I had first heard about Mùa Craft Saké through a tweet by the sake expert Chiba Marie in November of last year. Mùa Craft Saké is a new sake brewpub in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam. I was rather skeptical – sake made from local Vietnamese rice? Why are they flavoring it with dragon fruit, mulberry, guava, pineapple, chili and other tropical ingredients?
I had a chance to visit HCMC in April of this year. For dinner, we made a trip down to District 3 to give the place a try. We arrived at around 6pm and were pleasantly surprised to hear that most sake varieties were half off due to being happy hour.
Despite having some party favorites like a sake bomb on their menu, we realized that Mùa is serious about their sake. The sake-making is overseen by Heiwa Shuzo in Wakayama, Japan. We started off with a Classic which I found to be well-balanced – sweet but with a little bit of acidity. Then I tried the Pure Rice ABV 15% from the CT25 series. CT25 series sake is brewed using a local indica rice variant called ST25, which I later found lining the shelves at a local supermarket. The Pure Rice ABV 15% was more interesting with a unique fragrance, which I thought was like freshly cooked jasmine or basmati rice. It is also described as having coconut and popcorn notes.
Then I moved on to a sampler of three different flavored sakes – Yuzu Dragon (made with yuzu, oranges and dragon fruit), Mulberry, and Guava Kumquat. The first of the three was made from the special ST25 variety of rice. They were surprisingly good, but I found Mulberry to be a bit medicinal.
Next I moved into the sake bomb. Here you can choose the craft sake to be deposited into the beer. I chose Pineapple Chili sake made from ST25 rice. I tasted the sake first. The slight heat from the chilis was pleasant. This is a flavored sake I wanted to have again. Then I let the shot of sake fall into my beer and chugged it down. Just for a second I felt like a teenager again.
I also had the Cloudy Nigori, which was a light nigori sake which was very easy to drink and pleasant but not memorable.
Besides the sake, we had the Mua Sake Beer Collab with East West. The beer was made with sake kasu (lees). It was very pleasant and not overly hoppy.
The pub food was Japanese inspired and paired well with the sake.
After a night of drinking, we finished the night off with a nice bowl of pho at Phở Hòa Pasteur, also in District 3.
Mùa Craft Saké – Google maps link
Phở Hòa Pasteur – Google maps link
Drinking Japan 