Kanemitsu Shuzo

"In pursuit of unforgettable deliciousness." Established in 1880 in Kurose cho, near Saijō, Higashihiroshima City in Hiroshima Prefecture, which is counted among Japan’s three major sake-brewing regions alongside Nada in Hyogo Prefecture and Fushimi in Kyoto Prefecture. While many of the sakes from the Saijō area are brewed with soft water, this brewery uses moderately hard water with a hardness of 100, which gives their sake a fresh, mineral-rich flavor with a slight bitterness and a clean, sharp finish. When the current owner, Hideki Kanemitsu, the 5th generation of the family, joined the brewery in 2003, the focus was solely on mass production for the local market through the liquefaction brewing process. However, he gradually shifted towards producing higher-quality sake. In the year he joined, they made a small batch of sake named "Kamonkinshu", which made a spectacular debut. They were among the first in the country to release pasteurized sake with a fresh, slightly fizzy quality. About 80% of their rice comes from Hiroshima Prefecture, while the remaining 20% includes high-quality Omachi rice from Okayama Prefecture and Yamadanishiki rice from Hyogo Prefecture. They were the second brewery in Hiroshima Prefecture (after Aihara Brewery) to introduce a method of pressing the sake inside a refrigerated room. They also became the first brewery in Hiroshima to install automatic equipment capable of bottle pasteurization and an Austrian-made analyzer that meets European standards. This brewery continues to evolve day by day.

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