White walls and red chimneys. Saijo's sake quarter runs a few hundred meters, and along it stand seven breweries, their plastered storehouses lined up wall to wall, each chimney stenciled with the brewery's name in white. This is one of Japan's three great brewing towns, named in the same breath as Nada and Fushimi, and the reason is underfoot: soft water from the wells of the Saijo basin, drawn for centuries. In October the breweries open all at once. The wells used for the mash are uncovered, the inner rooms usually closed to outsiders are thrown open, and more than a thousand sakes from across the country gather in a single town for two days. You can walk from one brewery to the next, cup in hand, until the streets themselves seem to tilt. The dish to find is bishonabe—a brewery workers' stew, chicken and vegetables simmered not in stock but in sake, salt, and a great deal of pepper. The whole town smells faintly of it, and faintly of fermentation, and by afternoon even those who do not drink find themselves, somehow, a little lifted. An autumn town, gently drunk.