Season 1. Episode 45. Another in our series of U.S. Sake Brewer interviews takes us to Virginia to talk to Andrew Centofante, Toji and Master Brewer of North American Sake Brewery. Andrew told us about his discovery of premium sake in Japan and then, following his home brewing instincts, how he soon found himself propagating koji in his attic and fermenting sake mash low and slow in the basement. By 2018, Andrew was out of the basement and had opened his own brewery – the North American Sake Brewery, which is the first and only kura in Virginia. Taking his cues from the craft brewing industry, Andrew developed some classic but fun sake styles from duper dry to silky super premiums. Today, we had the honor to phone-a-brewer-friend to get a guided tasting with Andrew and explore their “Quiet Giant” Genshu, and the lux “Serenity Now!” Join us as we explore another cool corner of the USA sake scene: North American Sake Brewery with Andrew Centofante.

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Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy

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Skip to: 01:43 Sake Brewer Interview: Andrew Centofante

About North American Sake Brewery

The North American Sake Brewery was officially founded in 2016 by Jeremy Goldstein and Andrew Centofante, but their story begins many years prior to that. Andrew was working for Semester at Sea, which allowed him to travel all over the world. He had many stops in Japan and discovered an immediate reverence for Japanese culture. Jeremy was a film producer, and while filming a documentary in Asia, he grew very fond of Japanese people, their food, and the country’s incredibly rich history.

But it wasn’t until 2014, while on a trip for a film project in Los Angeles, Jeremy was exposed to truly great Japanese sake. In the past, he had experienced warmed sake at American sushi restaurants, but this was an altogether different and illuminating occasion. A professional Sake Sommelier guided a tasting with several fresh, cold sakes that would forever change his life. When Jeremy returned to Charlottesville, he ran into his friend Andrew and told him about his sake experience. Andrew jumped at the chance to find great sake again and the two began enjoying sake together, finding special bottles of delicious, umami-rich sakes.

One night after a few too many glasses (or bottles, really) of sake, Andrew asked the fateful question: Do you think we could try making a homebrew batch?

It wasn’t long after that night that Andrew fermented his first batch which led to converted his basement into a full-time sake brewing operation. He and Jeremy would travel to Japan and the USA, visiting other sake brewers, learning the craft, becoming certified as Sake Professionals, and bringing their sake to many private parties & tastings around their hometown of Charlottesville, VA.

A few years later on August 25th, 2018, the North American Sake Brewery would have its grand opening at their current space in the IX Art Park. Andrew continues his passion for sake as the Head Brewer, while Jeremy takes the leadership role on the business end. Together, they continue to spread the gospel of great craft sake, and look forward to many years of pushing the boundaries of their industry.

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Skip to: 16:51 Sake Introductions

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Skip to: 17:31 Sake Tasting: North American Sake Brewery Quiet Giant Junami Karakuchi Genshu

Quiet Giant Junami Karakuchi Genshu

Alcohol: 18.0%
Brewery: North American Sake Brewery
Classification: Junmai
Prefecture: USA – Virgina
Seimaibuai: 70%
Rice Type: Calrose

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Skip to: 23:13 Sake Tasting: North American Sake Brewery Serenity Now Junmai Daiginjo

Serenity Now Junmai Daiginjo

Alcohol: 15.0%
Brewery: North American Sake Brewery
Classification: Junmai Daiginjo
Prefecture: USA – Virgina
Seimaibuai: 50%
Rice Type: Calrose

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Skip to: 26:47 Show Closing

This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!

John Puma: 0:22
Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s first sake podcast. I’m your host, John Puma from the Sake Notes. Also the administrator over at the internet, sake discord. The guy on the show. Who’s not a Sake Samurai, and I’m also interestly enough, not a sake brewer.

Timothy Sullivan: 0:39
And I am your host, Timothy Sullivan. I am a Sake Samurai. I’m a sake educator. I am also the founder of the Urban Sake website and every week John and I will be tasting and chatting about all things, sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

John Puma: 0:56
So Tim, I noticed there that you didn’t mention that you’re a sake brewer either. So that means that between the two of us, there are zero. sake brewers. Is there anything we can, is there anything that we can do on the show today to fix that,

Timothy Sullivan: 1:09
it would be fantastic if we could, call up a sake brewer and do a quick interview. What do you think about that?

