Export-only sake comes home: Yoshida Shuzo of Fukui reimports its own brew

Yoshida Shuzo, a brewery in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan, put on sale in Japan in August 2026 a sake that it had until now made only for overseas markets. The brewery is in Eiheiji, a town known for the Zen temple of Eihei-ji. According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the sake is produced in a joint venture with a Hong Kong company and has built up a track record in Asia. Restaurants and other businesses in Japan reportedly asked to be able to stock it at home too. It is being sold to high-end restaurants and hotels, aimed at wealthy customers.

Proven abroad, then brought back to Japan

Yoshida Shuzo set up a joint venture with a Hong Kong company in 2022 and began exporting in earnest. In 2023, the following year, it built a new brewery in Eiheiji, called Kippo-gura, to expand its production capacity considerably. Most breweries sell at home first and send any surplus abroad. Yoshida Shuzo did the opposite: it established its reputation overseas and only then brought the sake to the domestic market. The fact that a new brewery was ready within a year of the joint venture’s founding suggests that the overseas partner is not only a buyer but also a backer of the investment in production.

From a tank-selling brewery to “Eiheiji Terroir”

Founded in 1806, Yoshida Shuzo long made its living mainly from “oke-uri”, or tank selling. This is a trade in which a brewery sells the sake it has made to other breweries, and the sake then goes to market under the buyer’s brand. Now that it has switched to competing under its own brand, it uses only locally grown rice. It makes only “junmai” sake, brewed from rice, rice koji and water alone, with no added brewing alcohol. Its philosophy, “Eiheiji Terroir”, centres on the rice and the water. Its junmai daiginjo “Hakuryu”, made from Yamada Nishiki (a rice variety widely used for premium sake) grown in the brewery’s own paddies, won a gold medal at the National New Sake Appraisal for the 2021–22 brewing year. Junmai daiginjo is the top category of junmai sake, in which at least half of each rice grain is polished away. The toji, or head brewer, is Mako Yoshida, while management is in the hands of their mother, Yukari.

How to enjoy it in Europe

This export-only sake is said to be aimed at high-end venues in Asia and Japan, and there has so far been no talk of selling it in Europe. For now, look for the name of Yoshida Shuzo’s “Hakuryu” on the lists of sake shops and restaurants. If the label says “junmai” or “Yamada Nishiki”, it is a bottle that shows this brewery’s thinking well. Served well chilled in a wine glass, junmai daiginjo makes it easier to appreciate the aroma and the soft sweetness of the rice. As this is the sake of a region blessed with seafood from the Sea of Japan, it is best paired with white fish and shellfish dishes. It will also be worth watching whether this export-led brand, which grew up in Asia, spreads to Europe next.