How to Become a Master Sake Brewer: Toji Education Evolves, Along with the Times
Recently I came across this interesting blog post on the Fukumitsuya Brewery site about how the old style of brewer education—learning by watching and doing, has changed to a more direct form of knowledge transfer.
The post describes the many skills and qualities a sake brewer must possess to become a first-class brewer: the strength and fortitude of a manual laborer who can withstand the long hours of often strenuous work in very cold temperatures, an understanding of brewing and fermentation science, and the soul of an artisan with the patience and passion to continually work at perfecting one’s craft.
Up until the end of the Showa Period (1989), the post explains, the conventional brewer’s education followed the method of “watch and learn, learn by doing, reasons are not needed.” But the era of the seasonal kurabito (brewery worker) who spends summers fishing or farming and winters as a brewer-for-hire has faded as such workers have become harder and harder to find. Young people eager to head to the big city to find work are part of an emptying out of rural areas that has been going on for decades.
As a result, most breweries have shifted to a system of hiring graduates of agricultural college brewing and fermentation programs as full-time brewery workers. And increasingly, brewery owners are filling the role of master brewer.
I turned to Rumiko Obata, the fifth-generation head of Obata Brewery on Niigata’s Sado Island, to ask for her thoughts on the matter, as I know her brewery—in addition to making coveted Manotsuru sake—runs a small Gakkogura, or brewing school. “It’s true that the old ‘watch and learn’ style that used to be the norm has changed,” she told me. “Now, with the growth of ‘company employee’ brewers, a ‘tell and teach’ style has evolved. But you can’t really say that one is better than the other. It’s not so much how you learn as what you learn. The important thing is to take ownership of the process.”
Actually, the term she used was “mite nusume, mite, manabe,” or literally, “watch and steal, watch and learn.” This “steal” reminded me of an apprenticeship story I heard from a master of ink panting on silk kimono. He described his experience as a young apprentice under a master so unwilling to part with his secrets that the student had to sneak into the master’s workshop after hours. To commit the various inks his master used to memory he tasted them so that he could identify them later. He told this story matter-of-factly; it was just what he felt he had to do.
Sake sensei to thousands John Gauntner tells the story of one revered master brewer, a taskmaster so strict that one kurabito who worked with him admitted that he was not allowed to speak directly to the august toji (master brewer) until a decade after both he and the master brewer had left that particular brewery.
Although such tales may make it sound like master craftsmen are withholding valuable trade secrets from their apprentices, Obata explains that the real message (at least in the case of sake toji) is that “there are secrets that cannot be taught through words. It begins with things that you can only feel with your five senses.” For example, she adds, “Inside the brewing room, the toji is silent, because this is the real deal; the toji wants to teach that attitude” of seriousness and concentration.
By contrast, attending a well-known agricultural university’s brewing and fermentation program, such as Tokyo University of Agriculture (Nodai for short), will give students two to four years of intensive scientific background in brewing and fermentation, as well as a short stint working at the school’s own brewery. Equally valuable is the chance to form relationships with professors and other students. Many of them are brewery heirs who form networks, avenues of knowledge exchange and even sake yeast-sharing that continue long past graduation.
Although there is no mandatory degree or qualification to become a toji, aspiring brewers can take a test to earn a brewer’s certification, of which there are two levels, or grades. Obata acknowledges that certification does ensure a baseline level of knowledge, but adds, “Even if you’re not qualified as a brewer you can learn if you have passion. Qualifications are important, but a learning attitude is more important.”
In addition to the curriculum outlined here (note the Covid-19 online contingency plans), Obata Brewery’s week-long course includes a tasting seminar and a visit to the rice fields. The Gakkogura was recently awarded a new category, special zone sake license for breweries that are revitalizing their region. Housed in a warehouse a short distance from the main brewery, the school brewery runs entirely on renewable energy. Until receiving this new certification, it had been operating under a liqueur license. Each three- to four-person team is assigned to one tank, working with a staff brewer. The course, which accepts students from all over the world, also examines the close link between Sado Island’s ecosystem and Obata sake.
One young female master brewer we will be including in our book, Mami Wakabayashi, of Wakabayashi Brewery in Nagano Prefecture, is a good example of someone who has forged her own individual path without formal training. When she decided to return to Nagano in 2013 to learn the brewer’s craft and join her family brewery, she apprenticed with an experienced toji, Masaru Nishizawa. An award-winning veteran who began brewing when he was 15, the master brewer taught by both showing and telling, says Wakabayashi. But when Nishizawa died suddenly at aged 75, less than a year into her apprenticeship, she was thrust into the role of toji. Through perseverance, trial and error and learning from her own network of toji friends she is now making high-quality, small batch fune-pressed (traditional “boat-shaped press in which cloth bags filled with sake mash are gently pressed by applying pressure from above) sake under the Tsukiyoshino brand. Wakabayashi says she has no regrets over not having attended Nodai and gotten her brewer’s certification. “People can learn anytime and anywhere,” she says.
At Fukumitsuya Brewery, all of its seven toji have a first-grade certification. Yet in its blog post, the brewery admits that “getting a certification is like a ticket to the starting line [in the race] to become a professional.” A well-rounded brewer has a grounding in scientific and book learning, but that must be backed up by hands-on brewing experiences that “sharpen the five sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and intuition.”
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