Guide · Sake and koji

Kanazawa sake brewery and fermentation: Ono soy sauce, miso and koji

A Kanazawa sake brewery is only the start: the city runs on fermentation, from mellow Ono soy sauce to koji-rich miso and turnip pickled with yellowtail. Here is where to taste it all.

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Editorial team, kanazawafoodtour.comUpdated October 25, 2026Reading time about 6 minutes35 sources

This guide's tour Kanazawa Historic Brewery: Fermentation Tour, Tasting, Lunch 5.0 (33 reviews) 2.5 hours from$96per person Check availabilityFree cancellation up to 24 hrs before

Quick answer

01Sake history: Brewed in Kanazawa for 400 years.¹
02Old breweries: Fukumitsuya from 1625, Yachiya from 1628.² ³
03Soy sauce town: Ono, one of Japan's five major areas.⁴
04Book a visit: A koji tour with lunch in Ono, from $96.
05Taste on a walk: Our food walk ends with a sake tasting.

Why fermentation runs through Kanazawa

Visiting a Kanazawa sake brewery is the obvious way in, but the tourism association puts fermentation at the heart of the city's whole food culture.⁵ Soy sauce, miso and sake are made all over Japan; what makes Kanazawa different is how many of its signature foods depend on them, and how close to the center you can see them made.

The climate helps. The tourism association says the city's cold, humid winters create an ideal environment for slow, flavorful fermentation.⁶ Add rice from the Kaga Plain and water from the Hakusan Mountains, and you have what brewers and soy sauce makers need.⁷

History did the rest. Kitamae ships traded between Hokkaido and Osaka from the Edo period into the Meiji era, with Kanazawa as a key port on the route, and the tourism association says the kelp they brought transformed the city's cooking.⁸ ⁹ Kombu dashi, seasoned with local soy sauce, became the base of jibuni and Kanazawa oden.

The koji tour

A fermentation visit in Ono

12:00

Koji explained

What koji is and how fermentation works.
12:30

Koji Park tour

A guided walk around the Koji Park grounds.
Hands on

Make miso soup

With two misos aged 6 to 12 months.
Tasting

Two doburoku

A cloudy fermented rice drink, tasted side by side.
13:15

Fermented lunch

A course made with koji and fermented foods.

Kanazawa sake: rice, river water and old breweries

Sake has been made in Kanazawa for 400 years, from rice grown on the Kaga Plain and water drawn from the Saigawa and Asanogawa rivers in the cold winter.¹ The tourism association counts four brewing companies in the city, all in business for more than 100 years, and notes that sake holds about 15% alcohol.¹⁰

Kanazawa's brewers include very old names. Fukumitsuya was established in 1625 and offers guided tours and tastings, and Yachiya, founded in 1628, once supplied sake only to the feudal lords and runs daily tours by reservation.² ³ Book ahead and check the language of the tour before you go. A brewery visit in the cold months, when brewing is under way, shows you more than a quiet summer day, and the shop counters are where you taste and buy.

Look beyond the city limits too. Brands such as Kikuhime, Tedorigawa and Kagatobi are highly regarded in Japan and abroad.¹¹ Hakusan, named after Hakusan City in Ishikawa, became a geographical indication for sake on 22 December 2005, a protected name you will see on some Ishikawa labels.¹²

Kanazawa's fermented foods

What ferments in Kanazawa, & where to taste it

Food	What it is	Where to taste
Ono soy sauce	Mellow, slightly sweet	Ono, Yamato Koji Park
Kaga miso	Rich in rice malt	Miso soup, the koji tour
Sake	Kaga rice & river water	Breweries, sake shops
Kabura-zushi	Yellowtail in turnip & koji	Shijimaya-Honpo, winter
Pickled fugu roe	Roe aged in rice bran	With sake, small portions
Doburoku	Cloudy rice drink	The koji tour

From MAFF, the tourism association and the koji tour's GetYourGuide listing.¹³ ¹⁴ ¹ ¹⁵ ¹⁶

Three ways to taste

A koji tour, a market walk or a sake bar

With lunch

Koji and miso tour

Yamato in Ono

Length: 2.5 hours
Group: Up to 8
Price: from $96

See this one

Kanazawa Food Tour: Omicho Market & Geisha District

Pay as you go

Our food walk

Ends with a sake tasting

Length: 2.5 hours
Sake: Ishikawa brands
Price: from $45

See this one

Evening

Night foodie tour

Kappo, oden, sake bar

Length: 3.5 hours
Ages: Over 20
Price: from $140

See this one

Decision helper

How deep into fermentation?

