Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura

The Core Brewhouse of Aramasa Sake Brewery

Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura (新政酒造愛醸蔵, Aijōgura) is a single-storey earthen-walled brewhouse from the middle Meiji period (1883 to 1897) on the grounds of Aramasa Sake Brewery in Omachi, Akita City, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 25, 2014. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it the shikomi-gura at the heart of the brewery, the building where the sake ferments.

The name joins the characters for "love" and "brewing" with gura, storehouse. Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura stands north of the Myojogura with its ridge running east to west, and at 116 square meters it is the second largest of the three brewhouses on the site.

White Walls Banded in Black

The building measures 16.2 meters by 7.2 meters under a gabled roof of pantiles. Its Dozo-zukuri walls are finished in white lime plaster, with a thick plaster band, the Hachimaki, running around the top, and there are doorways at both gable ends.

What sets Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura apart is the use of black plaster. The lower half of the hachimaki and the lintel strip over each doorway are finished in black, so dark bands frame the white walls at the eaves and above the entrances. The agency records this detail for the Aijogura alone among the brewery's buildings.

On the gable wall is a mark: a chevron with the katakana ウ (u) beneath it. The brewery was founded by Satō Uhē, whose given name begins with the same sound, but the agency's description does not explain the mark's origin.

Why Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura Was Registered

Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura carries registration number 05-0202 and was listed for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Ginjogura, the Myojogura and two former Kannonkō granaries were registered on the same day under consecutive numbers.

The agency describes a Meiji-era building in the present tense as the core of the brewery. Thick earthen walls buffer a fermentation room against swings in outside temperature, and this one still holds its central place in a working sake brewery.

Seeing Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura

Aramasa Sake Brewery Aijogura stands inside the working brewery, north of the Myojogura, and its interior is closed to visitors. How much of it can be seen from outside the grounds could not be confirmed. Both the black banding and the chevron mark are on the gable ends, so any view worth having would be of the east or west gable.

Photograph only from the public road, and keep clear of brewery work and vehicles.