大分県

Oita

Stone walls remaining at the site of Yokoku Castle. Moss-covered walls rise in tiers along a wooded slope, with a hazy sky and sea in the distance — Stone walls remaining at the site of Yokoku Castle. Asaji-zake was once stored in the second enclosure (ninomaru) of this castle.shikabane taro ／ CC BY 3.0 ／ Wikimedia Commons（resized to 1280 px on the long side）

Sake in Oita

Oita Prefecture lies on the east coast of Kyushu, borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Kumamoto Prefecture to the west and Miyazaki Prefecture to the south, and faces the Bungo Channel to the east. The Oita Sake Brewers Association has 35 member companies, including both sake breweries and shochu distilleries (as of April 1, 2025). In the one year from July 2024 to June 2025, sake was made at 18 places in the prefecture.

Oita's sake culture is said to go back to “Bungo Nerinuki-zake,” which first appeared in 1468. It was made by putting glutinous rice, polished rice, koji (steamed rice on which koji mold has been grown) and shochu into the mash all at once, then, after 30 to 40 days, grinding it in a mortar and straining it through silk. “Asaji-zake,” which came after it, is a cloudy sake made by sealing steamed rice, rice koji and water, burying it in the ground and aging it until around the start of spring in the traditional calendar (立春) of the following year. In the Edo period, the domain whose castle was Yokoku Castle stored Asaji-zake in the castle's second enclosure and presented it to the shogunate.

Oita Prefecture has about 770 km of coastline and mountains around 1,700 m high, and a warm climate. Shochu making flourishes alongside sake, and in the Edo period “kasutori shochu” was made from the sake lees left after pressing sake. In 1972, a barley shochu made only from barley and barley koji was born. Oita Prefecture and the Oita Prefecture Sake Brewers Cooperative jointly developed “Toyonohoshi,” a barley variety suited to making shochu.

Brewery map

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

Nakano Shuzo 中野酒造Kitsuki

The 29 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

Nakano Shuzo 中野酒造Chiebijin 智恵美人 / Chiebijin ちえびじんKitsukiRead the article