EUROPE’S FIRST SAKE BREWERY
INTERNING WITH A CANADIAN
SAKE BREWER IN NORWAY
Arranging our internship with Nøgne Ø was a quite straightforward process- I
simply wrote an email asking if the sake brewery took interns. To my pleasant
surprise I received a very positive reply from sake brewer Brock Bennett a few
days later informing that Sebastian and I were more than welcome for a visit.
Brock Bennett came to sake through an interest for home brewing beer. In 2005
he decided to try home brewing sake as a challenge and to use up a large sack of
Thai rice that had been around his house for too long. Despite some less than
successful initial results Brock became very keen on sake brewing and turned it
into a hobby. In 2009 this hobby reached a turning point, when together with
a small group of participants from all over the world, he joined the very first
group of the Mukune International Sake Brewing Internship at Daimon Shuzu
brewery in Katano City, Osaka. The internship not only opened up a whole
new world of inspiration and knowledge to the Canadian home brewer but also
gave him the opportunity to meet with other sake aficionados, including Kjetil
Jikiun from Nøgne Ø.
After the internship Brock returned to Canada where he was hired to brew
sake at the Artisan Sake Maker in Vancouver, North America’s first commercial
sake microbrewery. In August 2010 Kjetil invited Brock to Norway to assist
him at the sake brewery, where the very first batch of sake had been started just
6 months earlier. Since then Brock has been brewing sake at Nøgne, with the
exception of 2011 when no sake was brewed due to slower than anticipated sales.
Fortunately sales have been increasing since 2012 and sake at Nøgne Ø is now
brewed continuously throughout the year.
MUSEUM OF SAKE JOURNAL 31