NABEDANA SAKE BREWERY
Fudoh & Jinyu.

Thank you for reading about Nabedana Kouzaki Brewery.

As you may know, SAKE has played a central role in the life and culture of Japanese people for about two thousand years, during which time the knowledge and skills required for SAKE production have spread to every region of the country. Although the number of breweries has drastically decreased for the last 50 years, today there are some 1,500 breweries of all sizes are still engaged in the production of SAKE, Japan’s national alcoholic beverage.

Our ancestors have started brewing SAKE in NARITA by NARITASAN Temple more than 320 years ago in a period called EDO, the era of TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE. The brewing license, at first, was given by a local lord, and the Narita brewery was the only production facility site for the first 200 years of our history.

As brewing business went on and well, we were able to expand the business by acquiring other production facilities. One of them was this Kouzaki brewery, acquired in 1897. Later we maintained four production sites at one time including the one in Kobe, but unfortunately, in the beginning of World War II, due to the severe rice shortage, we were forced to choose one production site and close the others. Consequently we chose Kouzaki. The reasons were that Kouzaki site was the biggest in terms of square, had a relatively better access to rice at the time, and had abundant water in good quality, all compared to others.

Since then, we have been brewing JINYU, our main brand, for the last few decades at the Kouzaki brewery.
We have made brewing the finest sake a family tradition for more than 3 centuries. Our brewing motto, “never compromise” has been passed on to more than 19 generations.

Ken Otsuka, President