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Inside an industrial eco-park in West Oakland, Den Sake brewer Yoshihiro Sako is standing in the fermentation room of his tiny sake brewery, checking on the moromi, or sake mash, in the wooden press. It’s 42 degrees and we’re shivering in our puffy jackets, but Sako, 48, is unfazed in a long-sleeved tee. He’s focused on the mash.
“I need a very cold environment to create clean sake,” he explains, walking a few feet to the narrow, pine-planked koji room, where washed, steamed and chilled rice is first brought to ferment with koji, a fungus used in the making of sake.
The entire brewery, part of O2 Artisans Aggregate, which also houses Don Bugito and Soba Ichi, is a modest 800 square feet. Sako, a former sake sommelier, designed and built the operation, from the towering rice steamers to that wood press weighed down by 1,000 pounds of water-filled tanks.
“Pretty old-school, I know,” Sako says, referring to the weights. It is, but it’s also an inventive and impeccably organized space for creating his genre-defying, small-batch sake. Sako starts with single-origin rice from the Sacramento Valley and uses traditional Japanese methods and his own ingenious techniques. He’s part engineer, part chemist, all artist.
Sako started brewing here in 2018 and so far has sold out every batch of his sake to the likes of Sushi Ran, Ozumo, Commis and Abstract Table. Last month, he was nominated for a James Beard award.
“His sake is amazing and his brewery is such a labor of love,” says chef Andrew Greene of Oakland’s Abstract Table, who is hosting a six-course Den Sake pairing dinner on April 27. “Yoshihiro is a true artist and it’s really cool to just be in his presence and watch what he does.”
What makes the sake special? Pure rice sake, which is made from rice, water and koji, comes in three classifications: junmai, junmai ginjo and junmai daiginjo. Junmai is known as the most basic, with the rice milled down so 70 percent of each grain remains. Junmai ginjo is a little more refined, and junmai daiginjo is the most refined at 50 percent, yielding elegance and finesse.
Yoshihiro’s sake is technically junmai, but with the delicacy and finesse of a daiginjo. For that reason, he doesn’t put a classification on his label.
“People think daiginjo is better because it is more expensive, but that’s not necessarily always true,” he says. Instead, his simple, modern label indicates his rice source — Cal-Hikari rice from Rue & Forsman Ranch, a sustainable farm in Yuba County — the batch number (he’s on six) and “70 percent,” the definition of junmai.
“Some day I hope to put the rice patty block number on the bottle, too, and show people that the idea of terroir can apply to sake,” says Sako, who has already started converting wine drinkers to sake. One way: By increasing the acidity in his sake to stand up to the kinds of foods wine drinkers, himself included, like to eat.
“I want to drink my sake with steak and chimichurri sauce or pasta with pesto,” he explains. His Batch Five has just the crispness and herbaceous quality to pair perfectly with either dish — and seduce any sauvignon blanc drinker.
Sako started in wine. He spent 15 years as a buyer and manager for restaurants and wine and sake shops in San Francisco. Before launching Den Sake in 2017, he apprenticed at several sake breweries in Japan to learn the art of sake making. To meet demand, he’s increasing production this year from 1,500 to 2,000 bottles, but not changing any of his hand-crafted ways.
“Ingredients matter in sake, but not as much as grapes do in wine-making,” he says. “It’s more about the technique of the sake maker, and I want to remain as dedicated to the craft as possible.”
Where to find it
Den Sake is available at several restaurants in the Bay Area, including Ippuku in Berkeley and Rintaro in San Francisco. You can also find it at retail shops, like True Sake and Bi-Rite in San Francisco, and Diablo Foods and Umami Mart in the East Bay. (Den Sake does not currently service restaurants or retail in the South Bay, but that’s on the to-do list.) Find a list of sources at www.densakebrewery.com.
