Puku Puku (ぷくぷく) is a really interesting Sake brewer that runs itself as a phantom brewer - that is, it has no Sake brewing facilities of its own! It operates out of rented breweries where it produces craft sake, which has also been a really exciting theme in the world of Sakes as of late. 

Whilst Sakes have been brewed for centuries, with many breweries being multi-generational (into the double digits), it's resurgence in popularity the past decade has seen more aspiring brewers looking to try their hand at producing their own Sakes. And yet, it's been more difficult than ever to obtain a Sake brewing license if you don't already belong to a known Sake brewing family. This has prompted a new generation of Sake brewers to get creative by producing Sake with the deliberate aim of falling outside of Sake classifications - whilst this might mean that they can't technically call their beverages Sake, they are able to nevertheless produce their own alcoholic beverages.

Restoring Fukushima's farmlands through Sake.

One such example is that of hopped Sake, which sees the use of hop flowers (more popularly used in craft beers) added to the craft Sake, producing a floral bitterness that is beloved by craft beer fans. Whilst this might seem entirely novel, it is actually a technique used in the past before refrigeration to fortify Sakes and delay spoilage, much in the way hops were also used for beers having to be shipped across long distances. To that end, these new brewers have demonstrated that the lack of classification is really no impediment so long as they are able to deliver tasty drinks and are able to communicate their value creatively using social media and word of mouth. For many of them, their hope too is to bring back forgotten styles of Sake and help reconnect the youth with the rice-based beverage.

Tetsuyuki Tachikawa.

And that's what Puku Puku has been doing - established in 2022 by Tetsuyuki Tachikawa, the first brewer and co-founder of another rather popular craft sake brewer, haccoba, Puku Puku's aim is to bring back farmland on the coast of Fukushima through Sake. By creating a demand for local rice, farmers would then be incentivised to bring back farmland to cultivate rice used for Sake brewing. Fukushima has been an area that has seen lots of grassroots support with many Japanese locals hoping to set up businesses in the Prefecture so as to rejuvenate and revitalise the area ever since it has been reopen to the public after the nuclear situation that took place some time back - a mission that is shared too by haccoba.

Thus far these craft Sake breweries have done a pretty stellar job in attracting folks to visit the Prefecture and have also done much to reinvigorate the local economy. Puku Puku hopes that by the summer of 2024, they would be able to fully set up their own brewery in the Prefecture and thus be able to produce at greater scale and specifications.

Local Tohoku hops - bringing Sake back to its roots!

Going back to Puku Puku, its founder Tachikawa had studied Life and Environmental Sciences in university, and it was during his time as a student that he fell in love with traditional Tohoku Sakes. This led him to organise a Tohuku Sake Festival, and after having worked for several years, he decided to fully pursue Sake-making, and thus apprenticed in the Miyagi Prefecture for three years, before helping to co-found haccoba. He's made Puku Puku's core Sake-brewing focused on the application of dry-hopping to Sakes, where he uses a method known as hanamoto (花酛) to involve wild yeast, along with local Tohoku hops known as karakasa (唐花草).

Today down over at the Sake Matsuri held in Singapore (an amazing festival if you're out to try a whole lot of Sakes!), we're really lucky to try some very highly sought after craft sakes from Omunomu, led by the incredibly passionate and knowledgeable Alex!

We'll be trying Puku Puku's This Is It IPA Dry Hopped Craft Sake, which is the phantom brewery's flagship and is supposed to be reminiscent of a Hazy IPA! Let's go!

Puku Puku Brewing ‘This Is It’ IPA Dry Hopped Craft Sake | ぷくぷく醸造のホップサケ THIS IS IT - Review

Tasting Notes

Aroma: It really is giving Hazy IPA - loads of pineapples, mangoes, some soursops even. The hops comes through fairly gentle, with also a soft rustic barnyard quality that feels raw, giving all those natural feels that makes it feel so fresh. It's really creamy, even on the nose. Quite spectacular, really. Such a surprise!

Taste: A wave of robust sweet and sour-ish notes. There's a strong bit of yuzu rind that's balanced against sweet fleshy soursop. It's sour, salty and hoppy all at once, with the hops taking on a more floral and fruity quality than bitterness.

Finish: More of that hoppiness into the finish, and interestingly it's really malty here too, almost coming off like an ale. Long trailing hoppiness with again a soft rustic quality of brie rinds, again evoking that freshness.

My Thoughts

This was such a delightful surprise! I honestly can't believe this is Sake, even by craft Sake standards, this was giving such robust flavours, and in particular flavours that I have never experienced in Sakes before. At the same time it's not just sloshing you with a whole bunch of flavours haphazardly - here it's nuanced and complex if you pay attention to it. And even if you aren't focusing squarely on it, it's just ridiculously tasty with all these fruits, striking a great balance between citrusy acidity and sweet tropical fleshy fruits, along with that absolute rustic purity that feels so fresh and raw.

Such an amazing palette of flavours that I could never have anticipated, such great flavour intensity, complexity and balance. Wow!