Sake Tour of Hyogo Part One

Sake Tasting Bar

In an hour or so, we’re about to go on a tour of the local area sake breweries. I live in Hyogo which has about 60% of the sake (nihonshu – Japanese rice wine) breweries in Japan.

I thought I’d dig out an old blog post I wrote for a different site and post it here with some photos.

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Sake or Nihonshu (Japanese rice wine) for those that don’t know is an alcoholic wine made from rice and sugar, about 13-16% alcohol by content and can be drunk chilled or heated.

But it’s much more than that. Like wine to the French, sake is an integral part of Japanese culture and diet, served at special occasions like weddings and funerals, given as offerings to the Shinto gods and family ancestors or just enjoyed in bars, karaoke and restaurants everywhere.

Ok, so that’s the explanation out of the way, let’s get back to the tour of the breweries.
There are many throughout Kobe, and we headed to a concentrated area, Nada about 10 minutes by train from Sannomiya. Getting out at Hanshin Mikage station we managed to get a map (in English and Japanese) with a suggested route laid out (ask the station guy for a “Sakagura no chizu kudasai”).

Takinokoi Kuramoto Club Sakasho-kan

There are large and small breweries in the area and our first stop was a small but apparently famous one, (due to it being the location of an NHK TV drama some years back), Takinokoi Kuramoto Club Sakasho-kan (that’s quite a mouthful, even before you start drinking the booze).
Unfortunately we couldn’t get a tour of the buildings but they do have a cozy little bar where you can try some of their sake (for ￥400-￥500 a glass). Served in a glass inside a small square box called a “Masu”.  (The picture on the Sake main page of the site I took in this bar).

Sake Tasting Bar

I highly recommend the Garyou Tensei (it won a Monde Selection in Brussels in 2007), and ended up buying a bottle of it.

(I’ll get around to drinking and reviewing it one day!)
















Next stop was the much larger and more well known Hakutsuru Sake Brewery and Museum about 5 minutes away. This is one of the few brands fairly readily available throughout the world – in fact, we asked the hotel to serve some sake at our wedding in London, and this is the one they supplied.

Hakutsuru Brewery

Here they have an excellent museum with videos (in English too), explaining the process of sake production, lots of dioramas and equipment used throughout the centuries and a very popular free tasting area.

I was a bit surprised to see this company also make cosmetics out of sake! Moisturizing creams and such like. Didn’t try any of those though, I just stuck to drinking the stuff.

Sake Barrels

You can also pose for a picture in the sake workers uniform (and look like a proper tourist!). (Which I did, but decided not to post the picture here Just a picture of one of the many dioramas they have in the museum. )

After a short break at a 7-11 for some niku-man (Chinese meat dumplings) and onigiri (rice balls) to soak up some of the booze, we headed a hundred or so yards down the road to the Kikumasamune Sake Museum.

Kikumasamune Sake Museum

Although not as impressive as the Hakutsuru Museum it’s still worth a visit as they have a good shop and a tasting area where you can try ‘Fresh Sake’ (before it’s pasteurized and blended), which you can’t buy in shops.

A couple of glasses later and running out of time, we rushed down the road to our last stop of the day, Sakuramasamune “Sakuraen”. Definitely worth a visit as for just ￥300 you can try three of their best (or most popular) brands including one that sells for ￥10,000 a bottle! Our usual sake budget is more like ￥2000.

They also had a very interesting rose coloured sake, “Sakuraen” which I think must be their speciality brew made with red rice.

All in all a great fun day out, and we only covered about a quarter of the breweries in the area!

Hakutsuru Sake Bottle Labels

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So that was the old post, now I’m off to try and fit in batch of sake breweries and tastings

• Sake Grove Cedar Balls Mean New Sake Is On It’s Way
• Sake Club for May
• Free Sake in Osaka
• Joining a Monthly Sake Club