Fukubijin Sake Brewery Ebisu-gura Chimney

The Tallest Chimney on the Brewery Street

Fukubijin Shuzo Ebisu-gura Ento (福美人酒造恵比寿蔵煙突, also written Fukubijin Shuzō Ebisu-gura Entotsu, the chimney of the Fukubijin brewery's Ebisu-gura compound) is a Taisho-period brick chimney at 691 Saijo-honmachi in Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, entered on Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 1 August 2016.

It rises from the middle of the compound to a height of about twenty-four metres, and local sources describe it as the tallest of the brewery chimneys in Saijo. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as one structure, classified not as a building but as a work of construction, which is the category Japan uses for towers, walls, bridges and similar objects that are not occupied.

Approach along the street and it appears above the tiled roofs long before you reach the gate. From directly beneath, the taper is more pronounced than it looks from a distance, and the shaft leans away from you as your eye travels up.

Square at the Foot, Ringed at the Crown

Two details reward a close look.

The first is at ground level. The base is square in plan rather than round, each side measuring roughly two metres. Square bases were common in Japanese industrial brickwork of this era because they are simpler to lay and easier to tie into adjoining structures, and because the flue below is usually rectangular where it leaves the furnace.

The second is at the very top, where the shaft finishes in a projecting moulded band, described in Japanese as jabara. A cornice of this kind is partly practical, throwing rainwater clear of the brickwork below, and partly a matter of finish. Its presence tells you that whoever built this considered the chimney part of the brewery's public face and not merely a piece of plant.

The bricks are laid in English bond, alternating courses of headers and stretchers. English bond is the stronger of the two common patterns and was the standard choice for Japanese engineering brickwork from the Meiji period onward, so its use here reflects both structural sense and the training of the masons available in Taisho-era Hiroshima.

Chimneys like this served the boiler that produced steam for the brewery. Steaming rice is the operation that consumes the most heat in sake making, and before oil and gas that meant a coal or wood fire and a stack tall enough to carry the smoke above the roofs.

Red Brick Against White Plaster

The registration criterion applied here concerns structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, and in this case the wording is unusually apt. The Agency's own commentary notes how the brick answers the red roof tiles around it and stands out against the white plastered walls of the storehouses.

That combination is what makes Saijo look the way it does. Roughly a kilometre of street south of the station holds seven working breweries, and twelve brick chimneys punctuate the skyline above their white walls and namako-kabe lattice plasterwork. Saijo chimneys usually carry the brewery's brand name in large characters, so the skyline doubles as a directory.

Recognition came in stages. Brewing structures across the district were added to the cultural property register through 2016 and 2017. In December 2017 the Japanese national committee of ICOMOS, the advisory body to UNESCO on world heritage, chose the brewing facilities of Saijo for its list of twenty heritage sites of twentieth-century Japan. Saijo is now spoken of alongside Nada in Hyogo and Fushimi in Kyoto as one of the country's three great sake-producing districts.

Take the chimneys away and that argument would be much harder to make. A white-walled storehouse could stand anywhere in Japan; the vertical red shafts are what identify the town from a distance.

Where to Stand

The chimney is visible from the public street and from inside the Ebisu-gura compound, and photographing it costs nothing and requires no permission. The compound is entered freely during the hours the brewery shop is open, from 10:00 to 16:00 with a break between 12:00 and 13:00, seven days a week apart from irregular closures. Admission is free.

The chimney is a structure, not a building, so there is no interior and no climbing it. The reward is the view from below and from the far side of the street, where enough distance lets you frame the shaft against the storehouse roofs.

Light matters more here than at most sites. Brick reads warm in the low sun of late afternoon and flat at midday, and the shaft casts a long shadow across the yard in winter. Overcast days flatten the colour contrast that gives the composition its point.

JR Saijo Station is about seven minutes away on foot, and the Saijo interchange of the Sanyo Expressway about ten minutes by car, though on-site parking is limited to two spaces. Inside the shop you can taste the sake and see the well water used for brewing; a cask from the fundraising campaign that saved the early Hiroshima Carp baseball club is on display, along with calligraphy by former prime ministers.

One point of clarification: Fukubijin operates a second compound, Daikoku-gura in Saijo-suehiro-cho, which has its own chimney dating from 1925 and is protected as a city-designated historic site rather than a registered cultural property. The registered chimney described here is the one at the Saijo-honmachi address.