Sake Fest Industry Day 2026: the Room Where it Happened
In September, the Sake Brewers Association of North America (SBANA) held its sixth American Craft Sake Fest in Los Angeles. The public festival brings together the largest collection of North American sake each year. This year’s Fest was an absolute blast: a rooftop party with live tuna cutting, a DJ, sake education, food, merch, and 450+ of your closest friends.
For brewers, the Fest is also a chance to leave their geographic silos and spend time together. Most domestic brewers are super local, often distributing only within their own state, if at all. When they get together, there’s bragging about new achievements, commiserating over shared struggles (Those dang COGS! Amirite?), and more than a few rounds of tasting each other’s wares. Running through all of it is knowledge sharing.
That’s what Industry Day builds on. The seminars have grown from a single presentation on yeast by Justin LeVaughn in 2022 to a full day of programming. I’ve organized them for the past two years, trying to push what we can learn in the short time we have together. This year, that meant looking at sake from the farm, through the microscope, and toward a future with a North American sake yeast.
To help that knowledge live beyond the day itself, most presenters graciously agreed to share their slides and recordings through the SBANA Wiki. You’ll find the presentation descriptions and direct links below.
Industry Day presentations
Designing a Better Koji Table: A Collaborative Engineering Capstone Project
Justin LeVaughn — The Void Sake Co.
A collaboration between The Void Sake and the University of Kentucky’s senior engineering design capstone course. Over a year, a team of students designed and implemented an interactive, automated system for The Void’s existing koji table. The session showcases the final system, Justin’s experiences with the capstone course, and ways for breweries to engage in these collaborations. [note: due to techincal difficulties there is not a recording of this presentation. Sorry, Justin!]
An Invitation to Brewing Innovation & Opportunity
Justin Potts — Iida Trading Group
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
An introduction to Iida Trading’s new facility and the brewing possibilities it opens up. The session outlines what the facility offers and invites ideas and input to help make it a valuable resource for research and commercial developments across the global sake-brewing community.
American Sake Rice Growers Forum
Hit Me with Your Best Crop
The Jones Family — Cypress Creek / Isbell Farms
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
The Jones family discusses the past, present, and future operations of its storied, world-renowned, fifth-generation rice farm in England, Arkansas.
California Rice & the Craft of Sake
Kono Mitsuhiro, Adam McCalister, John Hudgens — Iida Sake Rice / Farmers’ Rice Cooperative
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
California rice has helped shape American sake for generations, and it has an important role to play in what comes next. Explore the story of California-grown rice, the Sacramento Valley landscape behind it, and how this uniquely American ingredient can help inspire the next generation of U.S. craft sake.
Enzymes: Turning Entropy into Awesome Sauce
Lucas Smolic — Sake Brewers Guild / Origami Sake
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
This talk explores what enzymes are, why biology depends on them, and how the four core sake enzymes (AA, GA, AP, and ACP) shape starch breakdown, sugar production, protein digestion, and amino acid formation. Lucas also looks at the conditions, cofactors, and enzyme ratios that determine how well they actually work in a brew.
Time as an Ingredient: The Science and Art of Sake Maturation
Chiaki Takahashi — Islander Sake
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
What if time were one of the ingredients in sake? Time, temperature, and storage can transform aroma, flavor, and the character of sake. Discover how understanding time can make sake brewing even more exciting.
Development of Unique Yeast Strains for North American Sake Brewing
Hiroshi Takagi — Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Presentation Slides | Presentation Recording
Yeast is a key player in sake fermentation, shaping its aroma, flavor, and regional identity. This seminar introduces practical examples of yeast discovery and breeding in Japan and proposes the SBANA Yeast Project, a collaborative initiative to discover, develop, and share unique North American yeasts that can help create new styles of North American sake.
Browse the 2026 Industry Day archive on SBANA
Truth be told, technology wasn’t too cooperative that day, so these videos are mostly valuable for their audio. For the best experience, follow along with the slide decks while listening. If I find the wherewithal, I’ll add the slides to the videos and re-upload them.
Looking back over these presentations, I’m humbled to have shared the room with these speakers. Their willingness to share knowledge and lift each other up keeps me working to be a better ambassador for sake. Thank you to our presenters, our host Sawtelle Sake, the SBANA organizers, our sponsors, and everyone who came thirsty for sake and hungry for knowledge. And a huge shoutout to our Platinum Sponsor, Iida Trading Group, whose support helped make both the Fest and Industry Day possible.
Looking ahead, Industry Day should remain useful to the people building the North American sake industry. If there’s a technical problem, speaker, perspective, or format you’d like to see next year, I’d like to hear about it in the comments below.