Hitachino Nest is the world-renowned craft beer brand produced by Kiuchi Shuzo, a multi-generational brewery in Ibaraki that continues to brew premium sake–the beverage that it actually started with–along with other fine products like umeshu (plum wine) and, more recently, whisky. It’s restaurant in San Francisco, Hitachino Beer & Wagyu (featured in issue 15 of…
Travel in Japan, Food & Sake Culture. You may have noticed, but that’s what we changed our subtitle to as of the last issue. Prior to that, and since our first issue, we had been using “Celebrating the World of Sake Culture”. But what does that mean? We had an evolving picture of that world,…
The billowing sea of white stretching for miles proclaims a lush vitality in disjunction with the seemingly dusty landscape of the surrounding countryside. Eastward beyond this expanse of blooming almond trees rise the Sutter Buttes, a series of eroded volcanic lava domes jutting in isolation from the plains of the Sacramento Valley. And farther still,…
One of Japan’s best off-the-beaten-track travel destinations is Shimane, located on Japan’s quiet, rural West Coast. The prefecture also has amazing sake, as we reported in issue #17. Even earlier, in issue #2, we wrote in detail about its beautiful capital city, Matsue. This Sunday, the sake brewers guild of Shimane is hosting a special…
As sake asserts itself in markets around the world, there are more and more tasting contests that tally up evaluation scores and award medals. This spring, I participated as a judge in three within the span of a month. Each had hundreds and hundreds of entries. There were even more in which I did…
Attention San Francisco Bay Area sake fans (especially those in the East Bay)! Takara USA in Berkeley is hosting a special tasting Wednesday (10/24) to Sunday (10/28) that will feature limited quantities of its ShoChikuBai Junmai Nama Genshu. Okay, let’s break this down to see what all the fuss is about. “Nama” refers…
The largest celebration of World Sake Day outside of Japan is almost here. This Saturday (September, 29th), Beau Timken and his team at True Sake in San Francisco host the 13th annual iteration of their Sake Day SF event, an ever-evolving festival showcasing all things sake. We’ve been attending for five years and can affirm…
World Sake Day on October 1st will be here before you know it! How will you be celebrating? Organizations, bars and restaurants around the world will be holding special events on or around that date. We’ll be highlighting a few of them over the next ten days. To start, Ayaka Ito of BESHOCK Ramen and…
Sake Spring, Kyoto’s premier sake festival, is back for an autumn edition. No, the name hasn’t changed to “Sake Autumn”, but it will be held this coming September 29th and 30th, 11am to 6pm, at the Kyoto International Conference Center. The previous installments, in Kyoto and Shinagawa (Tokyo) this past spring, drew upwards of 30,000…
I often say that the sake brewing industry is idiosyncratic in a myriad ways. One primary example is that, unlike businesses in other Japanese industries, sake breweries have almost always been family businesses, handed down from father to son (and more recently, to daughters, too), from generation to generation. Many can trace their lineage back…