A Bottle That Survived the Flames: Sasamasamune Vows to Rebuild on the Same Site

In June 2026, a fire broke out at Sasamasamune Brewery (Sasamasamune Shuzo) in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture. Kitakata is a town in the Aizu region of western Fukushima, in the southern part of the Tohoku region. The flames spread from the brewery to the adjoining main house, which was almost entirely destroyed, and sake equivalent to around 25,000 bottles was lost. When the fire started, president Yujiro Iwata and managing director Kotaro Iwata were away on business in Tokyo. It came at a time when Fukushima sake was drawing attention at the National New Sake Appraisal, and Yujiro said he was sorry, feeling that the blaze had “dampened the enthusiasm around Fukushima sake”.

Surviving storage tanks, and friends who rushed to help

Hope remained in the tanks of the storage room, which had escaped the flames. Three days after the fire, friends from other breweries and sake shops in the Aizu region gathered and carried out the sake left in the tanks. A typhoon had brought cooler temperatures in the meantime, and the quality of the sake was said to have been miraculously preserved. Sake is sensitive to changes in temperature and is normally kept cold. This coolness was one of the reasons the rescue was in time.

The resolve behind “1818-2026-”

On 7 August, Yujiro held a press conference, expressed his thanks for the support and presented the bottled sake. It is the last sake brewed in the old brewery, and its label reads “1818-2026-”. He explained that the hyphen following 2026 expresses the intention to keep brewing sake in the same place in the future.

When it went on sale three days later, exclusively in Fukushima Prefecture, it sold out in places across the prefecture. Kotaro spoke of his joy at seeing it sell, but also of the poignancy of knowing it is truly “the last sake”. At an izakaya in Fukushima city, customers were enjoying it with Aizu specialities such as horse sashimi and Aizu jidori chicken, and some said that knowing the story changes how it tastes. Yujiro says he wants to cherish the sake-brewing tradition and history handed down to him, and to build a brewery on the same site that will last 50 or 100 years into the future.

This “miracle sake” was sold only within Fukushima Prefecture, so it will be hard to get hold of in Europe. Even so, the story can be a way to start paying attention to Aizu sake. One option is to look for the “Aizu” and “Fukushima” origin labels at specialist sake shops and online shops in Europe and compare sakes from Fukushima. Following the local pairings, try it with dishes where the flavour of the ingredients comes through simply, such as raw lean-beef carpaccio or grilled chicken. It will also be worth following future news on how the rebuilding progresses and when the new Sasamasamune will be brewed.