Newletter Archive

Sept 2013 Email (Sep 2013)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 3, Newsletter 5September 2013Greetings to the CSP/ASP community,I hope you are well in the rapidly approaching autumn. It’s early September, with a new sake-brewing season just around the corner.Herein find the following1. Results from SPC Dallas held just before TEXSOM in August. 2. An announcement about SPC Las Vegas in October. 3. An announcement for SPC Level I and II in Japan in 20144. Industry News5. An

Jun 12 2013 Email (Jun 2013)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 3, Newsletter 4June 2013Greetings to the CSP/ASP community,I hope you are well and enjoying sake in whatever capacity suits you. For a great number of you, I realize that means work! I hope that you have noticed the seemingly steadily increasing attention that sake seems to be receiving on all levels. At least, it sure seems that way to me! Recent and ongoing coverage in various publications and other media seem to indic

Apr 16 2013 Email (Apr 2013)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP CommunityVolume 3, Newsletter 3April 2013Greetings to the CSP/ASP community,It has come to my attention……that most of the people that take the CSP courses come to me through references from others that have taken the courses, in other words, you all. Thank you for that! I have figured this out through simply asking everyone. A few come via my newsletter, almost no one via social media (curiously enough), but most say they heard abou

March 2013 Newsletter (Mar 2013)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 3, Newsletter 2March 2013Spring Greetings to the CSP/ASP community,I hope all is well as the brewing season (“BY24”) approaches a close here in Japan. It has been a cold one, which is good for sake brewing, but not without its problems. Read more about what I am alluding to below. I began the year all full of fire and brimstone about getting a newsletter out monthly, each month this year. Ah, but the best lai

Jan 13 2013 Email (Jan 2013)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 3, Newsletter 1January 2013Happy New Year to the CSP/ASP community,May it find you well, healthy and prosperous, not to mention safe and happy for good measure.As mentioned in the last newsletter that went out in early December, I really do want to my best to keep this community tighter and better informed. As such, I will try to get at least a little bit of a newsletter out to you each month.Upcoming courses, informatio

Nov/Dec 2012 NL (Nov 2012)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 2, Newsletter 4November/December 2012Greetings to all SEC members,I hope you are all well as the fall and soon the year of 2012 draws to a close – all too fast. Again. The good news is that the sake brewing season and all its new products, offerings, and surprises (or lack thereof) is upon us, so there is much to see, hear and learn, after which a fresh brewing season will begin. Next, my apologies for not being mo

Jun 30 2012 Email (Jun 2012)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 2, Newsletter 3June 2012Greetings to all SEC members,I hope this finds you well. First of all, my apologies for the long silence. While I do intend to publish this monthly, a never-ending stream of things to do parades across my desk and mind continually, and I becomes hard to sit down and tap out the SEC newsletter.The other side of that coin is that there is a handful of industry notes, anecdotes, and sundry things to

April 2012 Newsletter (Apr 2012)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 2, Newsletter 2April 2012Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs, On behalf of myself and the other directors of SEC, I hope you are all well.The cherry blossoms are in full bloom as I write this, and within a few more days, the ground beneath them will be transformed into a soft, pink blanket of fallen petals, after which the year-long wait begins anew.More good news from the sake industry as the “turnaround” continu

March 2012 Newsletter (Mar 2012)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 2, Newsletter 1March 2012Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs, On behalf of myself and the other directors of SEC, I hope you are all well.First off, my apologies for this being the first email in a couple of months. In spite of the many uncertainties and instabilities in just about everything these days, sake continues its run. And that has kept me thankfully and gratefully busy, albeit so much so that a couple things have fa

SEC December Newsletter (Dec 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 1, Newsletter 6November/December-2011We are in the final month- known as “Shiwasu” in the traditional Japanese calendar – of 2011. As we all know, it has been a challenging year everywhere. Perhaps because I live here, it seems to have been particularly hard. On top of a weak economy, a strong yen, and squabbling political leaders, we had the natural disasters of March 11, the nuclear incident that followed,

October 2011 (Oct 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 1, Newsletter 5October-2011Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs, I hope you are well in the deepening autumn (or spring, for the handful of you in Brazil and Oz). The brewing season is about to kick in, and in fact by now most kura have something fermenting. For many it is but a moto, for others one or more tanks of moromi are churning along. Twitter and Facebook allow us to follow lots of brewers as they spend what precious f

September 24 Announcements (Sep 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Special Sake Day Announcement IssueGreetings to all CSPs and ASPs, I hope you are well in the enveloping autumn. While we had not expected to be sending a SEC newsletter out this month, there are several events and announcements that seemed worth the extra effort. While there are no technical or cultural stories and anecdotes this month, we hope you find at least one of the events worth attending. Below please find announcement

Aug 24, 2011 (Aug 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 1, Newsletter 3August-2011Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs, I hope this finds you well. Here in Japan the summer languishes on, hot and oh-so-sticky. It is within this environment that the brewing industry takes one last collective breath of relaxation before the fall hits, with its tastings and preparations for the coming brewing season. There will be much more to deal with this year than in normal years; more than brittl

Jul 17 2011 Email (Jul 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 1, Newsletter 2July-2011Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs,We are well into the summer, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and it is another hot one. Naturally this affects rice, and of course this can affect sake. I say “can” because last year was abominably bad too. But brewers were ready for it, and the managed to salvage the year quite well indeed. Surprisingly so. And not just in my opinion

Jun 16 2011 Email 1 (Jun 2011)
Sake Education CouncilNewsletter for the CSP & ASP Community Volume 1, Newsletter 1June-2011Greetings to all CSPs and ASPs,We hope you are well. This newsletter marks the first of the “official” Sake Education Council newsletters. The content will not change much from John Gauntner’s SPC Alumni Newsletter – we will still include “high level” info and industry news from Japan. But we will also be shifting in content a bit more toward our fledgling but g