On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake hit the brewery. The brewery was completely destroyed and most of the sake bottles were lost.

The brewery had to make an ultimate choice: rebuild, relocate, or close the business.

The brewery owner Mr. Niizawa, faced with the ultimate choice, relocated the brewery to an inland location in Miyagi Prefecture (Kawasaki, Shibata), even though he was burdened with a large amount of debt. He was able to restore sake production within the same year.

As the earthquake disaster prompted him to take up the challenge of brewing sake beyond the limits, he began to receive worldwide reputation for his sake with a rice polishing ratio of 7%, which was made possible by his highly refined rice polishing technology.

Mr. Niizawa’s passion to further evolve the rice polishing technology and “Create the No. 1 sake!” led to the birth of REIKYO.

In 2018, Mr. Niizawa released REIKYO. The world’s first sake with a rice polishing ratio of 0%, in accordance with the Alcohol Tax Law of the time (the decimal point of rice polishing ratio can be rounded down).

Then the National Tax Agency took issue with the “0%” notation, and on July 1, 2019, the Sake Tax Law was amended to change the notation to “less than 1%”.

As the “sake that changed the law”, REIKYO has been released every year since then on July 1, the date of the revision of the Alcohol Tax Law.

“In our quest to become the world’s best at rice polishing, we have reached our final limit.”

Says Mr. Niizawa of Niizawa Brewery, the brewer of REIKYO. The road to producing REIKYO was a series of hardships. The Niizawa Brewery was founded in 1873. It was once known as the favorite sake of the poet Bansui Doi, but when the fifth generation brewer, Mr. Niizawa, returned to the brewery, it was second from the bottom in the prefecture’s sake competition.

As the business continued to deteriorate, Mr. Niizawa decided to become the master brewer himself.

Armed with his excellent sense of taste, which had won numerous sake-tasting competitions since he was a student at Tokyo University of Agriculture, he launched “Hakurakusei,” which is said to be the ultimate food sake, and rebuilt the brewery, which was on the verge of going out of business.

However, the brewery was completely destroyed in the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. Nevertheless, thanks to Mr. Niizawa’s indomitable spirit and the help of many volunteers, the brewery was relocated to Kawasaki, Shibata, and miraculously recovered by the end of the same year.

In 2016, Atago No Matsu won first place in Japan’s largest sake tasting competition, the SAKE COMPETITION, and was crowned the best in Japan. Currently, Ms. Watanabe, the youngest female master brewer in Japan, who was 22 years old at the time, is striving to further improve the quality of the sake.

We interviewed Mr. Niizawa, who overcame various hardships to continue to produce a number of beautiful sake products, including REIKYO.

Today, the Niizawa Brewery boasts top-level brewing techniques, having won numerous awards both in Japan and abroad, but in the past their sake’s reputation was not really good. While attending the Tokyo University of Agriculture’s Department of Brewing and Fermentation, Mr. Niizawa met various famous brewery owners from around the country at university and realized that his brewery’s sake was by far the worst.

He asked himself, “Is it really so hard to be proud of something just because you make something that doesn’t taste good?”

This once painful thought has now become the driving force for him to continue producing delicious sake that customers can enjoy with peace of mind.

“Why don’t you taste only the core of the rice?”

Usually in elegant Daiginjo sake the fruity aroma derived from yeast is brought out. However, Mr. Niizawa has made it possible to focus on the original flavor of the rice and “taste only the core of the rice” by not using aroma-producing yeast.

The more polished the rice is, the cleaner the flavor tends to be. After more than 10 years of trial and error, they have created a sake that is transparent, but with the sweetness of the center of the rice fully expressed.

We will continue to deliver REIKYO with Mr. Niizawa’s passion.