Tanaka Sake Brewery Kikkogura

Free self tour in the mezzanine of the sake making process. You can see all the tanks and rice and different stages. Most of the signs are in Japanese, but it's very easy to read with google translate. Friendly staff that let you sample different unique sake. Definitely worth stopping in!

I have tasted a lot of sake before in my life, being half Japanese, and this is at the top of my list.  Very clean, balanced, flavorful, and wonderful place to get a glance in how they make sake.  Tour is free and upstairs.  Would recommend getting a pamphlet in English or your preferred language to understand the process.  You get to taste anything there.  Great plum wine too!

Made a stop at the 124 year old Tanaka Sake Brewery run by a fourth generation family member to tour the distillery and did some Sake tasting.

Acquired a rare bottle that was limited to 100 bottles only as this was produced using a cold drip method by hanging a sake bag containing moromi and collecting the drops that naturally drip into a glass container.

The purveyors were delightfully friendly and took the time to explain to us about the history and the story behind each of their own labels.

Do tour the sake factory and enjoy the experience, highly recommended pitstop if you're in Otaru.

There is a free self tour on the 2nd floor of the brewery, and it’s awesome to see how sake is made. The free sake tasting is offered by their friendly staff as well.

This was a nice experience to see live action sake brewing, and to learn about the entire process, and see it through all the steps.
We walked from Minami-Otaru station and it was less than 10 minutes to get there. The brewery has a lot of character, with old style craftsmanship, wooden truss construction, and squeaky wooden floors. Some of the tour is provided in English, but it was not a big deal to understand if you download the Google translate app in Japanese; we took photos of all the informative posters and we're able to understand the process well! At the end, you can go to the shop and try many varieties of sake - they had a few standard and seasonal ones they offered to taste, but if there was another you were interested in they may also let you try if you ask!
The staff members in the shop were very warm, welcoming, and accommodating.
As a tip: if you go here as the first stop on your Otaru trip, and you buy a couple bottles of Sake, I recommend going back to the train station to store your goods in a coin locker before continuing to walk the city. They are available for 400-600 yen, all day!

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