Weekend: Sake breweries go with the flow to survive

With so many types of alcoholic beverages now available, sake produced by independent local brand breweries is losing ground. Hoping to produce new sake with individuality, some brewery owners have begun to take the initiative.

Akita Jozo is an example. The brewery is found on the first floor of an apartment block located in central Akita, Akita Prefecture, a famous sake-producing region.

At the end of August, workers in the 660-square meter brewery, where room temperature is kept at 6 degrees, were busy preparing the brewing process.

Faint popping sounds and fresh fruity aroma wafted from a tank in which rice yeast is cultivated in large quantities to make shubo, one of the first steps in the process of producing sake.

Meanwhile, warm wet air escapes through the door of koji muro, a room where steamed rice is spread out and inoculated with kojikin mold to make koji malted rice.

The next step involved koji, steamed rice and water added to the shubo starter mash in three stages and left to ferment for about a month.

The preparation was for producing 1,200 1.8-liter bottles of what is known as akijikomi, sake whose production process is completed in the fall. While hiyaoroshi, a type of sake matured over the summer, is marketed around Japan, the akijikomi sake is promoted for its freshness.

Akita Jozo has installed an air conditioning system as well as a tank with a cooling unit to precisely control the temperature. Still, Tadahiko Kobayashi, the 47-year-old president of the brewery said, "It is tough to brew sake at this (hot) time of the year."

Since 2004, he has also been serving as the toji, or master brewer, and is involved in the actual sake-making process.

Since the power of microbes is essential to make sake and bacteria should not be allowed to grow, sake brewing is usually conducted during the cold winter months. Yet Kobayashi has increased brewing throughout the year.

"We can do so because we are a small brewery that is very adaptable. We want to produce sake that reflects the features of the season," he said. "For a long time, sake makers were able to sell anything they produced so that sake came to be regarded as being not much different from one another. There should be a variety of flavors. I believe diversity is the key to survival."

The brewery, established in 1919, went through a long period of mainly producing sake for selling to other sake makers instead of sake destined for retail consumption.

The company rebuilt the brewery in 2002, reduced its production size to about 27,000 liters and switched to producing mainly pure sake.

About 60 percent of its sake is what is known as nama-zake or sake that has not been heat-treated.

Although it must be refrigerated and is sold for a short period of time, the sake is fresh for the same reasons. The brewery's Yuki no Bijin brand is characterized by a tart and refreshing aftertaste. Kobayashi surveys his employees and others who have tried his sake to plan what sake to produce next.

A similar brewery is Aramasa Co., which is located a five-minute walk away.

Established in 1852, it produces about 990,000 liters.

It is also known as the brewery having the oldest commercially available sake yeast.

Yusuke Sato, 34-year-old board member of the brewery, returned to his hometown in 2007 and began working for his father Uhe Sato, the seventh-generation brewery president.

New system, new sake

Yusuke established a new system by appointing an employee to be the master brewer to oversee sake-making operations, rather than having a veteran take on the role as has been the custom in the centuries-old sake brewing tradition, and began developing unique sake in the fall of last year.

"Rather than making flawless sake, I want to make sake that is immediately recognizable as ours when tasted," he said. His plan is to "return to square one" and study the oldest yeast to make new sake.

One new sake the brewery has produced is Hinotori, a type of sake known as kijoshu, produced in a limited number. When making the special product, sake is used instead of water during the production. Although kijoshu is known for the sweet and rich taste, Hinotori offers a sweet-sour and refreshing taste.

Sato explained that the aim was to create the flavor of the fresh blood orange, using the oldest yeast. The company received a rush of orders for the sake that offered a totally different flavor.

Sato stressed that it is also important to control how the sake is stored.

Rather than in a tank, the quality of sake can be maintained better in bottles that are kept at a constant temperature. The brewery plans to expand the bottle storage area by 50 percent.

"We want to deliver the freshly made flavor to the consumers," Sato said.

Consumption of sake has been falling in recent years.

According to statistics released by the National Tax Agency, the figure which was 1.675 million kiloliters in fiscal 1975 fell to 1.122 million kiloliters in 1997 and to 664,000 kiloliters in 2007, which was just 60 percent of the 1997 level.

The number of sake breweries is also declining.

While there were 3,229 breweries nationwide in fiscal 1975, the number had fallen to 1,845 in 2007. The same applies to the number of master brewers. Although 2,810 toji master brewers were members of a nationwide federation of master brewers' unions in fiscal 1975, the figure had dropped to 809 in 2008.

According to sake journalist Haruo Matsuzaki, the work of master brewers has traditionally been seasonal labor conducted by rice farmers during agricultural off-season. They would sleep at the breweries during the winter to make sake. Nowadays, however, with fewer full-time farm households, the vocation is facing the problems of aging and difficulty of finding successors.

Instead, an increasing number of younger sake brewery proprietors are becoming involved in sake-making.

"By handling the entire process from production to management and sales, sake breweries are becoming sensitive to the tastes of the customers," Matsuzaki said. "Another positive aspect is that the breweries' would transmit more information about themselves to the consumers."(IHT/Asahi: November 6,2009)