SUEHIRO JOZO - FUKUSHIMA PRÉFECTURE

Suehiro Shuzo was founded in 1850 in Aizu, at the foot of Mount Bandaï, west of Fukushima Prefecture. The brewery grew in importance during the Meiji era, until the point of becoming the official supplier to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. But another defining element of the time will definitely make the brewery a benchmark in the sake world. At the begining of Taisho era, in the 1910s, Kinichiro Kagi, a prominent researcher from the Institute for the Study of Fermentation Processes, stayed at the brewery with the idea of developing a new method of production. For the first time, “Kagi Shiki” was used, a technique which lays the foundations of the Yamahai method. It marked the end of the exhausting "batonnage work" practiced until then, and especially the invention of the Yamahaï method (short for yama orishi haïshi = the end of batonnage), a revolution for brewers. The fermentation conditions are such that they allow the concentration of lactic acid to increase naturally, without resorting to mechanical movements. One hundred years later, the seventh generation of producers continues to perpetuate this method through Yamahaï sakes of remarkable quality.