The A-Factory ciderie is located in downtown Aomori, across from a beach and museum.
A might be for apples, but it’s also for Aomori, home to Japan’s finest cider production.
In the middle of downtown Aomori, across from the Nebuta Museum lies the A-Factory. The A-Factory has been fermenting hard cider for 40 years, says Akasaka Shuichi, who has been the cider maker at A-Factory for the past five years
The freshest, best apples are harvested in the Aomori prefacture (Aomori is also a port city). Fuji apples account for 50 percent of all apples grown in Japan, including Aomori, but other Japanese varieties are also used in the cider making, Shuichi says, adding that the A-Factory also gets some of their apples from Hirosaki, too.
The cider is aged for one month, and cidermaking happens in the fall and winter. “During harvest, we are making cider for eight hours a day, every day,” Shuichi says.
The steel fermenting tanks are behind glass from the main A-Factory shop area. Besides its focal cidermaking operations, the A-Factory also is a duty-free store that sells apples, apple candy, and other apple products, and it also houses a small restaurant, a bakery that specializes in apple pastries like tarte tatins, a gelato stand and a sweet shop/cocktail bar that sells apple mojitos and fresh, candied apples.
A-Factory offers samples of three different types of hard cider: sweet, standard and dry. Each is determined by the alcohol by volume level. Sweet has 3 percent ABV, standard has 5 percent abv, and dry has 7 percent ABV. A 750 ml bottle costs 2200 yen or $13.67. A-Factory also presses but doesn’t ferment apple juice and non-alcoholic sparkling cider.
All three varieties of the cider pair well with fish and meat, Shuichi says, but the sweet also pairs really well with the apple pastries sold in the shop.
During harvest months, visitors to the shop area can watch cider being made. It takes five workers to press all the apples that come through the cider shop. “We are very busy during harvest,” Shuichi says. “We press, press by hand, all of the apples, and we process more than 1,000 liters per year.”
The harvest isn’t the only popular time to visit. Every June, around June 22 or 23, the A-Factory also hosts Cider Days. “We sell, sell, sell,” he says.
When it isn’t harvest time or Cider Days, Shuichi and his staff also sample the ciders they make in the store. A lot of people discover the shop because of its proximity to the Nebuta Museum, as Aomori is known for its Nebuta Festival, which features a parade of extravagant and exquisite floats crafted of paper, wire and lights by local artists.
Charlotte Sato, her husband Neon and their daughter Mariana discovered the cider shop after they visited the the Nebuta Museum. “We were checking out the museum before we came here,” Charlotte says.
The Singapore family was enchanted by both the cider and the shop itself. “The cider is fresh, like the white of the apple, with a perfect amount of appleness,” Mariana says.
Neon says he especially appreciated the architectural and interior design. “It’s simple and modern,” Neon says. “It’s worth a visit.”