— COLUMN / Culture
The Craft Sake Wave — Beyond the Boundaries of Traditional Japanese Sake
LAGOON BREWERY and the new generation of brewers using sake techniques with unconventional ingredients and ideas.
2026年2月24日
The term “craft sake” is new. The idea behind it — that sake brewing technique can be applied freely, beyond the strict legal definition of seishu (Japanese sake) — is reshaping part of the industry.
The Licensing Barrier
To produce “seishu” (certified Japanese sake) in Japan, a brewery must hold a license that has been effectively closed to new applicants for decades. The government does not issue new sake licenses where production already meets demand. This has driven innovative brewers toward an alternative: the “sono ta no jozo-shu” (other fermented beverage) license, which permits a wider range of ingredients and techniques but prohibits labeling the product as “sake” for domestic sale.
What Craft Sake Is
Craft sake uses rice as a primary ingredient and sake fermentation technique (koji mold for saccharification), but may incorporate other ingredients — fruit, herbs, wild plants, honey, vegetables — and may use different koji mold strains (including white koji typically used for shochu) or bacteria. The resulting products are recognizably sake-adjacent but often categorically different from traditional seishu.
LAGOON BREWERY
Established in 2021 on the shores of Fukushimagata — a wetland bird sanctuary in Niigata — LAGOON BREWERY is one of the clearest expressions of the craft sake concept. Their “Shōkū” (翔空) uses naturally grown rice, foraged botanicals (kuromoji, a native aromatic shrub), and tomatoes in various expressions. A café adjacent to the fermentation space allows visitors to taste the work in progress. The brewery holds both a craft sake license and a sake license limited to export — a dual identity that reflects its position at the frontier of the category.
The Broader Question
Craft sake raises a question that traditional sake has not needed to ask: what is sake for? If sake is primarily about rice fermentation technique, then its range of expression is as wide as that technique can reach. If sake is primarily about a specific tradition and set of ingredients, then craft sake is something else — something adjacent and related but distinct. Both answers have merit. The conversation is unresolved, and the sakes coming out of it are worth drinking.