Asahi Shuzo Co., the Yamaguchi Prefecture-based maker of Dassai premium sake, has announced plans to build a brewery in New York, making it the first Japanese producer to establish itself in the region at a time when local craft sake breweries are on the rise.

The planned brewery, which will be the company's first outside Japan, is projected to cost $28 million and open in early 2019 at a site near the Culinary Institute of America campus in Hyde Park, about 120 km north of New York City.

"We are very excited to be able to bring this facility here," Kazuhiro Sakurai, the company's president, said at a recent event at the campus, expressing hope that his company's partnership with the school will help create a "new sake culture" involving people in the community and surrounding areas.