Just before this trip I went with 2 of my closest friends to Utage sake bar in Amsterdam. A brand that is very well represented on their menu is Mutsu Hassen, sake made by the Hachinohe brewery in Aomori prefecture. And since I really like their sake, of course I wanted to see if I could visit the brewery.
Even though it’s not immediately clear on their English website how to book a tour, it thankfully is possible without having to call the brewery. Look out for the link with the kanji ‘Kura Kengaku’ (蔵見学) on their Japanese website. Click on your preferred time and date, fill in your information and that’s it! So, I did just that and on a very windy November Tuesday I went to Hachinohe Brewery.
The brewery is located very close to the Mutsu-Minato train station. But do beware, the trains arriving at this station operate very infrequently, so do plan you trip accordingly! Unless you don’t mind waiting more than an hour for a train!
As luck would have it, no other people booked the tour at the same time as I did. I did arrive a bit early, but thankfully my tour guide opened a bottle of sake and poured me a nice glass. Before explaining the contents of this tour, I have to say that this entire tour was done in Japanese! So if you are not confident on your abilities to understand Japanese, then this might not be the brewery to visit. The tour guide did use her phone to play some English dialogue, but it does not properly cover the entire tour.
The tour took us outside first, informing me a bit about the history of the area, explaining the meaning of the ball outside the brewery (sugidama) and some of the architecture. Heading back inside, the tour guide explained that this brewery produces two brands: Mutsu Hassen and Mutsu Otokoyama. That last name we have heard before in Hokkaido as well. Mutsu Hassen is by far the bigger one of the two, accounting for 90% of their production.
The tour didn’t show the production area, but it did show the storage area and the old attic of the brewery. That is used nowadays for exhibits (also non-sake related) and music shows.
We ended the tour right where we started: with a tasting. The tasting was amazing! I got to try so many different kinds of sake, from both Mutsu Hassen and Otokoyama. And 2 craft sake as well! The tour guide whipped out a book that had information on all bottles, both in Japanese and English. And for statistic nerds like myself that even elevated the experience even more!
Overall, it was fun to see a bit of the inns and outs of the brewery. Wish I could have seen a bit more, but the tasting was the best one so far during this trip! It was so much, that I had a hard time picking out a bottle at the gift shop!
Hachinohe Shuzou
〒031-0812
Honcho-9, Minatomachi, Hachinohe, Aomori
10 minute walk from Mutsu-Minato train station
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