Long Beach Sake Day returns to the city for its second iteration on Saturday, Oct. 5. And with it, brings the largest selection of sake that any festival in SoCal sees.
“For me, the best moment is seeing their face light up in surprise when they taste premium, craft sake,” Greg Beck, the organizer along with festival staple Dennis Trilles, said.
Wait—there’s a Long Beach Sake Day? Yes. And it will be twice as large as last year.
Dozens of craft sake breweries will be on hand for the event, stretching from 1PM to 5PM at Ranchos Los Cerritos. Upon entry, everyone over the age of 21 will get to taste unlimited pours of sake with your one-of-kind LB Sake Day commemorative O-Choko (traditional ceramic sake cup) featuring their mascot, Kanpai. Last year’s cup was blue; this year’s cup is red.
And this year will offer even more.
“Sure enough, the people responded to last year’s event,” Greg said. “With the help of Dennis and his Craft Beer LB team, we got over 300 participants our first year, despite having little to no advertising materials or budget. Building on that success, this year, we are almost doubling the amount of sake vendors who will participate. That means more sake to try and shorter lines, even though we expect to have more participation.”
Even better? They are adding live, traditional Japanese Taiko and Shamisen musical performances and chicken skewers from Long Beach’s very own Japanese Pop-up Smokmoc Yakitori.
Long Beach Sake Day wants to shine the light on quality, craft sake.
And Greg is right in that first part: Watching people experience quality sake for the first time is precious. And it is a reminder that Americans in general don’t know of, let alone have tasted quality sake.
“Our biggest obstacle is that many people have only tried cheap, poorly made sake and decided the entire category is not for them,” Greg said. “It takes courage and not a small amount of humility to fight their preconceptions and ask for help understanding sake, but on the other side of that is a fascinating and delicious way to connect with Japanese culture and history in a way that feels effortless and fun.”
Last year, brewers were directly on hand and—unlike the ubiquitous Nigori or Sho Chiku Bai brands that permeate nearly every sushi space across the country, even the vast majority in SoCal—Sake Day brought out far more independent sake makers whose brands and ethos introduced most festival goers to a new side of the famed rice wine.
Take, for example, the female-owned-and-brewedsake brewery Wakabayashi Shuzo. Their Moon Bloom brand, led by President Ruriko Yamada, who treated VIP festival goers to Moon Bloom’s Daiginjo sake; Daiginjo is largely considered the most luxurious of Sake, where brewers are using their best rice at the highest polishing rate. The result of their sake is a drink that almost has cake-like hints of sweetness with hints of fruit. Regular festival goers got to try her staple namesake sake.
This festival has a uniqueness that makes it hard to resist.
In the world of what seems like an over-saturation of food and alcohol events—tequila festivals, beer festivals, taco festivals…—it becomes increasingly difficult to create a gastronomical festival that is distinctly unique, one that likely offers something that the majority of its attendees are either not well-versed in or at least have a heightened curiosity to explore but haven’t had the chance.
And Long Beach Sake Day fills that redundancy hole quite well.
“Last year, I made two big bets on Long Beach,” Greg said. “One was that by opening my shop here, rather than a densely concentrated Japanese area, sake lovers from all over would make the trip, and ultimately Long Beach is better situated to serve the broadest portions of both L.A. and Orange County. The second bet was that hosting a Sake Festival would attract people who are interested or already love sake, but also people who love beer and wine festivals. A Sake festival in Hiroshima was what opened my eyes to how amazing sake is as craft alcohol.”
And Greg, we couldn’t be more grateful that you have opened our eyes to the amazing world of sake. Kanpai!
Long Beach Sake Day 2024 takes place on Saturday, Oct. 5, from 1PM to 5PM. Tickets are avaialble here.
