Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse

The Brewery's Rice Store, Walled in Clay and Plaster

The Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse (石上酒造米蔵, Ishigami Shuzō Komegura) is an earthen Dozo-zukuri storehouse of the mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897) on the grounds of Ishigami Sake Brewery in Tanaka-cho, Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 March 2018. It carries registration number 12-248, the first of the brewery's five.

This is where the brewery kept, and polished, the rice it brewed with. Choshi City believes it was standing by 1902. The Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse runs north to south and marks the southeast corner of the brewery's group of buildings. At 29 square meters of floor area it is the smallest of the five.

Three Bands of Wall on the Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse

Look first at the walls. The lower part is Namako-kabe, square tiles set in raised lines of plaster, and above that white Shikkui plaster is carried all the way up into the eaves. A middle band has been sheathed in steel, which Choshi City identifies as Galvalume. The upper storey is plastered right up into the gable, so the Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse reads as three stripes: tile grid, grey metal, white plaster.

The roof is a simple Kirizuma-zukuri gable in Sangawara-buki pantiles. Inside, according to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, each floor is a single room and the ground floor is beaten earth, a practical surface for handling and polishing rice. The Agency's database records alterations made to the building in 2011.

Why It Was Registered, and a Discrepancy in the Record

The Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency singles it out as the storehouse that closes off the southeast end of a brewery complex in the middle of Choshi. Among neighbors built of Ōya stone, it is the one traditional clay-and-plaster kura, and it gives the site a second texture.

The records do not quite agree. The structure field in the Agency database calls the Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse single-storey, while the database's own description, and Choshi City, describe two storeys. The date also varies: mid-Meiji in the Agency database, by 1902 according to the city. The basic information below follows the structure field; the description is reported here in the text.

Seeing the Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse

The interior of the Ishigami Sake Brewery Rice Storehouse is not open to visitors. Ishigami Sake Brewery is still in production, and any visit has to be booked with the brewery in advance. If you are shown round, compare the striped walls and plain gable of this earthen store with the grey stone walls of its neighbors. Check whether photography is allowed when you book.