>>9584387The most popular type of "unfiltered" sake is Nigorizake, whose sale was made legal by the brewery Tsuki no Katsura. In order for sake to be designated as "seishu," it was required by law for all sake to be filtered in some way.
The brewery was able to convince the right people that hey, why don't we use this super-coarse mesh to "filter" our brew, and although most of it will pass right through untouched, we'll still have techically "filtered" it! And that was how modern nigorizake was born.
The taste profile of nigorizake can vary tremendously. Most tend to go for a very quick and straightforward, powerful punch of a flavor profile, but there's also plenty of nigori that is bitter as hell.
These milky, rice-cloudy sakes have separate categories depending on just how much sediment is retained during the final bottling. With Nigorizake in the middle of this spectrum, there's "Usu-nigori," which has about half the cloudy sediment of regular Nigori, and there's also "Doburoku," which is just sake scooped out of the fermenting mash directly into the bottle with not even a coarse filtering.
Indeed, it is the Doburoku which is the true unfiltered sake. Unfortunately, this also means that elegance and refinement is completely thrown out the window.
Sold mainly for nostalgia's sake (no pun intended), doburoku is based on the brash homebrews that people used to make and drink without wasting any of the precious rice used in brewing (before this practice was outlawed, of course).
The one's I've drank were really hearty, almost like a porridge, and unfortunately only a select few were to my tastes. Most went for a very desert-like, thick, syrupy sweetness that was almost cloying.