John Puma: 1:16
I think that would be ideal. Do you have anybody in

Timothy Sullivan: 1:19
Well, let me get my friend Andrew on the phone. I’d like to introduce Andrew Centofante he is the brewer and owner at North American Sake Brewery. Andrew. Welcome.

Andrew Centofante : 1:34
Hi, how’s it going guys? Good to be here. I heard you’re on the lookout for a sake brewer?

John Puma: 1:41
Yeah. And I’m glad that you were able, to, uh, to heed the call.

Andrew Centofante : 1:46
happy to be here.

John Puma: 1:48
Could you kind of like let our viewers know a little bit about yourself, a little about your brewery, how this whole thing came about.

Andrew Centofante : 1:54
Yeah, of course. So, this all started for me probably close to 10 years ago. I had the incredible opportunity to go to Japan, and of course try incredible craft sakes, And it really was a revelation for me to, to be in Japan and to have these, different styles and different breweries kind of presented to me that I I’ve never had before. I think like most Americans I had kind of had the really cheap, hot, super hot, you know, sake bomb kind of sake And they know I’m a big craft booze fan in general. I love beer. I love wine, love ciders and, and spirits. And, It was also kind of this thing where I was just wondering, like, why have I never explored this before? You know, how come this has never really been on my radar? and so I kind of came back from Japan and just started drinking a lot of sake you know, seeking out any brand I hadn’t seen before any bottle it looked new or interesting, and in Virginia, you know, that that’s not. A ton of sake but, I just slowly was refining my palate and then, one fateful night after maybe one or two, maybe three bottles of sake, I, was looking at it going, how do you make this? And I had done home brew of beer in the past. And so I thought I’ll take a look into how you make it. And, And so I brewed my first batch. I made my first batch of Koji in my attic because it was warm. And my first, Moromi in the basement cause it was cold and it totally grabbed me. Uh, and just pulled me down a rabbit hole. I, you know, making that first batch of Koji, the aroma just, uh, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life. So I just started brewing for fun. And the first batch, you know, it was okay. It wasn’t great, but it was enough to, keep me wanting to go for more. And I think that’s also been a big part of my journey is, is just, I want to keep learning more. And so I started looking for resources. I started looking for answers to my questions and. It was just hard to find this stuff there. Weren’t very robust, forums or anything like that. And a lot of conflicting information. And so I just dove deeper and deeper, and then before long, I had a full blown brewery in my basement. My wife is going, what are you doing? but then I just kinda got a little more serious about it and was able to. kind of take bigger steps of, of vetting the business. And then I’m getting to go back to Japan. Eventually being able to go to places like Daimon Shuzo where Daimon san has opened his doors to me and helped me learn so much about the art of brewing sake, and so yeah, now we have, Virginia’s first and only side a brewery in Charlottesville. we’ve been open now for a little over two years, and we are just so happy to be able to, give people some, fresh craft Sake and to show them, and teach them and help them learn as much as possible about it. Um, and I feel like we’re making a lot of converts every day and just like, y’all excited to be pushing the sake revolution.

Timothy Sullivan: 5:12
Yeah. Well, you mentioned, making Koji in your attic and visiting Daimon Shuzo in Japan, brewing sake requires such specialized skills. Where would you say you learned the bulk of your sake brewing skills, like to become a brewer?

Andrew Centofante : 5:27
So, it’s been a long journey and I’m still learning. I want to make that clear to anyone who’s looking into getting into sake I’ve still got so much to learn, and a lot of it is experiential, it’s actually fantastic, but, um, you know, the books, the resources, some things are just so hard to describe without feeling it, touching it, that visceral kind of experience. And I think it, for me, it’s just been a combo of a lot of trial and error. but more than that, like the dots that can get connected for me is when I get to go to, these breweries, and visit, being able to spend time at Daimon Shuzo I learned so much and not necessarily things I didn’t know, but, but working through it in real time with your hands and smelling the aroma and seeing the progress with someone who could help guide me was fantastic. Invaluable, but also just visiting other sake brewery. So, you know, I, did a tour of the U S kind of scene, while we were vetting this thing. And so it was able to visit, quite a few different breweries in, the U S and that was eyeopening every single time. Every single time I went to a different, sake brewery, I learned something new and I got to learn about the people making it and kind of. Why they did things, whether it was personal preference, whether it was something that they learned or whether they thought they got better results, and there’s so much personality that goes into making sake that now smart, that like research of like reading a book or, you know, seeing a post on the internet that says, this is how you do it. It’s not the same, as like really understanding why some of these decisions are made, so it’s a complex thing to make and it, it. I would say just takes a lot of different, sources.

