TOP › Stroll to take in the sights and drop in for tasty food and refreshment!

These days, in Japan, it’s rare to find a town like Takayama that still has six working breweries. Each of these establishments creates sake with a distinctive house profile. If you are wondering what to take home with you, as you stroll through town, it’s easy to compare the taste of different brands and types.
In a compact, attractive quarter of Takayama, a stroll can take you past all six breweries.
Outside each you will see the traditional sign for a brewery, a sakabayashi fashioned from sugi sprigs and trimmed into a ball shape.

Drop into breweries on a sake tasting tour

Funasaka Sake Brewery

The store inside is lined with many types of sake. These include the renowned Miyamagiku, and you will find other delights such as sake-based drinks made with yuzu citron and ume plums, and other local products. Whether you like your alcohol mellowed with sweetness or prefer it dry, free of charge, you can taste two types.

Harada Sake Brewery

Just across the road from Funasaka Brewery, you’ll see Harada Brewery. Here, for just 200 yen you can buy a small sake cup and use it to taste more than ten types of sake. Economically launch your adventure into sake by trying many different types! As a memento of the occasion, you can take home the sake cup.

Annually, for a short period of time, breweries in Takayama allow the public in for a rare peek behind the scenes.

This is what the open house at Kawashiri Brewery looks like.
Out front under the eaves was the traditional ball of cypress sprigs indicating that sake brewing is underway.

A brewer guides visitors around the premises, to places the public cannot normally see, and describes how sake is made and the history of sake brewing. The tour takes ten to fifteen minutes.

At the end, you can sample some sake!
It's always a special treat to taste sake so fresh, right from the place it was made.