An event aimed at expanding the Japanese sake market was held in Washington, D.C., on the 11th at the former residence of the Japanese ambassador in Washington, D.C., to introduce Japanese sake.
Participants said, “It’s refreshing and easy to drink.”
“Nigori sake is richer. I prefer clear sake.”
This month, Japan’s “traditional sake brewing” was registered as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO, and with momentum building, sake breweries that produce and sell sake in the United States promoted the appeal of sake.
Japanese Ambassador to the United States Yamada said, “The registration as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO would not have been possible without the people who spread sake not only in Japan but also around the world.”
Sake is becoming more popular in the United States, but its share of the alcohol market is currently around 0.2%, and further growth in demand is expected.
People in America still don’t understand what sake is. I think we can still go a long way if we just make an effort to spread the word.”
The participants said they want to teach people how to handle sake and how to pair it with Western cuisine, in order to further popularize sake.
CHARLOTTESVILLE (September 28, 2021) – The Ambassador of Japan, Mr. Koji Tomita, visited and met the staff of North American Sake Brewery (NAS) for a tour of their brewery and a guided tasting of their sake. NAS launched in September 2018 and is Virginia’s first and only producer of sake, the alcohol made from rice. The brewery operates a tasting room and restaurant in the heart of downtown Charlottesville, Virginia where visitors can get tasting flights, food, and tour the facility.
“This visit is an extremely special moment for us and for American-owned sake breweries,” said Andrew Centofante, NAS owner and head brewer, or “Toji” in Japanese. “We are honored to host Ambassador Tomita. We hope to show him our passion for sake brewing and to speak about opportunities to work together with the Embassy of Japan to grow the sake industry in North America.”
The Ambassador of Japan, from the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C., visited in the early afternoon on Tuesday and was greeted by the owner of NAS, Andrew Centofante, along with Weston Konishi, President of the Sake Brewers Association of North America (SBANA). Centofante and Konishi hope to build relationships with Japanese sake brewers and strengthen the sake industry here in the United States.
During the visit, Centofante showed the Ambassador the brewery’s new “sugidama” outside the door, a large hanging ball made of fresh green Japanese cedar (or “sugi” in Japanese) branches that is traditionally hung outside breweries at the start of the brewing season. According to Japanese tradition, it is said that once the sugidama changes from green to brown, the sake is ready to drink.
After being seated inside, Centofante and Konishi exchanged pleasantries with the Ambassador and discussed opportunities for furthering communications between the States and Japan and building the sake industry. Centofante shared a short animated film made in collaboration with the SBANA and the Embassy of Japan entitled “The Beauty of the Brew.” The film showed an American man visiting Japan and discovering his love for sake, and then coming back to the States to brew it himself.
“This last year the Sake Brewers Association of North American was proud to partner with the Embassy of Japan to promote the growing sake industry in North America,” said SBANA president Weston Konishi. “We were able to connect Japanese brewers with their American counterparts and have discussions on ways to collaborate, how to build knowledge exchanges, and some of the challenges around importing and exporting products between the two countries.”
Centofante led the Ambassador through a tour of the brewery including the tanks where sake is stored, the large rice steamer, and the “koji mura,” a wooden cedar room where koji is made from rice to make sake. Koji making is a meticulously handcrafted process where a special mold is “malted” onto the rice and turns the starches into sugars, producing fruity to umami flavors, and is used in many Japanese foods including soy sauce.
The group then returned to the tasting room where Centofante led everyone in a tasting of North American Sake. They started with “Real Magic,” a junmai craft table sake, and then followed with “Big Baby,” a cloudy nigori style sake that is actually made from the same recipe. Centofante raised his glass and proclaimed, “Kanpai!” as everyone sipped their glasses, in Japanese sake-drinking tradition. Next they enjoyed “Olympus,” a junmai ginjo craft sake inspired by the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan, to which Smith, Chairperson to the Japan Virginia Society, exclaimed at the smoothness and delicious flavor. Finally they finished the tasting with “Serenity Now!” a junmai daiginjo style craft sake that boasts flavor notes of green apple.
“It was incredible to share our sake with Ambassador Tomita and to see his face light up as he tried our brews. Sake is extremely difficult to make so to have the approval of the quality of our sake is absolutely wonderful.”
After the end of the tasting, the Ambassador of Japan presented a gift to Andrew Centofante for his hospitality, and Centofante returned the favor with a gift basket including a bottle of “Olympus” sake, two tasting glasses, and a bottle opener. The Ambassador joked that he would have drank more had he not had a conference to attend directly after.
Season 1. Episode 45. Another in our series of U.S. Sake Brewer interviews takes us to Virginia to talk to Andrew Centofante, Toji and Master Brewer of North American Sake Brewery. Andrew told us about his discovery of premium sake in Japan and then, following his home brewing instincts, how he soon found himself propagating koji in his attic and fermenting sake mash low and slow in the basement. By 2018, Andrew was out of the basement and had opened his own brewery – the North American Sake Brewery, which is the first and only kura in Virginia. Taking his cues from the craft brewing industry, Andrew developed some classic but fun sake styles from duper dry to silky super premiums. Today, we had the honor to phone-a-brewer-friend to get a guided tasting with Andrew and explore their “Quiet Giant” Genshu, and the lux “Serenity Now!” Join us as we explore another cool corner of the USA sake scene: North American Sake Brewery with Andrew Centofante.
Our toji, Andrew Centofante, was recently interviewed on the Japan Eats podcast with Akiko Katayama! Take a listen as they talked about his background, how he got into sake, and about his passion for the ancient brew!
Andrew Centofante, co-owner and head brewer of North American Sake Brewery in Virginia, joins me to discuss how the successful marketing professional got into brewing Japanese sake, challenges in opening a sake brewery in Virginia, his innovative philosophy of sake production and much, much more!!!
We are pleased to announce that North American Sake Brewery has won two awards at the 2020 World Sake Challenge!
Our premium junmai sake Real Magic has won a Silver Medal in the 2020 World Sake Championship. Described as THE sake for Sauvignon Blanc drinkers, Real Magic has fruity and juicy notes of gooseberry, grapefruit, and buttered toast. Excellent to pair with Sushi, Tempura, and Swiss cheese.
Additionally, our ultra premium junmai daiginjo sake Serenity Now has won a Bronze Medal for the second consecutive year at the same competition. Described as an easy drinking sake with notes of Golden Apple, Tangerine, and frosted rice cake. A true delight for the sake connoisseur.
We could’t be more excited to be awarded these medals and hope you come in to taste what hand crafted sake is all about! KANPAI!!!!
You can also order our award winning sake to your doorstep by visiting: www.pourmeone.com/buy
By Riley Wyant| December 24, 2020 at 10:17 PM EST – Updated December 24 at 10:17 PM
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – One sake brewery in Charlottesville is finding a creative solution to dining outside.
North American Sake Brewery put up small tents surrounding its outdoor fire-pit for a “winter village” feel. The brewery’s owner, Andrew Centofante, says the private cabanas are good for social distancing and keeping warm at the same time.
“It’s been awesome so far. People have been really, really excited to see it because it’s a pretty unique kind of setup,” Centofante said. “To have that kind of private little area to go with your family or with friends has been a really great thing.”
The tents are first come first serve, no reservation is needed.
There is no doubt the American sake landscape has come a long way in the last few decades. Sake production has gained popularity in several corners of the country, while pushing quality boundaries and keeping a high level of excitement amongst seasoned and novice sake drinkers alike.
While the history of sake-making in the United States spans for generations, there’s a vibrant new wave of producers keeping us engaged with their products.
Diving into the history of sake in the United States, records indicate that it was introduced sometime in the late 19th century, when we started getting a taste for this versatile beverage.
Sake doesn’t enjoy geographical protection as other beverages, Tequila or Champagne for example, which cannot be called by these names if they are produced in other parts of the world. The main reason is the name. Sake means “alcohol” in Japan, and sake, as we know it, is known as “nihonshu.” Therefore, “sake” can be produced throughout the world.
As far as the actual production in the United States, data support a boom of domestic sake breweries shortly after the turn of the 20th century, with a concentration in the Hawaiian islands and the West Coast of the American mainland, in cities like Berkeley and San Jose, and even some production in Colorado.
Currently around 20 breweries exist in the country. Thanks to the bountiful and pristine rice produced in Arkansas and the Sacramento Delta in California, producers are able to raise the bar.
Some of the oldest continuously running breweries have settled in the West Coast, including Takara Sake in Berkeley, Gekkeikan in Folsom, California, Ozeki based on Hollister, California and Sake One in Forest Grove, Oregon.
The great news for sake as a category and its millions of American fans is the latest boom that has brought synergy and world acclaim to this artisan beverage.
This country is painted with young and energetic Tojis, capturing the imagination of new generations of sake drinkers, while single-handedly educating a big part of the population.
Everywhere you look, from Arizona Sake, which broke ground two years ago to Proper Sake Co., making a splash in Nashville just three years ago and the North East exploding with exciting brands like Brooklyn Kura and North American Sake Brewery. There’s even a highly anticipated project by Asahi Shuzo producers of Dassai Sake, partnering with the Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park.
As well Ben’s American Sake takes advantage of the Appalachian Mountain water to produce excellent sake.
The center of the U.S. has its fair share of craft breweries like Moto-i, based in Minneapolis, Texas Sake in Austin, Texas and Denver’s Colorado Sake Co., which opened its doors in 2018.
In the Hawaiian Islands, a new star emerged in 2018 paying homage to the rich sake-making history of the state when Islander Sake resumed a long-standing tradition worth tasting.
Southern California enjoys a fair share of diversity with three established brands, Setting Sun Sake Brewery in San Diego, Rebel Sake Kura in Lake Elsinore and Nova Brewing Company in Covina.
The Bay Area is gifted with two breweries raising the flag high and attracting younger generations. San Francisco’s Sequoia Sake is always expanding the horizons, and the newest member of the brewing community, Den Sake, focuses on producing small batches while experimenting with acidity levels bridging the gap with wine drinkers craving a zesty component.
Without a doubt, this renaissance we are experiencing will lead to more awareness and broader recognition of sake. We applaud the incredible efforts of young and old producers celebrating sake’s rich tradition and pushing the envelope to deliver an experience in every glass!
