Aizu by the Glass: Sake Cellars, Lacquer & Kitakata Ramen Country — 2 Days

Founded in 1850, Suehiro is one of Aizu's most respected brewers, and its original Kaeigura cellar in the old town is a working museum as much as a distillery — a soaring timber-framed hall of dark beams and cedar tanks. Free guided tours run roughly half-hourly, walking you through the brewing year and the cellar's history, and end at a tasting bar where you can sample a range from crisp daiginjo to nutty kimoto styles. There is a cafe in a converted warehouse and a shop for bottles you cannot easily buy abroad. A generous, well-organised introduction to why Fukushima keeps topping the national sake medals.

Open daily roughly 10:00-16:30; free tours and tasting, bottles extra (approx., 2026). In the Nisshin-cho area of the old centre, near Nanukamachi Station. Tours are mainly in Japanese; no reservation needed for the standard tour. Allow about 75 minutes.

A few minutes' walk on the Nanukamachi merchant street, Tsurunoe is a small family brewery run by the Hayashi family since 1794, known for its 'Aizu Chujo' label and for 'Yauemon', a line developed by the present okami and her daughter — one of the few mother-and-daughter brewing teams in Japan. The shop pours a walk-in tasting flight where you can taste the contrast with the bigger houses: these are quieter, food-friendly sake meant for the Aizu table. Buying a bottle here, from the people who made it, is part of the pleasure. It is the intimate counterpoint to Suehiro's grand cellar.

Shop and tasting open daily roughly 09:00-17:00 (closed some days); walk-in tasting small charge or free with purchase (approx., 2026). On Nanukamachi-dori, a short walk from Suehiro. Formal cellar tours by advance booking only. Allow about 45 minutes.

Aizu has its own version of the pork cutlet bowl, and it is a point of local pride: rather than the egg-bound Tokyo style, the katsu here is dipped in a dark Worcestershire-style sauce and laid over rice, sometimes simmered briefly in it. Nakajima, a long-running shop in the centre, is among the most reliable places to eat it — a crisp, generous cutlet, sweet-sharp sauce soaking into the rice below, shredded cabbage alongside. It is a hearty, unpretentious lunch between the morning's tastings and the afternoon's workshop, and a reminder that Aizu's food culture runs well beyond the famous dishes.

Open for lunch and into the evening (hours vary; closed one day midweek); a sauce-katsudon runs around ¥900-1,400 (approx., 2026). In the central Kammachi area, a short walk or taxi from the breweries. No reservation; can fill at midday. Allow about an hour.

Aizu has lacquered wood since the 16th century, when the lord brought craftsmen from Kyoto, and Aizu-nuri is one of Japan's three great lacquer traditions. Suzuzen, founded in 1832, is a multi-building house in the old centre with a lacquer-history storehouse, an art gallery and a hands-on studio. In a maki-e workshop you decorate a small lacquer piece — chopsticks, a dish or a mirror — by drawing in lacquer and dusting it with gold and silver powder, guided by a craftsperson, and take the finished piece home. It is an unhurried, tactile hour that teaches more about the material than any shop window, and a far better souvenir than anything off a shelf.

Shop open daily roughly 09:00-17:30; the maki-e experience runs around ¥1,500-3,000 depending on the piece and is best booked ahead (approx., 2026). In the old centre near the lacquer-shop quarter. Allow about 90 minutes for the workshop. Drying may mean collecting or shipping a piece.

End the day in Higashiyama Onsen, the lords' old spa valley ten minutes east of the centre, at Harataki — a ryokan set right on the Yukawa river, where the sound of the water carries through the building. Its draw is the bathing: open-air baths beside the river, indoor cypress baths, and private baths you can reserve, all fed by the valley's hot spring. Dinner is an Aizu-leaning kaiseki, often served riverside in the warm months, with the prefecture's sake to match the cellars you toured that morning. It is the relaxed, water-side close to a day of tasting and making, and an easy contrast to the more historic inns up the lane.

Rooms with dinner and breakfast run roughly ¥18,000-35,000+ per person (approx., 2026); reserve ahead in peak seasons. About 10-15 minutes by bus from JR Aizu-Wakamatsu Station. Check in mid-afternoon and take a bath before dinner. Allow the evening.

Kitakata grew rich on sake, miso, soy and lacquer, and its merchants poured the money into kura — fireproof storehouses of thick plaster, brick and black tile. The town has some three thousand of them, the densest concentration in Japan, and unlike most storehouse towns they are everywhere: shops, homes, breweries, even a brick kura built like a Western mansion. A marked walking course of about 1.5 kilometres links the finest along Otazuki and the central streets; the tourist office at the station has a map. Walking it on a quiet morning, before the lunch crowds, is the best way to feel a prosperous old castle-and-merchant town that escaped the bombs and the developers.

Public streets, open all day, free to walk; many kura are working shops with their own hours. The walking course starts near JR Kitakata Station, about 20 minutes by car or 30 by train north of Aizu-Wakamatsu. Allow about an hour for the loop. Pick up the map first.

Brewing in Kitakata since 1790, Yamatogawa keeps its three historic storehouse cellars open as the Hoppo Fudokan, a free folk museum of the brewing year — the old wooden press, the cedar tanks, the tools and ledgers of nine generations — alongside a working modern brewery nearby. You can walk the cellars at your own pace and taste the brewery's sake, made with local Aizu rice and the soft water that defines the region's style, in the tasting room. It rounds out the previous day's Aizu-Wakamatsu cellars with a Kitakata maker, and shows how the storehouses you have just walked past were actually used.

Folk museum open daily roughly 09:00-16:30; free entry, tasting free or small charge (approx., 2026). In the central storehouse district, a short walk from the kura course. No reservation for the self-guided museum. Allow about an hour.

Kitakata has more ramen shops per head than almost any town in Japan and a bowl distinct enough to be a national ramen name: flat, broad, curly noodles in a clear shoyu-or-shio broth of pork and dried sardines, light enough that locals famously eat it for breakfast ('asa-ra'). Bannai Shokudo, open since 1958, is the town's most famous, known for its 'niku-soba' heaped with thin-sliced char siu over the pale salt broth. Expect a queue, especially at midday — it moves steadily, and the bowl is worth it. A clean, restorative lunch to close the trip before the train south.

Open roughly 07:00-15:00 (closed Thursdays); a bowl runs around ¥850-1,300 (approx., 2026). In central Kitakata, a short walk from the storehouse streets. No reservations; queue at peak. Allow about an hour including the wait.