Office worker revives 212-year-old Shikishima sake brewery

Sake breweries in Japan have continued to close one after another since the 2000s. Against that backdrop, it is very rare for a brewery that has handed back its licence to start making sake again. The Mainichi Shimbun reported on how a family successor, a former office worker, revived a brewery in Handa, Aichi Prefecture. Aichi is a prefecture in the Chubu region, between Tokyo and Osaka, and Handa lies south of Nagoya on the Chita Peninsula, which faces the sea.

212 years of history and a first closure

The brewery’s predecessor was Ito Goshi Kaisha, founded in 1788. Known for its Shikishima brand, it was once ranked ‘Yokozuna of the East’ in a ranking of breweries compiled by the Nagoya tax authorities. It can be said to have been one of the leading breweries of the Chubu region. Besides sake, it also made miso and soy sauce, and ran a banking business. However, Japan’s sake consumption has fallen continuously since peaking in 1973, and this brewery too ran into financial difficulty. In 2000 it returned its sake-making licence and sold most of its land and buildings. Sake brewing, which had continued for 212 years, came to a halt there.

From telecoms company to sake brewery

Ito Yu (41), the ninth generation of the Ito family, was still in his final year of junior high school in the year the brewery stopped making sake. He grew up in Nagoya and, he says, only visited the brewery, where his grandparents lived, in the summer holidays and at New Year. After university he worked for a major telecoms company, but the death of his grandfather in 2014 led him to start thinking about taking over the brewery. He then carried out repeated trial brews at the Aichi Center for Industry and Science Technology, a prefectural research institute. According to the article, there he also woke from a long sleep the ‘driving force’ that had produced the brewery’s old flavour and aroma. What exactly this ‘driving force’ is is explained in the paywalled part of the article. Ito, who now operates as Ito Kabushiki Kaisha, says he wants to make ‘sake that shines’.

How to enjoy it in Europe

For readers in Europe, we recommend remembering the brand name ‘Shikishima’ on the label and the brewery’s home, Handa in Aichi Prefecture. Sake from the revived brewery may still be hard to find abroad. It is worth asking specialist sake shops and importers whether they plan to stock it. The brewery once made miso and soy sauce too. Keeping that background in mind, pairing the sake with dishes made with miso or soy sauce is an interesting way to enjoy it. This story shows that even a brewery whose history was broken off can win back a taste and aroma true to its region. When you drink it, pay attention to how the character of the old brewery has been carried on.