Choose by time, thirst and curiosity

I want to see how it is made I just want a sake tasting I want an evening of sake I do not drink alcohol I want a brewery tour

The koji tour in Ono

Koji Park tour, miso soup making and a fermented lunch.

Our food walk

It includes a sake tasting stop with Ishikawa brands.

The night foodie tour

It ends at a sake bar with three to five sakes.

Our food walk

Non-alcoholic options are offered at the tasting.

Fukumitsuya or Yachiya

Both offer tours; Yachiya asks for a reservation.² ³

Ono soy sauce is an umakuchi soy sauce essential to Kaga cuisine. It is known for its moderate sweetness and mellowness.

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and FisheriesSource 13

Tasting sake on our food walk

The easiest tasting is built into the walk this site recommends. After the market, its listing names a local sake shop in the Higashi Chaya District where you taste well-known Ishikawa brands such as Tengumai, Kagatobi and Fukumasamune. Non-alcoholic options are available for anyone who prefers not to drink.

Remember how the walk is priced: food and drink costs are not included, and the tasting, like everything else on the route, is paid at the shop. The walk itself lasts 2.5 hours and starts from $45, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

If sake is your main interest, an evening tour goes deeper. The Kanazawa Night Foodie Tour ends at a sake bar with a tasting of three to five kinds, matcha and Japanese sweets, after a kappo restaurant and an oden counter. It is for guests over 20 and runs 3.5 hours.

Map

Where Kanazawa eats: the market, the chaya lanes and the port

Central Kanazawa from the station to Omicho Market, the teahouse districts by the Asano River and the Katamachi bars, then the soy sauce town of Ono by the port.

Map of central Kanazawa with Kanazawa Station, the M'ZA meeting point, Omicho Market, the Asanogawa Ohashi police box, the Kazuemachi and Higashi Chaya districts, Korinbo and Katamachi — Central Kanazawa

Map of the Ono district by Kanazawa Port with Yamato Koji Park and the Naogen soy sauce brewery — Ono port

1
Kanazawa Station
About 2 hours 30 minutes from Tokyo Station on the Hokuriku Shinkansen; Omicho Market is a 15 to 20 minute walk or a short bus ride away.¹⁷ ¹⁸
In Google Maps ↗
2
Starbucks at M'ZA
The food walk's meeting point: wait outside and the guide comes to greet you.
In Google Maps ↗
3
Omicho Market
More than 170 stores at 50 Kamiomicho, open 9:00-16:00 by the tourism association's count.¹⁹ ²⁰
In Google Maps ↗
4
Asanogawa Ohashi police box
Where the guide of the evening izakaya walk waits for the group.
In Google Maps ↗
5
Kazuemachi Chaya District
A 15-minute stop on one tasting walk between the market and Higashi Chaya.
In Google Maps ↗
6
Higashi Chaya District
The food walk ends here; after 5:00 p.m. many cafes and shops close and gas lamps light the lanes.²¹
In Google Maps ↗
7
Korinbo
The evening foodie walk starts outside a store in the Korinbo Ramoda building.
In Google Maps ↗
8
Katamachi
The area is packed with bars and small restaurants.²²
In Google Maps ↗
9
Yamato Koji Park
A fermentation park in Ono where visitors tour a koji cellar and taste miso and soy sauce.²³
In Google Maps ↗
10
Naogen soy sauce
A soy sauce maker in Ono, where over 60 breweries worked at the peak.²⁴
In Google Maps ↗

Open the map in Google Maps

Checklist

Before a fermentation day

Plan

The koji tour closes Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Bus line 61 from Nakabashi to Ono
Book brewery tours ahead

Know

Some sake tours are for adults only
Ask for non-alcoholic options
Tell hosts about allergies early

Cost calculator

Price a tasting day for your group

Enter your group size to compare the options.

