Hakutsuru Sake Brewery

We couldn`t travel all the way to Japan without visiting a sake brewery. Lance quite favours the beverage and we are travelling quite close to Kobe, which has several sake breweries that offer tours and tastings. I had heard about one, Hakutsuru, that had a free museum with information in English so we headed out there yesterday after touring a park in Okoyama.

The directions that I had to get to the museum were not great as they basically said to walk for 15 minutes south of the train station. However, they didn`t specify which of the 5 southbound streets to follow. So, after wandering for a while without finding anywhere tour-worthy, we asked an older fellow who was working in his garden. His English was not very well and our map was even worse. So, he walked us about halfway there, until the building was in sight and from there we could make it the rest of the way.

The museum was very cool. Not only did they have English brochures available, but they also had televisions set up that would describe the sake brewing process in both English and Japanese. It was very interesting to see the different historic methods for brewing.

At the end of the tour they have some freshly brewed sake that you can try - unpasteurized, chilled, strong and delicious. I`m not a huge fan of sake myself, but this stuff was really good! Then they also had a shop set up to buy products. The most expensive thing there was their line of rice skin care products, which we steered clear from and ended up with a few different and reasonably priced bottles to sample.

One of the things that most impressed me was the service and explanations of the different kinds of sake and the temperatures to serve them. They also gave an indication of the alcohol content in each one. (One of things we`ve discovered is that the alcohol here is generally cheaper, but also a lot weaker than back home, so you still drink an equivalent cost to back home.) I was so impressed that I decided to check and see if this brand of sake was available back home. Lo and behold, after a brief google search one of the first hits I find is for the liquor store across the street that`s attached to the Dublin Crossing Pub. The company also has a very good informative site in English (linked above).