Kokuryu Sake Brewery

A Matsuoka Brewery Founded in 1804

Kokuryu Sake Brewery (黒龍酒造, Kokuryū Shuzō) is a sake brewery in Matsuoka Kasuga, Eiheiji-cho, Fukui Prefecture, founded in 1804, and three structures on its head-office lot, the store and main house, the annex and the east gate, were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on July 25, 2011.

The brewery's own history traces its start to Ishidaya Nizaemon, who split off from the main Ishidaya family and began brewing on the site that is now Matsuoka Kasuga. Ishidaya was the original trading name. It survives today as the label of the brewery's top sake and as the name of the company that runs its shops.

From 1894 the business traded as the Mizuno Sake Brewery. Records from that period already mention a brand called Kokuryu, "black dragon," after Kokuryu-gawa, an old name for the Kuzuryu River that flows past Matsuoka. The firm took the name Kokuryu Shuzo Co., Ltd. in 1963, and its head office is still at 1-38 Matsuoka Kasuga, where the brewery began.

Three Structures Along Honmachi Street

All three registered structures at Kokuryu Sake Brewery are dated to the early Showa period (the late 1920s to the mid-1940s) in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. They carry consecutive registration numbers, 18-0100 to 18-0102, and were registered on the same criterion: that each contributes to the historic landscape of the country. In other words, the street front is valued as a whole.

• Kokuryu Sake Brewery Store and Main House: a large Machiya facing south onto Honmachi Street, 15 m wide and 12 m deep, with a building area of 195 m²
• Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex: a detached reception room with an irimoya roof, single-storey, 54 m², joined to the east side of the main house
• Kokuryu Sake Brewery East Gate: a 2.7 m wide Udekimon gate facing the street across the annex's south garden

Read together, the agency's descriptions give the layout. The store and main house fronts the street. The annex is attached toward its east end, set back, with a small garden opening in front of it, and the east gate closes off that garden on the street side. From the pavement you see the long lattice front of the townhouse and, beside it, a compact black-walled gate.

The owner field in the agency database is blank. Ishidaya, the brewery's retail company, describes the main house as the oldest building Kokuryu Sake Brewery owns.

Visiting Kokuryu Sake Brewery

The store and main house at Kokuryu Sake Brewery is in daily use as the Ishidaya Main Store, the brewery's own shop. According to Ishidaya, it is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closed on Sundays, with some additional irregular closing days, so check the store calendar on the Ishidaya site before going.

The brewery does not offer brewery tours. Because the shop is very small, tour buses are asked not to stop, and pets are not allowed on the premises. There are 3 parking spaces. No photography policy is published, so ask the staff before taking pictures inside.

The nearest station is Matsuoka on the Echizen Railway Katsuyama Eiheiji Line, about a 6-minute walk away. By car, the brewery is 3 minutes from the Fukui-Kita interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway. The Ishidaya ESHIKOTO store, which Kokuryu opened in 2022, is a separate shop in a different location; the three registered structures are all here at the Matsuoka Kasuga head office.