Ehime

Sake in Ehime

Ehime Prefecture lies in the northwest of Shikoku and faces two seas, the Seto Inland Sea and the 宇和海. The Ehime Sake Brewers Association has 35 members, 34 of which are sake breweries (as of October 2026). Most breweries in the prefecture are relatively small, making 180 kiloliters of sake or less a year.

Mountains and water support this sake. In the south of the prefecture rises Mt. Ishizuchi, 1,982 m high, and the Shikoku Mountains run from east to west. In winter, snow piles up on these mountains and cold winds blow through the mountain villages. Underground water wells up abundantly from the Shikoku Mountains. In Saijo City there are said to be about 3,000 “uchinuki,” wells from which underground water flows naturally, and in 1985 uchinuki was chosen by the Environment Agency (now the Ministry of the Environment) for the “100 Remarkable Waters of Japan.”

Rice and yeast have also been developed in the prefecture. Besides “Matsuyama Mii,” a rice grown in the prefecture that has been used for sake brewing, the prefecture's research body used Matsuyama Mii to develop “Shizuku-hime,” the prefecture's first rice variety suited to sake brewing (shuzo kotekimai). For yeast (the microorganism that carries out fermentation), the prefecture's own yeast “EK-1” was developed in 1998 with the cooperation of the prefecture's research body. Since October 2022, the Ehime Sake Brewers Association, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Ehime Prefecture have been working together on making sake with the prefecture's rice and water using “Ehime Sakura-hime yeast,” isolated from “Sakura-hime,” a flower developed by Ehime Prefecture. This effort involves 23 breweries in the prefecture (as of October 2026).

Brewery map

Featured breweries

• Ishizuchi Shuzo 石鎚酒造Ishizuchi 石鎚SaijoRead the article
• Minakuchi Shuzo 水口酒造仁喜多津 / Dogo Kurazake 道後蔵酒Matsuyama