Akabu Shuzo

Leading the Sake industry in Japan out of Iwate Prefecture is Akabu’s 6th Generation, the young and talented Master Brewer, Ryunosuke Furudate. Guided by their passion, Furudate and his team harness every bit of their soul to evolve sake production as we know it. Established in 1896, the original brewery was devasted by the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 and suffered complete destruction. It was in 2013 that the new brewery was built in Morioka City, and in 2014 the current era of Akabu was born. Despite the youth of this new generation, within their first few years, Akabu was awarded the Gold Prize in the Annual Japan Sake Awards 2016, followed by the distinction as the #1 ranked sake producer in all of Iwate.

The original Akabu Shuzo was built in Otsuchi Town in 1986, but during the Tohoku Earthquake of 2011– the one that destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi reactor– it was completely leveled. The new, 6th generation president Furudate Ryunosuke, working with his father Furudate Shuho, oversaw a total rebuild and rebranding: a new brewery in fashionable Morioka City (2013) and a young, enthusiastic, co-ed team with NO prior brewing experience. The brewery’s main brand, Hama Musume, had come to be associated with the disaster. So a new AKABU brand was born of toji Ryunosuke’s desire to create something refreshing and modern that he and his staff would want to drink themselves. AKABU became the flagship brand of the “Morioka Revival Brewery.” But after a strenuous two years brewing solo day and night, Ryunosuke found himself burnt to exhaustion with no energy to fine-tune the brews and avoid careless errors. Realizing this wasn’t the path forward for a brewery embracing modernity, Akabu Shuzo implemented a non-traditional work schedule. The six brewer team works regular hours 5 days a week, year round, and aside from the things that absolutely must be done by hand, the brewing work is partially mechanized to foster an environment anyone could work in. The result? Awards and global recognition: Akabu is one of the most sought-after brands in Japan.