Hamamatsu is renowned throughout Japan for delicious food, and it has fine sake to match. Thanks to a rich natural environment and perfect climatic conditions the area is famous for excellent agricultural produce.  Japanese sake made with the finest local rice and alpine water is one of the favoured by products. Hamamatsu has abundant produce from the mountains and the sea including around eight hundred types of seafood all matching perfectly with sake. Why not come to Hamamatsu to learn about traditional brewing and then relish the blessings of land and sea along with a fine drop of sake?

There are two sake breweries in Hamamatsu: Hananomai Brewing Co., Ltd. and Hamamatsu Shuzo Co., Ltd. both carrying on the art and tradition of fine sake production. Hananomai is the oldest dating back to 1864, they have been producing sake for 160 years. 

The name 'Hananomai' sounds beautiful in Japanese and translates as 'flower dance'. It is named after one of the traditional dances of dedication passed down from ancient times along the Tenryu River system. The Hana (flower) represents the flower of a rice plant, and the dance is one in which people pray for a bountiful harvest.

At Hananomai, under the instruction of the master brewer, highly skilled brewers continue to craft sake using local ingredients, including pure underground spring water straight from the Akaishi Mountains (the Japanese Southern Alps) and rice grown in their own prefecture Shizuoka. When preparing Hananomai Daiginjo (ultra-premium sake), the brewers craft each batch by hand, relying on experience and intuition and without the assistance of machinery. 

The brewery offers a guided tour teaching visitors how their famous pure sake is made. As part of the experience, visitors are invited to taste sake, and to create a custom label for their very own sake. And don't miss their annual open brewery event in October, an opportunity to taste the new sake of the year. Festival like stalls are lined up in the brewery grounds and in the nearby Koshin Temple.

As they say in Japan 'kampai' (cheers).