John Puma: 7:14
It takes a village to, uh, to make a sake brewery. Uh,

Andrew Centofante : 7:17
true.

John Puma: 7:18
Earlier you mentioned that the first time you had had a sake in the States, really, it was similar to a lot of experiences that other Americans have had where it’s the, very, very hot stuff of perhaps questionable. Uh, quality. What do you think is the biggest misconception? Because that is the idea that that is quote unquote what sake is, and the only thing that sake can be, is that a misconception among Americans? What do you think are other misconceptions among American consumers right now? About sake

Andrew Centofante : 7:47
Yeah, I think the biggest one is that sake is one thing, I hear this all the time, And I think it has to do with a lot of people, equating it to a liquor. So they look at the word sake like they work, look at the word vodka and there’s obviously different styles and kind of nuance to vodka, but like sake has such a wide range. and I think that just is what is tough for a lot of people is that they say I’ve only had this one sake before and it’s like, well, maybe you don’t like. That style or maybe you like a certain style, but in, unless you kind of understand that there are differences between them, it’s like you go to the bar and you get, some really crazy double IPA and you’re like, I don’t like beer because you’d be, you know, you had something really crazy. So it’s just, you know, I think that that’s just a huge misconception at our brewery. It’s fantastic. Our tasting room. And we have flights where we can try, three, four, five sakes side by side, and it’s something people have never really done before. And when they see it kind of clicks for them, Oh, I like these dryer sakes better. Or I like, um, maybe something, a little sweeter, something fuller. So it it’s one of those things. I think it’s just an exposure thing. You’ve got to get people to try different styles and realize that there’s a whole, whole world of sake

Timothy Sullivan: 9:09
Yeah, fantastic. And you mentioned you’re the first and only sake brewery in Virginia. And that made me think, I wonder, what the impact has been for the first couple of years. Have you noticed an increase in local interest in sake And have you seen anyone in your taproom having those like aha moments discovering sake for the first time? Can you tell us about that?

Andrew Centofante : 9:34
Yeah. Oh, all the time, it’s one of the things that we see. Every single day here. And it’s my favorite part about owning the sake brewery is, um, when people come in and they’re like, I really don’t know much about it. And I get to give them a brewery tour. I get to pour them a flight, and watch their faces as they realize this is not like what I’ve had in the past, and when they attach themselves to a certain sake and start talking about why they love it, So it’s, it’s the best part about owning sake brewery by far? And, you get little anecdotal tales of like some of the places where we sell our sake outside of the tasting room and, other places like, yeah, we’ve seen a small uptick in our sake sales and it’s because I think that people, once they kind of get a taste for it, they want to explore. I mean, that’s what I did this part of my story. And I say it all the time, you know, I hope you come to my brewery. And then go explore sake because there are so many fantastic sakes out there, and I hope we can send you on that journey and we hope you come back and keep drinking our sake, but it’s just an incredible category.

Timothy Sullivan: 10:38
Yeah, and it must be really rewarding after, sweating in the Koji room and putting all this work into opening this business to have that. Experience to see people discovering something you’re so passionate about. That must be really fun. Very rewarding.

Andrew Centofante : 10:52
Yeah, it’s funny. We, so our, the way our, our tasting room and brewery is set up is our Koji room is kind of right behind the bar. And we have these big glass windows so that people can look in and see us, making Koji. And, there’ve been, nights where I’m in there sweating and, working hard in there for a few hours and I come out and customers are like, what are you doing in there? That looks amazing. And it was just like this. They’re like totally shocked by what is happening, but it’s a great moment to be able to talk to them about it and be able to say like, this is Koji. Koji is amazing.

