Special feature on visiting sake breweries in Akita - vol.3 - "Drunken Rakuten and Akitaharu".

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Sake brewery and storehouse built over 100 years ago

Traditional Sake in the Town of Brewing [Drunken Rakuten, Akita Haru

Akita Sake Brewery Special" vol. 3 features the brewery of Akita Sake Brewing Company, whose representative brands are "Drunken Rakuten" and "Akita Haru" located in Shinya, Akita City. The staff of JR East Travel Service Center Akita actually visited the brewery! The tour was led by President Sho Nomoto, a great-grandson of the founder.

Akita Sake Brewery, where sake brewing is now in full swing, was the first sake brewery in Akita Prefecture to sell daiginjo-shu to the public. The sake brewery building, which is over 100 years old, is a designated national cultural asset.
Passing through the store and entering the street
The goodwill "Kuniman Kura" was the predecessor of "Akita Sake Brewery" and was founded by Shinsuke Kawaguchi I in the late Meiji period (1868-1912).
Later, through a corporate merger, the brewery became "Akita Sake Brewing Co.

The "Akita City Shinya" where the brewery is located prospered as a brewing town due to the abundance of spring water. Until the late Showa period, there were five sake breweries in the neighborhood, but now there is only one company here. Currently, a "water quality plant" is equipped (plant-treated groundwater) to make the medium-hard water into even better quality brewing water.

■To the Sake Brewery

Sake brewery
When you pass through the door and open it, you can see steam rising in the air. The steamed rice is cooled, sprinkled with seed koji by hand, and carried into the koji room.

To Koji Muro (koji room)

Koji-muro (koji brewery)
In the warm room, rice koji is made. A small box called a "koji lid" is still used as in the old days.

To the brewery

Built-in
The inside of the brewery is filled with the sweet aroma unique to sake♪ Sake mother and other ingredients are mixed in large tanks to produce moromi. The condition of the sake is checked daily to adjust the alcohol content, acidity, and sugar content.
This machine is a "yabuta
The fermented mash is then pressurized into sake using a machine called a "yabuta" to squeeze out the sake. After pressing, sake lees stick to each of these white curtain-like pieces. The collected sake lees are made into sake lees soup or pickled in sake lees and eaten. It was also sold at the store!
Sake making is truly an environmentally friendly process with nothing to throw away.
Thermal tank
Pressed sake is stored in a thermal tank. This thermal tank can also be adjusted to a negative temperature, allowing for quality control to keep the sake at its best.

Store

Showcase of the store
The finished sake can also be purchased and shipped directly to the store adjacent to the brewery. In addition to sake, local vegetables were also on display.

Akita Sake Brewery focuses on advanced technologies such as thermal tanks, while preserving traditional techniques such as long low-temperature fermentation. Why not taste and drink sake that is carefully crafted, incorporating new things while maintaining the unchanged essence of the past?

Please look forward to the next "Akita Sake Brewery Tour Special" in the next issue! If you have any requests, please contact JR East Travel Service Center Akita.
For more information about Akita Sake Brewery
For reservations for JR + accommodation "Akita Area", please contact [ JR East View Dynamic Rail Package ]
JR East Travel Service Center Akita
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