Keith Norum is one of the more youthful sixty-year-olds you’ll meet, even in a country where so many people seem youthful in the later decades of their lives. He looks younger than his years, there’s vitality in his voice and expressions, and he gives every indication he’s eager to continue with his busy work in the sake industry. Perhaps his energy owes to being kept on his toes by his toddler (yes, he’s a recent father!). Or perhaps it’s from the good life that he lives in Suwa, Nagano. We certainly can’t discount the therapeutic effect of success and satisfaction, either, which he earned working for over two decades with Miyasaka Brewing Co.
Miyasaka is one of Japan’s oldest family-owned breweries, having started sake production in 1662. It has also been one of the industry’s bigger success stories, with its Masumi brand recognized across the country and in many overseas markets. Norum has played a large role in those export endeavors. Like so many, he stumbled into the work by accident–you may even say by fate.
In 1990, toward the end of Japan’s high-flying Bubble Era, Norum found a job with the Seiko Epson corporation, which is based in Suwa. He arrived in this sake-rich mountain town of nine breweries with only minimal exposure to the beverage. He had at least discovered a taste for it while in Shizuoka.
“I was visiting someone and it was the first time I had tried sake and thought that this beverage could appeal to me. It was Kaiun (from Doi Shuzō), which does great stuff. It didn’t necessarily turn me toward sake, but it was my first pleasant experience.”
Prior to that, for his first experience of sake, he relates a funny story about visiting his brother in Elkins, West Virginia in the mid-1980s and going out to eat, of all places, to a Chinese restaurant where they were serving sake.
“It came out piping hot in a carafe that clearly had a woman in a Chinese dress. There was a tiki umbrella in it (laughter). But that was generally how you encountered sake in the US in the 1980s.”
Suwa was quick to work its liquid magic on him. After arrival, he found himself at corporate dinners and gatherings where, after the beer, local sake would inevitably come out. Norum remembers the sake all being delicious, some of them served warm.
“In the winter it was very nice to have warm sake with the local food,” he says. “I started to remember Masumi because it was the first time I could recognize a brand name. It was especially good, too, and it came out a lot.”
Miyasaka is the largest producer in Nagano–a prefecture that produces a considerable volume of sake in the big picture–and Norum eventually became acquaintances with the Miyasaka family.
“They were just really nice people,” Norum smiles. “The current president, Naotaka, who was the ‘understudy’ to his father-president then, had gotten an MBA from Gonzaga University in Washington state. He’s very open, likes barbecue parties, and heard that a new American was in town. We sort of became barbecue buddies and that’s how I came to know more about Masumi itself.”
Norum remembers being impressed that the sake could be so enjoyable outside the context of Japanese food.
“My involvement in sake was that process,” concludes Norum. “Several years of being in Suwa and getting to know the Miyasaka family.”
Meanwhile, Norum was establishing roots in town and settling down. He married a woman by the name of Machiko Honma who worked at Epson and was also friends with the Miyasaka family, notably Naotaka’s wife. Norum and his wife were both in the HR division, Norum doing management and English training for Japanese staff, while she handled similar work for non-Japanese staff. While they worked for years in this role, Epson and Miyasaka Brewing eventually arrived at a crossroads. Epson was looking to outsource some of that HR work, and convinced Norum’s wife to launch a small company for that purpose. Norum joined her and the first new client to walk through their doors was Miyasaka.
“Naotaka had been receiving a lot of emails from people overseas that wanted to import their products,” explains Norum. “He had been to some trade expos and was getting buried in inquiries. Very quickly, I started helping them from the outside, providing communication services. They had a good Japanese website–well ahead of its time–but not an English one and they asked me to do that. It was my first big, direct work for the company. That kind of work went on for several years, from 2001 to 2005.”
In the mid-aughts, Masumi’s export program began to surge and they needed somebody full-time. Norum and his wife, for their part, were doing well with the consulting, translating, and training work they handled, but noted the income was up and down.
“We wanted to create some stability,” he says, and then jokes, “for our relationship as well!”
Norum decided to join Miyasaka full time in June of 2005, becoming the head of overseas operations. That meant being the window for almost all overseas activity, from marketing to communication. Like before, most inquiries from overseas were mostly coming from people who had tried Masumi at trade shows like Vinexpo. The US was a little different.
The first exports of Masumi to the US were via Okanaga, also the company’s biggest domestic distributor (their US wing is called Japan Prestige Sake International). Following the craft sake boom in the 1980s, the company created a membership club for which they charged yearly dues, and then exported some of those members. Masumi was one that hopped on the wagon in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, Masumi entered other markets, like Germany and France. But then around 2001, Naotaka’s father, who was still the president at the time, decided to export directly to the US and chose World Sake Exports, founded by Chris Pearce. With that, Norum found himself communicating with the US quite a bit.
“After that, a lot of new importers wanted to be allowed to import directly,” says Norum. “Places like France and Canada–and that latter one is tricky because of a lot of government regulations.”
Beyond that, in 2005 Norum also became involved in a small company that Miyasaka had established in Hong Kong before he joined. At first, it was more or less a sake bar. Norum’s job was to get that place humming, but curiously, it was located inside a larger restaurant owned by a Japanese citizen. The restaurant went out of business and the bar closed down, but Norum describes that as the best thing to have happened to them there. Another Japanese citizen, Toyohiro Tamura, who was operating a consulting firm called Unison Orient in Hong Kong and who also happened to have roots in Chino, the town next to Suwa, took them under his wing and helped them set up a business that also handled import and restaurant distribution.
