Former Hiroshima Prefecture Saijo Sake Brewing Branch

What the Former Hiroshima Prefecture Saijo Sake Brewing Branch Was

The Former Hiroshima Prefecture Saijo Sake Brewing Branch (旧広島県西条清酒醸造支場, Kyū Hiroshima-ken Saijō Seishu Jōzō Shijō) is a government sake research station established in 1928 in Saijo Kamiichicho, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, and five of its structures (the main building, rice mill, brewing storehouse, chimney and gateposts) became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2016.

The compound sits directly south of the Kamoizumi sake brewery, near the eastern end of the brewery street that runs out from JR Saijo Station. Kamoizumi Sake Brewery Co., Ltd. now owns both the land and the buildings, and uses its own names for three of them: Shusenkan for the main building, Aisenkan for the rice mill and Izumikan for the brewing storehouse.

Expect to see the place under several names. The national register uses the one above; the prefecture's own history calls it the Saijo Sake Brewing Station, and Higashihiroshima City's heritage pages call it the Former Hiroshima Prefectural Brewing Experiment Station. All three refer to the same site.

A Laboratory for Hiroshima Sake

Japan began treating sake brewing as a science in earnest in 1904, when the Ministry of Finance founded a national brewing research institute. Prefectures followed with their own laboratories, and Hiroshima set up a prefectural brewing experiment station in 1922.

The Saijo branch was where that research met a real brewing season. According to the prefecture, it opened in 1928 and carried out all of Hiroshima's trial brewing until it closed in 1975, when the equipment moved to the Food Technology Research Center in Hiroshima city. Higashihiroshima City notes that after completion in 1929 the staff ran quality-improvement tests and brewed trial batches with new rice and yeast varieties.

The trial sake had a name of its own, Meikon, chosen in 1929 from suggestions submitted by prefectural employees. The research center still brews and sells Meikon every autumn.

Why Saijo? Because by the late 1920s the town was regarded as the center of sake brewing in the prefecture. For a visitor, the Former Hiroshima Prefecture Saijo Sake Brewing Branch is the physical proof that the government saw Saijo that way too. In 2024 the compound was also included in a group of Saijo breweries designated by the national government as the Historic Site "Saijo Sakagura-gun" (Saijo Sake Brewery Cluster).

How the Compound Is Laid Out

All five registered structures fit within a few dozen meters. Coming in from the Kamoizumi side to the north, you pass the gateposts first. Behind them stands the two-story timber main building, facing north.

A covered corridor links the main building to the rice mill on its south side, whose roof climbs in three steps toward the south. East of the main building lies the long reinforced concrete brewing storehouse, and the round chimney rises just south of it. Walking south from the gate past the main building and rice mill, then turning to look east at the storehouse and chimney, is the easiest way to read how the pieces relate.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the main building to around 1928, the brewing storehouse to 1929, the chimney and gateposts to around 1929, and the rice mill to the early Showa period (1926 to 1945). Higashihiroshima City's Historic Site page swaps the first two, giving 1929 for the main building and 1928 for the storehouse. This site follows the national database.

Getting to the Former Hiroshima Prefecture Saijo Sake Brewing Branch

The walk from JR Saijo Station on the Sanyo Line takes about 10 minutes: follow the brewery street east and turn south just past the Kamoizumi brewery. By car it is about 10 minutes from the Saijo interchange on the Sanyo Expressway, and Kamoizumi has a parking lot.

The one building you can walk into freely is the main building, now the Shusenkan sake café, open on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (closed around Obon, New Year and some other dates). Entry is free; food and drink are paid. On weekdays Kamoizumi's head-office shop is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The rice mill works as an indigo-dyeing studio, and visits or dyeing sessions there must be booked in advance. The other structures, including the brewing storehouse, are not regularly open, and the city notes that parts of the site are closed to the public.

Each structure's own page covers what to look for and the viewing conditions that apply to it.