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富山県

Toyama

Rice paddies in Nyuzen. Flooded and newly planted fields stretch in neat plots in the foreground, with houses and trees in the middle and green hills and snow-streaked mountains under a blue sky behind
Rice paddies in Nyuzen Town. Beyond the flooded fields, snow-capped mountains stretch in a line.dconvertini ／ CC BY-SA 2.0 ／ Wikimedia Commons（resized to 1280 px on the long side）

Sake in Toyama

Toyama Prefecture lies in the north-central part of Honshu. It is surrounded on three sides, east, south and west, by steep mountains, and its plains spread out as if embracing Toyama Bay. The Toyama Sake Brewers Association has 20 members (as of April 1, 2026). Many of the prefecture's sake breweries were founded long ago, and most of them were founded between the Edo period and the Meiji period.

Water is what supports sake brewing here. Toyama Prefecture is blessed with water flowing down from mountains around 3,000 m high and with underground water (water that soaks into the ground and flows beneath it), and its quality ranges from hard water to soft water. The prefecture's sake breweries use this water for brewing. A total of 8 places in the prefecture have been chosen for the “100 Remarkable Waters of Japan” and the “100 Remarkable Waters of the Heisei Era” selected by the Ministry of the Environment, tied with Kumamoto Prefecture for the most in Japan. The spring water of the Kurobe River alluvial fan is one of them.

Among rice varieties suited to sake brewing (shuzo kotekimai), “Gohyakumangoku” accounts for about 70% of the prefecture's production (estimate for the 2024 crop). “Tomi no Kaori,” a shuzo kotekimai developed by the prefecture, was registered as a variety in 2010. The Toyama Sake Brewers Association promotes Toyama sake as “the best shokuchu-shu” (sake to drink with meals). From 2022 to 2024, there was also a project to store 16,008 bottles of sake from 14 companies in the prefecture inside the Kurobe Dam.

Brewery map

Toyama: 5 breweriesNanto: 3 breweriesTonami: 3 breweriesKurobe: 2 breweriesTakaoka: 1 breweriesOyabe: 1 breweriesHimi: 1 breweriesNamerikawa: 1 breweriesAsahi: 1 breweriesUozu: 1 breweriesNantoTonami1. 富美菊酒造 / 2. 桝田酒造店1–2

Close-up (Toyama)

1. 富美菊酒造12. 桝田酒造店2

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

  1. Fumigiku Shuzo 富美菊酒造Toyama
  2. Masuda Shuzoten 桝田酒造店Toyama

The 19 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

  • Fumigiku Shuzo 富美菊酒造Haneya 羽根屋ToyamaRead the article
  • Masuda Shuzoten 桝田酒造店Masuizumi 満寿泉Toyama