Visit the Sake Brewers Association of North America and support this art form. sakeassociation.org
WE GOT SLUSHIES!!!! This summer just got a whole lot cooler. We are excited to bring you outrageously delicious sake-slushies. We will be pouring these ice-cold concoctions all summer long and have new flavors regularly. Trust me when I say you wont be able to have just one. Just another reason to hang out on the BEST PATIO in Charlottesville
Making sake ain’t easy! Awesome to be featured in these articles in Yamato Magazine about the sake breweries that are popping up around the world and some of the challenges we face. WE GOT THIS!“I think there are many challenges to brewing sake but I love it and embrace those challenges every day. The only way to overcome these challenges is to continue to brew the best sake that we can. We hope to show everyone the beauty of sake”
We were so excited to collaborate on such a meaningful and needed effort! Spirit Lab Distilling makes awesome whiskey and spirits and now sanitizer!!!
Repost from @spiritlabdistilling
“We were able to make a little extra sanitizer this month with to put into some #handy 5.5oz bottles. $10. Order from our website under “spirits”. Link in bio.This was made using leftover Kasu from North American Sake Brewery BUT it is NOT for consumption!!! Stay safe and healthy this weekend everyone!!!!!”
North American Sake Brewery is excited to announce that it is opening its patio up for weekends, serving great food, drink, and social social distancing. Our expanded patio gives us ample and well placed seating so you can enjoy yourself in the open air of the beautiful IX Art Park. We are going to have awesome food, awesome drink, and an awesome time.
We have streamlined our service and safety procedures to ensure you a fun and safe experience. All ordering will be done at the outdoor bar at the entrance. All employees are required to wear face masks and gloves. Hand sanitizer is available for our customers. All surfaces will be wiped down after each use and the bathrooms cleaned regularly. We ask that all guests adhere to social distancing and use common sense!
We have made the decision that we will be temporarily closing the tasting room and restaurant until the threat of the corona virus has passed. We see this as a social responsibility to increase personal quarantine and social distancing, not just for ourselves but for those in our population that may not be as equipped to fight this virus. We will be reevaluating as the weeks progress so please keep your eyes out for when we come back.
Gift cards will continue to be available, just give us a call (434) 767-8105.
We will also continue to brew the freshest sake this side of the planet. If you want a bottle, just give us a call or come by. We might be in the back brewing but come on in and we will set you up. If you see a bottle of our sake out in the wild, BUY IT! That is one of the best ways you can still support us.
This has been an extremely tough decision and difficult time for everyone and we hope that everyone stays safe and we work together to support each other. #cvillestrong
This past November we were invited to pour our sake at the Japan American Society of Washington D.C. (JASWDC) Annual Dinner. The JASWDC is an organization that is was founded in 1957 to help promote friendship and understanding between the US and Japan through a people-to-people organization. We were so excited to go up to D.C. for this special event and show people that good sake can also made in America. I even got dressed up in a suit and tie.
We set up our tasting stand next to Nanbu Bijin, a sake producer from Iwate that makes absolutely fantastic sake and has recently been breaking through in the US market recently. I was a little nervous to be pouring next to such a renowned sake brewery, but was so delighted that everyone who came by and had a sip was surprised and delighted by what they tasted. They were also shocked when I told them it was made locally in Virginia. “Think of us as your neighborhood sake brewery!” I said and someone responded “Virginia jizake!”
After the tasting we went in for the dinner and thats when I saw that our sake had been poured into glasses at every table. The Ambassador of Japan to the United States, Shinsuke J. Sugiyama got up on stage to open the event and announced that we would be doing a cheers featuring North American Sake Brewery’s Serenity Now Junmai Daiginjo! There was an audible gasp, I think at the idea that there was sake being made in Virginia. I was asked to stand up and the crowd broke out in applause. The ambassador then remarked about the work the JASWDC has done over the years to further relations between Japan and the United States. He raised his glass and we all did in turn and drank NAS sake together and said “Kanpai.” What a moment to remember.
Later on Ryan Schaffer, president of the JASWDC remarked “North American Sake Brewery, sake made in America utilizing traditional Japanese methods, exemplifies the cross-cultural connection and friendship between the US and Japan.”
The night went on and during the dinner I found a moment to speak to the ambassador. I presented him with a bottle of Serenity Now and thanked him for such an honor. He was so kind and remarked that his wife will be so excited to try this American made sake.
I got to meet a lot of wonderful people at the event and hope to continue our relationship with the JASWDC into the future with more events and of course sake tastings!
NORTH AMERICAN SAKE BREWERY NOW IN TOTAL WINE STORES
The Commonwealth’s First Sake Maker is one of the First American Sake Producers to Distribute to the Retailer
CHARLOTTESVILLE (September 18, 2019) – North American Sake Brewery (NAS) has partnered with Total Wine throughout the State of Virginia to distribute their sake to 15 stores from Mclean and Alexandria to Newport News and Virginia Beach. North American Sake Brewery, launched in September 2018, is Virginia’s first and only producer of sake, the alcohol made from rice. The brand, co-owned by Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante, operates a tasting room and brewery in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“The deal marks a special day for us and for American-owned sake breweries,” said Goldstein, the brand’s founder. “Total Wine’s commitment to the finest brands in the alcohol world is only second to their commitment to their customers. We are thrilled to be available in the vast majority of their Virginia stores.”
Sake is a specialized category of alcohol for most retailers, and for Total Wine it is no different. However, noticing a significant uptick in overall sake sales, the store plans on placing NAS sakes in both the Sake Section and the Local Section, where customers find boutique and artisanal Virginia-made beverages.
While NAS makes a multitude of craft sakes in-house for their tasting room and restaurant, they started by distributing two traditional styles: a bright, bold, and unfiltered sake called “Big Baby,” and a smooth, crisp, and filtered sake called “Real Magic.” Both will be available in all 15 of the Total Wine stores.
“These two labels are the heart of what we do,” said Centofante, NAS’s head brewer. “Nearly everything we make is represented in these two sakes, and I know people across Virginia will fall in love with Big Baby and Real Magic just like we have.”
Although it’s brewed more like beer, sake is designated as a wine in the Commonwealth, and NAS uses the Virginia Winery Distribution Company (VWDC), a non-profit, non-stock corporation set up by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to provide wholesale distribution services for Virginia wineries.
“We’ve already had talks with Total Wine about expanding throughout the Mid-Atlantic and beyond,” continued Centofante. “We’ve talked with several distributors, and will continue to vet them as we look towards the next 12 months of production and distribution. It’s an exciting time of growth for us and for sake in America!”
In IX Art Park, a self-consciously hip enclave in Charlottesville with a wee end farmer’s market and more wall art than a New York subway, young couples stream into a sunny, knotted-wood taproom to taste Virginia barbecue and sample flights of inventive craft brews.
An hour after the brewery doors opened, you’d struggle to find a seat. Tables filled up with spicy poke bowls, kimchi-topped pastrami sandwiches and six-deep sampler flights of hazy or fruity house brews.
If this scene took place at popular Three Notch’d Brewing Co. next door, it’d be about as surprising as pecan pie. But this place isn’t making beer. Instead, the packed 6-month-old taproom at the North American Sake Brewery is serving a distinctively Virginian take on something made in only a handful of places in America and nowhere else in this state: Japanese-style sake, a thousand-year-old tradition of rice “wine” that’s brewed a little bit like beer.
Photograph by Adam Ewing A selection from North American Sake’s lineup.
North American Sake, which opened in October, is the latest example of the Japanese culinary boom in America. But while sake is growing, it’s still unfamiliar to most American diners and drinkers.
Sake can be every bit as refined and as varied as European wine or as funky as Belgian beer, deeply savory with wild notes of banana or flowers or so clean and crisp that it might as well be a winter breeze. But most sake drinkers here have been exposed only to the cheap bottles at discount sushi spots, where it’s often served hot to mask flavors – the equivalent of learning about American whiskey by drinking Old Crow.
We boarded the sake party bus to Charlottesville with food lover and photographer George Culver, and drank fine and fruity sake while the founders of North American Sake, Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante, laid down the ABCs of Virginia sake.
Photograph by Adam Ewing Above, a traditional nigori.
The story of Virginia sake began in a basement – OK, fine, it started in Los Angeles. That’s where Goldstein, then a filmmaker in Richmond, got his first experience with amazing sake. Four years ago he went to a special tasting held by a sommelier, and was floored by what he found.
“I grew up in California, where sushi and sake is everywhere. But I hadn’t had good sake. It was just a thing you drank with friends – hot, or in a sake bomb,” Goldstein says. “But I tasted for the first time cold, fresh, craft sake. I questioned why I’d never had it before.”
When he got back to Virginia, he brought a few choice bottles for Centofante, a home brewer. “Andrew and I had a great night, drank some really good sake, and he says, ‘I’d like to learn how to brew it.’ ”
Centofante set up a makeshift brewing lab in his basement. The first 5-gallon batch of homemade sake became two, then three, then 50. The men started sourcing their rice not from the supermarket but from specialty suppliers, and tapped into a loose network of Americans trying to re-create the Japanese tradition in America.
The partnership at first was simple. Centofante made the sake and Goldstein drank it. But soon Centofante was making so much that the pair started holding parties to have friends try it. This culminated in a massive tasting, with 50 bottles and almost as many friends.
“It was all gone in hours,” Centofante says. “They went through the party hunting down wounded soldiers, shaking the bottles to see if they still had sake in them.” Their friends also gave them a standing ovation. At that point, the pair realized they were probably on to something.
Photograph by Adam Ewing North American Sake’s Tekka Poke Don – Diced yellowfin tuna and salmon poke marinated in sweet soy, mirin, ginger, scallion, tuxedo sesame seeds with seaweed salad, radish, cucumbers, and tobiko, served on a bed of sushi rice.
So, sake isn’t wine. But it isn’t quite beer either.
All fermentation involves yeast. That’s what turns the sugar in wine grapes or malted barley into delicious, delicious alcohol. But sake involves an extra step, and an extra-special fungus called koji – named the “national fungus” of Japan by its brewers association – that breaks down the starches in rice and turns them into sugar. Koji is also the stuff behind the deep, savory flavors in soy sauce and miso soup.
Before he makes each batch of sake, Centofante spends two days carefully spreading out and gathering a bed of steamed rice in his koji muro, a carefully controlled room in each sake brewery devoted to growing koji. When he balls the rice together, it gets warmer. And when he spreads it out, it releases the heat.
Photograph by Adam Ewing North American Sake’s Miso Hummus plate, with rice crackers, radish, edamame, cucumber, scallions, togarashi and olive oil.
“When you do koji, it’s kind of a Zen thing,” he says. “You spread it out in rows like a meditation garden. But there’s also a purpose for those patterns: It makes for more surface area open to the air.”
