Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex

What Is the Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex?

The Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex (黒龍酒造離れ, Kokuryū Shuzō Hanare) is an early Showa period detached reception room in Matsuoka Kasuga, Eiheiji-cho, Fukui Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 25, 2011.

It stands on the brewery's head-office lot, joined to the main house toward its east side. A single-storey wooden building of 54 m², the Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex holds just one 8-mat room, built for receiving guests rather than for daily life.

One Room, Carefully Fitted

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the annex has an irimoya roof of pantiles with its ridge running east to west. The single 8-mat room has a Tokonoma alcove and Chigaidana staggered shelves on its east wall, with veranda strips along the south and north sides. On the side facing the south garden, a decorative Ranma transom marks the line between room and veranda.

The materials match the plan. The alcove uses selected decorative timber, and the ceiling is a saobuchi board-and-batten ceiling finished in black lacquer. Batten ceilings are common in reception rooms; lacquering one black is a deliberate step up, and together with the alcove timber it concentrates the effort of the building into a single room.

The agency rates the Kokuryu Annex as a detached reception room of good quality. Like the store and main house and the east gate, it was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, as one part of the head-office compound.

The South Garden and the East Gate

A garden lies to the south of the Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex, and the east gate stands on the street side of that garden. The agency places the gate across the annex's south garden, facing the street, so the gate and the annex face each other with the garden between them.

That the ranma was placed on the garden side suggests the room was meant to face south, toward the garden. Seen from the street, the order runs gate, garden, annex.

Visiting the Kokuryu Sake Brewery Annex

Neither Kokuryu Sake Brewery nor its retail company Ishidaya announces any public viewing of the annex interior, and there are no brewery tours. The annex sits behind the east gate at the back of the south garden; it is the gate, not the annex, that faces the street.

From the street you can see the east gate and its surroundings, but not the fittings of the room. Directions and shop hours are on the Kokuryu Sake Brewery page. No photography policy is published.