Iinuma Honke ・ Sake Brewery Tours and Cafe Breaks Near Narita Airport

For most travelers arriving in Narita Airport, the only hint that the airport isn't actually in Tokyo is the long train ride into the city. But the Narita area of Chiba has some interesting destinations for visitors who care to take a look, and that includes the Iinuma Honke Brewery, in the little city of Shisui. The Iinuma family started brewing their sake 400 years ago, although the operation was smaller scale back then, and the brewery prospered throughout the Edo period (1603-1868) and beyond.

These days the brewery is a modern facility with old-fashioned traditions, and their sake is known throughout Japan. Some of the more recent changes for Iinuma Honke have been part of an effort to make the brewery a more interesting and accessible destination for tourists. Visitors can now enjoy a tour of the brewery, peeking into warehouses piled with sacks of rice waiting to be polished, and donning boots to traipse through the halls of fermenting sake.

When it comes to Japanese sake, the more the rice is polished down to just the core, the higher the quality will be for the finished product. Iinuma Honke uses their own special technology to process their rice, and fans of the brand will tell you all about the pure, unblemished flavor of the brewery's sake.

Curious visitors might also be able to check out Iinuma Honke's "Meiji Warehouse," so named for its construction date back in Japan's Meiji period (1868-1912). The space is mostly used as a venue for special events these days, but the former warehouse still holds a pair of enormous old-fashioned sake barrels, and visitors who get a chance to look inside can pose for some fun pictures.

In recent years, Iinuma Honke has turned one of the brewery's beautiful old-fashioned buildings into their very own brewery cafe, called Shisui Magariya. A stylish mix of old-fashioned architecture and modern sensibilities, the cafe offers food and snacks, some made with ingredients straight from the nearby brewery buildings, plus fresh coffee and drinks made with their own amazake (a sweet, non-alcoholic fermented rice drink).