Timothy Sullivan: 11:27
Did they think you have some like breaking bad situation going on in the back

Andrew Centofante : 11:31
Oh yeah, all the time, all the time. And they’re just like, I just saw you back there and just working really hard. Do you want me to buy you a drink? I’m like, no, no,

John Puma: 11:42
so you talked a little bit there about helping people kind of go out and discover sake So what is, what do you think is the most important thing that, that we can do? To grow that sake industry right now and get people interested in sake and people excited about it.

Andrew Centofante : 11:56
I mean, I think podcasts like this are, are critical, uh, cause it gives people an opportunity to see the. Inner workings to see the passion that goes behind it to see, the people who are involved in why they love it so much, you know, it’s one of those things where like a little bit of knowledge just goes such a long way. At least for me personally, like when I first learned a little bit about whiskey and I would love to like go and be like, Oh yeah, I know a little bit about whiskey. Um, and you know, it’s one of those things where you get that little hook in them where you get them to go, Oh, I really want to explore this because I want to understand something. I want to add something to my own, personal knowledge. Like there’s nothing better. So, I think it’s getting, it’s kind of hooking people in like, Getting them to taste. It is obviously one of the biggest, drivers of that, you know, we, we settle on time. Like just make sure people tasted, like when they taste it though, they’ll turn they’ll, they’ll kind of turn their, their thoughts to it. But, yeah, I think after that, it’s kind of giving them those little bit of those little tidbits of knowledge that they can kind of take with them. So the next time they see a bottle of it can maybe, maybe make a decision.

Timothy Sullivan: 13:05
Yeah, I totally agree with you that a little bit of knowledge goes a long way to giving people that confidence that they need, you’re one of the producers in the domestic sake production scene. And a lot of the sake consumption that goes on is imported sake from Japan for premium sake where do you see U.S. made premium sake like you’re making, where do you see that fitting in to the larger picture? The larger market that involves the imported sake as well? Are these things competitors, or are they complimentary? What do you think of this dynamic between the imported and domestically made sake?

Andrew Centofante : 13:45
Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, it’s, it’s all kind of uncharted territory and we’re going to kind of see how these things flesh out, but I don’t see them necessarily as competitors. I see them as complimentary. I take a really strong view as a rising tide raises all ships, and I love connecting with other brewers and I love, Being a part of that community. You know, I, I even looked domestically at, the other breweries and, those are my good friends who were, are working their butts off to make an incredible product. And with, about maybe 20 breweries around the U S right now, we’re not competition. If somebody learns about sake in Brooklyn or, you know, Ben’s up in Asheville or, Proper Sake and Nashville, like they’re gonna. They’re going to come to my place and they’re going to learn about my sake It’s just kinda the way it is. And like I said before, like, and then they’re going to start diving into imports and Japanese sake So, I think it’s complimentary and I think we offer slightly different things. Um, you know, the, kind of riding on the scene of kind of craft alcohol here in the U S you know, we geared a lot of our decisions. With how we built our tasting room and how we built the brewery to be interconnected from what we see with, brewpubs and a lot of breweries, that’s part of the experience you go in and you see the big tanks and you order a flight and you get to try all these different sakes And there’s some hometown pride there and it’s, and it’s the same kind of thing that we are kind of following suit and kind of giving them that bigger experience and something to be proud of. And then, there’s just other differences as well. Like I think in general, like American sake is, tend to be kind of big and bold and, you know, have a lot going on, um, maybe some rougher flavors, and that’s great. Cause I think it’s part of our building our own kind of style, which it remains to be seen, you know, who knows what a quote unquote American style really. Is in terms of sake it’s all over the place at the moment. We’re so, so young the American sake scene. but I think that there’s just room to play and I think, that’s kind of the cool thing. So I remember having a conversation with, uh, Daimon san from Daimon Shuzo. and he said to me, something that I, that it will stick with me and he said, It must be so fascinating being an American brewer of sake And it’s like, yeah, it is like, you know, why, why do you say that? And he said, you can do anything that you want. And he said, I have an idea, DIA, of who my customers are. I know I have an idea of what my, the history is and style and the terroir of my region and all these, all these different things you said you can do almost anything. Um, And I think that’s a really interesting perspective, we are in a position to build upon and to honor and to make as great of sakes as we can. But we’re also in a place where we get to kind of see what happens. And I think that’s a general rule in American alcohol is you don’t know what’s around the corner and people are pushing limits and they’re trying new things. And, we’re kind of at that crossroads right now.

