As someone who grew up in the 90’s, I was a big fan of Pokemon growing up. Does everyone remember the catchphrase Pokemon was advertised with? ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em all!’. Well, a small purchase at Toko Brewery in Yonezawa updated my sake itinerary. A little book I myself call the ‘Sakedex’.
At Toko Brewery, while at the giftshop/tasting area, I decided to look around for some small souvenirs. While browsing I found a cute little book decorated with small sake bottles on it. I thought of it as a small notebook and decided to take it along. While paying for my souvenirs and 2 sake bottles, the cashier took out something that looked like a label that’s used on sake bottles and put it inside the little notebook. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but while having lunch in Yonezawa I checked the website that was written in the notebook, and to my surprise, I accidentally bought a stamp/seal book.
Seal books are a fun way to commemorate activities while in Japan. There are a lot of variations, the most famous one the ‘Goshuu Inchou’, which can be bought at temples. You can get a seal/stamp to commemorate your visit to a temple. Stamp rallies are quite popular, and also pretty fun. So, I unintentionally bought the GoShu Inchou, a stamp/seal book for sake. The spelling in English looks quite similar to ‘Goshuu Inchou’, but in this case it’s spelled with the Japanese kanji for sake. And with that purchase, I discovered a very handy source of information for many breweries across Japan.
It happens to be that the website of the Goshu Inchou is translated fairly well with Google Translate. On the website you are able to search breweries in all different prefectures, and the individual brewery pages all have handy information such as: what kind of activities are available at the brewery (tours/tasting area/shop), when they are open, and links to their websites and phone numbers for example.
When preparing for my trip, I found it difficult to find good information of breweries. I usually just googles the breweries I was aware of, and see if I could visit them. This website gave me so much more information, that I spend a lot of time browsing it while on the train, and discover new breweries I wanted to visit. Like I said, this website does not contain information of all breweries in Japan, but it does have many!
The Goshu Inchou has space to put your seal. Some breweries have print outs you need to glue in there, some of them have handy stickers. The page next to the seal has space to write in notes. I summarized my experience at the brewery, and took notes for 1 or 2 sake I tired.
Visiting a brewery doesn’t automatically mean you get a nice sticker/seal for your book. There is one condition: buy at least one bottle of sake at the shop. I tested out of the size of the bottle mattered, but as far as I experiences, I also got a seal when buying smaller (300ml) bottles. This was handy when I went to Nada District in Kobe, which is known to have a lot of breweries in that single area. I was able to visit 5 breweries in a day, and it was a relief to not have full size bottles in my backpack!
In conclusion, this little book can be a very fun addition for everyone who is interested in visiting sake breweries. And for everyone not interested in collecting these seals, the website of the GoShu Inchou is still a great resource brewery information! Anyway, ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em all!’
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