Nishiyama Brewing

All of our sake at Nishiyama Brewery is brewed by local brewers in Ichijima, Tamba city.
Ichijima is located in the middle west of Hyogo prefecture, Tamba region. It is a small town has 9,000 populations by Takeda River in the Tamba Mountain,

This town is popular for the agriculture and famous for the chestnut, black beans, and matsutake mushroom. Also it is the most famous town for the organic agricultural technology in Japan. The Sake rice we use Hyogo Kitanishiki, Gohyakumangoku, and Tajima Goriki, are all organically grown in local.

Also, Tamba is blessed with natural resources; Tmaba Mist. Tamba is enveloped in white thick mist during the fall to the beginning of winter. This thick mist makes the big temperature difference in a day. This phenomenon, rich soil, rich source of water, and cold weather during the winter produce the great food and sake.

We care the local products, so we only use the sake-rice from local area. We use four different kinds of individual sake-rice; Yamadanishiki, Gohyakumangoku, Hyogokitanishiki, and Tajimagoriki.

Tajimagoriki, sake-rice, has been revived after over 60 years by the local town, Ichijima in Tamba region.
Until early 1920’s, Tajimagoriki had been harvested as one of the best quality sake-rice for the high class sake, but the production was given up by difficulty of the cultivation. However, it is reborn by our organic technology now.
We also grow and harvest the rice.

Hyogo prefecture is well known as the high production of Daiginjo sake-rice, Yamadanishiki. We only use the highest quality of Yamadanishiki to create less acidity and the savory odder.

Remove the outer layer, embryo, and unwanted parts from the brown rice.

Sake-rice has to be polished 35 to 70% from the individual kernel which doesn’t need to do for the table-rice.

A day before we steam the polished sake-rice, we have to wash the polished sake-rice by water in order to clean them up better.
Lots of other sake breweries use the machine to wash it; however, we wash it by our hands affectionately.
After washing sake-rice, we soak it into the water to let it moisture well. It is very important process that affects the saccharification later on.

We use the water from the river and the well in our property which is soft water.
The water we use for sake, 12meters depth well-water in the property, is well known in all over Japan. The most important ingredient for sake is the water, and our water is introduced by the one of the most popular gourmet comics, Oishinbo (means gourmet guy). They described “when you put the water into your mouth, it plump out and has roundly flavor. When you swallow the water, it is surprisingly clean. What a masculine flavor!”

Steam the sake-rice. In early morning, we put the soaked sake-rice into the steamer, Koshiki. After steaming sake-rice, we cool it down to the certain temperature. The steamed rice has to be done soft inside of the sake-rice and tough outside.

Scatter the yeast onto the 20% of the steamed sake-rice and keep it into the special room. This is the start for the most difficult process of the sake; making Koji.

At the evening of the same day as (1,) all of the sake-makers in our brewery get together and spread the (1) out and make the temperature even.

Leave the (2) for 1 night and next morning move it to particular wooden boxes call “Hako.”

In the afternoon of the same day as (3,) spread it out more thinly using wooden slats and prevent the overheated.

At 7:00 in the afternoon on the same day as (3) and (4,) we mixed and spread it again and keep the temperature and vaporize the water in the sake-rice.

We proudly use the unique and rare yeast, kobo, Ogawa #10.
This yeast, kobo, has the rich aroma, savory flavor like streams, lower alcohol tolerance, and difficulty to handle.
Also the yeast, kobo, is the one can convert sugar to the alcohol; however, it is very delicate especially for the low temperature.
Therefore, we have to be very careful for the temperature during the snowy winter in Tamba. We have to prevent not to be yeast, kobo, dead.
On the other hand, if we keep the higher temperature, we lose the rich aroma, savory flavor, and alcohol.
During the fermentation, the yeast, kobo, keeps creating the heat, so we need to keep tracking the temperature all day long and every single minute.

Growing the yeast, kobo, in the certain temperature is a big gamble between the yeast, kobo, and a sake-maker. Or it may be the endurance contest for the yeast, kobo, and a sake-maker.

Since the last stage of Three Stages Fermentation, it takes 21 to 25 days to produce 19% alcohol content and be created well balanced moromi. We put moromi into the fabric filters between the boards in the compressor and use the air pressure to extract and separate clear sake and kasu lees. Most of the extracted clear sake can be transferred back to the tanks and the kasu lees go to the table.

Nowadays, the sake without the heat pasteurization is also getting popular called nama-zake, also known as seasonal draft-sake. However, most of the new born sake has been filtered the lees by charcoals and pasteurize it by low temperature at 65 degrees Celsius. After the heat pasteurization, sake needs to be aged for a half year to one year in tanks to be well balanced in the aroma, flavor, and the body. Our brewery determines the best time for keeping the best quality to bottle and ship.