“We became our own importer to Hong Kong, but we realized very quickly that it was hard to run a restaurant with only one brand. So we started importing some of our friends, like Dewazakura, Rihaku, Tedorigawa, and Dassai. This project was a major focus in the first five years of my being with the company. We end up with all kinds of great labels, and great friends, too.”
That company still exists and is called Cella Masumi Asia. Along with another company that operates high-end supermarkets called “City’super” that sells many Japanese products, they are largely responsible for creating a lively sake scene in Hong Kong.
Eventually, the brewery hired another person, a French-speaker by the name of Dominique Grandemenge, to help with Quebec and Europe, but in his own words, Norum was asked to figure out everything that had to do with export, with the exception of logistics.
“I was doing a lot of travel to various markets in North America, Europe, and Asia. I could not deal with boat schedules, booking containers, and all those little details. Other than that, I did everything.”
According to Norum, Miyasaka is primarily focused on keeping the Masumi brand strong in Japan. Exports were less than 10% of total sales, though the pandemic tipped that higher because so many retailers in Japan were on lockdown. It was a critical lifeline that Norum helped keep open. He describes the pandemic as the most difficult time during his tenure at the company.
Somebody who has worked for over two decades at a company has obviously seen and experienced much during that period, both professionally and privately. Sadly, Norum’s wife passed away from cancer. He kept their original small company going, however, and still manages it today. In happier news, he eventually remarried, a woman named Noriko, and as noted in the introduction, they welcomed a child into the world recently.
As for events in the company, he notes a few dramatic ones as well. In the 1990s, the brewery built a retail shop on its original brewery campus, the first of its kind among the town’s nine breweries. It was destroyed in 2012 by a truck that lost its brakes going down a hill and went right through it, blowing it to pieces. Thankfully, nobody was inside at the time.
“Another important thing that happened during my time was that the brewery shifted the type of sake they made from a lot of futsū-shu to more premium varieties.”
Miyasaka has a second production brewery higher up in the mountains, at nearly 1000 meters (compared to 800 meters for the original). Its machinery was set up, however, for lower polishing rates to produce futsū-shu. Norum witnessed them putting in all kinds of new technology to make higher grades of sake, which in turn probably helped his export game.
“A lot of the technical changes I’ve seen have been to improve that brewery. To connect this with the pandemic, one of the changes that turned out to be lucky was the installation of a great water conditioning system.”
The water source for the brewery in the mountains, called Fujimi, comes from the Southern Alps. The water that filters down to the original brewery, however, comes from Mount Kirigamine and the Yatsugatake Range.
“Fujimi water has more calcium,” says Norum, “so it’s harder. It tends to make sake that’s a little more angular, a little drier, a bit sharper–enough that people would notice.”
This had long been a concern of the brewery, so much so that it separated the types of sake it made between the two: drier sake in Fujimi, softer, rounder sake down in Suwa. The brewers didn’t like this, however, finding it a hassle, but the water conditioning system solved the issue. They could reduce the calcium and adjust other minerals to get the balance almost the same.
When the pandemic hit, sales went through the floor and the Miyasaka family decided not to brew sake in the old, original brewery but lean instead on the newer, more efficient system. Thankfully, the new water conditioning system allowed them to continue making all their products there without any change to the quality.
“It’s one example of how Masumi’s master brewers have helped direct the company toward useful pieces of new technology,” says Norum, “and away from useless gadgets and bling that in the end get in the way, or are built for mass production, which we don’t really do any more.”
When asked about key personnel changes in the company that he’s witnessed, like the veteran he is, Norum smiles. Naotaka’s son, Katsuhiko, has a growing role in the company as his father approaches retirement. Such transitions in breweries can be difficult for owner-families and employees alike, but Norum’s account doesn’t reveal any major rocking of the boat.
“Katsuhiko doesn’t have the title that sons and daughters of brewery presidents typically have, like semmu (managing director), but they’ve created a place for him: the ‘president’s office’, which didn’t exist four years ago. He’s the manager there. It’s a father-son transition that’s happening, and it’s a process. Naotaka is approaching 70 and says he’s staying for a while longer, but in practical terms, we’re using new logos for our new products. All of that happened with Katsuhiko’s involvement. He’s more and more involved with the look of products and the production of some of them.”
Norum plans to continue working with Miyasaka as well, but doesn’t give any hint of what he’ll do after the inevitable changing of the guard. If he even lasts that long. It sounds like the pull of his private life could make him at least consider retirement.
“When I’m not at the brewery, I mostly play with my daughter, who is one-and-a-half years old. I spend most of my free time on her,” he says with a big smile.
It also sounds like the appeal of Suwa itself could have him thinking more about life outside the office.
“I’m happy to say that Suwa is one of the best places I’ve ever lived. It’s not urban, but an alpine environment high in the mountains. I love winter sports. I also like the fact that it’s not just any country town in Japan; it has a lot of history and a special focus in Japanese culture because of the Jōmon people that lived here (5000+ years ago). You feel how deep the history is here.”
As Norum talks about life in Suwa, he focuses in particular on the agricultural riches all the Yatsugatake range.
“As far as the food, it’s so good and so fresh. The supermarkets are great. They’re all seasonal and most are not very expensive. The food and sake culture, with the nine breweries, provides a lot to love.”
With Norum’s youthfulness, it seems like he will have many decades yet to explore, discover, and live the good life here. And he’ll have his wife and daughter to enjoy the experiences with, too. Not a bad life to have stumbled into via barbecue parties and sake. If only we all could be so lucky.
(This feature was from Sake Today 34)