Each batch of sake takes 30 days, and involves multiple layers of steamed rice and koji. In the fermentation tanks visible from North American Sake Brewery’s taproom, the koji makes sugar but also creates boomingly savory flavors like the ones in miso. And then the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol, along with adding fruity notes like banana or melon.
“It all happens in parallel,” Centofante says. “It’s a beautiful process.”
Rice is religion in Japan – and with sake, it’s no different. The loftiest sake creations, called junmai daiginjo, involve milling down each rice grain for days until only the pure starch core remains: just 50 percent of each grain. The higher the polish on the rice, the more pure and fruity the flavors.
As for the really cheap sake served hot at your local shopping-mall sushi spot? Well, they might not mill it down much at all, and that can mean a lot more impurities and funny flavors: hot and boozy alcohol notes, or a rough and bitter bite.
“Higher-polish sakes are works of art, they’re amazing, but they’re expensive, and a lot of people may be intimidated by that,” Centofante says. “It’s kind of like the beer world: You’ve got your Bud Light, and these really high-end craft beers.”
But anything milled down to below 70 percent of the grain – like all of North American Sake’s current brews – is considered premium sake. And because North American’s sake rice comes from growers in Arkansas and California, it also has a distinctly American flavor.
Centofante can talk genshu (undiluted sake) and nama (unpasteurized sake) with the best of them. But you won’t find a lot of the technical sake jargon at North American. The brewpub mixes old-school Japanese craft with American-style experimentalism and approachability – in a taproom whose food menu is an equal mix of American and Asian flavors. Brunch includes deeply comforting Szechuan-spiced biscuits, while lunch might involve salmon and short rib barbecue made by an old-school pit master, deepened with the same koji used to make the sake.
Among the sakes on offer at North American, you’ll find an equal mix of traditional and American wild-style. Their Big Baby sake – so called because it’s the youngest sake of the bunch, but still really alcoholic – is a traditional unfiltered nigori sake. So it’s sweet and hazily snow-white with rice and yeast. It’s like the juicy New England-style IPA of sakes, with the same friendly softness and satisfying mouthfeel.
Their other flagship sake, Real Magic, is the same batch of sake after it’s been given a little time to settle, and the difference is startling: The big and fruity banana and melon flavors come out to play. Another traditional-style sake, Quiet Giant, is fermented an extra five days so the sake becomes both more dry and more alcoholic: a whopping 18.5 percent alcohol by volume.
But Centofante is also experimenting with adding fruit flavors. Though Japanese brewers often add plum to their sake, the flavors at North American aren’t any you’ll find in Japan. One is a spicy jalapeno-mango, while another tastes like fruit punch. The best so far, called Sweet Agony, mixes lemon puree and an infusion of fresh mint leaves.
“We’ve had a lot of native Japanese come visit,” Goldstein says. “It really bends their minds. I think it opens their perspective, not that they would ever do it. When they taste our traditional sakes – the flagships, the nigoris and junmais – they see the respect, and the craftsmanship. So when they move into the flavors, they know that it’s coming from a good place.”
As for Centofante, he feels like he’s just scratching the surface of what he wants to do with sake: He’s considering using beer yeasts, wine yeasts and different kinds of koji, and is trading ideas with a small network of American sake brewers from Boston to Texas to California. But he says he has at least one heartening sign that he’s on the right track.
“A guy came in who was training to be a sake sommelier – the son of native Japanese. And they left with a case. You can tell me it’s great. But if you buy a case, that tells you something.”
This past Monday night was another “first” for us. Andrew and I traveled to D.C. on an invitation from the Embassy of Japan. It was a night of food, drink, and Japanese culture, and we had the incredible honor of becoming the first American sake company to pour our own sake at the Embassy. Our friends at Ben’s Tune-up in Asheville, NC also were present pouring some of their delicious sake.
Well over 200 guests attended, and the reception was overwhelmingly positive. It gets us excited about expanding our distribution into Northern Virginia and beyond, and about our broadening friendships at the Embassy. They continue to be so incredibly supportive and welcoming.
From the Embassy: “I can confirm that last night was the first time that American sake companies were pouring at an Embassy of Japan event. Apparently we’ve had Japanese companies who’ve brewed in California at events, and we’ve had American companies at an event up at our New York Consulate, but for American companies at the Embassy proper, you were the first!”
The future looks bright for us and our Sake community.
For here right now, I just wish all Mondays could end that well.
“If you can find a flight in the next three weeks, we would love to host you.” This was part of a conversation with Marcus Consolini, CEO of Daimon Shuzo, a famous 200-year-old brewery in Japan. I had reached out to the brewery to see if there was any opportunity to connect, and they enthusiastically responded that I should come help them finish out their brewing season. This season in Japan lasts from the beginning of October through March because sake is traditionally brewed during the colder winter months. If I didn’t come then, I would miss all of the action. So I talked to my wife, booked a flight, and by the next weekend was heading to Osaka.
I arrived at KIX about 22 hours later, jet-lagged, nervous, excited. I took a train from the large bustling city of Osaka to the sleepy region of Katano and, once there, I walked down the street with my luggage and up to the brewery gate. Daimon (大門) means “large gate”—and there it was: a beautiful old wooden door where Marcus greeted me. Marcus is larger than life, an American from NYC who left for Japan in the ’80s and has stayed there ever since. He had a background in finance and found an opportunity to help revive this historic brewery back to its previous glory.
We crouched through a smaller wooden door next to the big gate into what felt like a painting —a 300-year-old Japanese garden in the courtyard of the original Daimon family house with perfectly manicured trees and shrubs, meticulously placed rocks and boulders, and pathways to framed scenic views. I walked to the center and tried to take it all in. Daimon Yasutaka, the owner and head brewer, came into the garden and welcomed me to his home. It was truly a mind-blowing moment to be in such a historic place for sake with a true master of his craft. He brought out their sake, and we sat and talked about how we came to this moment and how sake had changed our respective lives. We chatted about the history of the brewery and how Daimon-san, the owner, was a unique figure in the sake world. He is the sixth-generation brewer, but was an avid traveler in his youth and learned English. This gives him a unique global perspective. He believes that sharing knowledge and passion is a beautiful way to show the world the wonders of sake. Oh, and he makes absolutely delicious nuanced and varied sakes. Daimon specializes in bringing out umami-rich flavors in his art, suited perfectly with regional Kansai cuisine. After our visit, Marcus showed me to my room, a small space in the attic of the old kura, and I retired for the night, ready to start work bright and early.
The next morning, I headed into the main brewery area and wandered around a bit before I figured out where I was supposed to be. Large old wooden beams reached to the wooden roof of the original brewery and smaller passages stretched out connecting different areas of the brewery. There was a place for steaming rice, a place for pressing, a room for tools and cleaning, a cold storage area filled with large tanks, and a place for bottling and shipping. There was a concrete building toward the end that housed the koji-mura, the lab, and a small break room for meetings and lunch. This was where I was introduced to the team and would spend time trying out my Japanese and sipping instant coffee. The main toji, Uei, was younger, closer to my age, and he gave out the marching orders for the day and would really show me the ropes.
The days would be full of measuring rice, washing, steaming, and working the koji. The work was always done at the perfect pace and timed perfectly. Washing rice was a beautiful display of timing. We had a lot of rice to prepare, but it was broken into small, manageable amounts. The rice was put into the washer, then moved over to be soaked for the perfect amount of time, as other rice that had been soaked was drained and weighted. This well-orchestrated cycle would then begin again.
We steamed rice in the mornings after preparing it, and the kura would fill with steam as it flooded out above the steamer. We then moved the perfectly gelatinous rice to the cold room to let it cool quickly and then brought it up to the koji room, again in manageable amounts. The koji room is kept warm and slightly humid and is where a lot of time and energy is spent helping the koji grow just right. This was a true honor to be a part of as we spread the koji out and I helped to carefully put the spores over all the grain. We piled it into a large mountain and wrapped it up tight, the next day separating it into boxes and watching the temperature and humidity.
Uei and I spent time in the lab working on fermentation management. We carefully tested the alcohol levels, did titrations to determine the acidity, and measured the density of the sake as it progressed. He would make decisions on what needed to be done to keep the fermentation and flavor profiles right on track.
All this labor-intensive work brought together beautiful flavors and aromas—ones I was familiar with, but seeing it in a new light helped me to gain confidence in my skill and knowledge. Small moments of clarity, of technique, of efficiency filled my head, and it was amazing to know we are doing similar work halfway around the world.
Lunch time and the hours after brewery work had wound down for the night were always a treat, because that is when I was able to sit down with Daimon-san and ask high-level questions about how he approached his sake, what he felt was important, and what I should focus on. He, just as inquisitive, would ask questions about American sake and what our experience had been like. One particular evening, we were sitting in the garden and chatting about the importance of putting your energy and chi into your sake making. How the elements of water and rice, the living cultures of koji and yeast, work together to make something beautiful—that you are there to guide them and nudge them to where they will most greatly flourish or reach the desired result.
After almost a week of working with the team, there was a company-wide celebration called Hanami. This is a tradition in Japan where people sit under a cherry blossom tree and celebrate the transient nature of the blossoms and the petals falling to the ground. This was where I would present the sake I brought from NAS to their team. It was probably the most nervous I had ever been. After working so closely with these guys and tasting such wonderful results, would my sake stand up? I poured them samples of Real Magic, Big Baby, and a special new brew I had been working on called Serenity Now. With bated breath I watched Daimon-san take a sip and was filled with relief when a smile washed across his face. He complimented its smoothness and its balance and acidity. Marcus also was impressed and affirmed that our sake was indeed very good, some of the best he had tasted from the States. I was even more encouraged to keep going and to improve my sake brewing. We headed back to the brewery for food and more sake, drinking and relaxing together as a big brewing family. Later that night, Uei approached me and said, “You have such passion, you are a true toji, and I wish you the best of luck in your brewing.”
I finished the week out working with the team, grabbing every bit of knowledge and hands-on process experience I could. Daimon-san had a few gifts for me, including some lab equipment to help fine tune some of our processes. I embraced both Marcus and Daimon-san, thanking them for welcoming me into their home, for allowing me to share in this passion of sake. I feel truly blessed to have been given this opportunity. It will be one I remember for a long, long time. The world of sake is full of wonderful people and places, moments and conversations, and I love being a part of such a historic and beautiful drink. Kanpai.
