{"id":1299,"date":"2018-05-11T14:11:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T05:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/history-here.com?page_id=1299"},"modified":"2018-05-11T14:11:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-11T05:11:55","slug":"hinomaru-brewing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/stories\/hinomaru-brewing","title":{"rendered":"Hinomaru Brewing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hinomaru Brewery was established in 1689. Hinomaru is the Japanese word for \u201crising sun,\u201d and the name is said to be derived from the Stake family\u2019s coat of arms, which included an uchiwa<\/em> (Japanese fan) with a rising sun in the middle. One of Hinomaru Brewery\u2019s first steps to becoming one of the most prominent sak\u00e9 breweries in the Tohoku Region occurred in 1909, when it was awarded first place at a sak\u00e9-brand voting competition organized by the Tohoku K\u00f4ron Publishing Company. During the Taish\u00f4 era (1912\u20131926), its annual production volume reached 5,000 koku<\/em> (approx. 900 kiloliters). In 1913, it won a gold medal at the Japan-British Exhibition. In 1925, Hinomaru Brewery was reorganized into a stock company. However, due to the 1943 Industrial Reform Act, it was forced to relinquish its business. In January 1948, then-President Mitsuo Sat\u00f4 regained the brewery\u2019s manufacturing rights by obtaining a grant that allowed the company to brew a basic production line worth 300 koku<\/em>. The once-lost 300 years of brewing history was revived, and today, this small brewery produc<\/em>es 1,500 koku<\/em> a year.<\/p>\n

Masuda is the name of the town located in the southeast Yokote Basin. Surrounded by the beautiful natural scenery of mountains and rivers, this area is well known for a granary that produces high-quality rice suitable for sak\u00e9 brewing. Snow covers the land for most of the year, and in this cold environment, the company brews its products. The rich, cold, clear waters used for the sak\u00e9 come from the Ou Mountains in the Kurikoma Mountain Range, which stands on the borders of Akita, Iwat\u00e9, and Miyagi Prefectures. This groundwater is one of the best in the prefecture, and it serves as the base for the brewing process. The sak\u00e9 rice is harvested locally, and it is carefully grounded so 38% of the grain is left behind. While most breweries have outside sources that perform this part of the job, Hinomaru Brewery polishes its rice within the company.<\/p>\n

At Hinomaru Brewery, ginj\u00f4shu<\/em> and daiginj\u00f4<\/em> are poured directly into the bottles and kept at low temperatures. By doing so, a rich, elegant taste is achieved. This unique method, which the company takes pride in, is carried out at the low-temperature storage facility, which can preserve up to 120,000 bottles at a time. Another special facility they own is the yukimuro<\/em>, a natural refrigerator in which the sak\u00e9 is preserved in a storage container buried in the snow. Most of the ginj\u00f4shu<\/em> is kept in such storage. Other sak\u00e9s, such as junmaishu<\/em> (pure rice sak\u00e9) and futs\u00fbshu<\/em> (standard sak\u00e9), are also kept in thermal tanks that maintain specific cold temperatures. From these steps, it is apparent that Hinomaru Brewery places a particular emphasis on low-temperature brewing. Heating the sak\u00e9, which regular breweries tend to do twice, is only performed once. This technique is called namazume<\/em> (\u201craw bottling\u201d), and it is applied to many of the brewery\u2019s sak\u00e9s. Every month, different types of namazume <\/em>sak\u00e9s are sold from the company as seasonal products. At many other breweries, such sak\u00e9 can only be available between the winter and spring. They are a seasonal luxury that are called hiyaoroshi <\/em>in Japan. However, Hinomaru Brewery provides this namazume<\/em> sak\u00e9 with the same quality as hiyaoroshi<\/em> almost all year. Today, modern technology has allowed further improvements to brewing methods and facilities. Hinomaru Brewery took advantage of such advancements and decided to make hiyaoroshi<\/em> available in every month of the year. This was the beginning of the company\u2019s focus on low-temperature preservation. From then on, the company’s ambition was to increase the number of low-temperature preservation facilities and ultimately brew all its products with this namazume<\/em> method.<\/p>\n

Mansakuno Hana (\u201cWitch Hazel Flower\u201d) is the company\u2019s number-one brand. It was named after a 1981 NHK (Japan\u2019s national television broadcasting station) morning television series based in Yokote. The label is written in ink using calligraphy; today, such designs have become standard in the sak\u00e9 industry. However, when Mansakuno Hana was first released, it was quite an innovation.<\/p>\n

The brewery uses the mild, soft water that emerges after a long period of melting in the mountains. The rice comes from the local contract farms, while milling is conducted at the brewery. Brewing is achieved using the Akita style of brewing sak\u00e9 under low temperatures over a long period of fermentation. The traditional s\u00f4-shibori<\/em> technique is employed in which the sak\u00e9 is filtered using a wooden tank, which takes more time and effort compared to the usual process. Preservation and aging is performed one bottle at a time. Hinomaru Brewery prioritizes the improvement of quality over efficiency. The brewery has maintained the best parts of the traditional techniques, which can be tasted in its products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hinomaru Brewery was established in 1689. Hinomaru is the Japanese word for \u201crising sun,\u201d and the name is said to be derived from the Stake family\u2019s coat of arms, which included an uchiwa (Japanese fan) with a rising sun in the middle. One of Hinomaru Brewery\u2019s first steps to becoming one of the most prominent … Continue reading Hinomaru Brewing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":414,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_about_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_gallery_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_contact_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_events_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_video_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_portfolio_piece":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1299","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9gCtR-kX","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1300,"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1299\/revisions\/1300"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history-here.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}