“Craft” in Sake Cannot Be Defined by Scale Alone｜The Producer’s Answer to “Why Make It This Way?”

The word “craft” has spread from beer to coffee and chocolate, and is now used for sake as well. Yet what qualifies as craft varies depending on who is speaking. Is it the small size of a brewery? The amount of work done by hand? The use of old tools?

“Intention” as a Criterion in the Producer Profiles for CRAFT SAKE WEEK 2026

An English-language article introducing participating breweries was published to coincide with CRAFT SAKE WEEK 2026, a sake event held at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo in April 2026. It presented craft sake as a matter of deliberate choices grounded in a clear philosophy, rather than scale or technique alone.

Two breweries in Tochigi Prefecture were cited as examples. Kobayashi Shuzo was described as using modern equipment to monitor and manage production. Senkin, also in Tochigi, was presented as taking a patient approach to fermentation.

One example concerns equipment; the other concerns the time given to fermentation. From the article’s perspective, both approaches can be considered craft. What matters is not whether the tools are old or new, but whether the producer can explain why a particular process was chosen.

1985: A Turning Point at Terada Honke

What does it mean to have a reason for the way something is made? Terada Honke, in Kozaki, Chiba Prefecture, offers a clear example.

According to an article by a wine writer in a US travel magazine, the brewery’s former head, Keisuke Terada, made sake in much the same way as neighboring breweries until the mid-1980s. A serious illness in 1985 marked a turning point. During a succession of sleepless nights, he reportedly arrived at the idea that “fermented things do not rot.” After recovering, the brewer devoted attention to fermented foods and fundamentally changed the brewery’s methods: switching to natural fermentation, using organically grown rice and stopping the addition of brewer’s alcohol.

The brewery’s official website still explains that it uses rice grown without pesticides, avoids additives and ferments its sake through the activity of microorganisms living in the brewery. It also describes reducing reliance on machinery and continuing to work by hand while singing traditional brewing songs. There were other ways to increase efficiency. The brewery chose not to take them.

A Shared Question in Natural Wine and Sake

This way of thinking also resonated beyond sake. The same article reports that, as the natural wine market developed from around 2013, importers handling natural wine in Europe and Australia began turning their attention to junmai sake, sake made without added brewer’s alcohol. In 2015, a prominent Copenhagen restaurant featured junmai sake during a temporary residency in Tokyo, reportedly helping draw international attention to it.

In natural wine, questions often concern how the raw ingredients are grown and how much intervention takes place during winemaking. Terada Honke’s current head was also reportedly moved, on encountering natural wine, by its acidity and liveliness, and by the importance placed on how the grapes were grown. For people accustomed to understanding a producer’s thinking through wine, discovering that the same questions exist in sake offers a starting point for understanding it.

A Starting Point for Explaining Sake in Bangkok

Bangkok sommeliers and bartenders who work with natural wine and are accustomed to explaining producers’ philosophies can approach sake through familiar criteria. When introducing a brewery, the question “Why did it choose to make sake this way?” can come before its size or reputation.

For example, “SENKIN eks Edition No.1 Sparkling-sake,” brewed by Senkin, uses koji of the kind used in miso-making to bring out umami. According to the product description, its amino acid content was at least twice that of Senkin’s usual sake. The producer’s intention is evident in the choice of koji to suit the flavor being sought.

Can the producer explain which process was chosen, and for what purpose? And can the staff convey that answer in a few words? From the perspective presented in the introductory article, clues to craft lie there as well as in the size of a brewery. It is worth adding this one question to the criteria we use to understand sake.

This article is intended solely to explore the brewing philosophy and cultural heritage of Japanese craft sake, including Terada Honke, Senkin and Kobayashi Shuzo, and does not aim to promote or encourage the consumption of alcohol.

บทความนี้จัดทำขึ้นเพื่อนำเสนอข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับปรัชญาการผลิตและมรดกทางวัฒนธรรมของสาเกคราฟต์ญี่ปุ่น รวมถึง Terada Honke, Senkin และ Kobayashi Shuzo เท่านั้น มิได้มีเจตนาเพื่อส่งเสริมหรือโฆษณาเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ สำหรับผู้มีอายุ 20 ปีขึ้นไป โปรดดื่มอย่างรับผิดชอบ