We are now open every Tuesday @ 5pm – 10pm, and to make it even sweeter we are doing dumplings and wontons for only a buck. Unlimited dumplings and wontons (except for your appetite) while supplies last. Tag your friends!!
Choose from: – Pork, Chicken, or Veggie Dumplings (pan fried or steamed) – Brisket & Kimchi Wontons – Lots of dipping sauces, including Ponzu and Sweet Chili
One dollar gets you one dumpling (or wonton) with a sauce. Eat as many as you like, but only while supplies last. And only while you dine in with us here at North American Sake Brewery.
If you haven’t been here, you can find us at the Ix Art Park:
“Happier cows make better meat” is just one of the motto-ish lines you’ll find on the website for Albemarle’s Sherwood Farms, where Prime 109 sources its dry-aged cuts. Here, a Kansas City strip steak gets a boost from roasted Meyer lemons and garlic. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
The restaurant business, like any industry, goes in cycles. Grow, contract, repeat. Here in Charlottesville, our last boom came in 2014, a year that brought Lampo, The Alley Light, Oakhart Social, Parallel 38, Public Fish & Oyster, MarieBette, Rock Salt, Red Pump Kitchen, and Al Carbon, among others.
Now, after a slight lull, the area’s restaurant scene is resurgent, with a burst of openings in the past 18 months. The 10 we feature here are all good, and a few are exceptional. But what stands out as much as their quality is their variety. A bicycle bar. A lavish steakhouse. Tibetan food. A sake brewery. A pie shop with tapas. Greek fast-casual. Mexican- and Spanish-inspired cuisine. Thai. Korean. Nearly every new entry has given Charlottesville something it lacked. While our area’s restaurant scene has long punched above its weight, the latest additions remind us that even in the best food communities, there’s always room to grow.
* What makes a new restaurant “hot?” In a word, popularity. Whether it cooks with gas or a wood-fired oven, a restaurant that draws a crowd soon after opening—particularly in a city with so many options for dining out—is hot. Please write to joe@c-ville.com with comments. We welcome, nay, encourage debate!
(Ed. note: Restaurants are presented in alphabetical order.)
Cava’s greens and grains bowl is a riot of colors, fresh flavors, and savory sauces. Photo: Max March
Cava
Before the chain Cava was born, its three founding owners ran just a single full-service Greek restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, Cava Mezze, which they launched in 2006. From there, the owners—all first-generation Greek-Americans—took the red-hot concept of fast casual and applied it to the food of their birthplace. The result is a rapidly growing chain that now has more than 70 locations. Guests line up at the counter, survey an array of greens, grains, Greek spreads, meats, and other toppings, and then point away to build their own bowl, salad, or pita wrap. At the Charlottesville outpost, there is little evidence that expansion has diluted quality. The owners’ passion for good eating and well-sourced ingredients is unmistakable.
Cuisine Greek fast casual
Owner’s pick Greens and grains bowl with rice, chicken, braised lamb shoulder, harissa, tzatziki, vegetables, and seasonal dressing ($9.87).
Most people would call Chimm a Thai restaurant, but other southeast Asian foods—Vietnamese and Indonesian, for instance—fill out the expansive menu. Photo: Tom McGovern
Chimm
The owners of the popular Thai Cuisine & Noodle House noticed a lack of Thai food south of town, and filled the void with their new restaurant in The Yard at 5th Street Station. In addition to the standard menu items of many Thai restaurants—pad thai, pad kee mao (also called drunken noodles), massaman curry—Chimm makes a point of featuring less common dishes, like Isan Style Som Tum (papaya salad made with fermented fish sauce) and Bah Mee Haeng (dry egg-noodle bowl). As diners become accustomed to the unusual dishes, Chimm plans to introduce more and more of them. Keep an eye out for occasional lunch banh mi specials, which require reservations and always sell out in advance.
Cuisine Thai
Chef’s pick Boat Noodle Soup ($12.50): rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, and bean sprouts in a dark, meaty housemade broth, with scallions, cilantro, fried garlic, and spicy chili sauce. In true Bangkok floating-market style, the broth made from marrow and saignant meat juice is slightly gelatinous.
Crowd favorite Khao Soi ($13.50): egg noodles with chicken in homemade curry paste, topped with wonton crisps and cilantro, served with pickled mustard greens, red onion, chili oil, and lime.
Vitals 5th Street Station, 365 Merchant Walk Square, 288-1120, chimmtaste.com
Chef Lobsang Gyaltsen presents a Tibetan favorite, jasha kam trak: crispy chicken with vegetables and spicy sauce. Photo: Levi Cheff
Druknya House
If you’ve never had Tibetan food before, Druknya House is a great place to start. Hearty starches like barley, noodles, and potatoes dominate the food of a region known for mountains and wintry weather. Though Tibet has a cuisine all its own, its closest cousins are the foods of Himalayan neighbors, such as Nepal and Northeast India, with flavors like ginger, garlic, and turmeric. Yet, because the spicing of Tibetan food is often restrained, it’s approachable for most diners. In the kitchen at Druknya House is Lobsang Gyaltsen, a monk who studied Buddhist philosophy for two decades before turning to cooking to pursue an interest in healthy eating. While his menu does include unusual foods like chilay khatsu (spicy braised cow’s tongue), much of what Gyaltsen makes is comforting and restorative, like soups, noodle bowls, and Tibet’s beloved momos (dumplings filled with beef, chicken, or vegetables).
Cuisine Tibetan
Chef’s pick Ten Thuk Soup ($11), traditional Eastern Tibetan style hand-pulled noodles simmered in beef broth over greens.
Crowd favorites Jasha Kam Trak ($13): crispy chicken with mixed peppers, celery, scallions, and chef’s spice blend; Tsampa ($4): grilled brown mushrooms in melted butter, dusted with roasted barley flour.
Little Star is all about artful presentation and ambiance. You’d smell smoke from the wood-fired oven if this photo were scratch-and-sniff. Photo: John Robinson
Little Star
In partnership with Oakhart Social, chef Ryan Collins has brightened the former service station on West Main where other attempted restaurants have gone dark. From high-top tables, guests can now whet their appetites by gazing into the hearth where much of the food is cooked. The menu borrows from Spain and Mexico, two countries whose cuisines Collins came to love during eight years working for celebrity chef José Andrés, including three as head chef of the Washington, D.C., Mexican restaurant Oyamel. With small plates and large family-style platters, Collins intends all of his food for sharing. New York City transplant Joel Cuellar, a veteran of the spirits and cocktail industry, ensures that the bar does justice to the quality of the kitchen.
Cuisine Hearth-cooked American, inspired by Mexico and Spain
Chef’s pick Sunny Side Eggs ($10): fried eggs with salsa negra, green onion, sesame seeds, grilled bread, and hickory syrup. “It’s fatty, sweet, smoky, spicy, herbal, and salty,” says Collins. “And, every menu needs eggs.”
Crowd favorite Pan tomate ($8): grilled Albemarle Baking Company pan Estrella bread with grated tomato, extra virgin olive oil, and sea salt.
Vitals 420 W. Main St., 252-2502, littlestarrestaurant.com
At Mangione’s on Main, specials like tender braised lamb shank with polenta and a splash of greens join a menu of Italian-American favorites, served family style. Photo: Levi Cheff
Mangione’s on Main
Tread lightly when remaking a former restaurant beloved by regulars. That’s what first-time restaurant owners Bert Crinks and Elaina Mangione have been doing since moving from northern Virginia to Charlottesville and buying the Italian-American restaurant Bella’s. Aside from a new name, changes have come gradually. The wood floors have been refinished and the walls freshly painted, but most of Bella’s menu of family-style Italian-American dishes remains the same, now joined by weekly specials from chef Mick Markley (formerly of Mas and Lynchburg’s Emerald Stone Grille).
Cuisine Italian-American
Chef’s pick Rosa di parma ($24): butterflied pork loin, stuffed with prosciutto, sage, and mozzarella, then slow roasted with potatoes and vegetables with pan sauce.
Crowd favorite Rigatoni al Forno ($23): Italian sausage and rigatoni tossed in ragu bolognese made with ground veal, beef, and pork, then topped with mozzarella cheese and baked.
Vitals 707 W. Main St., 327-4833, mangionesonmain.com
Maru deepens the culinary diversity on the Downtown Mall, with Korean delicacies like crispy fried squid. Photo: Tom McGovern
Maru
This is not your old-school mom-and-pop place. In the former home of Eppie’s restaurant on the Downtown Mall, industry veterans Steven Kim and his wife, Kay, have created an airy, contemporary Korean restaurant with an open kitchen and exposed brick walls. The menu also is modern, combining traditional Korean dishes like bibimbap and kimchi jeon with modern flourishes, like the use of melted cheese, a fairly recent phenomenon in Korea. There’s even a (delicious) bulgogi steak and cheese.
Cuisine Korean
Chef’s pick Bulgogi Plate ($17): thinly sliced beef in a sweet soy marinade, grilled with onion and served with rice, lettuce wrap, homemade ssam sauce, and daily banchan.
Crowd favorite Dolsot Bibimbap ($12): rice served with a medley of vegetables, topped with a sunny-side-up egg, spicy gochujang sauce, and choice of beef, pork, chicken, or tofu.
Vitals 412 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 956-4110
North American Sake Brewery’s Tekka Poke Don features diced yellowfin tuna and salmon marinated in sweet soy sauce, plus a mélange of ginger, scallion, sesame seed, radish, cucumber, and flying-fish roe, served over sticky rice. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
North American Sake Brewery
Food was not the first thing on the minds of owners Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante when they prepared to open Virginia’s first sake brewery last year. But when Culinary Institute of America alum Peter Robertson, of famed local food truck Côte-Rôtie, came on board as chef, he proposed creating a menu of Japanese-style small plates designed to pair with sake. The food does much more than complement the wine—it uses sake as an ingredient, too, along with brewing byproducts like koji, a mold prized by chefs for its ability to transform flavor. Though Robertson has moved on, he leaves behind a menu he helped to create and a kitchen run by his former cook Don Van Remoortere, a certified BBQ judge who marries American smoking techniques with Japanese flavors.
Cuisine Japanese-American
Chef’s pick Diamond Joe Brisket Platter ($16): Slow smoked prime beef brisket rubbed with ground espresso beans, Szechuan pepper, and sea salt, served with a side of soy “jus.” “The power move,” says Remoortere, “is to order it with two steamed bao buns with a side of housemade spicy sambal and a heap of kimchi to make a pair of towering brisket sammies.”
