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Kiku-Masamune Brewing Memorial Museum

Five crucial elements are involved in brewing sake; water, rice, yeast, technical skill, and land/weather. More than anything else, sake is a result of a brewing process that uses rice and lots of water. In fact, water comprises as much as 80% of the final product, so fine water and fine rice are natural prerequisites if one hopes to brew great sake.

A general description of sake brewing looks something like this. Rice is washed and steam-cooked. This is then mixed with yeast and koji (rice cultivated with a mould known technically as 'aspergillus oryzae'). The whole mix is then allowed to ferment, with more rice, koji, and water added in three batches over four days. This fermentation, which occurs in a large tank, is called shikomi. The quality of the rice, the degree to which the koji mould has propagated, temperature variations, and other factors are different for each shikomi. This mash is allowed to sit from 18 to 32 days, after which it is pressed, filtered and blended.

Lying between Uozaki Station (Rokko Liner) and Nada Station (JR Tokaido Line) is the so-called 'Sakagura-no-michi', or Sake Brewery Street, here dozens of sake breweries stand side by side. There are three reasons for the development of sake brewing in the 18th century that made the name of Nada known throughout Japan. One was the discovery of 'miya-mizu', excellent quality water for making sake; two, the production of rice of high quality; and three, a convenient location for transportation by sea.
 

We took a couple of hours to visit three Hamafukutsuru, Sakuramasamune and Kiku-Masamune, however Hamafukutsuru was closed for the day, and the other two are just museums, so we didn't actually get to see brewing in progress.

Sakuramasamune is a smallish museum, so much so that the shop is almost bigger than the display areas. The centre-piece of the museum is a black and white video showing the sake brewing process in the old days.  There are also brewing tools, old advertising material and old sake bottles and labels. Unfortunately everything is shown in Japanese so it's difficult to get a feel for what's going on.

If you have limited time the Kiku-Masamune Brewing Memorial Museum is the better choice. The Kiku-Masamune Sake Brewing Company has been brewing "mainstream dry taste" sake for 340 years, since the establishment of the brewery in 1659. They now export sake to U.S.A., Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and Europe.

This museum was destroyed in the Great Hanshin Earthquake that devastated Kobe several years ago, and reopened in January of 1999. The gate and entrance way have been well restored to their original rustic beauty as have the precious collection of sake brewing tools.

In the first large room is an excellent black and white video from 1934 showing brewing scenes, to vintage music; the narration is all in Japanese, but it is easy enough to follow. The video gives an excellent insight into the large-scale brewing processes of the day, and shows dozens of men mixing moto (yeast starters) or stirring vats.

A small model of a Tarukaisen, the ships that went back and forth between Kobe and Edo, doing nothing but delivering casks of sake, sits near the entrance. There are large brewing implements and small storage vessels, like bottles and tokkuri and red, lacquered "tsuno-daru."

They do run tours, but in Japanese, however when you are finished viewing the collection, there are several sakes to be sampled in the tasting room and an abundance of Sake paraphernalia to purchase.