Hiroshima Sake: How One Brewer Overturned the Conventional Wisdom

Sake regions are usually described in terms of their natural endowments. Good rice, good water, cold winters.

Hiroshima is a different case.

Hiroshima became a great brewing region not because it was blessed, but because a place saddled with water considered unsuitable for sake developed, on its own, the technique to turn that disadvantage around. And the man who developed it did not keep the finished method secret — he printed it and handed it out to his competitors.

The Era When “Soft Water Cannot Make Good Sake”

Until the middle of the Meiji era, hard water was considered the water suited to brewing.

The reasoning made sense. Minerals abundant in hard water — potassium, phosphorus, magnesium — are nutrients for yeast and koji mold. With ample nutrition, fermentation advances powerfully, sugars convert cleanly into alcohol, and the sake finishes crisp and dry. This is precisely why Nada’s miyamizu came to be called the finest brewing water in Japan.

The flip side is that soft water, poor in minerals, does not ferment as one would wish. The moromi (fermenting mash) slows partway through, sugar lingers, and the sake turns cloyingly sweet. Wild bacteria can take over and cause fuzo — a spoilage accident in which an entire batch rots.

Hiroshima’s water was this soft water. In both Akitsu and Saijo, the groundwater passes through granite strata and carries very little mineral content. By the conventional wisdom of the day, this made Hiroshima one of the least suitable places in Japan to brew sake.

Miura Senzaburo and “A Hundred Trials, A Thousand Refinements”

The man brewing there was Miura Senzaburo (三浦仙三郎, 1847–1908).

Born into a sake-brewing family in Akitsu (present-day Akitsu-cho, Higashihiroshima City), Senzaburo repeatedly watched his batches spoil. Having identified the water as the cause, he chose not to haul in water from elsewhere but to rebuild the brewing method itself around the soft water he had at hand.

The answer he arrived at was paradoxical. If fermentation is reluctant to proceed, then design the process on the assumption that it will be reluctant — advance the moromi slowly at low temperatures over a longer period, and in compensation cultivate the koji with exhaustive care. The idea was that even in nutrient-poor water, yeast could do its work if the quality of the koji, the agent of saccharification, made up the difference. This became the backbone of what would later be called the soft water brewing method. It happened during the Meiji 20s, the late 1880s and early 1890s.

Among the words Senzaburo left behind is hyakushi senkai (百試千改): a hundred trials, a thousand refinements. Those four characters, describing how he worked, are still passed down in Hiroshima’s breweries today.

What deserves particular note is how he handled the technique. In 1898, Senzaburo compiled his brewing method as Kaijoho Jissenroku (改醸法実践録, A Practical Record of Improved Brewing Methods) and distributed it to fellow brewers in his area and to the Hiroshima brewers’ association. At the time, brewing technique was a brewery’s lifeline, and keeping it in-house was simply assumed. He published his. As a result, the soft water brewing method spread rapidly across Hiroshima Prefecture, and by around 1906 it is said to have become the standard approach throughout the prefecture.

1907: The Rankings Changed Hands

The validity of the technique became plain to everyone in 1907.

That year, Japan’s first National Sake Competition was held. There were 2,138 entries. Judging was scored out of 100 points — 30 for color and appearance, 35 for aroma, 35 for flavor — and a demanding standard was set: 90 points or above to earn distinction. It was the first official occasion on which breweries from across the country measured themselves against one another.

The results shook the existing order. Hiroshima sake pushed past the two great producing regions, Nada and Fushimi, and took the top ranks among the award winners. Standing at the very top was Fujii Sake Brewing of Takehara, the brewery behind today’s “Ryusei.”

With that, “soft water cannot make good sake” was finished for good. Water that was supposed to be a handicap, given the procedures of careful koji making and long low-temperature fermentation, was transformed in meaning into a condition for producing clean, fine-grained sake.

There is another reason Hiroshima was able to spread this achievement systematically. The Hiroshima toji guild organized early, and from 1905 onward held training sessions nearly every year to share technique. This region had a mechanism for raising one individual’s invention into an industry standard. Senzaburo came to be called the father of ginjo sake precisely because his method did not end as one brewery’s secret.

How Soft Water Brewing Gave Rise to Ginjo

Ferment at low temperature, for a long time, slowly. Pour your attention into the quality of the koji.

These two principles are exactly the principles of modern ginjo brewing. The lush ginjo aroma arises from keeping the moromi cool and letting the yeast work slowly. The procedures Senzaburo devised as a response to the constraint of soft water had, without his intending it, become the prototype of a technique for drawing out aroma.

The early and lasting presence of Hiroshima breweries in the field of ginjo sake comes from this lineage. That the technical starting point was adaptation to a constraint is an essential perspective for understanding Hiroshima sake.

The Rice, Too, Was Grown Here

Along with water and technique, Hiroshima has raised its own sake rice.