Crowd favorite That Chick Teri rice bowl ($14). Roasted teriyaki chicken with bell pepper, onions, carrots, garlic, sesame seeds, aioli, and crispy fried onions.
Vitals 522 Second St. SE, 767-8105, pourmeone.com
The Rivanna Trail sandwich: a baguette piled high with green-pea kofta, cucumber-radish salad, pickled carrots, and green harissa and feta-yogurt sauces. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
Peloton Station
Who knew that Curtis Shaver’s three passions would go together so well? The Hamiltons’ chef emerged from the kitchen last year to help turn a classic-car sales and service shop into a tavern celebrating a few of his favorite things: beer, bicycles, and sandwiches. Part pub, part sports bar, part bicycle shop, Peloton Station showcases the type of over-the-top sandwiches that earned Shaver a following at Hamiltons’ “sandwich lab.” Draught beers and wines are well chosen, and there are plenty of TVs to entertain you while you eat, drink, and wait for your bicycle to complete its tune-up.
Cuisine Sandwiches, pub grub, unconventional brunch fare
Owner’s picks Big Mike ($12): grilled mortadella, salami, capicolla, provolone, mozzarella, and cherry pepper olive salad on a pressed baguette; The Peg ($11): smoked house pastrami, gruyere cheese, pickled cabbage, and comeback sauce, on toasted multigrain rye.
Crowd favorite O-Hill Burger ($13): burger with muenster cheese, fried mushrooms, black pepper bacon, onion marmalade.
Vitals 114 10th St. NW, 284-7785, peletonstation.com
Prime 109 brings yet another fine-dining experience to the Downtown Mall. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith
Prime 109
No recent opening made a bigger splash than the Lampo team’s steakhouse in the former Bank of America building on the Downtown Mall. In a stunning room with soaring ceilings, the featured product is one rarely seen: local, heritage beef, dry-aged 60 days or more. Beyond the steaks à la carte, there’s a separate menu of cheffy salads, pastas, and entrées from a talented kitchen staff led by Ian Redshaw, a James Beard Award semifinalist in the 2019 Rising Star Chef of the Year category. While Prime 109’s steak prices range from roughly $25 to $85, pastas and other entrées—also excellently prepared—are less expensive, and an ever-changing bar menu offers inspired sandwiches and snacks Monday through Wednesday. Along with well-chosen wines, there’s a serious bar program for cocktail enthusiasts.
Cuisine Steakhouse-plus
Chef’s pick Prime 109 Burger ($14): 70/30 blend of dry-aged to fresh beef (ribeye and tenderloin), American cheese, pickles, onion, primal sauce, on a sesame seed bun.
Vitals 300 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 422-5094, prime109steakhouse.com
Former Mas tapas chef Tomas Rahal stirs things up with his new venture, Quality Pie. Photo: John Robinson
Quality Pie
When the local institution Spudnuts closed in 2016, its prime location at the gateway between Belmont and downtown instantly became one of the more coveted restaurant spots in town. The prize went to former Mas tapas chef Tomas Rahal, who converted the timeworn space into a bright, colorful pie shop. While the pies are stellar, the restaurant offers a whole lot more, with a menu that changes throughout the day. For breakfast, there are egg sandwiches, tarts, and papas bravas; at lunch, soups, salads, and creative sandwiches like a grilled octopus banh mi on charcoal bread; and, in late afternoon and early evening, wine, sherry, and tapas, like boquerones and bacon-wrapped dates. Plus, regardless of the hour, you can drop in for Rahal’s excellent breads, pastries, and other baked goods.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA – With the growing demand for sake in the United States, American craft brewers are also getting in on the act — and giving Japan’s “drink of the gods” their own twist.
North American Sake Brewery in Charlottesville, Virginia, is the latest in a wave of craft sake producers in the U.S., the world’s largest sake consumer outside Japan.
“Japanese sake brewers are targeting the United States as the place for the most growth. I think that says a lot about where we’re heading,” says North American Sake Brewery co-founder Jeremy Goldstein.
According to Japanese government data, in 2017 the value of Japan’s sake exports expanded about 20 percent from just a year earlier to reach a record ¥18.68 billion (about $170 million). Of the total, shipments to the United States came to ¥6.04 billion (about $54 million).
“In the U.S., what drives the future of the sake business is not just the traditional but the experimental,” says Goldstein. “Look at the craft beer industry and how they play with different flavor profiles and infusions. This is where we are going. This is how we grow.”
Including the Charlottesville operation, there are 21 sake breweries in the United States, up from an estimated five in 2000, according to Timothy Sullivan, a New York-based sake expert.
The growing popularity of sake — and the increasing number of breweries — in the U.S. reflects the rise of Japanese food culture in the country, say American sake experts.
Passion project: The North American Sake Brewery uses U.S.-grown rice for its hand-crafted kōji (malted rice used to make sake). | JOHN ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
“Over the past five years I have seen an increase in demand for many Japanese ingredients — fish, meat, produce and seasonings — from everyone from Michelin-star chefs to your local neighborhood spot,” says Jessica Joly, a New York-based sake sommelier.
“With all this hype comes a demand for a Japanese beverage as well, which is sake,” continues Joly, who was named “Miss Sake USA” in 2016 by the Miss Sake Association in Japan for her role in promoting the beverage in the United States.
“Sake continues to grow in sales each year and most likely will continue to rise in the years ahead,” she says.
Forgoing his career as a film writer, Goldstein started a sake venture three years ago in Charlottesville — the first of its kind in Virginia — with his business partner and chief brewer Andrew Centofante.
Goldstein says he became a sake “fanatic” after tasting “good craft sake for the first time” at a high-end restaurant in Los Angeles, his hometown.
Bottles of North American Sake Brewery’s Big Baby and Real Magic sake. | JOHN ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
As Centofante began brewing sake at home on a trial basis, he and Goldstein visited U.S. craft sake breweries such as Blue Current Brewery in Maine, Brooklyn Kura in New York, SakeOne in Oregon, Ben’s Tune Up in North Carolina and Proper Sake Co. in Tennessee.
“We visited sake breweries in the U.S., asked them questions, brewed with them and learned a little bit about how it’s made,” says Centofante, a Virginia native who left his marketing career behind for the new venture.
Using California-grown Calrose and Arkansas-grown Yamada Nishiki rice, the Charlottesville brewery’s current annual production capacity is 43.2 kiloliters — or 54,000 750-milliliter bottles.
This year, it aims to sell 50,000 bottles of six varieties of sake, such as its Real Magic junmaishu (sake made without additional distilled alcohol) or Spicy Vacay, its more playful, less traditional, sake that’s inflused with mango, lime and jalapeno.
Experts have lauded the emergence of American breweries, such as North American Sake Brewery and Brooklyn Kura, that supply locally made sake to U.S. consumers.
“They are not trying to create a replica of Japanese sake,” Joly says. “They are taking inspiration and techniques, but creating their own brand.
Doing it the American way: Sake brewed fresh in Charlottesville. | JOHN ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
“What makes American sake unique is that many sake brewers come from craft beer brewing, which definitely adds to the unique styles of American craft sake,” she continues. “You might see some sake with added flavoring or simply dry hops added, which you would never see in Japan.”
While the number of American sake breweries is expected to increase, partly due to the interest among more craft beer brewers in making sake, experts believe the Japanese sake industry does not view American players as its rivals in the U.S. market, but as entities with which it can coexist.
“So far, the Japanese industry, including the government, is quite supportive of sake brewing overseas,” says John Gauntner, a Japan-based sake expert known as “the Sake Guy” and “the Sake Evangelist.”
“I think that this is because they know that it will help the awareness of sake to grow,” he says. “It will also help sake made in Japan to become more appreciated and sell better.”
Sharing Gauntner’s view, Joly says that, unlike past generations of sake brewers, the younger generation of sake brewers in Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere are much more adventurous and curious about taking a different approach to the drink.
“This is just the beginning,” she says. “I’m excited to see what the next five to 10 years will look like.”
For more information about North American Sake Brewery, visit pourmeone.com.
In IX Art Park, a self-consciously hip enclave in Charlottesville with a weekend farmer’s market and more wall art than a New York subway, young couples stream into a sunny, knotted-wood taproom to taste Virginia barbecue and sample flights of inventive craft brews.
An hour after the brewery doors opened, you’d struggle to find a seat. Tables filled up with spicy poke bowls, kimchi-topped pastrami sandwiches and six-deep sampler flights of hazy or fruity house brews.
Photograph by Adam Ewing Above, a traditional nigori.
If this scene took place at popular Three Notch’d Brewing Co. next door, it’d be about as surprising as pecan pie. But this place isn’t making beer. Instead, the packed 6-month-old taproom at the North American Sake Brewery is serving a distinctively Virginian take on something made in only a handful of places in America and nowhere else in this state: Japanese-style sake, a thousand-year-old tradition of rice “wine” that’s brewed a little bit like beer.
North American Sake, which opened in October, is the latest example of the Japanese culinary boom in America. But while sake is growing, it’s still unfamiliar to most American diners and drinkers.
Sake can be every bit as refined and as varied as European wine or as funky as Belgian beer, deeply savory with wild notes of banana or flowers or so clean and crisp that it might as well be a winter breeze. But most sake drinkers here have been exposed only to the cheap bottles at discount sushi spots, where it’s often served hot to mask flavors – the equivalent of learning about American whiskey by drinking Old Crow.
We boarded the sake party bus to Charlottesville with food lover and photographer George Culver, and drank fine and fruity sake while the founders of North American Sake, Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante, laid down the ABCs of Virginia sake.
The story of Virginia sake began in a basement – OK, fine, it started in Los Angeles. That’s where Goldstein, then a filmmaker in Richmond, got his first experience with amazing sake. Four years ago he went to a special tasting held by a sommelier, and was floored by what he found.
“I grew up in California, where sushi and sake is everywhere. But I hadn’t had good sake. It was just a thing you drank with friends – hot, or in a sake bomb,” Goldstein says. “But I tasted for the first time cold, fresh, craft sake. I questioned why I’d never had it before.”
When he got back to Virginia, he brought a few choice bottles for Centofante, a home brewer. “Andrew and I had a great night, drank some really good sake, and he says, ‘I’d like to learn how to brew it.’ ”
Centofante set up a makeshift brewing lab in his basement. The first 5-gallon batch of homemade sake became two, then three, then 50. The men started sourcing their rice not from the supermarket but from specialty suppliers, and tapped into a loose network of Americans trying to re-create the Japanese tradition in America.
