Japanese Sake Festival Washu Fes at Osaka Bay Tower

Washu Fes is a tasting festival for washu, which means drink made in Japan: sake above all, but also shochu, umeshu, liqueurs, cider, mead and beer. Breweries come from around the country and pour for whoever holds a pass. This is the fifteenth time it has been held at Osaka Bay Tower, in the atrium on the second floor, next to Bentencho station.

Each day runs as two sessions of two hours and ten minutes, from 12:00 and from 15:00, and the desk opens twenty minutes before each of them. A pass admits to one session.

Thirty-one breweries take part, between them bringing more than 160 different drinks. The pass covers all of them, and there is no limit on what may be tried within the session.

They come from as far apart as Aomori and Kumamoto, and most bring sake. Others bring what sits around it: shochu from Kagoshima, mead from a brewery in Kyoto, cider from Nagano, craft beer from Nara, and a maker of craft sake, which is brewed by the methods of sake but outside its legal definition.

Each edition is given a theme, and this one is built on the drinks of deep autumn and on what to keep for the new year. Two kinds are singled out. Hiyaoroshi, also called akiagari, is sake brewed in winter, matured over the summer and released in autumn, when it is held to be at its best. Kanzake is sake served warm, which suits the season and changes what a drink tastes of.

At the tasting counter the same drink can be compared cold, warmed, and cut with soda.

Drinks tasted at the festival can be bought there to take home, and the sales counter takes cards rather than cash. Food is sold to eat alongside, and there is a stage in use on both days.

Nobody under twenty is admitted, and for safety the organisers ask that children and strollers are not brought in either.

Tickets:

Tickets are available here (Japanese).

Special tickets, including an exclusive sake cup (ochoko) and a Japanese sake guidebook, are available here (English).