Breweries in Japan

Sake Making at Tamagawa Brewery
玉川酒蔵で酒造り

Many of you will know about sake and may even be avid sake-drinkers, but have you ever wondered about the process of sake brewing or perhaps even trying to make your own sake first-hand?

皆様は日本酒についてご存知だと思います。熱心に飲んでいる人もいるかもしれないですよね。でも、日本酒を醸造するプロセス、あるいはおそらく自身の日本酒を直接手に入れようと試みることをしたことがありますか?

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Asahi Brewery Fukushima
アサヒビール福島工場

Recently, I visited Asahi Beer’s Fukushima Brewery for the first time. Fukushima Prefecture is famous for its sake, where the Fukushima Sake Brewers Cooperative consists of nearly 60 sake breweries. Moreover, the annual Japan Sake Awards has awarded the prefecture the most gold prizes of all of Japan for four years running as of 2016! Given this longstanding reputation for sake breweries, I was very excited to learn about how beer breweries might compare.

最近、アサヒ福島工場を初めて訪れました。 福島県は、福島酒造協同組合が約60酒蔵で構成されていることから有名らしいです。 また、毎年恒例の日本酒賞は、2012年~2016年の4年間にわたり、全国で最も多く金賞を授与されました! とても評価のあるビール醸造所ですので、ビールと日本酒がどのように比較されるかを知ることに興味がありました。

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Aoki Sake Brewery Tour
青木酒造酒蔵見学

Recently had the opportunity to attend an exclusive brewery tour at Aoki Sake Brewery (http://aokishuzou.co.jp/), a small Brewery in Ibaraki Prefecture about an hour away from Tokyo. Ms. Chisa Aoki, the 9th generation family member continuing the brewery business gave us the tour of the premises and brewery process. (FYI, the Japan Sake and Sochu Makers Association has a great step-by-step explanation of the basic sake brewing process.) It was fascinating to see the actual process from start with milling and steaming the rice to finish with bottling!

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