Koji and miso tour2.5 hoursfrom $96 Our food walk2.5 hoursfrom $45 Night foodie tour3.5 hoursfrom $140

People 2

Total from$191

from, per person $96

Check availabilityfree cancellation

Totals: the cheapest GetYourGuide price of each listing, multiplied by your head count and converted with the ECB's euro reference rate for today; only checkout is binding.

Video

A Kanazawa sake brewery between old and new

The player loads on your tap, not before.

Ono, the soy sauce town by the port

The Ono district of Kanazawa is known as one of Japan's five major soy sauce producing areas.⁴ The Ministry of Agriculture calls Ono soy sauce an umakuchi soy sauce essential to Kaga cuisine, moderately sweet and mellow, and slightly lighter in color than other dark soy sauces.¹³ Taste it with sashimi and you will notice the difference at once.

Its story starts in the Genna period, between 1615 and 1624, when a townsman of Ono studied soy sauce making on the orders of the third Kaga lord, Maeda Toshitsune.²⁵ At its peak the district had more than 60 soy sauce makers and was counted with Noda, Choshi, Tatsuno and Shodoshima among the five great soy sauce regions.²⁶

The method is slow. Koji malt is made in a koji room over about 43 hours, then salt is added and the mixture rests for about six months to ferment and mature.²⁷ The Ono and Kanaiwa districts are about 15 minutes by car from Kanazawa Station, and soy sauce makers there, among them Yamato Soy Sauce & Miso and Naogen, can be toured to see the traditional methods.²⁸ ²⁹

Inside Yamato Koji Park: a fermentation tour with lunch

The tour this page recommends takes place at Yamato Soy Sauce & Miso, founded in 1911 in Ono, at its Koji Park about 15 minutes by car from Kanazawa Station. The tourism association describes Yamato Koji Park as a fermentation theme park where visitors tour a koji cellar and taste miso and soy sauce.²³

The listing sets out the program. From 12:00 to 12:30 an introduction explains koji and fermentation; from 12:30 to 13:15 you tour Koji Park, make your own miso soup with two misos aged 6 to 12 months and taste two kinds of doburoku, a cloudy fermented rice drink; then comes a lunch course made with koji and fermented ingredients. The miso and soy sauce factory interiors are not entered.

Groups are limited to 8 participants, with a guide in English and Japanese, and the tour lasts 2.5 hours from $96. It has 33 reviews and a 4.98 rating. Note the closing days: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and the New Year holidays.

Miso, koji and pickles to taste in town

Back in the center, fermentation is easy to find. Kaga miso uses an especially high amount of rice malt, which makes it thick and rich, and in the Edo period it was produced as a preserved food for the samurai army.¹⁴ Takagi Koji Shop in the Higashi Chaya District is the city's only specialized koji store.³⁰

Kabura-zushi is the dish that shows koji at work: a fillet of yellowtail wrapped in pickled turnip and marinated in koji rice malt, the same malt used for sake.¹⁵ Shijimaya-Honpo, founded in 1875, runs a winter workshop where you make your own, in November and from January to March.³¹

For the adventurous, pufferfish roe is pickled in rice bran for over two years in Kanazawa, which makes the normally poisonous roe safe to eat.¹⁶ It is strong and salty; try a tiny amount with sake. Ask for a taste before you buy a whole pack.

Beer, gin and wine, and getting to Ono

Kanazawa's brewers do not stop at sake. Oriental Brewing, founded in 2016, makes beers with local ingredients such as Yuwaku yuzu, Kaga bocha tea and Noto salt.³² Alembic Distillery is the city's first craft gin distillery, with its first release in 2022.³³ The tourism association adds that Kanazawa has begun producing wine as well.³⁴

To reach the Koji Park by bus, walk 3 minutes from the West Exit of Kanazawa Station to the Nakabashi stop, take Hokutetsu bus line 61 to the last stop, Ono, in about 30 minutes, and walk 3 to 8 minutes from there. Line 34 brings you back to Nakabashi. Check the timetable before you set out.

Combine the trip with lunch by the sea. The Kanazawa Port Iki-iki Uoichi fish market at Ono Port has six stores run mainly by fishermen, selling fresh fish, dried fish and seafood bowls.³⁵ A morning at the market, the fermentation tour at noon and an afternoon walk through the old soy sauce streets make a full day.

Hungry yet?