Brooklyn Kura Is Leading the American Sake Revolution

Earlier this year, nine sake neophytes gathered around a table at Brooklyn Kura, a craft sake brewery, to learn the subtleties of rice-polishing ratios and koji fermentation. Afterward, the group toured the brewery, stopping to admire a refurbished, accordionlike Yabuta sake press and sip cloudy, frizzante glasses of moromi, or sake mash, still one week out from bottling.

“This is the birth of American sake culture,” says Timothy Sullivan, director of education at the Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura. “It’s an exciting time to be in the industry. We can create what American sake will become.”

Brandon Doughan and Brian Polen founded Brooklyn Kura in 2018 on the premise that they could produce world-class sake and tap into Americans’ budding sake curiosity. Although the category represents just 0.2% of U.S. alcohol sales, Japanese exports have doubled over the past decade, and there are now more than 20 American craft sake breweries.

With Doughan as head brewer, Brooklyn Kura quickly developed a following for their traditional, unpasteurized sakes — and caught the attention of Japanese peers.

Sake consumption in Japan has steadily declined since the 1970s, making the U.S. market essential to the industry’s survival. “In Japan, the cool kids are drinking IPAs and whiskey,” says Doughan. “When Japanese brewers see hipsters in Brooklyn making sake a thing and a whole scene popping up — one that looks like craft beer or Napa Valley in the 1970s — they’re super excited.” 

In 2021, that enthusiasm culminated in a strategic partnership with Hakkaisan Brewery in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. With that investment, Brooklyn Kura moved into a new 20,000-square-foot brewery, increased production from 5,000 to 25,000 cases a year, and began selling sake around the country. 

And they’re just getting started — Polen and Doughan want to see their earthy, herbal Omachi junmai served with takeout pizza and their floral Number Fourteen junmai ginjo sold at burger joints and high-end restaurants. To make that dream real, they’ve built a program for educating American drinkers. “We’ve been intentional about what we do and how we talk about sake, and about representing brands beyond our own,” says Polen. “Part of the joy of this business is being an advocate for craftspeople who have been making sake for generations.”

In addition to sake 101 courses and consumer pairing seminars, their Sake Studies Center offers a Sake Server Certification class, and Doughan will soon introduce workshops for home-brewing. “There are a ton of IPA nerds and Pinot Noir nerds, but if you become a sake nerd, there’s this huge rabbit hole for anyone who wants to dive into all the nuances,” says Doughan. “It’s so ready to be discovered.”