The partnership at first was simple. Centofante made the sake and Goldstein drank it. But soon Centofante was making so much that the pair started holding parties to have friends try it. This culminated in a massive tasting, with 50 bottles and almost as many friends.
“It was all gone in hours,” Centofante says. “They went through the party hunting down wounded soldiers, shaking the bottles to see if they still had sake in them.” Their friends also gave them a standing ovation. At that point, the pair realized they were probably on to something.
Photograph by Adam Ewing A selection from North American Sake’s lineup.
So, sake isn’t wine. But it isn’t quite beer either.
All fermentation involves yeast. That’s what turns the sugar in wine grapes or malted barley into delicious, delicious alcohol. But sake involves an extra step, and an extra-special fungus called koji – named the “national fungus” of Japan by its brewers association – that breaks down the starches in rice and turns them into sugar. Koji is also the stuff behind the deep, savory flavors in soy sauce and miso soup.
Before he makes each batch of sake, Centofante spends two days carefully spreading out and gathering a bed of steamed rice in his koji muro, a carefully controlled room in each sake brewery devoted to growing koji. When he balls the rice together, it gets warmer. And when he spreads it out, it releases the heat.
Photograph by Adam Ewing In the koji muro room, above, Centofante works rice in a zenlike practice of aerating it.
“When you do koji, it’s kind of a Zen thing,” he says. “You spread it out in rows like a meditation garden. But there’s also a purpose for those patterns: It makes for more surface area open to the air.”
Each batch of sake takes 30 days, and involves multiple layers of steamed rice and koji. In the fermentation tanks visible from North American Sake Brewery’s taproom, the koji makes sugar but also creates boomingly savory flavors like the ones in miso. And then the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol, along with adding fruity notes like banana or melon.
“It all happens in parallel,” Centofante says. “It’s a beautiful process.” Rice is religion in Japan – and with sake, it’s no different. The loftiest sake creations, called junmai daiginjo, involve milling down each rice grain for days until only the pure starch core remains: just 50 percent of each grain. The higher the polish on the rice, the more pure and fruity the flavors.
As for the really cheap sake served hot at your local shopping-mall sushi spot? Well, they might not mill it down much at all, and that can mean a lot more impurities and funny flavors: hot and boozy alcohol notes, or a rough and bitter bite.
“Higher-polish sakes are works of art, they’re amazing, but they’re expensive, and a lot of people may be intimidated by that,” Centofante says. “It’s kind of like the beer world: You’ve got your Bud Light, and these really high-end craft beers.”
Photograph by Adam Ewing North American Sake’s Tekka Poke Don – Diced yellowfin tuna and salmon poke marinated in sweet soy, mirin, ginger, scallion, tuxedo sesame seeds with seaweed salad, radish, cucumbers, and tobiko, served on a bed of sushi rice.
But anything milled down to below 70 percent of the grain – like all of North American Sake’s current brews – is considered premium sake. And because North American’s sake rice comes from growers in Arkansas and California, it also has a distinctly American flavor.
Centofante can talkgenshu (undiluted sake) and nama(unpasteurized sake) with the best of them. But you won’t find a lot of the technical sake jargon at North American. The brewpub mixes old-school Japanese craft with American-style experimentalism and approachability – in a taproom whose food menu is an equal mix of American and Asian flavors. Brunch includes deeply comforting Szechuan-spiced biscuits, while lunch might involve salmon and short rib barbecue made by an old-school pit master, deepened with the same koji used to make the sake.
Among the sakes on offer at North American, you’ll find an equal mix of traditional and American wild-style. Their Big Baby sake – so called because it’s the youngest sake of the bunch, but still really alcoholic – is a traditional unfiltered nigori sake. So it’s sweet and hazily snow-white with rice and yeast. It’s like the juicy New England-style IPA of sakes, with the same friendly softness and satisfying mouthfeel.
Photograph by Adam Ewing North American Sake’s Miso Hummus plate, with rice crackers, radish, edamame, cucumber, scallions, togarashi and olive oil.
Their other flagship sake, Real Magic, is the same batch of sake after it’s been given a little time to settle, and the difference is startling: The big and fruity banana and melon flavors come out to play. Another traditional- style sake, Quiet Giant, is fermented an extra five days so the sake becomes both more dry and more alcoholic: a whopping 18.5 percent alcohol by volume.
But Centofante is also experimenting with adding fruit flavors. Though Japanese brewers often add plum to their sake, the flavors at North American aren’t any you’ll find in Japan. One is a spicy jalapeno-mango, while another tastes like fruit punch. The best so far, called Sweet Agony, mixes lemon puree and an infusion of fresh mint leaves.
“We’ve had a lot of native Japanese come visit,” Goldstein says. “It really bends their minds. I think it opens their perspective, not that they would ever do it. When they taste our traditional sakes – the flagships, the nigoris and junmais – they see the respect, and the craftsmanship. So when they move into the flavors, they know that it’s coming from a good place.”
As for Centofante, he feels like he’s just scratching the surface of what he wants to do with sake: He’s considering using beer yeasts, wine yeasts and different kinds of koji, and is trading ideas with a small network of American sake brewers from Boston to Texas to California. But he says he has at least one heartening sign that he’s on the right track.
“A guy came in who was training to be a sake sommelier – the son of native Japanese. And they left with a case. You can tell me it’s great. But if you buy a case, that tells you something.”
Photograph by Adam EwingCentofante and Goldstein develop offshoots like a spicy jalapeno-mango sake. Yet they say they experiment with a rigor that respects tradition, their work received well by Japanese.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – North American Sake Brewery (NAS) is distributing bottled sake throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. North American Sake Brewery, launched in September 2018, is Virginia’s first and only producer of sake, the alcohol made from rice. The brand, co-owned by Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante, operates a tasting room and brewery in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“This is an exciting time for us,” said Goldstein, the brand’s founder. “We’ve had such a tremendous response to the sake in our own tasting room and brewery, so to be able to go out and take our drink to the rest of Virginia is a real dream for us.”
While NAS makes a multitude of craft sakes in-house for their tasting room and restaurant, they will start by distributing two traditional styles: a bright, bold and unfiltered sake called “Big Baby,” and a smooth, crisp and filtered sake called “Real Magic.”
“These two labels are the heart of what we do,” said Centofante, NAS’s head brewer. “Nearly everything we make is represented in these two sakes, and I know people across Virginia will fall in love withBig Baby and Real Magic just like we have.”
Although it is brewed more like beer, sake is designated as a wine in the Commonwealth, and NAS is using the Virginia Winery Distribution Company (VWDC), a non-profit, non-stock corporation set up by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to provide wholesale distribution services for Virginia wineries.
Several Virginia restaurants and retailers are already carrying NAS sakes, including Common House, Wine Warehouse and The Virginia Shop in Charlottesville, as well as Planet Wine, Fern Street Gourmet and the Department of Beer and Wine in Alexandria.
About North American Sake Brewery
North American Sake Brewery (NAS) is Virginia’s first and only sake producer and one of a handful of sake breweries in the United States. Offering a variety of filtered and unfiltered sake brews all made in its Charlottesville headquarters, NAS serves tasting flights, full pours and bottles to go, as well as a full menu from the onsite Asian Smokehouse. For more information, visit NAS at pourmeone.com, and follow on Instagram (@NorthAmericanSake) and Facebook at Facebook.com/NorthAmericanSake.
Undoubtedly, the question I receive the most about my business is some form of “How in the heck did you get into sake?” It’s a fair question. For the past 15 or so years, I’ve been in the Entertainment Industry, developing TV shows and writing & producing feature films. My business partner has a background in marketing, branding, and website building. He only moonlighted as a homebrewer. But there’s an old adage that rings true in this instance as it has in other times in my life, and that is, You can’t help who (or what!) you fall in love with.
I grew up in Southern California where you can find a decent hole-in-the-wall sushi joint every few blocks. When I was old enough to drink (or when they believed I was old enough), I would try their hot sake but didn’t think too much of the stuff. It was warm and the beer was cold, and the combo of the two made for an interesting time. It wasn’t bad, exactly; it was alcohol, after all. It just wasn’t very good.
It wasn’t until well into my 30s when I had already moved my home across country to Virginia and I was called back to Los Angeles for business when I first tasted great sake. We had just completed financing for an important film project, and a group of us decided to celebrate at a fancy sushi restaurant. I like to chat people up when I go out. If you’re a complete stranger sitting next to me at dinner, chances are we’ll become well acquainted by the end of the meal. This night, the table next to us had an assortment of small glasses of clear liquid and a smartly dressed Japanese woman guiding them through each taste. It looked like fun, and I asked them about it. The Japanese woman was a brand ambassador for one of the sake companies the restaurant carried, and she informed us that she was also a Sake Sommelier. I knew that “sommelier” was a title earned by experts in the wine field, but I had never heard it applied to sake. I was intrigued and so were my colleagues. The friendly people next to us invited us to join them, and we obliged, pushing our tables together.
By the end of that night, an entire world that had never existed before had opened up for me. Sake wasn’t this crude lukewarm beverage. It was best when fresh and served cold, and there were as many varieties as you might find in wine or craft beer. Most importantly, it was delicious! Why hadn’t I been exposed to this stuff before? Why was sake only served in sushi restaurants? I drink pretty much anything put in front of me – wine, beer, whiskey, and so on. Why wouldn’t sake make the rotation?
So many questions swirled around in my head, and they didn’t stop for several weeks. When I returned to my home in Charlottesville, I called my friend Andrew, who I enjoyed hanging out with and imbibing the good stuff from time to time. We talked about sake. I shared my recent experience, and he shared similar experiences during his travels to Japan. We found some pricey bottles of sake, chilled them, and drank through the night, exploring the variety and complex flavors. We started doing this often, seeking out new brands and styles, and began to learn more and more about this ancient and elusive drink. We couldn’t get enough and the further we started to dig, the more we wanted to imbibe.
“I wonder how you make this stuff,” Andrew mused aloud one night, and it was that seven word sentence that sent us on our multi-year journey of homebrewing trials and errors, tastings and parties, and ultimately to building the North American Sake Brewery.
A filmmaker and a web developer – a Jew and an Italian – an unlikely duo filled with gratitude and reverence for the ancient traditions of Japan, the people who have helped guide us to today, and the bright future that lay ahead.
Andrew and I were invited by the Embassy of Japan to attend a private sake tasting at The Smithsonian in D.C. That sentence is pretty surreal to me, its was quite the surprise to be invited to one of the most treasured and prestigious institutions in all of the world for a film on sake and a night of sake tasting.
