Sake News from Japan

While many craft brewers and distillers working with beer, cider or other Western drinks learned their skills from a friendly and accessible home brew to small scale commercial community, sake brewers don't have that option. Alcohol production of any kind is strictly...

As you'll have seen in this newsletter and many other places last year, the extreme summer heat in Japan made a lot of rice harder and less soluble than usual. Instagram is currently full of breweries and farmers planting out rice seedlings, and you have to wonder how...

Annual Japan Sake Awards (official title), National New Sake Appraisal, zenkoku shinshu kanpyōkai (全国新酒鑑評会), whatever you call it, the results are out! Currently held jointly by the Japan Sake and Shōchū Makers Association (JSS) and the National Research Institute of...

As the dust starts to settle (metaphorically and in a very real sense) after the New Year's Day earthquake on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, more details are emerging about the extent of damage to sake breweries on the peninsula and in the surrounding...

The new year could not have started off worse (unless you were flying into Haneda). Yahoo Japan News posted an article on 2 January 2024 reporting on the earthquake that rocked the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa from around 16:10 on New Year's Day and its impact on the...

The February 2023 edition of Nikkei Trendy magazine features yet another "sake ranking" - but this time the criterium is innovation. Featuring everything from breweries taking their cue from brewing's ancient past to those chasing the title of first or best, it sets...

Japanese crowdfunding site CAMPFIRE has seen a few sake-related projects. More than a few. Actually, enough to warrant their own event. For March 2023, sake crowdfunding will have its own special event on the site, called Nihonshu Matsuri (日本酒祭り, Sake Festival). As...

Hineka (ひねか) is the name for unpleasant odors that usually develop after bottling or during storage, and are normally attributed to poor handling or just deterioration over time. But what if you could make a sake less likely to develop hineka in the first place?...

Part 3 of the look at the Japan National Tax Agency (NTA) 2022 report on the Japanese drinks business referred to their role in updates to the Labeling Standards for the Manufacturing Process and Quality of Sake (清酒の製法品質表示基準, seishu no seihō hinshitsu hyōji kijun) -...