This area, known as “*Nada Gogo,” boasts the largest sake production in Japan. Our brewery is located in the “Uozaki district,” the heart of sake brewing, known as Kaminada.

*Nada Gogo – 5 sake making districts in the Nada region.

Yamada Nishiki, which has long been grown in Nada Gogo, is said to be the best rice for sake brewing, and is essential for making high-quality sake. In addition, as the saying goes, “Nada Gogo is made up of water,” and the Nada region is famous for its natural mineral-rich, underground water from Mount Rokko. Blessed with a cold wind, known as the “Rokko Oroshi” and a geography that lends itself well to maritime shipping, Nada’s sake brewing techniques have reached new heights.

In the Edo period, “sake sent from the Kansai area to Tokyo” was widely loved by the feudal lords, merchants and commoners alike due to its fragrant aroma and taste. At the peak of the Edo period, it is said that 80% of Edo’s sake was brewed in Nada and shipped to Edo.

The origin of Hamafukutsuru and its parent company, Koyama Honke Shuzo, was more than 200 years ago in the late-Edo period, when the founder Matabee Koyamaya was born in what is now Harima-cho, Kako-gun, in Hyogo Prefecture, and was later apprenticed as a master brewer in the Nada area.

The passion of Matabee, who had studied in Nada and moved to Saitama, has been passed down from generation to generation, and in 1989 he joined forces with Fukutsuru, the predecessor of Hamafukutsuru, in Nada, which is closely connected with him, to carry on the tradition of sake brewing.

Although many major sake brewers in the Uozaki district boast of their market shares, we, as a local brewery, have retained the uniqueness of our “Fukutsuru” brand and have remained true to the taste of our sake, which is much appreciated, regardless of our size or scale. Up until the 1950s, Uozaki beach still retained the elegant atmosphere of a long, white sandy beach dotted with green pine, and our brewery fronted on the beach at a distance of 50 meters, epitomizing the appropriate appellation of “cranes fly and good fortune comes.”

Despite the adverse market conditions we faced as the time passed, we have continued to offer premier Japanese sake throughout our history of sake brewing. Thanks to the efforts of the management and sake brewing experts during those days, as well as the patronage of many customers, we have been able to engage in sake brewing on a long-term basis.

In the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that occurred in 1995, our sake brewery also sustained significant damage. The townscape with a historical atmosphere of wooden sake breweries was completely destroyed, leaving us in shock. Even though all the sake breweries in the Nada Gogo district were damaged, the entire region banded together to restart business operations, thinking that “we must not allow Japan’s world-renowned sake tradition and culture to die out.”

Complete destruction of the former Fukutsuru brewery

Fortunately, our well water, which is the lifeblood of sake brewing, did not run dry and we were able to overcome this hardship. We continued to supply this well water for about a month to the nearby victims of the disaster who had lost their water supply, who relied on it as “water for life”.

The well in our brewery that survived the crisis

With the economic recovery, our company was reborn as a sake brewery engaged in brewing traditional sake from Nada, and re-opened as “Hamafukutsuru" with a high-quality ginjo sake brewing factory.

In 1996, the brewery was completely renovated to allow visitors to observe the sake brewing process through glass windows. As a brewery that offers sake brewery tours with the 3 key elements of “making,” “showing,” and “selling,” we welcome visitors from nearby places as well as visitors from various regions, both in Japan and overseas.

The founder Matabee Koyamaya’s single-minded desire to make good sake and to deliver a taste of Nada’s sake making to the world without fail is still alive at Hamafukutsuru even after 200 years.