John Puma: 16:51
Well, I think. we’ve talked plenty and I think it’s time to drink. And then it’s time for us to experience the sake that we’ve been talking about this time. That’s my favorite part. Um, now we’ve got two different bottles from North American Sake Brewery with us today. I’ve got the Quiet Giant, which is if I understand correctly is a pretty, pretty powerful genshu, and then on the other side of the spectrum, we’ve got, Serenity Now, which is your Junmai Daiginjo, which I’m very excited about also, can you, uh, walk us through a little bit, starting with the the Quiet, Giant.

Andrew Centofante : 17:31
Sure thing. Yeah. So like you said, these two are kind of on opposite sides of the spectrum so our Quiet Giant is a Junmai Grade sake that we, brew at slightly higher temps and try to aggressively, get the, alcohol up and to drive the, the sugars down. So make it as, as dry as possible, and we do that, it’s kind of all starts in the koji room where we will spend a little bit more time, and let that koji mature for a little bit longer. and then, like I said, ferment at slightly higher temps, uh, to really get an aggressive, aggressive, fermentation out of it and what we’re left with is, just a bone, bone, dry sake with really deep, cedar earthy, mushroomy kind of flavor to it, that, has a high alcohol content, but we call it Quiet Giant for a reason, because it’s still pretty smooth and we always say, like, you know, don’t let the quiet, giant sneak up on you, we have pretty much four kind of flagship sakes right now, one’s a classic Junmai with a great table sake like right in the middle. We’ve got our, Big Baby, which is a cloudy style, and then we have these kind of two sides of the spectrum. One, one, just Quiet, Giant, super dry. And then our Serenity Now, which is a little bit more fruity and maybe a slightly sweeter. So. If you get that on a flight, you can really start to triangulate a little bit more about what you’re you’re about to, what about what sake could be. And so, so you know, this one, I feel like, some people actually, like, this is all they want to drink at our place. And some people turn away from Zen on it. That’s not, for me, it is one of our more controversial, but it’s very popular with the people who love it. Um, I would say like more like. You know, IPA whiskey drinkers are definitely more in tune with the Quiet Giant.

Timothy Sullivan: 19:26
Before we go any further, I have to say that, um, we can’t. Talk about this sake Quiet Giant without mentioning the label for our listeners at home, you have put a lot of effort into making this label very beautiful and very engaging. And tell us a little bit about that

Andrew Centofante : 19:45
you. Yeah.

Timothy Sullivan: 19:46
it’s the illustrations amazing. And it seems informed by like the craft beer movement for sure. Is that right?

Andrew Centofante : 19:53
Yeah. So, one of our guiding lights is how do we help make a approachable, how do we make it something people can understand a little bit better. Um, and then also, how can we just stand on the shelf and be something different? And so we spent a lot of time like researching, what’s going on in the kind of alcohol scene and what seems to be popular is kind of fun, funky names, cool illustrations. And so we developed this, this kind of giant sitting on this rock and, uh, it looks like he’s been destroying some things and smoking a little pipe. And, and like I said, he’s kind of like that, that he’s, he’s the giant, like he can sneak up on you if you’re not careful, he kind of represents that kind of big alcohol, character, but this one has,

Timothy Sullivan: 20:39
Yeah. Well, great job. It’s really fun and really engaging. And I think that the sake industry needs more stuff like this. All right. So I’m going to go ahead and open up the Quiet Giant. All right. Let’s pour some into the glass.

John Puma: 20:55
Andrew, what kind of a rice are you? are you using it for this.

