愛知県

Aichi

The Yotsuya Senmaida rice terraces in Shinshiro. Between cedar forests, terraced paddies of yellow-green ripening rice step up a valley slope on stone walls, with green mountains behind — The Yotsuya Senmaida rice terraces in Shinshiro City. Fields of rice that has begun to ripen rise in tiers up the mountain slope.Bariston ／ CC BY-SA 4.0 ／ Wikimedia Commons（resized to 1280 px on the long side）

Sake in Aichi

Aichi Prefecture lies on the Pacific side of central Honshu, facing Ise Bay and Mikawa Bay to the south. The Aichi Sake Brewers Association has 37 member brewery owners that make sake (as of September 2026). Besides sake makers, the association also includes brewery owners that make mirin (a sweet seasoning made from rice) and shochu.

What supports Aichi sake is the underground water (water that soaks into the ground and flows beneath it) of clear rivers such as the “Kiso Sansen” (the three Kiso rivers): the Kiso, the Nagara and the Ibi, and the Yahagi River. In the Edo period, sake breweries gathered on both shores of the Chita Peninsula and along the coast of Nishimikawa (western Mikawa). Most of the sake made there was drunk in Edo (today's Tokyo). Many sake breweries still remain in these areas today.

In the Edo period, Tokugawa Mitsutomo, the second lord of the Owari Domain, invited toji (master brewers) from Nara, then a leading center of sake brewing, to give guidance. This led to major growth in the sake industry in the castle town of Nagoya and throughout the Owari Domain. In the Meiji period, an association of Chita sake brewers set up a brewing research station. As for rice, in 2010 the prefecture's Agricultural Research Center developed “Yumeginga,” a rice variety suited to sake brewing (shuzo kotekimai). It is a variety with “Yamada Nishiki” as its mother.

Brewery map

Breweries by municipality (dot size shows the number of breweries)Featured breweries

Banjo Jozo 萬乗醸造Nagoya

The 40 breweries on our list are grouped by the municipality where they are located. Each dot marks a representative point of the municipality, not the brewery itself (featured breweries are shown at their actual locations). Locations are based on the address search of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.

Featured breweries

Banjo Jozo 萬乗醸造Kamoshibito Kuheiji 醸し人九平次NagoyaRead the article