Hattanso is a native sake rice variety that appeared in 1875, and it is the root of every Hattan-line variety in Hiroshima. It grows tall and lodges easily, however, and is difficult to cultivate. As successor varieties emerged it gradually disappeared, becoming for a time a “phantom rice.” It was Imada Sake Brewing of Akitsu that revived it, and the Hattanso brews of “Fukucho” are the fruit of that work.

The mainstay today is Hattan Nishiki. With a large shinpaku (opaque starchy core) that makes it easy to produce good koji, it is the sake rice that represents Hiroshima Prefecture. It balances richness and clean finish well, and can show an aroma reminiscent of green grass.

The other, Senbon Nishiki, is an original Hiroshima variety created by crossing Hyogo’s Yamada Nishiki with Hiroshima’s Nakate Shinsenbon, and is regarded as suited to daiginjo. Its protein content is lower than Yamada Nishiki’s, which keeps amino acid levels down and lets the sake finish clean.

Having, in this same soil, rice that makes good koji easy to produce: it quietly dovetails with Senzaburo’s methodology.

Hiroshima’s Breweries Today

Kamotsuru Sake Brewing (Saijo, Higashihiroshima City; founded 1873) is the brewery that represents Hiroshima. “Tokusei Gold Kamotsuru,” released in 1958, is a daiginjo floating cherry-blossom-shaped flakes of gold leaf, and has long been the brewery’s signature. It is also the bottle served at the 2014 dinner between U.S. President Obama, then on a visit to Japan, and Prime Minister Abe, which drew wide attention at home and abroad.

Hakubotan Sake Brewing (Saijo, Higashihiroshima City) is a long-established house founded in 1675 (Enpo 3). It has the longest history in Saijo and continues to make orthodox Hiroshima sake of the kind drunk locally every day.

Aihara Sake Brewing (Kure City) makes “Ugo no Tsuki,” a brand aiming for sake as clear as the moon after rain. Its transparent character has won it a following nationwide.

Houken Sake Brewing (Nigata, Kure City) makes “Houken,” a small brewery holding to the stance that sake should not get in the way of food. It is well regarded by people working in restaurants.

Imada Sake Brewing (Akitsu, Higashihiroshima City) makes “Fukucho,” known for the revival of Hattanso described above. There is a fitting symmetry in a brewery from the land that produced Senzaburo bringing back that land’s lost rice.

Fujii Sake Brewing (Takehara City) makes “Ryusei,” the sake of the brewery that took the highest honors at the first National Sake Competition in 1907. It continues to brew in Takehara, known for its preserved historic streetscape.

What to Drink It With, and How

Hiroshima sake brewed with soft water has soft contours. It does not assert itself strongly; its character is to stand alongside the food.

The most immediately obvious partner is oysters. Hiroshima Prefecture accounts for more than half of Japan’s oyster production. Pair chilled junmai ginjo with raw oysters and gently warmed sake with cooked ones, and the briny flavor and the sweetness of the sake lift each other.

It also suits the small fish of the Seto Inland Sea — sashimi of small sardines, or anago-meshi, the conger eel rice that is a specialty of Miyajima. In not overwhelming delicate ingredients, soft water sake is a logical choice.

A wide range of temperatures works. Serve ginjo styles around 10–15°C to bring the aroma forward; junmai styles open up in umami from room temperature to gently warmed. Rather than pouring straight from the refrigerator, letting the bottle sit a while often brings the outline of the flavor into view.

If You Visit, Go to Saijo

Seven breweries are gathered within walking distance of JR Saijo Station. Sanyotsuru, Hakubotan, Saijotsuru, Kamotsuru, Kirei, Fukubijin, Kamoizumi — the block known as Saijo Sakagura Dori (Sake Brewery Street).

The townscape of white plaster walls, namako lattice walls, and a row of red-tiled chimneys is a rare case of an industrial landscape becoming a tourist resource as it stands. Many of the breweries have shops and tasting spaces, so you can compare the differences between them on the spot. Every autumn the Sake Matsuri is held, drawing sake from across the country.

Combine it with Kure or Miyajima and it becomes a trip tracing the food and sake of the Seto Inland Sea together. Akitsu, Senzaburo’s birthplace, is also on the coast of Higashihiroshima City.

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Hiroshima sake was born not from what the land gave, but as the result of confronting what the land withheld. Its flavor — soft, fine-grained — is at the same time the résumé of a technique.

When you open a bottle, remembering that someone made a hundred trials and a thousand refinements may change slightly how the flavor appears to you.

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For more about Nada and Fushimi sake, see Nada and Fushimi.

For tips on brewery visits, see our detailed guide in Sake Brewery Tour Guide.

Sources: Hiroshima Sake Brewers Association, “The History of Hiroshima Sake”; National Tax Agency, “The Founding of the Brewing Experiment Station”; SAKETIMES, “The National Sake Competition and the Path of the Sake Industry”; publicly available information from Kamotsuru Sake Brewing and the Higashihiroshima City Tourism Association