Everyone at the brewery was thrilled to learn that their Daiginjo sake brewed with apple yeast utilizing the high-temperature starter mash saccharification method earned first prize in a 1948 nationwide awards ceremony. This was followed in 1949,and for the succeedingthree years,by the great honor of selection as the Imperial Household’s sake for service on the occasion of the New Year.

The following is a passage in which Hiroichi Akiyama, who held chairmanship of both the brewery association and the association for fermentation studies, reflects on that time. It is taken from Ginjo-shu o Tsukutta Otoko (The Men who Brewed Ginjo-shu) by Akiko Ikeda (edited by Hiroichi Akiyama).

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In 1948, after developing the high-temperature starter mash saccharification method, Kiyoma Nakao from Nakao Brewery in Takehara-shi, Hiroshima Prefecture,created ginjo-shu using apple yeast he collected during his studies under University of Tokyo Professor Kinichiro Sakaguchi. That year, Hiroichi Akiyama, who had just graduated from university, participated in the public portion of the brewing institute’s national competition for new sake varieties. In his first experience of sake tasting (kikizake), Akiyama tasted the Seikyo sake submitted by Nakao Brewery. He recalls that time, saying: “even now, I cannot forget how I felt at that moment. With its sweet aroma and rounded palate, it was so exceptional that no sake could rival it. In the three years that followed, Seikyo sake continued to offer its splendor, yielding its place to none.”
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