Dassai Blue Sake Brewery — Restaurant in Town of Hyde Park

🏭 Location & Concept • The first Dassai facility outside Japan, built with traditional Japanese aesthetics and modern design, nestled in Hudson Valley, close to the Culinary Institute of America  . • Comprises two main buildings (rice‑polishing and brewing), covering about 55,000 sq ft, with annual capacity of roughly 140,000 cases .

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🍶 Sake & Production Quality • Produces premium Junmai Daiginjo made exclusively from Yamada Nishiki rice, polished to 23%, 35%, or 50% for progressively cleaner, fruitier flavors . • Uniquely uses Hudson Valley water, aiming to craft a sake that not only mirrors but rivals or exceeds its Japanese counterpart . • Recent Gold Medal winner in the 2024 Overseas Sake Competition .

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🍷 Tasting Room & Tours • Open seven days a week, with both walk-in sake-by-the-glass and guided tasting tours (tours cost around $50–85, include sake flight and small bites) . • Tours offer behind‑the‑scenes access to brewing and polishing areas, plus a modern tasting room serving sushi, cheese, and meat plates in collaboration with the CIA . • Visitors consistently report the environment as welcoming, educational, and well-staffed .

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🤝 Collaboration & Experience • Strong partnership with the Culinary Institute of America—brewing training, certification programs, and tailored food pairings . • Staff are knowledgeable and attentive, explaining concepts like tema (the craftsmanship principle) and explaining rice polishing ratios in accessible terms .

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🌟 Guest Feedback • Highly rated on review platforms; comments include “really nice place to come with friends and do some sake tasting” . • Reddit commenters note the sake’s light natural carbonation (a mark of freshness) and advise enjoying it chilled in wine glasses—suitable as a casual and refined drink .

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💡 Visitor Tips • Reservation for tours is recommended, though walk‑ins for tasting are welcome . • Tours run Tuesdays to Sundays; walk-in glass‑by‑glass available Wednesday–Sunday . • Ideal to sample multiple styles—Blue 23 is fruity with notes of pear, honeysuckle, and minerality, perfect for sipping or pairing .

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✅ Final Verdict

Dassai Blue Sake Brewery is a standout destination for sake lovers and curious drinkers alike. It brings world-class sake production to the U.S., with: • A beautiful, well-designed facility • Excellent educational tours and tastings • Premium Junmai Daiginjo sake • Friendly and informed staff • Collaborative culinary experiences via the CIA

📍 Worth a day-trip from CT—pair it with a visit to the CIA or a scenic drive through the Hudson...

My wife and I visited on a Sunday for the tour and tasting with Sushi. The staff were nice and the facility is beautiful, but ultimately for the price, we left feeling a bit disappointed. The main problem was the tour. The guide was pleasant, but it was an extremely basic tour. If I wasn't already familiar with sake production, I think I would have been really lost and confused mainly because it was surface level, and there was a lot that wasn't explained. There were also some strange things they focused on, like showing us place settings of restaurants serving their sake. There was some talk about the steps of production, but limited explanation of other styles of sake or additional context. Koji was mentioned several times, but there was no (or if there was it was so fast that I missed it) talk of its role in multiple parallel fermentation - arguably one of the things that make sake most unique. It felt scattered and not particularly informative. We've done many brewery/winery/distillery and even sake brewery tours, and we just thought that this tour was not very good. When it finished, we felt like we still didn't know much about Dassai Blue and what makes it unique.

We paid a total of $122 for the tour, tasting, and sushi. For the price of the tour and tasting ($50/each) I thought that we would have received a more guided tasting experience. Instead, we were given a few tasting notes in the beginning, and then were left on our own with the three core sakes that they poured. The weird part was that on the tour the guide described other types they made and that we would taste, but they were never poured nor offered. When I did ask about another one, the guide brought me a small taste, but again, for the price I thought we'd get to taste a bit more.

One last weird thing was that during the tasting, the guide offered everyone cake that they made there. The way she did it made it seem like it was included, but then it turned out we had to pay extra for that at the end (nowhere was it mentioned that it was an additional charge.) This was not a huge deal, but it lent to the overall impression of some of what they did being high end for the sake of being high end. Good sake is expensive, but the prices of everything here felt quite high.

So in the end, I'd stop by to drink a glass of sake if I was in the area, but I did not find the tour to be worth it, and since the tasting is not guided anyway you're better off just paying less for a sake flight in the...

Nice&friendly hosts, more than bad&rude managers. We made an appointment for two tastings with two different food options, and the reservation was made successfully with an email receipt recorded our food options. The night before we got an email saying that both food we picked are no longer available, were automatically switched to the only one left:cheese platter. We immediately let the manager know upon arrival, because we are lactose intolerant cannot eat cheese. They first claim that those two food options were never available, it was my mistake that I didn’t see it. It turns out they hide the “not available” in a super long name of dishes. See my screenshot. And the lady later came out claim that there’s nothing they can do except remove the cheese from the cheese platter, how ridiculous? We proposed to cancel that since they did not have the food we ordered, instead use the credits towards sake purchase. They said NO, we do not offer discounts? We had no choice but sat down and eat whatever we can. One of the manager saw me writing this review(who has been firmly claimed that because of their policy no discount for anybody)suddenly trying to bribe us with a $15 gift card. We returned it because we have eaten the food. Very poor experience, poor management, supposed to be a simple thing, but they made it very...