Change is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean that it always comes smoothly or that it ever proceeds according to plan. In the sake industry, change usually comes slowly and begrudgingly. Sometimes, it comes too late.
Sake breweries have traditionally been family-owned and passed down from father to son. If there were no sons, the first daughter’s husband took over–usually. Until recently, ownership outside the family was all but unheard of. You didn’t get outside investors; you just shut down the company. Recently, though, selling the brewing company to another business entity outside the family has become much more common. A sake brewery coming under foreign ownership simply hasn’t existed. Until recently. That precedent belongs to Daimon Brewery.
Former-owner Yasutaka Daimon is a unique person, to say the least, ever exuding charm and charisma. Whether that aura grew during his four-year pilgrimage through Europe and a subsequent three-year spiritualistic study period in India, or whether it is an inherent quality of his personality is hard to say. But he has a knack for talking to people, that’s for sure.
He can work a crowd with eloquence and poise in Japanese or English. My yearly Sake Professional Course ends almost every year with a tour of Daimon Brewery followed by dinner in a converted room in the eaves of the kura. There, he takes the time to talk to each of the 25 or so individuals that have just completed the course, and as he does so he makes everyone feel like they are the sole focus of his attention. I have even heard him spontaneously sing in Sanskrit in front of some people that could understand it. No one walks (or stumbles, as often is the case) away from that kura unimpressed.
I myself go back a couple decades with Daimon. In fact, my very first two courses took place inside his brewery. No other brewer in the industry has been as supportive of my efforts over these last 20 years.
But even all that good karma, charisma and charm are not enough to weather economic crises like the perfect storm that befell Daimon Brewery a decade ago. I’ll skip the lurid details and simply say that Daimon was on the brink of closing his brewery down.
Stoically accepting his financial reality, he had but one regret. As he explained to me then with a healthy dose of remorse, “This whole place will be sold to land developers. That means they will tear down this old kura and replace it with apartment buildings. This lovely, traditional kura building has been a part of this community for well over a hundred years. I only wish there was a way to keep it alive, even if I am no longer involved.”
Maybe it seemed to Daimon at first that the god of sake had heard his lament because at the last minute, a buyer appeared who would let Daimon keep brewing. The sake industry is riddled with idiosyncrasies, yet it’s quite tightly knit and supportive, too. Word had traveled far enough and, it seemed, just in the nick of time. Unfortunately, as well intentioned as those would-be saviours might have been, the transaction did not ultimately bring positive results. The individual hailed from the food-and-beverage industry. Sake brewing, meanwhile, is tough and quite unusual; nothing can really prepare you for it. Experience gained from the food and beverage sector is simply not transferable. The buyer decided to sell. Daimon found himself back in the unenviable position of waiting for the inevitable razing of the brewery a second time.
Not long thereafter, one Marcus Consolini traipsed into the kura with his business partner, unannounced and uninvited, on a purely social visit. Consolini himself had spent years living in various countries in his career in investment banking. He got into property work on the side, and while living in Hong Kong, he had taken on the restoration of a traditional Kyoto dwelling known as a machiya. While visiting the site in Kyoto, his architect on the project suggested he go visit Daimon’s kura, presumably so he could see the traditional brewery architecture and cull some ideas for his own project.
When they arrived and walked into the brewery building, the first person they ran into was Daimon himself. With his usual charm, he greeted them in English and encouraged them to join him for a chat. They sat down, began to talk, and the conversation just kept going. “Daimon shared like an open book,” recalls Consolini.
Several unplanned hours later, Consolini and his partner made the bold decision to bid on the property. Back in Hong Kong, he put together a bid for the property and business in an impossibly short eight weeks. There were three other bidders who made clear that they were just interested in the land. Only Consolini and the group of investors that he gathered appreciated the value of the sake-brewing business as well. His bid amount reflected this and was probably why it topped the others–barely and, again, at the last moment. With that Daimon Brewery rose from the proverbial ashes, and Marcus Consolini became the first non-Japanese owner and CEO of a sake brewery in Japan.
Especially after his experience with the first buyer–who leaned toward overbearing–Daimon clearly conveyed the second time that he felt a great responsibility to keep the brewery and style of sake as much as possible like it had been: representative of Osaka, generally meaning richer and more umami laden, not light and fruity or ostentatious. He needed a partner who could accept and work toward that.
