[Kobe] - Hakutsuru Sake Brewery Museum

After Osaka Castle, we proceed to Kobe which is famous for top quality Sake, Kobe Beef and also Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995.

  We arrived at Hakutsuru Sake Brewery Museum.

Hakutsuru Sake Brewery is located in the Nada district of Kobe.

Kobe has been long famous for Japan's top sake (rice wine).

It's because Nada district of Kobe has high quality rice, natural spring water and favorable cold winters, which are ideal elements for brewing sake.

Perfectly situated near to Kobe Port and Osaka facilitated physical distribution 

since olden times. Therefore, many sake breweries operate in the Nada district.

 

 Hakutsuru has exhibition rooms with life-sized mannequins

and equipment used to brew sake.

Check this link if you want to know about the history of Sake. 

Here are some of the processes of brewing 2,000 years of Japanese traditional Sake...

Water and rice are the main ingredients for sake. 

The process starts with polishing different types of unpolished rice.

Let me learn some tips from these 'Toji' (master brewers).

Please help me to transfer the main mash using this traditional bucket.

 Labor intensive process to mix and re-mix to evenly propagate good-quality koji mold...

  to reduce variations in temperature and moisture content,...

      

moving and rotating trays  (a very elegant dance to watch when done 

by an experienced worker).

 

Hakutsuru Sake Brewery Museum is an old two-story Sake kura.

 Strong worker transport down this giant bucket using pulley.

 

"Attention! Attention! People on the first floor kindly move away!"

 Last process is to make these sake barrels.

On Osaka Nite event with all the group members, they had Kagami-biraki ceremony.

They broke the lid of the sake barrel by a wooden mallet. Kagami refers to the lid of the sake barrel and biraki means “to open” so kagami-biraki literally means “opening the lid.”  Kagami symbolized harmony because the lid is in round shape. 

Then followed by pounding rice to make mochi. In the past, samurai households would at New Years make an offering to the gods of a stack of mochi to represent the kagami. The mochi were cut up into pieces to represent the biraki, or “opening,” and eaten on January 11.

Both types of Kagami-biraki - the breaking open of a barrel of sake at Shinto blessings and celebrations, and the cutting up of kagami-mochi - are a means of beseeching the gods to grant good health and fortune. (Source)

Sake from barrels into bottles.

Sake in the Gourd Bottles?

 

Perhaps there is no other alcoholic beverage other than sake 

that can be enjoyed from cold to hot ranging from 5°C to 55°C.

 Generally, warm sake is suited to cold and plain foods, and hot sake is
suited to hot pot (nabe) dishes and foods made with a lot of oil and fat.

That tips on how to enjoy sake at its best ended the tour, and visitors at the end of exhibit rooms is sake tasting room. They provide few types of sake for free tasting, so you can decide which types you want to purchase.

Hello~! That's not the way to taste sake!!!

Please slowly drink and appreciate the labor work on brewing this important drink.

  

Not only Sake, they also sells some local snacks...

  

 Ok, let's grab some of the snacks and...

  

Plum Sake (not included this cutie bear).

The admission is free, but it's interesting to tour inside this old wooden Sake Kura 

with sake smells and straw. Not only life-size mannequins, but they also have

few short videos explaining some of the steps of brewing sake too.

   

Hakutsuru Sake Brewery Museum

Business hours: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Closed: New Year Holiday period and Summer Holidays   

Tel : 078-822-8907 Fax : 078-822-4891 (for group reservation)

 4 Chome-5-5 Sumiyoshi Minamimachi, Higashinada-ku,
Kōbe-shi, Hyōgo-ken 658-0041, Japan

Transportation: 

Get off at Hanshin Sumiyoshi station (about a five-minute waik)
Get off at JR Sumiyoshi station (about a fifteen-minute waik)
Get off at Hankyu Mikage station (about a ten-minute drive)