The Art of Sake: Philip Harper’s Vision for Bringing Japan’s Timeless Tradition to the World
Kinoshita Brewery, founded in 1842 in Kumihama, Kyoto Prefecture, has been producing sake for over 180 years. Renowned for its rich and umami-packed Tamagawa sake, the brewery creates beverages that pair beautifully with a wide range of dishes. Since 2007, the master brewer has been Philip Harper, a Briton who is revolutionizing sake brewing with innovative methods. We had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Harper, who is attracting a new audience for Tamagawa through his creative brewing practices.
Philip Harper, Toji (Master Brewer) of Kinoshita BreweryPhilip, can you share your first experience with sake and what inspired you to pursue it?
I think the first ever time I tasted sake was the same day I tasted Japanese food: on the plane on the way to Japan in 1988. When I got here, I became friends with two Japanese guys because of a shared taste in music. We started going to sake tastings and brewery visits and rice planting and things like that, and the short version of the story is that we all gave up our jobs and became sake brewers.
Your bold approach to sake brewing has garnered a fresh following for Tamagawa. Please share the characteristics and value of sake in comparison to various types of alcohol around the world, along with suggestions or insights for developing new products at a historic sake brewery.
Sake is made with a really complex brewing system, recently registered as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. The resulting drink offers a huge variety of styles and flavours. In terms of taste, its signature characteristic is rich umami flavour. It is made from a grain (rice) like beer, but it is drunk more like wine. Yet sake’s great secret weapon that sets it apart from Western drinks is that it is enjoyed over such a huge temperature range: we have a summer product here which we suggest drinking on the rocks, and sake has famously always been enjoyed heated. Depending on style, it can be great chilled, at room temperature or hot. Some sakes work across the whole range of possible temperatures. Sake is also exceptionally flexible and exciting to match with all kinds of food.
The whole range of sake potential is so huge that I think it is easy to find a new approach. Any manufacturing industry has its trends and fashions, but I find there is a tendency for the sake industry to be rather too influenced by whatever looks successful at any given time. The sakes that speak to me tend to be those by breweries with a clear sense of house style, rather than those that are following fashions, however technically correct they may be.
It’s often said, "There’s alcohol to enjoy food, and food to enjoy alcohol.” I understand that many types of sake, including Tamagawa, exhibit surprisingly different characteristics with slight temperature changes, and you can savor the variations in flavor based on the food it is paired with. From the perspective of aperitif, main course, and dessert sake, what are some ways to enjoy sake? Additionally, could you share some tips on how to drink and appreciate sake for those overseas trying it for the first time?
You can find sake to go with any occasion. For us at Tamagawa, the shifts of aroma and flavour that come with time (as the sake ages) and changes in temperature are sake’s greatest pleasure. A lot of modern “ginjō” style sake is made from recently developed yeasts, and tends to be on the sweet side with pronounced fruit/floral aromatics. I like this kind of sake as an aperitif, and its makers expect it to be drunk cold and young. More classical styles work with a wider range of food and temperatures. Although a lot of sake (especially in fruity ginjō mode) is recommended to be consumed quickly, there are plenty of sakes which do fascinating things as they age, bringing on extra fun in terms of colour, aroma, flavour and food and serving temperature potential.
If you are new to sake, you should just try and drink a few things in contrasting styles and see what you like. My feeling is that it can be more effective to find breweries you like, rather than specific styles or categories of sake, as these can be unreliable guides to what you actually taste.
What is your brewing philosophy or motto? What principles guide your sake-making process?
We make sake in a very broad range of styles, but our basic approach is very simple. We make what tastes good to us in a variety of expressions, and we are not concerned so much with what is technically “correct”. We expect our sake to develop in interesting ways over time, and because it is so robust, it is actually better not to finish an open bottle quickly, as it softens up and gets better. Two key features of Tamagawa are the use of wild ambient yeast for about 40% of all we make (our “Spontaneous Fermentation” sakes), and proactive ageing. A lot of our sake is aged for three years and up (often without refrigeration) before shipping.
Ultimately, what does “sake” mean to you?
Sake was a drinkable tutorial on Japanese culture when I arrived here thirty years ago, and has kept me busy and delighted ever since.