Consolini jerked a thumb in his own direction, “And he found the sucker!”
Once the initial agreements were set, it was time to get down to business. The sake brewing industry is still quite traditional, and long-term relationships govern everything from rice purchases and the hiring of brewing personnel to distribution. No one knows if things would have gone smoothly elsewhere, but Consolini contends it worked well in his case precisely because it was Osaka.
Osaka people are well known for being open and refreshingly expressive, and the dozen or so other sake brewers in Osaka had no objection to the change. Nor were they wowed by it–Consolini and Daimon were expected to carry their share of the grunt work when it came to Osaka-centric events on which they all cooperated.
“There’s no way I could have pulled this off in other parts of the country,” Consolini notes.
Regardless of their official titles, Consolini insists on Daimon being the face of the company. Conversely, heeding Daimon’s guidance, Consolini has learned to navigate the industry waters. It’s knowledge the Daimon family refined over their six generations of brewing sake.
To make good sake, though, you need more than cool owners. Quality equipment helps, as do skills and a good kura. Daimon Brewery definitely has the kura; it’s compact and efficiently laid out. The scale of operations is small and will remain so even as they try to meet their growth goals. Both Daimon and Consolini agree, “We are a craft producer; we will not compromise on that.”
The brewery is arranged to accommodate the hand-crafted techniques that they employ. Outside of the steaming vessel, the rice-cooling machine, and the mechanical press, there are basically no machines. The one nod to modern technology is a kôji-making machine that is used for some of the kôji production. Other than that, all ingredients are hand-schlepped, hand-measured, and hand-mixed.
The current toji, Ryôsuke Uei, came from outside the industry as well. He saw Daimon on a television documentary and was so impressed that he came knocking on the door to ask for a job. At that time, Daimon himself was the toji as well as the president. Uei was trained and groomed, and within a few years was a bona fide toji in charge of the sake at Daimon Brewery. At 35 he has embraced that responsibility and has plenty of time to grow even more into his role.
Daimon’s two adult sons have also returned to the fold and are fully involved in the business. The younger, Kiyoshi, is technically oriented and has outstanding focus. He currently toils assiduously “with a sense of mission” under Uei. The older of the two, Kôhei, is more light-hearted and flexible, and applies himself in design and several other aspects of the company.
The products they brew are divided into three basic lines. One is the Rikyubai line, which is the original brand name of this brewery. This one Daimon directs himself, as it is traditional and representative of their original style and Osaka sake in general. The second is the small-batch, artisanal Yama series, which uses rice grown very close to the brewery. Uei is free to create this series in his own style. Some of that is namazake, and expresses the youth and brashness that this variety often does. The third is the Daimon series, which is a collaboration between the two men in style.
Food pairing drives many of their brewing decisions. While they are technically in Osaka Prefecture, the brewery is equidistant from downtown Osaka, with its broad range of animated food, and Kyoto, which is known for its refined cuisine. With so many variables from these culinary traditions, the sake could develop in any number of directions. Affinity with food, though, will inevitably drive the styles.
This third incarnation of Daimon Brewery is off to a good start. After being close to inactive for a couple of years, the first goal was 40 kiloliters, which they achieved in this, their second year of operation. Osaka people like things from Osaka, and their eventual goal is to become the representative regional sake–the brand people associate with Osaka sake. The main focus of their efforts is becoming better known and loved in the city, but the other is exporting to Asian countries. That, too, is proceeding smoothly.
The team is in place: the first non-Japanese brewery owner with his international business acumen, the sixth-generation sakagura journeyman with his decades of experience, his two progenies with their enthusiasm and purpose, and a young toji coming into his own. All are working together, each in their respective capacities, to elevate the brewery. In Consolini’s words, “The good news is that we stopped the bulldozers; we saved the brewery. We are growing and the whole Daimon family will be a part of its future success.”
Sake brewing is a curious craft. Success can be elusive for reasons unrelated to the brewery, and failure can come, too, simply because of bad luck. But with a legacy, the proper skills, the support of Osaka, and a committed team, the probability of Daimon’s ongoing success seems high. We certainly don’t expect to see a fourth incarnation.