Andrew Centofante : 20:58
So we basically use Cal Rose most of the time, and that’s not necessarily like a hard and fast rule. It’s just something that. Being so young in sake brewing, I wanted to make a commitment to use one rice so that I could, that out a lot of different aspects of the brewery itself. And then, sake rice is hard to come by in the U S and can be quite expensive, and back to like our approachability of guidepost. I didn’t want to like make a sake that was ridiculously expensive, and so it fit our need and it’s been fun to kind of push into the Calrose itself and say, this is what we got. I’m going to do the best we can with what we got and see what character that brings to the table.

Timothy Sullivan: 21:42
All right. So we’ve got the Quiet Giant in the glass. There’s a little bit of a gentle fruitiness on the aroma, like a melon aroma and a little bit of riceyness as well. For me. And then when I taste it, it is full, the higher alcohol level comes through. Uh, it’s a little bit weighty and really dry, the finishes, super clean. I can see like whiskey lovers going crazy for this sake what do you think John?

John Puma: 22:16
It’s definitely got that. Like when I, uh, when I sipped on it, the immediately in the back of my mouth, in the back of my throat was like, Oh, we immediately thought of like dark, of dark strong liquors. And the first thing that popped in my head was like, I might want to try this on the rocks, have you, do you have people at that, play around with that, like with adding ice or anything like that?

Andrew Centofante : 22:36
You know, not a ton, but there was one customer who would come in and, and pretty consistently asked for it on the rock. So you’re not, you’re not far off on that one.

John Puma: 22:45
But yeah, very dry, uh, as Tim mentioned, but very present that’s why I was thinking, it reminds me a little bit of some other, genshus I’ve had that I’ve wanted to kind of have on the rocks a little bit and reminds me a lot of whiskeys in that way. This is very nice. It’s big.

Andrew Centofante : 23:01
It’s big for sure.

Timothy Sullivan: 23:03
You mentioned you use Calrose rice for this. What is the rice milling that you bring that down to for the Quiet Giant?

Andrew Centofante : 23:11
So this is a 70%.

Timothy Sullivan: 23:13
Excellent. Well, we have a second sake as well, named Serenity Now, which is amazing.

John Puma: 23:23
We need more Seinfeld references in our, uh, in our sake naming. I think.

Andrew Centofante : 23:28
Yeah. And it was actually a funny story. We, you know, obviously. Big Seinfeld fans. And, we have a Festivus party. Every Christmas. We didn’t get to do one this year because of COVID. Um, and so at a friend of mine tweeted to, uh, Jason Alexander and said, you know, it’s a Festivus miracle. And with a picture of, one of our bottles of he retweeted it out and out, I was pretty proud of that. I was so excited for it.

John Puma: 23:59
That’s awesome.

Timothy Sullivan: 24:01
Well, this is another beautiful label, a gorgeous design Serenity Now. And this is your, junmai daiginjo is that right?

Andrew Centofante : 24:12
That’s right, so Serenity Now is milled to 50%. It’s a Cal Rose again, and this one, we, use a different yeast for, it’s just exciting to be able to make our Junmai Daiginjo and see what the result is from it.

Timothy Sullivan: 24:29
Hmm. Yeah.

John Puma: 24:31
This nose is, uh, is lovely. It’s a, got a lot going on here. It’s like a, kinda like a, uh, like a matter of orange or Tangerine almost on the nose.

Timothy Sullivan: 24:41
I was just going to say like citrus, citrus peel for me. Yeah. Citrus peel.

John Puma: 24:47
um,

Timothy Sullivan: 24:50
Yeah. Yeah. All right. I’m going to give it a taste. Hmm, that’s much more kind of luscious and silky on the palate than the Quiet Giant. the Quiet Giant was kind of structured dry and this coats, the palate a lot more, it’s more velvety and texture. And there’s more, sweetness here than the Quiet Giant as well.

Andrew Centofante : 25:10
Yeah, definitely more sweetness, too, we ferment, this cold and slow, over about a 40 day period, to really coax things out and, and try to get that, uh, you know, that Koji to work through as much of that, rice as we can. And, while keeping a healthy yeast culture, to ferment it on, on

John Puma: 25:31
Tim, you mentioned that this is like, really, it does really coat the mouth. Uh, but it doesn’t like overstay. Its kind of it’s there. You, if you have another sip, it’ll build a little bit, but it’s not, um, it’s not a dominant, it it’s very light, still just kinda comes in and it lingers a little bit and then cleanly leaves so nice. This is really elegant. I like this a lot.

