Fukubijin Sake Brewery Ebisu-gura Chimney

The Tallest Chimney on the Brewery Street

Fukubijin Sake Brewery Ebisu-gura Chimney (福美人酒造恵比寿蔵煙突, also known as Fukubijin Shuzō Ebisu-gura Entotsu) is a Taisho-period brick chimney at 691 Saijo Honmachi in Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 1 August 2016.

It rises from the middle of the compound to a height of about 24 metres according to the national record. The company describes it as 27 metres and the tallest in Saijo, but the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives that distinction to Fukubijin's other registered stack, the 27-metre No. 3 Storehouse Chimney at Daikoku-gura, so the sources do not agree. 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. Seen side-on, the shaft rising from that square footing keeps a crisp, angular outline.

The second is at the very top, where the shaft finishes in a projecting moulded band, described in Japanese as jabara. The national record lists it as decoration. A purely functional flue would not need it, which suggests the builders expected this chimney, standing in the middle of the compound, to be looked at.

The bricks are laid in English bond, alternating courses of headers and stretchers. Up close, the alternating courses give the surface a visible stripe. The No. 3 Storehouse Chimney at Daikoku-gura is laid in the same English bond English bond.

A chimney like this carried away the smoke from the brewery fires. Rice has to be steamed for sake, and the smoke from the fires under the steaming vats had to be carried well 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.

It was registered on 1 August 2016, the same day as thirteen other Fukubijin structures on the Ebisu-gura and Daikoku-gura compounds. The chimney only makes full sense against the white walls and red tiles of the No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses behind it.

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

Fukubijin Sake Brewery Ebisu-gura Chimney is visible from the streets outside and from inside the Ebisu-gura compound. It is a structure, not a building, so there is no interior and no climbing it. The compound is open during shop hours.

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. From just outside the gateposts, the stack rises straight up above the boarded wall of the office.

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.

Fukubijin has a second registered chimney at its Daikoku-gura compound in Saijo Suehirocho, the No. 3 Storehouse Chimney, which on 21 February 2024 also became part of the Saijo Sake Brewery Group, a Higashihiroshima municipal cultural property. Daikoku-gura is closed to the public, so that chimney can be seen only from outside the site.