Hirase Shuzo

The brewery, Hirase Sake Brewery, is located in Ebisaka, a part of the castle town at the foot of Tenjinyama (now Shiroyama, the site of the residence of six generations of feudal lord Kanamori for 107 years). The exact date of establishment is unknown, but it is recorded in the family temple’s death register as being from 1623, and has continued for approximately 400 years and 15 generations to the present day.

The land survey ledger from 1695 lists Takayama Ichinomachimura and Hiraseya Gorobei, and the sake brewery ledger from 1697 lists 56 sake breweries in Takayama, including Hiraseya Rokusuke.

By 1843, the number of sake breweries had halved to 26, but the town elders’ diary from that time records 88 koku of rice for sake brewing and the name of Hirase Ichibei. This diary is still preserved in the Takayama City Local History Museum.

In 1912, a local fire burned down the brewery and library storehouse, but the residence and other buildings of the brewery were destroyed. The following year, the 12th head of the family was so exhausted he took to bed and passed away two weeks later. There were concerns about the future of the brewery, but the family came together to overcome the hardships and successfully rebuilt the brewery.

Around 1915, he heard that a new type of sake called Seishu had been made in Nada and was very popular, so he visited Tatsuma Sake Brewery and invited a master brewer from Tamba to brew Seishu for the first time in Hida. He called the sake “Nada-ryu Masamune” and released it, which was very popular, and gradually increased the amount of production, laying the foundation for the current company.

After World War II, the company was hit hard by a series of new policies such as property tax, wealth tax, and farmland reform, but somehow managed to overcome the crisis, and the 14th head of the family renovated the factory, modernized the equipment, and worked hard to develop the family business (sake brewing).

At some point, the Hirase family took on the name Hirase Ichibei for each generation, and the family motto was, “No matter what happens, we will never look back at other businesses. We will live solely in sake brewing.” This motto is still firmly adhered to today.

The Hida region has all the natural blessings necessary for sake brewing. First of all, rice.

The rice suitable for sake brewing is not the variety we eat as a staple food, but a variety called sake brewing rice. As the saying goes, “The best sake rice has a large shinpaku,” the rice grains are large and the shinpaku, the white part in the center, is large.

In the Hida region, “Hida Homare,” a high-quality sake brewing rice created by Gifu Prefecture, is cultivated. Hida Homare is a rice that is difficult for farmers to grow, as it is labor-intensive and can only be harvested in limited quantities.

However, farmers and brewers work together day and night with the sole desire to “produce delicious sake unique to Hida using high-quality local rice.”

Water is an important raw material in sake brewing.

Water is indispensable in the manufacturing process, and a huge amount is required, and its quality is a major factor that affects the taste of the sake. In particular, water that contains bacteria, iron, and manganese can cause the quality of the sake to deteriorate.

The water used for brewing Kusudama is underground water that is filtered by rain that falls on the upper reaches of the Miyagawa River, Iyama, and Mt. Kaore, and then goes underground at the foot of the mountain (Minamigawa River). It is an ultra-soft water with very few impurities and a hardness of only 10.0 ppm (American hardness). In the past, people had to go to that place to draw water, but in 1954, Takayama City’s waterworks made the Minamigawa River its water intake point, and this water began to be supplied to Takayama City. The environment in which high-quality water can be used in abundance supports Kusudama’s sake brewing.