Eater  |  May 13, 2021

When you arrive at the locked gate outside an industrial complex along West San Bernardino in Covina, you may get the sense that you’re the wrong place — until you see a sign with a phone number for Nova Brewing Co. The building, flanked by auto repair shops and a storage facility, is home to a small tasting room, located toward the end of the complex, where you will find people drinking beer and fresh sake in a barebones space that opens to a back alley with wooden benches and barrels. The sake, which Nova brews on-site, is some of the first produced in Los Angeles in more than 70 years…

KITV4  |  May 5, 2021

The only of its kind in Hawaii, some would say Islander Sake Brewery is keeping sake alive in the state. Vice President Tama Hirose says the rice-based spirit is keeping him alive. “Sake saved me ten years ago,” Hirose told KITV4. He was living in Japan in 2011 when an earthquake and ensuing tsunami killed nearly 20,000 people. He said the nuclear accident cause by that earthquake gave him heart problems, and his doctors told him he needed open-heart surgery. “Instead I just started drinking sake… and it worked. After ten years, I’m fine I really thank the sake for making me better,” said Hirose…

Gambit  |  March 31, 2021

Rice may not be the first thing that comes to mind at the thought of south Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole food, but it’s everywhere — in jambalaya and boudin and served with red beans and a host of traditional dishes. Now local entrepreneurs are using Louisiana-grown rice to make Wetlands Sake. The Japanese spirit made from fermented rice is easiest to find in sushi restaurants, but sake lovers Nan Wallis and Lindsey Brower noticed it’s becoming more popular across the U.S. “We have traveled a lot and we were seeing sake in the U.S. starting to appear on menus in restaurants and bars that have nothing to do with Asian food,” Wallis says. “You’d go into a French restaurant in New York and they’d have sake on the menu. You go into a restaurant in Chicago, Nashville and other cities, and California for sure, you’d see sake.”…

Kyodo News  |  March 30, 2021

A “Sake Dialogue” featuring long-established Japanese breweries and those emerging in the United States recently brought about discussions on cross-border information-sharing, cooperation and innovation to spread the word of Japan’s most famous alcoholic export. The nearly 90-minute talk, whose participants included three sake brewers on each side of the Pacific, was organized by the Sake Brewers Association of North America in Washington, and the Embassy of Japan in the United States, in late February…

Honolulu Magazine  |  March 17, 2021

Last year, Islander Sake Brewery opened the day shelter-in-place orders descended on O‘ahu. Weeks earlier, the Islands’ first sake brewery in three decades was supposed to have debuted its first batch of sake at the Honolulu Festival, but the event was cancelled as COVID-19 spread across the world. So it wasn’t exactly the launch Islander had expected. But a year later, the little sake brewery is still producing sake, including ones gently flavored with liliko‘i and pineapple, and is even talking about needing to expand to keep up with demand as restaurants reopen and word of Islander spreads…

San Diego Reader  |  March 5, 2021

This week, I cracked open a cold one. Pulled the tab of a 12-ounce can and heard that satisfying cshhht sound that usually presages enjoyment of an ale or lager. Except it wasn’t beer inside, rather a single serving of sake. San Diego’s own Setting Sun Sake Brewing Co. has introduced its first sakes in cans….

Mountain XPress | January 2, 2021

There’s a lot more to sake than the clear, hot beverage served in sushi restaurants. While the ancient Japanese spirit is made in a manner similar to beer (it’s brewed), it can have an alcoholic content of 15%-20%, a level comparable to fortified wines. And there’s an impressive — almost bewildering — array of styles to explore…