From Toji System to Staff-Brewed Sake: The Choice of Asama Shuzo in Gunma

The toji system, long taken for granted in the world of sake, is changing. A toji is the master brewer who bears full responsibility for production at a brewery. Takeshi Sakurai, fifth-generation president of Asama Shuzo, located in the mountains of Nagano-hara town in Gunma Prefecture, north-west of Tokyo, contributed a piece to the local newspaper Jomo Shimbun in July 2026. In it, he explained that the brewery has switched completely to making sake with its own employees alone, without a toji, and that this change is not a compromise on quality but an evolution.

From Seasonal Craftsmen to Year-Round Employees

In sake brewing, the kuramoto, who runs the business, and the toji, who is entrusted with the brewing, have traditionally divided the roles between them. Most toji and their craftsmen were seasonal workers who farmed in summer and worked at the brewery only in winter. However, the number of people in farming has fallen and ways of living have changed, so keeping up this approach has become difficult. Sakurai writes that the way long-inherited knowledge is passed on is at a major turning point. Asama Shuzo therefore decided to place brewing in the hands of its employees.

Turning Intuition into Numbers, with Everyone Handling Every Process

The biggest challenge was how to pass the experience and intuition of veterans on to younger employees. Asama Shuzo recorded as data the brewing steps that had been hard to put into words, making them visible. By valuing the craftsmen’s senses while also using numbers, even less experienced employees have reportedly found it easier to reproduce the same quality. The brewery also stopped dividing tasks into narrow roles and changed to a system in which everyone is involved in every process. As there is no longer any work known only to certain people, employees are said to be able to take time off even in the busy brewing season.

Ginjo Sake Designed by Employees

Another pillar supporting this system is an in-house scheme started in 2005. Each employee designs, and is in charge of brewing, a ginjo sake (a fragrant premium sake made with rice polished down heavily and fermented slowly at low temperature) to enter in competitions. The scheme was adopted from Dewazakura Shuzo in Yamagata Prefecture, where Sakurai trained. Only one sake can be entered in each competition, so only the sake that wins through an internal qualifying round is submitted. Since the scheme began, the brewery has won an award of at least a prize-winning level at the National New Sake Competition every year. Even so, Sakurai stresses that awards are merely a waypoint, and that the real aim is to apply the refined skills to the everyday bottle that people drink at their daily table.

When choosing sake in Europe, it can be interesting to look not only at the brand on the label but also at who makes it and under what kind of system. The move from toji to employees is one of the changes spreading through Japanese breweries today. You could ask a retailer or importer whether a brewery works under a toji system or with employee-led brewing. For a brewery like Asama Shuzo, where the same team makes both competition ginjo and everyday sake, tasting a showy ginjo alongside a food-friendly ordinary sake (futsushu) might let you sense how the technique lives on in the everyday bottle.

References and sources Jomo Shimbun, “Not a compromise but proof of evolution: the move away from the toji system” https://www.jomo-news.co.jp/articles/-/981406