HANEYA
Broadening the Brewing Season, Narrowing the Selection: HANEYA KIRABI, Four-Season Brewing, and Nakagumi
KANPAI Makers’ Choices No.02
Sake is made in winter. Many people may still carry that image. In Japan, brewing concentrated in the colder months, known as kanzukuri, has indeed been practiced for centuries.
Fumigiku Sake Brewery in Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture, follows a different calendar. Its system of shiki jozo, or four-season brewing, extends production beyond winter. Under this system, the brewery makes HANEYA Junmai Ginjo KIRABI Nama Genshu, which it identifies as a flagship label.
Brewing continues across the year. Yet only the middle portion of the pressing is used for the HANEYA brand. The calendar expands while the selected portion narrows. KIRABI reveals the logic of these two contrasting decisions.
Why Has Sake Traditionally Been Brewed in Winter?
The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association explains that the practice of concentrating sake production in winter had become established by the middle of the Edo period. The National Research Institute of Brewing glossary also describes winter brewing as an effective way to reduce the risk of microbial contamination.
Today, air conditioning and cooling equipment can create the necessary environment inside a brewery. Four-season brewing refers to a system that allows production across the year without relying solely on winter temperatures.
The term does not mean making four different sakes for the four seasons. Nor does it mean that every batch is made under identical conditions or that production is necessarily large-scale. Fumigiku Sake Brewery’s official brand story confirms that the brewery established a year-round production system and, within that system, presented KIRABI and Tsubasa as new core labels. The frequency of brewing and the adjustments made for individual batches have not been disclosed.
Positioning Nama Genshu as a Flagship
The official product page gives the Japanese name as “羽根屋 純吟 煌火 生原酒,” rendered here in English as HANEYA Junmai Ginjo KIRABI Nama Genshu.
According to the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau’s glossary, nama-zake refers to sake that has not undergone the heat treatment known as hiire after pressing. Genshu generally refers to sake whose composition has not been adjusted by adding water after pressing. Both are terms used in Japanese production labeling. They should not be treated as determinations of classification in Thailand for import, taxation, or labeling.
Nama indicates that no heat treatment has been carried out after pressing. Genshu indicates that post-pressing adjustment with water has, as a rule, not been carried out. The year-round production system supports a flagship whose formal name carries both terms.
Four-season brewing, however, should not be read as a promise of uninterrupted circulation. It describes the maker’s production system; it does not establish the timing or volume of distribution.
At the Press, Selecting Only the Middle
The second decision is nakagumi.
When fully fermented moromi, the mash of rice, rice cultured with koji mold, yeast, and water, is pressed, the character of the resulting sake changes gradually from the beginning through the middle and final stages. Nakagumi, also called nakadori, means taking the middle portion. Fumigiku Sake Brewery explains that only this middle section is used for the HANEYA brand.
Nakagumi is not a universal ranking of quality. It is a decision about which segment of the pressing becomes part of the finished product. Nor is it a specification exclusive to KIRABI; the brewery presents it as a policy for the HANEYA brand as a whole.
The brewery produces sake across the year, yet limits HANEYA to the middle portion of the pressing. It broadens the brewing season and narrows the selected portion. Seen together, these decisions show that KIRABI is about more than production timing.
Toyama Water and Gohyakumangoku Rice
KIRABI is made with Gohyakumangoku rice grown in Toyama Prefecture. Gohyakumangoku is a variety developed for sake brewing. Fumigiku Sake Brewery also states that it uses natural water from the Joganji River system, whose source lies in the Tateyama mountain range.
The brewery describes its use of Toyama water and Toyama-grown sake rice as a way of carrying the character of the region into its brewing. In KIRABI, Toyama is present not only in the place of production, but also in the origins of the rice and water.
The official product page gives KIRABI the Japanese special designation junmai ginjo and lists a rice-polishing ratio of 60%. This means that 60% of the grain’s original weight remains after milling. The designation belongs to Japanese product labeling and does not by itself establish the product’s classification in Thailand. The figure alone takes one line. When the brewing calendar and the chosen portion of the pressing are considered as well, the decisions inside the product description become clearer.
Reading KIRABI Through Its Production Choices
The brewery connects the name KIRABI with the brilliance of fireworks across a night sky. This article, however, has focused not on the image of the name but on the production choices behind the flagship.
The previous article on Shichiken HAKUSHIN examined a design that placed one year of waiting after brewing. HANEYA KIRABI extends the brewing calendar across the year while narrowing the selected material to the middle of the pressing.
If HAKUSHIN is shaped by the question of how long sake rests after brewing, KIRABI is shaped by when brewing takes place and which part of the pressing is used. A maker’s choice is not always about adding something. It can also appear in the decision to widen time and narrow selection.
This article presents the production choices and cultural background behind HANEYA KIRABI. It is not intended to advertise alcoholic beverages or encourage their purchase or consumption. This article is intended for readers aged 20 and over.
บทความนี้นำเสนอข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับแนวคิดด้านการผลิตและภูมิหลังทางวัฒนธรรมของ HANEYA “Kirabi” เท่านั้น มิได้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อโฆษณาหรือส่งเสริมการซื้อหรือการบริโภคเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ บทความนี้จัดทำขึ้นสำหรับผู้อ่านอายุ 20 ปีขึ้นไป
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