Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop

What the Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop Is

The Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop (萬乗醸造旧精米作業場, Banjō Jōzō Kyū Seimai Sagyōba) is a Taisho-period single-storey timber workshop in Otakacho, Midori Ward, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on 31 July 2007 under registration number 23-0235. It runs north to south on the brewery site, south of the storehouse.

The building measures 6.5 Ken along the ridge and 3.5 ken across, with a Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles and a floor area of 125 square meters. The registration records a gate and a chimney as part of the structure. Construction is dated between 1912 and 1925.

The plan divides north from south. The southern half held the milling floor; the northern half is a passage through to the courtyard. On the west side a lean-to covers the northern half and a gabled roof the southern half, both used for storage. Milling removes the outer layers of brown rice to produce the polished grain used in brewing, and since the degree of polishing shapes the character of the sake, it ranks alongside fermentation itself.

Why It Was Registered

The Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The brick chimney set against its east wall is the main reason: it functions as a marker in the Odaka townscape.

Twelve structures at the brewery were registered together on 31 July 2007. Two of them are process workshops, this one and the bottling workshop. Where the three fermentation halls handle brewing, these two cover the stages before and after it, raw material preparation and shipping.

Brewing equipment is replaced with each round of mechanisation, and old workshops rarely survive. The Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop outlived its original function, and its northern half was turned into a passage to the courtyard. Registration recognises a building that stayed standing by changing use.

What to Look For

A red brick chimney rises against the east wall. Nagoya's Midori Ward describes the left bank of the Otaka River as a street of chimneys and dark-walled sake storehouses, and this is the chimney at the centre of that description. Walking the old quarter, it is the vertical line that tells you where you are.

The roof is framed as a truss. Japanese carpentry traditionally carries a ridge on short posts standing on beams. A truss instead assembles diagonal members into triangles so that timbers work in tension and compression, a Western technique that spread through Japanese factories and warehouses after the Meiji Restoration. The Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop uses a king post truss, the same type as the bottling workshop to the south.

The external walls are horizontal weatherboarding, a plainer finish than the black lime plaster of the main house and the storehouse. Across the site the domestic buildings are plastered and the working buildings are boarded, and the difference is visible at a glance.

The northern half of the Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop opens through to the courtyard, a space enclosed by the rice steaming room of the original storehouse and the polished rice warehouse. The courtyard is inside the working premises and cannot be seen by visitors.

Visiting

The Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop stands inside the premises of an operating sake company. The interior is closed and the grounds cannot be entered. Viewing is limited to the exterior from the public road. The company states on the FAQ page of its official site that it does not sell sake at the brewery, so there is no shop or visitor reception.

Photography from the public road is not restricted. The brick chimney stands on the road side and is easy to frame from a distance. Avoid photographing into the premises or at people at work.

Odaka Station on the JR Tokaido Main Line is about 15 minutes away on foot. Enter the old quarter from the station and follow the left bank of the Otaka River westward; the chimney of the Banjo Brewery Former Rice Milling Workshop appears above the roofs. Odaka Castle Park lies further west. Midori Ward publishes a 5.7 kilometre walking route, the Odaka Castle Town Course, which takes in this brewing street.