Our brewery was recently featured in a number of newspapers throughout our region, as well as parts of Asia. Someone at the Embassy must have caught wind, found our website, and sent us an Evite to the event. It was, in fact, as most things have been from our Japanese friends and colleagues, quite thoughtful and generous of them.
We arrived early so we could meet our friend, Bernie Baskin, who lives in D.C. and is helping to form the Sake Brewers Association of North America (SBANA). He was also invited to the event, and the three of us mingled with some of the early invitees. We learned that we’d first watch a documentary called Kampai: For the Love of Sake, which features three men living in Japan whose lives are deeply entrenched in the sake world. They are John Gauntner, known as the “Sake Evangelist” and a teacher of ours when we became Certified as Sake Professionals; Philip Harper, the only non-Japanese toji (head brewer) in a Japanese-based sake brewery; and Kosuke Kuji, an effervescent personality and fifth generation toji at Nanbu Bijin Sake Brewery. Kuji was in the building for the event.
The screening was packed, so packed that we learned 30 to 40 people had to be turned away. After the film, Kuji hopped on stage and gave an enthusiastic speech about his love for sake. It’s hard to not be inspired by his vibe. He is a force of personality in the best possible way. Then, we all convened to the Freer Gallery of Art hallways where nibbles were served and several stations of kimono-wearing servers poured cold, craft sake to the parched throng. It was hard not to feel a mix of excitement for how many people were at the event, but also a bit like a sardine for how many people were at the event. Nonetheless, if you stuck your hand out far enough towards a filling station it would return to you with either snacks or sake. We did this
Members of the Embassy made their rounds and were incredibly pleased we made the trip. The Ambassador wasn’t present, but many of the key members of his staff greeted us. It was as warm a welcome as one could have enjoyed. We exchanged business cards and pleasantries and made plans to visit one another. Maybe we would even work together soon?
We had to leave the event early due to the long drive home and there was a slight tinge of sadness coupled with that intoxicating buzz of having made new friends. On the drive, we talked about the future of our business and what exciting prospects lay ahead.
We got home well after midnight and only had a brief night’s sleep because there were things to do early in the brewery. The next morning was a bit of a blur. Andrew turned some Zeppelin up loud and got to work. A few hours into the day – maybe about 10 a.m. – I noticed a young Japanese couple had walked into the tasting room. They looked lost, and I asked if I could help them. The smiling woman approached and said, “We’re from the Embassy.”
They had been sent to purchase bottles of our sake to bring back to the Embassy of Japan. It floored me this continuation of friendship, this incredibly kind gesture. We tried to give them a case of sake for free, but they wouldn’t accept it. We found some middle ground, and I walked them to their car. I noticed it had Diplomatic license plates, and I thought that was cool. These two young people delivering a case of North American Sake Brewery sake back to their bosses. Maybe they’ll drink it at a party. Maybe the Ambassador will be there. Maybe they’ll even think it’s pretty good.
With growing demand for sake in the United States, evidenced by a near doubling of Japan’s sake exports to the country over the past decade, American craft brewers are also getting in on the act — and giving Japan’s “drink of the gods” their own twist.
North American Sake Brewery in Charlottesville, Virginia, is the latest in a wave of craft sake producers in the United States, the world’s largest consumer of this rice-based alcohol outside Japan.
Since its launch last August, the brewery has mainly catered to Charlottesville residents but will soon be able to distribute its products to about 40 U.S. states including California, New York and Texas, said co-founder Jeremy Goldstein.
“Japanese sake brewers are targeting the United States as the place for the most growth. I think that says a lot about where we’re heading,” Goldstein said in an interview.
According to Japanese government data, the value of Japan’s sake exports expanded 20 percent in 2017 from a year earlier to a record 18.68 billion yen (about $170 million). Of the total, shipments to the United States — the biggest market — came to 6.04 billion yen, up 1.7 times from the 2007 level.
“And in the U.S., what drives the future of the sake business is not just the traditional but the experimental,” said Goldstein. “Look at the craft beer industry and how they play with different flavor profiles and infusions. This is where we are going. This is how we grow.”
Including the Charlottesville operation, there are 21 sake breweries in the United States, up from an estimated five in 2000, according to Timothy Sullivan, a New York-based sake expert who is the founder of UrbanSake.com, a sake information and review site.
The growing popularity of sake — and the increasing number of breweries — in the United States reflects the rise of Japanese food culture in the country, say American sake experts.
(Jeremy Goldstein (R) and Andrew Centofante, co-founders of North American Sake Brewery)
“Over the past five years I have seen an increase in demand for many Japanese ingredients — fish, meat, produce and Japanese seasonings — from everyone from Michelin star chefs to your local neighborhood spot,” said Jessica Joly, a New York-based sake sommelier.
“With all this hype comes a demand for a Japanese beverage as well, which is sake,” said Joly, who was named “Miss Sake USA” in 2016 by the Miss Sake Association in Japan for her role in promoting Japan’s fermented rice beverage in the United States.
“Sake continues to grow in sales each year and most likely will continue to rise in the years ahead,” she said.
Forgoing his career as a film writer, Goldstein started a sake venture four years ago in Charlottesville — the first of its kind in Virginia — with his business partner and chief brewer Andrew Centofante.
Goldstein said he became a sake “fanatic” after tasting “good craft sake for the first time” at a high-end restaurant in Los Angeles, his hometown.
As Centofante began brewing sake at home on a trial basis, he and Goldstein visited U.S. craft sake breweries such as Blue Current Brewery in Maine, Brooklyn Kura in New York, SakeOne in Oregon, Ben’s Tune Up in North Carolina and Proper Sake Co. in Tennessee.
“We visited sake breweries in the U.S., asked them questions, brewed with them and learned a little bit about how it’s made,” said Centofante, a Virginia native who left his marketing career behind for the new venture.
Using California-grown Calrose and Arkansas-grown Yamada Nishiki rice, the Charlottesville brewery’s current annual production capacity is 43.2 kiloliters — or 54,000 750-milliliter bottles. This year, it aims to sell 50,000 bottles of six varieties of sake.
Experts have heralded the emergence of American breweries such as North American Sake Brewery and Brooklyn Kura that supply locally-made sake to U.S. consumers.
“They are not trying to create a replica of Japanese sake,” Joly said. “They are taking inspiration and techniques, but creating their own brand of sake.”
“What makes American sake unique is that many sake brewers come from craft beer brewing, which definitely adds to the unique styles of American craft sake,” she said. “You might see some sake with added flavoring or simply dry hops added, which you would never see in Japan.”
While the number of American sake breweries is expected to increase, partly due to the interest among more craft beer brewers in making sake, experts believe the Japanese sake industry does not view American players as rivals in the U.S. market but as entities with which they can coexist.
“So far, the Japanese industry, including the government, is quite supportive of sake brewing overseas,” said John Gauntner, a Japan-based sake expert known as “the Sake Guy” and “the Sake Evangelist.”
“I think that this is because they know that it will help the awareness of sake to grow,” he said. “It will also help sake made in Japan to become more appreciated and sell better.”
Sharing Gauntner’s view, Joly said that unlike past generations of sake brewers, the younger generation of sake brewers in Japan, the United States and elsewhere are much more adventurous and curious about taking a different approach to sake.
“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I’m excited to see what the next five to 10 years will look like.”
Room temperature, in a shot glass, at a sushi bar. That’s the way most Americans have experienced sake, a Japanese alcohol made from fermented rice. But the owners of the North American Sake Brewery, which opened in Charlottesville this year, want to change that. “When you have really good, cold, craft sake, it’s just eye opening,” says Jeremy Goldstein, the brewery’s co-founder.
Goldstein and his business partner, Andrew Centofante, have nerd-level know-how about the beverage. That’s necessary, because a big part of their role in opening one of the few craft sake breweries in the country is explaining what the heck it is. “Some people think it’s a spirit or wine or beer, but it’s its own thing,” says Centofante.
Like wine, sake has a high alcohol percentage—11 to 18 percent—but it’s brewed more like beer. The process begins by milling, or “polishing,” the rice to remove proteins and fats that could impact flavor. The extra-starchy grains are fermented in a tank with yeast and water. Other ingredients, such as the umami-infusing koji, are added over 30-plus days until a mushy porridge remains. (The koji, a mold curated onsite in a wood-lined sauna behind the bar, is also used on an extensive menu at the brewery, coating lamb ribs and mushrooms.)
The liquid filtered off that porridge concoction is the brewery’s Big Baby sake, still cloudy with remnants of sugar and starch. The clear Real Magic has those extras filtered out and is the basis for infused offerings like the fruit-punch Socky, the lemon-and-mint Sweet Agony, or the mango-jalapeno Spicy Vacay.
And the owners have only begun to experiment. The goal, says Goldstein, is to give Virginians another alcoholic option while creating a few fanatics in the process. Ultimately, he says, “We want people to fall in love with it like we did.” PourMeOne.com
Virginia pioneered much of North America’s wine and beer industry, and now, thanks to the unique craftmanship of Andrew Centofante and Jeremy Goldstein, the Commonwealth is a national leader in Japanese sake. Charlottesville’s North American Sake Brewery is the first of its kind in Virginia and joins only a modicum of others throughout the country.
As is the case for many businesses in the craft beverage industry, North American Sake Brewery began over an evening of indulgent sake consumption and dream building. Goldstein was first introduced to sake a few years ago while celebrating his birthday in Los Angeles. Once he returned to the East Coast, he shared his newfound love for the drink with Centofante and the two became quickly enthralled with the art of sake brewing.
“I started making it in my basement, just brewing batch after batch after batch so I could learn more about its history, its ingredients and the culture behind it,” says Centofante. A few taste tests on friends lead to North American’s two flagship sakes—Big Baby and Real Magic—as well as a permanent brewing space in Charlottesville’s IX Art Park.
Photos by John Robinson Photography
One challenge the team faced while experimenting with sake was finding the perfect rice to brew with. Centofante explains that like apples or hops, there is a myriad of rice variations that allow for different flavor profiles in sake. He and Goldstein ultimately settled for white, short grain rice from California and Arkansas that Centofante believes interacts best with sake’s other key component—koji.
Like yeast, koji is a fungus propagated in rice that converts the rice’s starch into sugar. The sugars derived from the rice and koji are then turned into alcohol which can be brewed with an array of herbs, fruits and hops to create any number of sakes running the gamut of sweet and savory to fruity and dry. One of North American Sake’s current releases, Sweet Agony, leans more to the sweet side with tastes of lemon and mint.
