Learn Sake & Sommellerie of Sake in Nada (Kobe), Hyogo

Honest level: Beginner -> Brewer apprentice — ask the school exactly how far that goes in the time you have.

Gakkogura One Week Course (sake brewing)

A residential hands-on brewing course at Obata Shuzo's Gakkogura, a microbrewery built inside a former elementary school on Sado Island. A handful of participants work through the core of sake production over a week - koji making, steaming and cooling rice, and the three-stage brewing of a single designated tank - with English guidance. The sake the group brews is later bottled and sold under the Gakkogura label. A longer 20-day course is offered for a fuller cycle. Suited to people who want to actually make sake rather than only taste it.

Next sessions: May 2026 · Jun 2026 · Jul 2026

True at-the-source residential immersion - you brew a real tank of sake alongside a small team inside a working Sado brewery, not a classroom tasting.

Masters & lineage

• Tanba Toji lineage

Schools in Nada (Kobe), Hyogo

Checked by hand against each school's own course pages. No school paid to be listed.

• Obata Shuzo - Gakkogura
  Gakkogura One Week Course (sake brewing)
  A residential hands-on brewing course at Obata Shuzo's Gakkogura, a microbrewery built inside a former elementary school on Sado Island.
  https://www.obata-shuzo.com/home/gakkogura/gakkogura1eng.asp
• Nada Gogo brewery district programs
  Nada-Gogo five-village brewery tours and tastings (Hakutsuru, Kiku-Masamune, Hamafukutsuru and others)
  Nada-Gogo is the cluster of five brewing villages in Kobe that produces the largest share of Japan's sake, where breweries such as Hakutsuru, Kiku-Masamune and Hamafukutsuru run guided tours showing the production process behind glass and structured tastings of multiple labels.
  https://www.feel-kobe.jp/en/stories/japanesesake
• Nishiyama Shuzojo brewing experience (Tamba)
  Brewery tour with sake-tasting class, fermented-foods workshop and head-brewer-led pairing lunch
  Nishiyama Shuzojo is a sake brewery founded in 1849 in Tamba, Hyogo, housed in nationally registered Tangible Cultural Property buildings, offering brewery tours plus a tasting class and a head-brewer-led pairing lunch using local fermented foods.
  https://www.japan.travel/en/japans-local-treasures/nishiyama-sake-brewery-tasting-tour-2023/
• SSI partner courses
  SSI International Kikisake-shi (Sommelier of Sake) three-day certification with exam
  The Sake Service Institute is the Japanese body that certifies sake professionals, and its International Kikisake-shi program is a three-day course with self-study, tasting and service training plus a graded exam, delivered in English through authorized partner schools.
  https://ssiintl.jp/

The credential

International Kikisake-shi (Sake Sommelier), up to WSET Level 3 Award in Sake · Certifying body: SSI (Sake Service Institute) / WSET (Sake program)

A recognised qualification an outside body stands behind is not the same as a certificate a school prints itself. We name which it is — you should ask the school the same.

Also for Sake & Sommellerie of Sake

What I check before I send you anywhere

I'm Arnaud. I cook for a living, and I've spent fifteen years on the water — so I know the difference between a real school and a good-looking website. I built the Atlas because I got tired of the second kind. Here is what a place has to clear before it goes on here, and what I'll tell you straight when it doesn't.

• The craft is actually alive there. A working scene, with people who do this every day — not a demo put on for visitors.
• There's a real teacher behind it. Named, still practising, and certified where the craft has certificates.
• The credential is what it claims to be. A state diploma and a certificate a school prints itself are not the same thing. I check which, and I say which.
• I tell you how sure I am. Most pages here are verified by hand. A few say "still checking" — I'd rather admit that than pretend.
• Nobody pays to be here. No commission, no selling the trip. The order on this map is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.
• If I wouldn't send a friend, it isn't on the map.