Sake brewery website design – a bilingual site for fans in Japan and abroad

Five jobs a sake brewery website does

A brewery site introduces your sake, and it also works as a shop, a trade desk and a visitor center. Deciding which job matters most before you start makes the structure and design much easier.

• Brand story: the brewery's history, its water and rice, the toji and the rhythm of the brewing season
• Direct sales: brewery-only bottles and seasonal releases such as shinshu and hiyaoroshi
• Trade inquiries: a place where retailers, restaurants and overseas importers check specs and contacts
• Visits: brewery tours, the shop on site, open-brewery days and how to book
• Where to buy: stores and restaurants in Japan and abroad that carry your sake

You can build this in stages. Many breweries launch a bilingual brand site with a stockist list first and add an online shop once the brewery is ready to handle orders.

What overseas fans and importers look for

Overseas visitors may not read the kanji on your label, so they rely on the English pages to understand each sake. Alongside the atmosphere, they need facts laid out so they can compare.

• Specs per product: grade (junmai daiginjo and so on), rice polishing ratio, rice variety, alcohol, bottle size
• Taste and serving: aroma and flavor profile, serving temperature from chilled to warm, food pairings
• Plain-language terms: short notes on ginjo, kimoto, namazake and other words that confuse newcomers
• Storage: whether it needs refrigeration and how long it keeps after opening
• Trade details: whether you export, which regions you can serve, who to contact and in which language

English pages work best when they follow the order a foreign reader thinks in. Our guide to building an English website goes deeper. A good first step: put together a bilingual spec sheet for your three to five main products.

Selling sake online: what to check first

Alcohol has more rules than most products. Before you add a shop to the site, work through these points.

• Licenses: the license you need depends on how and where you sell. Selling your own sake from the brewery and also selling other makers' products (which may need a mail-order retail license) have different requirements, so confirm with your local tax office
• Age checks: confirm buyers are 20 or older at checkout and show the legally required notices on the site and product pages
• Shipping: chilled delivery for namazake, packaging that protects bottles, and clear shipping fees
• Legal notice page: the Specified Commercial Transactions Act page with seller details, returns and payment methods
• Overseas sales: import rules for alcohol differ by country, and some do not allow direct shipping to consumers. Selling through a local importer is the usual route

Requirements can change, so check the latest guidance from the National Tax Agency or your tax office. If you plan to sell abroad with Shopify or a similar platform, see cross-border e-commerce site build for how payments, shipping and markets are usually set up.

Site structure and what to prepare

A brewery site leaves a strong impression when the story and the products connect. Even a small brewery is well served by this structure:

• Home: the brewery, your flagship sake and a Japanese / English switch
• About the brewery: history, water and rice, a word from the toji, the brewing year
• Products: photos, specs, taste, serving ideas and links to buy or find a stockist
• Visit us: opening days, access, booking and whether tastings are offered
• Trade: inquiry paths for retailers and restaurants in Japan and importers abroad
• Online shop: added once you are ready to handle orders

Have these ready if you can: logo and label files, photos of the brewery and brewing, specs for each sake, notes on the brewery's history and a stockist list. Brewing-season photos can only be taken at certain times of year, so shoot them early. For ways to express your brewery's character, see brand website design.

Common mistakes on brewery websites

Sites that stall after launch tend to share the same problems, and all of them can be avoided at the planning stage.

• Mood photos come first and specs or buying options are hard to find
• The English section covers only part of the site and leaves out contacts and trade terms
• Nobody is in charge of seasonal updates, so last year's notices stay up
• Product lists and spec tables break on a phone
• Tours can only be booked by phone, which shuts out overseas visitors

Agree early on who updates the site and how often, and make seasonal releases and tour notices easy to change from the admin panel. That keeps the site fresh long after launch.

How UNANOBO builds brewery sites: a free bilingual demo first

Before you commit to anything, UNANOBO builds a free demo based on your products, logo and photos. You click through both the Japanese and English pages on your computer and phone, and decide whether to go ahead once you like the direction.

The process is simple: free demo, feedback, launch, growth. The founder handles every project personally, so you keep one contact from the first demo to improvements after launch. Everything runs by message, in Japanese or English. For direct or overseas sales, we suggest the platform that fits your brewery – Shopify, BASE or WordPress with WooCommerce.