[Tohoku] Tour an Edo Era Sake Warehouse at the Yamatogawa Brewery

Yamatogawa Brewery offers sake brewery tours for free, including a chance to enter an old storehouse that was built over 220 years ago.
The first place you will visit on the tour is the Edo Storehouse, which was a building used to brew sake during the Edo period. Here you can see displays of actual tools and even rice that were used during that time.
A section of the brewery can be rented out for exhibitions, symposiums, and the like, allowing for impactful events with a unique brewery atmosphere.

During the tour, you can also learn all about how Yamatogawa Brewery makes sake, a process they have been perfecting for many years. One aspect of their process that has remained unchanged is that they use natural underground water from Mt. Iide.
They also use rice grown in their very own farm, Yamatogawa Farm. They are devoted to the concept of combining agriculture and sake brewing into one process, and have been involved in pesticide-free, organic rice production for a long time already, with their farming enterprise expanding further each year.
The outer layer of rice for sake is polished away, which gets rid of the bitter flavor and results in a clean-tasting sake. A high level of skill is required to polish the rice grains without cracking them. During the tour, you can see a display which shows the rice polishing process, starting with an unpolished grain and ending with the completed product.

Yamatogawa Brewery’s most famous sake brand that it produces is Yauemon, which is named after the director of the brewery. There are many varieties of sake within this brand, and the most recommended among them is the Daiginjo Yauemon, which was awarded the gold prize from the National New Sake Sommelier Convention 6 years in a row. It is a delicious sake full of the natural depth and sweetness of Yamada Nishiki rice.
If you can’t decide which one to try from among their huge selection, don’t hesitate to ask a staff member for a recommendation. Visit this well-established sake brewery that has continued since the Edo period and find a sake that suits your tastes.