink producers) Christmas in Japan comes at New Year. The graph above from Diamond Online shows sales of all types of sake between April 2024 and March 2025, with a massive spike in December attributed to...
