光栄菊酒造Koeigiku Shuzo

Satoshi Kusaka and Yuya Tashita spent their careers at NHK. Kusaka directed news programs and political documentaries. Tashita covered social issues across the country. They met in 2013 while producing a program about Japanese sake.

A documentary crew spends months inside a brewery, watching rice turn into something this country has made for a thousand years, and most of them go home and edit the footage. Two of them decided they wanted to do it themselves. Kusaka left NHK in 2016 to train as a brewer. Tashita started hunting for breweries that had closed but kept their licenses and equipment. In Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, in the hills of Kyushu, they found one: a kura originally established in the 1870s that had shut in 2006, or 2008, depending on the source, a detail that is not yet confirmed. The space and the name were both available.

To brew the sake, they recruited Katsuaki Yamamoto, a toji with an unusual formation: trained in the Noto, Nanbu, and Kenbishi-ryu traditions, he had developed what practitioners who worked with him described as his own synthesis, sometimes called the Yamamoto Special. Most toji specialize in one regional school. Yamamoto had absorbed three.

Production was set to begin in August 2019. Before the first batch could be brewed, the Saga Prefecture heavy rainstorm flooded the facility. They repaired the damage and began brewing in December 2019. The sake sold out immediately.

Open a current Koeigiku and the first thing you notice is the acidity, bright and a little tart, with the umami sitting underneath and the finish pulling clean instead of lingering sweet. This is not the ripe, fruity-sweet style that has run much of the past decade's market. The Tsukikage line and the seasonal releases are built to sit at a table: acidic enough to cut through a dish, open enough to keep pulling you back for the next bite. The choice was deliberate. For two former broadcasters who spent 2013 watching what Japanese sake could be, it was a direct answer to what they thought the shelf was missing.

Key facts

• Original brewery founded circa 1870s in Mikazuki-cho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture; closed 2006 (some sources say 2008 — not confirmed)
• Revived 2019 by Satoshi Kusaka (President, former NHK director) and Yuya Tashita (Director, former NHK journalist)
• Plans developed from 2016; Kusaka trained as brewer after leaving NHK that year
• Toji Katsuaki Yamamoto: trained in Noto, Nanbu, and Kenbishi-ryu traditions
• Production debut delayed by August 2019 Saga heavy rainstorm flooding; brewing commenced December 2019
• Style: acidity-forward, umami-driven, clean finish; designed for food pairing
• Flagship brand: Koeigiku (光栄菊); series includes Tsukikage and seasonal releases