The brewery’s flagship sakes, however, showcase two of the beverage’s most common presentations. Centofante and Goldstein describe Big Baby as their cloudy, or unfiltered, flagship. The libation is brewed in traditional Japanese fashion and therefore contains rice particles and remnants of other active ingredients that were not entirely sifted out of the batch. Real Magic, on the other hand, is the brewery’s clear, or filtered, sake. While Real Magic is prepared using a more Americanized method, its smooth texture and hints of melon, strawberry and vanilla are reminiscent of a Japanese junmai grade sake.
Like Big Baby and Real Magic, Goldstein explains that not all sake is made equal. “A lot of people think sake is one hot drink you get in a Japanese restaurant, but the reality is, [sake] is more like beer which you can experiment with [and enjoy] in all types of styles and grades,” says Goldstein.
Other sakes available in the Charlottesville tasting room are Socky, a fruit punch-infused sake, Spicy Vacay with mango, lime leaf and jalapeno and a soon to come sweet sake fermented with the native Virginia pawpaw fruit.
In addition to their rotating taps, North American Sake Brewery features a full-scale restaurant run by Chef Peter Robertson. Originally from New York, Robertson relocated to Central Virginia where he founded one of the region’s most highly acclaimed food trucks, Cotie Rotie. Robertson now runs the brewery’s kitchen and works hand-in-hand with Centofante and Goldstein to create authentic Japanese cuisine with sake at its heart.
The North American Sake team whips up savory bar snacks loaded with nori and furikake to colorful rice bowls and boa sandwiches stuffed with tender meat cured in the brewery’s outdoor smoker. Like sake, much of Japanese cuisine is prepared with koji, including the brewery’s miso soup and koji-crusted lamb ribs embellished with koji sauce, scallions and sesame.
“Most breweries get a food truck or serve your standard burger and fries. We’ve really put in the effort to make sure our whole experience is unique and focused around sake, including the food,” says Goldstein.
While North American Sake is not yet available outside of the tasting room, the brewery does offer to-go bottles.
“Sake is a lot of fun and it’s really delicious,” says Centofante. “I think it’s worth people trying something different and opening their [minds] to what sake might be.”
“It’s a little bit of education and a lot of bit of fun,” adds Goldstein.
North American Sake Brewery is located at 522 2nd St. SE, Charlottesville and is open Tuesday through Friday from 4–11 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m.–11 p.m.
Nearly fifty Executive MBA students from Latin America visited Charlottesville and D.C. for an international partner program with Darden’s Center for Global Initiatives. The students, from PAD School of Management in Lima, Peru and INALDE Business School in Bogotá, Colombia, spent the week learning about entrepreneurship and innovation from a general management perspective through cases and classes led by the faculty team of Raul Chao, Tom Steenburgh, Bobby Parmar and Elena Loutskina. Visits to cultural sites and companies in Charlottesville and in D.C. supplemented the academic content of the week.
While in Charlottesville, the group learned about innovation in history by touring Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and about entrepreneurship in local markets during a visit to North American Sake Brewery. The brewery, which opened in August, is one of the nation’s first sake breweries and is the only sake brewery in Virginia. The program ended on Friday with the day spent in Washington, D.C. Students had time to visit the National Mall in between visits to the Embassy of Peru and 1776, a startup network of incubators in the U.S. northeast. At 1776 DC, the group heard from a panel of entrepreneurs who founded 2Gether International, a nonprofit network for entrepreneurs with disabilities; HelpFirst, a cause-based social commerce platform; and Base Operations, a real-time security and crisis management dashboard for international travel.
See pictures from the visits below!
Monday concluded with a tour of Thomas Jefferson’s MonticelloNorth American Sake Brewery gave the group a tour of their brewing facilityThe Embassy of Peru hosted the group for a visit at the D.C. embassyD.C.’s 1776 Incubator hosted the students in their coworking space where the group heard from a panel of entrepreneurs
For North American Sake Brewery co-owner Jeremy Goldstein, it wasn’t a trip to Japan but a visit back home to California that inspired his new venture.
“I’d never had ‘craft’ sake, but I went to this amazing restaurant with a sake sommelier and had a whole different experience than I’d had before with the heated stuff, or sake bombs,” he says. “It was like drinking a really nice craft beer or craft cocktail.”
The experience lingered in his mind, and once back in Charlottesville he mentioned it to his friend Andrew Centofante, who’d dabbled in brewing.
The two sought out some good bottles of sake, and Centofante says it was love at first sip. “One night, maybe I drank a couple too many and I looked at the glass and I looked at Jeremy and said, ‘how do you make this stuff?’”
Centofante researched some home-brew recipes and started cooking it up in his basement. He gave the first batch to friends, who enjoyed it, then brewed another, and another. “I had two batches going at once, then three and then five,” Centofante recalls. “It was then Jeremy and I decided this was a cool thing we liked doing and could be a unique opportunity for a business.”
The men then visited every U.S. sake brewery they could find, 14 in total. “There are so few of us, it’s kind of a niche crowd,” Centofante says. “It’s nice to be able to talk to others about the brewing process and learn from them.”
Goldstein says they were thrilled to find a space at IX, and business has been booming, with over a thousand patrons coming through during the recent Tomtoberfest event. Luckily they had plenty of sake on hand.
“We go through about 6,000 pounds of rice every month,” Goldstein says. “We’re one of the larger independent sake brewers in North America and we have a lot of different types, including the traditional unfiltered, or cloudy, nigori style, and infusions with fruit and peppers.” There’s even a new, hyper-local variation made with pawpaw foraged from the Monticello trail.
To compliment the drinks, the pair have brought in chef Peter Robertson, who with his wife, Merrill, owns the popular Côte-Rôtie food truck (which Merrill is now operating on her own). Goldstein says Robertson has long had a passion for Japanese cuisine.
“He’s bringing a little Southern style and American style to his cuisine, just like what we’re doing with the sake,” he says. “We have a 330-gallon smoker, so we do Asian smokehouse and our own pastramis and pork. He makes fresh bao buns daily, and we do rice bowls.”
Centofante, who worked in branding before opening the restaurant, has enjoyed applying those skills to the business as well. “Not only do I get to be very hands-on and physical in making sake, but I get to make my own brand and guide my own brand,” he says. “I get to flex different muscles in my brain.”
He wants to help customers discover a new side of sake, the same way he did: “Let me open your eyes to this wonderful beverage that is historic and culturally significant,” he says. “And hopefully you’ll fall in love like I did.”
In Charlottesville, it seems the only thing trendier than the tech startup scene is the craft-brew startup scene.
Film writer Jeremy Goldstein and his pal, Andrew Centofante, have given up their careers to go all-in on a truly unique concept for this area: craft-brewed sake.
When it opens sometime in mid-July, North American Sake Brewery will be the first sake brewery in the commonwealth, and one of only a dozen or so throughout the United States. (Update: it opened Aug. 29.)
Although they’re still in the process of building the tasting room and restaurant at Ix Art Park, the brewing operation is in full swing, and the two were nice enough to show me around and talk about what ignited their passion for the ancient Asian alcoholic rice ferment.
Both men are as excited as schoolchildren about the complexity of the drink — so much so, they often talked over one another when describing the brewing process and possible taste profiles.
Goldstein is forgoing his career as a film and television writer and producer, while Centofante is leaving behind his marketing career. Centofante designed the movie poster for Goldstein’s last film, “Hot Air,” which he made with Charlottesville’s Derek Sieg (co-founder of Common House).
Goldstein became a sake “fanatic” after he was introduced to “several” unique ones by a sake sommelier of sorts at a higher-end restaurant in Los Angeles. When he got back to Charlottesville, he couldn’t stop talking about sake, and he mentioned it to Centofante, who was intrigued.
“I became obsessed with trying to understand it and figure out how you make this amazing drink from rice — it’s kind of incredible,” Centofante said. “There aren’t a lot of resources like there are with the vibrant home brewing community for beer, so it took me on a journey that I couldn’t stop.”
The two started doing free, private tasting parties for their home brews, trying out filtration levels, fruitiness, hoppy and peppery flavors and more.
While we spoke, I noticed what looked a bit like a steaming corpse in one corner of the brew floor. A mound on a large gurney-type of table was covered with a dark green tarp. At a set time, the men pulled back the tarp, and a moist sheet beneath it, to reveal a field of steamed rice.
They each spooned a bit of the hot grains into their palms and worked it into a springy ball to make sure it had reached the right consistency.
They then wheeled the rice gurney off the steamer contraption and into the koji muro — the cedar-lined room where koji mold is applied to the rice. The rice gurney is held in the koji muro for two days.
Koji, whose scientific name is aspergillus oryzae, will help break the rice starches into sugars that can be fermented by yeast and turned into alcohol over the course of a month or so.
The result is a “smooth, light and refreshing” drink — which can be either cold or hot — with 11 percent to 18 percent alcohol by volume, about the same range as wines. If that doesn’t sound like the sake you’ve had at a sushi house, that’s because American sushi houses tend to carry just two or three sakes, Goldstein said. “It’s where beer was in the 1970s — there was Bud, Bud Light or Coors,” he said.
“We’re trying to pull it closer to what you see with the craft beer industry, with interesting flavor profiles, fun names and illustrations, new partners, new styles,” Centofante said.
The restaurant side of the business will feature Asian-American fusion food dreamed up by Peter Robertson, who currently runs the food truck Côte-Rôtie with his wife. The outdoor patio will feature a large cherry blossom tree.
The sake men hope they are not committing harakiri by sacrificing their careers and life savings to start the business (along with undisclosed capital from local investors).
“I liked my life,” Goldstein said. “You don’t do this to pose — this is not for the weak-stomached among us.”
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) — Virginia’s first producer of sake is coming to the IX Art Park in downtown Charlottesville this summer. The North American Sake Brewery will be one only about a dozen in the country.
Co-owners Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante have fallen in love with the taste of and crafting of sake and want to share their passion with the public now.
They’ve traveled all over the country and globe before considering opening the North American Sake Brewery in downtown Charlottesville.
Sake can tend to be an afterthought in the alcohol industry in America, and Goldstein and Centofante are both making it their goal to change that view.
“I think that that’s what we hope to do is introduce people to it as something that you can have any time, anywhere,” said Centofante.
He says it’s a beverage that can be enjoyed cold and warm. It can be refreshing in the summer while also warming you up in the winter.
The brewery will also have a restaurant attached that will be serving Asian-inspired dishes for lunch and dinner while also having the sake on tap.