Andrew Centofante : 25:53
okay. Thank you so much. It’s one of those things that no, as a sake, brewer, I’m sitting here nervously, like hoping that you guys are going to love the sake you’re drinking. So thank you so much. Um, and its, it’s one of those things. Like I really feel that the kind of intention and the amount of passionate work that goes into the brew really comes through.

Timothy Sullivan: 26:14
It’s interesting. I love to taste multiple sake’s from the same brewery. These sakes taste very intentional and very, focused. And there’s one thing that I think can go wrong with sake sometimes is if it lacks the right kind of balance and these sake team really focused and studied and your dry sake is bold and structured, but it still has balance. It’s still really drinkable and the same with your Serenity Now it has a texture that I would very much associate with that Junmai Daiginjo style, that more velvety, rich kind of luxurious style. So, it seems you guys have really done your homework and studied the types and it comes through very clearly on the palate.

Andrew Centofante : 26:58
And I think that’s just been a goal of mine in general. Like I was saying before around kind of flagships that we have is, we want people to come away with an understanding of some of these styles. And so I have worked really hard to make sure that our Junmai is in general, in line with what a Junmai quote unquote should be. Now that that’s a whole another conversation,

John Puma: 27:24
I think you’ll get a lot of

Andrew Centofante : 27:25
different answers there. Yeah. I mean, these styles are, are pretty loose and wild, but, um, you know, I think for our consumers to. that knowledge they need so that they can make decisions. And, um, we hope that styles exemplify the categories that, um, they’re part of and that hopefully that’ll help people make more informed decisions.

John Puma: 27:44
Well, I think we had a really nice time, uh, talking sake with you, and kind of learning a little bit about, about you and about what North American Sake Brewery has been up to, where can, can our listeners find you out there on the wilds of the internet?

Andrew Centofante : 28:01
Yeah. So our website is www.PourMeOne.com Uh, But if you’re in Virginia, if you’re in the Charlottesville area, you got to come to our tasting room.

Timothy Sullivan: 28:11
So for people who do not live in the Virginia area, you can also send these, uh, out of state as well. Right?

Andrew Centofante : 28:19
Correct. Yeah, we can, we can ship to about 40 States. And I’m going to throw this out there for all. Y’all joining the Sake Revolution. If you put in promo code “SAKEREVOLUTION”, I’ll give you 15% off. How about that?

Timothy Sullivan: 28:31
All right.

John Puma: 28:32
Fantastic

Timothy Sullivan: 28:33
you so much. And you mentioned your website. What about your social media?

Andrew Centofante : 28:37
Uh, yeah, you can find you can find us on our social media pages, Facebook, Instagram @NorthAmericanSake So follow us comment, share be our buds be our friends.

John Puma: 28:49
Excellent. We’ll do. We’ll do,

Timothy Sullivan: 28:52
Andrew, thank you so much for joining us, this was a real treat to, talk to you and drink sake with you and learn about your thought process behind these two. Great sakes that we had. I was just a joy having you on. Thank you so much.

Andrew Centofante : 29:07
Thank you guys. I really appreciate the opportunity. It was fun. I love drinking and talking sake with people, so I will do it anytime.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:15
All right. I want to thank our listeners so much for tuning in. We really do hope that you’re enjoying our show. And if you’d like to support Sake Revolution, one way that you can really help us out would be to take a couple of minutes and leave us a written review on Apple podcasts. It’s one of the best ways. For us to get the word out about our show.

John Puma: 29:33
And, be sure to tell one of your friends about our show and also subscribe wherever you download your podcasts. So that every week when we upload a new show, it will magically show up on your device of choice, because we do not want you to miss a single episode.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:49
And as always to learn more about any of the topics or any of the sakes we talked about in today’s episode, be sure to visit our website, SakeRevolution.com for detailed show notes.

John Puma: 30:01
And if you have a sake question that you need answered sake brewers, you want us to interview. We want to hear from you reach out to us. The email address is [email protected]. So until next time, please remember to keep drinking, sake everybody, raise a glass kanpai!