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静岡県

Shizuoka

A spring at Kakitagawa Park in Shimizu. Water wells up inside round stone-lined wells and overflows into a shallow stream in the shade
Kakitagawa Park in Shimizu Town. Rain and snow that fell on Mount Fuji well up here after many years underground.Qurren ／ CC BY-SA 3.0 ／ Wikimedia Commons（resized to 1280 px on the long side）

Sake in Shizuoka

Shizuoka Prefecture lies near the middle of Japan and stretches about 155 km from east to west. The Shizuoka Sake Brewers Association has 27 member companies (as of September 2026). In November 2023, “Shizuoka” was designated under the geographical indication (GI) system, which protects the names of sake-producing regions. Its condition is “a clean, rounded quality” with “a tanrei, gentle umami.” The aroma is built on a gentle note reminiscent of banana, and ginjo sake (sake made by polishing away the outer 40% or more of the rice grain and fermenting it slowly at low temperatures) adds fruity aromas like melon.

Water is what supports this taste. Water stored in Mount Fuji and the Southern Alps (the Akaishi Mountains) flows into rivers such as the Oi and the Abe, and eventually becomes underground water and spring water. On the whole, this is soft water, low in minerals. Among the people who make the sake are the Shida toji, a group of toji (master brewers) based on the Shida Plain, and their way of brewing, adapted to a climate that stays mild even in winter, is still passed down today.

What set the direction of the taste was yeast (the microorganism that carries out fermentation). In the Showa 50s (1975–1984), Denbe Kawamura of the prefecture's research station led the development of “Shizuoka yeast.” At the 1986 Zenkoku Shinshu Kanpyokai (National New Sake Competition), 10 of the 21 breweries that entered won a gold award, and Shizuoka came to be called a “ginjo kingdom.” As for rice, the prefecture developed Homarefuji as a rice variety suited to sake brewing (shuzo kotekimai), and it was registered as a variety in 2009.

Brewery map

Shizuoka: 7 breweriesFujieda: 4 breweriesFujinomiya: 4 breweriesKakegawa: 2 breweriesHamamatsu: 2 breweriesYaizu: 1 breweriesShimada: 1 breweriesFukuroi: 1 breweriesIwata: 1 breweriesNumazu: 1 breweriesGotenba: 1 breweriesIzu: 1 breweriesKikugawa: 1 breweriesShizuokaFujinomiya1. 磯自慢酒造1

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

  1. Isojiman Shuzo 磯自慢酒造Yaizu

The 27 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