A Kyoto Sake Shop That Now Stands on a Hill in Inuyama
Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery is a wooden 2-storey Machiya townhouse at Museum Meiji-Mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, built in 1870 on Gokomachi Street in central Kyoto and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2003/12/1.
The Nakai family opened for business in 1787 at Kawaramachi Nijo. In 1803 they moved a short distance west to Gokomachi and took up sake dealing, and in 1864 their premises burned in the fire that swept the city during the Kinmon Incident. What replaced the ruins is the building now standing on the hill at Inuyama.
It is a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled house entered on the long side (Hirairi), with the low half-storey attic that Kyoto builders called Tsushi-nikai. The Sangawara-buki pantile roof swells outward in a shallow convex curve, and that low eaves line is what gives a Kyoto townhouse its face. The frontage measures just under 6 Ken and the building covers 155 square meters. The right-hand bay drops a step lower than the rest.
The house was dismantled in Kyoto in 1971 and re-erected in Block 2 of Meiji-Mura in 1993.
Listed as Something Not Easily Reproduced
The criterion applied to Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery was that the building could not easily be reproduced. Its registration number is 23-0076, and the listing was announced on 2003/12/25.
What makes it hard to reproduce is that a brewery sits inside the frame of an ordinary townhouse. From the street it reads as a Kyoto merchant's shop. Step past the entrance onto the Toriniwa earth-floored passage and the right-hand side opens all the way to the rafters, with a rice-washing station and a brick steaming furnace standing in it. Under the kitchen floor, a cellar was dug for growing koji. A dwelling and a workshop backed onto each other under one roof, and that arrangement cannot be redrawn from measured plans.
The Registered Tangible Cultural Property system began in 1996. It covers buildings roughly 50 years old or more, assumes they will go on being used, and asks only for notification rather than permission when something is altered. For a house like this one, still doing work as a building after being moved, the framework fits without strain.
Things Worth Stopping For
Start with the lattice. Heavy vertical bars and sliding louvred windows flank the entrance, and above the eaves canopy the attic storey carries the small barred openings known as mushikomado. The walls are finished in Shikkui lime plaster and the window frames are thickly rendered over. The unusually thick sakaya lattice was not only a style; it had to survive barrels being manhandled in and out.
Inside, the earth-floored passage divides the plan into two different worlds. On the left run the Zashiki reception room, the counting room and the kitchen. On the right is the open workshop.
In the workshop, look up. Great curved logs, left in their natural shape, span the space, and short posts and tie beams lock together above them. Straight timber was not unavailable. The carpenters simply laid the curved pieces crown-upward so the arc carried the load, which is how older townhouses in the city were framed.
At floor level stands the brick steaming furnace, its two openings measuring 1.3 meters and 1.1 meters across. A pulley is fixed to the main beam overhead. The lid of the steaming kettle was far too heavy to lift by hand, and this is what raised and lowered it.
The koji cellar under the kitchen floor exploits the steady temperature of the ground. The floor above held storage and the sleeping quarters of the kurabito, the seasonal brewery hands who came in for the cold months and slept under that low ceiling.
The work done here ran from storing new rice through washing and steaming it to growing koji. Mashing and maturing took place in a separate storehouse behind the building, and that storehouse was not moved to Meiji-Mura. What Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery preserves, then, is the front half of the brewing process.
Visiting Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery
Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery is open inside, and from the earth-floored passage you can see both the workshop and the living rooms. It stands in Block 2, close enough to the main gate that most visitors reach it early.
Entry is covered by the Museum Meiji-Mura admission ticket: 2,500 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for high school students, 700 yen for junior high and elementary school students, and free for preschool children.
Opening hours shift with the season. From April through July and in September and October the museum runs 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; in August, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; in November, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., extended to 5 p.m. on weekends and public holidays; from December through February, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and in March, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing. Closed days are clustered in winter, so check the museum calendar before travelling. Prices and hours are both subject to change.
Photography for personal use is allowed. Tripods may not be used inside the buildings.
Buses for Meiji-Mura leave from the east exit of Meitetsu Inuyama Station, and direct services also run from Nagoya Station and Sakae. By car the museum is 3 kilometers from the Komaki-higashi interchange on the Chuo Expressway; parking costs 1,000 yen for a standard car.
Elsewhere in the museum stands Meiji Village Kikunoyo Sake Brewery, a storehouse built for the mashing and maturing stages. Seeing the front half of the process here and the back half there joins the two ends of the same craft.
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Q&A
- Can you go inside Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery?
- Yes. From the earth-floored passage you can see the reception room, counting room and kitchen on the left and the open workshop on the right. The steaming furnace and the pulley above it are both visible from the passage.
- Is sake still brewed at Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery?
- No. The house was dismantled in Kyoto in 1971 and re-erected at Meiji-Mura in 1993, and it has been an exhibit building ever since. The separate storehouse behind it, where mashing and maturing were done, was not moved.
- How much does it cost to visit Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery?
- Only the Museum Meiji-Mura admission ticket: 2,500 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for high school students, 700 yen for junior high and elementary school students, and free for preschool children. Individual buildings carry no extra charge.
- What does the Registered Tangible Cultural Property status of Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery mean?
- The system began in 1996 and covers buildings roughly 50 years old or more. It is a light form of protection built around continued use: owners notify the authorities of changes rather than applying for permission.
- Where in Kyoto did Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery originally stand?
- On Gokomachi Street at Nijo, in what is now Nakagyo Ward. Nothing of the house remains on the site. The Nakai family had started out at Kawaramachi Nijo in 1787 and moved to Gokomachi in 1803.
Basic Information
| Name | Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery (明治村京都中井酒造) |
|---|---|
| Location | Museum Meiji-Mura, 1 Uchiyama, Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture (Block 2, No. 19) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) / Registration No. 23-0076 |
| Year Designated | Registered 2003/12/1 (announced 2003/12/25) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wood frame, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 155 square meters |
| Owner | Meiji Mura Public Interest Foundation |
| Public Access | Interior open. Museum Meiji-Mura admission required (adults 2,500 yen). Bus from the east exit of Meitetsu Inuyama Station |
References
- Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery (National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003663
- Meiji Village Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery (Bunkazai Navi Aichi, Aichi Prefecture)
- https://www.pref.aichi.jp/kyoiku/bunka/bunkazainavi/yukei/kenzoubutu/kunitouroku/1095.html
- Kyoto Nakai Sake Brewery (Museum Meiji-Mura official site)
- https://www.meijimura.com/sight/京都中井酒造/
- Tickets and prices (Museum Meiji-Mura official site)
- https://www.meijimura.com/guide/price/
- Opening hours and closed days (Museum Meiji-Mura official site)
- https://www.meijimura.com/guide/open/
Last verified: 2026.09.03