Beau-Zone Layer – Kankobai Prototype J
Mie Prefecture
Junmai Ginjo Genshu
SMV: N/A Acidity: N/A
The sake making frontiers are wide open right now in the sake industry. There are so many brewers trying new and ingenious ways to make delicious sake. There are so many brewers who were “classically” educated and trained to make sake taste like classic sake, who now are changing things up with tremendous results. These modern sake pioneers are using new yeasts, new rice varietals, new techniques, and new passions to produce new style sakes that do what a sake is supposed to do – taste great and make the sake drinking experience enjoyable. And a lot of these new style brewers are Sake Geeks! I love that. One such sake geek is Masuda-San from Mie Prefecture’s Kankobai Shuzo. He has been described as a sake geek and a craftsman, and that totally encapsulates today’s modern sake makers. We carry one of his offerings called Prototype J, and who wouldn’t want to taste a sake named Prototype? There is a strong new push to get Mie sake in the US market, because it is getting a lot of rightfully deserved attention in Japan. And Masuda-San’s sake is a great reflection of this new style of brewing. This Junmai Ginjo Genshu is very expressive, and he uses Yeast #1401, which is cool because almost nobody uses the 14 series. What is fascinating to me is that it drinks like a lively Nama (unpasteurized) sake despite being heated (pasteurized) twice for shelf stability and bottle longevity, and that is the result of a new technique in bottling sake. If you can’t get Nama sake where you live, then this is a great brew to capture that freshness with stability.