Iinuma Honke Kinoene Storehouse

A Brewing Shed That Was Moved Here

Iinuma Honke Kinoene Storehouse is a brewing storehouse of about 1940 in the Umabashi district of Shisui, Chiba Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 October 2017. Kinoene is the name of the brewery's sake, and the building carries it.

It stands east of the main house and faces west. The structure is of wood, 2 storeys with a single-storey section, roofed in iron and steel plate, with a floor area of 382 square metres. It measures 16 bays along the ridge by 9 across, and a monitor roof rides on top of the gabled main roof, a small raised roof that lets heat and damp escape upward from the working floor.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database dates the building to about 1940 and records that it was moved to this site in the early Showa period. The brewery tells a fuller story: the shed was built for a second plant opened at Goi in Ichihara in 1925, and when that plant closed around 1939 the building was dismantled and re-erected here.

A Sake Shed with a Western Roof Truss

Iinuma Honke Kinoene Storehouse was listed under the criterion for structures that serve as a model of design, and the roof frame is what decided it. Instead of a traditional Japanese frame, the builders used a queen post truss, a Western form in which two vertical members hang from the rafters to carry the tie beam.

That choice clears a span of 9 bays without posts, leaving the floor free for vats and stock. It is the opposite answer to the one given at the Meiji storehouse next door, where enormous log posts do the same job. Half a century apart, two solutions to one problem stand on the same estate.

The outer wall is boarded at the base and plastered in Shikkui above, the same division used on the front storehouse, which gives two buildings of completely different size a common face.

What to Look For

Do not miss the reception room projecting from the north-west corner. The brewery dates it to 1939, built when the shed was re-erected. Its ceiling is a janome ceiling, with members set radiating like the ribs of an opened paper umbrella. The floor is marble throughout, and the transom panels carry geometric patterns. The window glass is original, made by hand a pane at a time, which is why bubbles and waves still run through it.

A seal-carved work hanging in the room is attributed to Nakamura Rantai II. For a single reception room, that is a remarkable gathering of unrelated materials and crafts.

Outside, find the monitor roof. From a distance it looks like a long narrow box sitting along the ridge, and it marks the point where the air inside Iinuma Honke Kinoene Storehouse finds its way out.

Visiting

Iinuma Honke Kinoene Storehouse is a stop on the booked brewery tour, and the reception room is part of the route, so the umbrella ceiling and the marble floor come with it. Book through the reservation page on the brewery's website or through the shop, Kinoene Magariya, on 043-496-1001. The tour is paid and its dates are announced on the website.

Visitors change into white coats before entering the brewing areas. Photography rules are not published, so ask when booking or on arrival. Directions to the estate and opening hours are set out on the Iinuma Honke page.