Hakubotan Sake Brewery

About Hakubotan Sake Brewery

Hakubotan Sake Brewery (白牡丹酒造, Hakubotan Shuzō) is a sake maker in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, founded in 1675, and eight structures at its two brewing compounds, Enpogura and Tenpogura, were registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2017. The company writes the compound names as 延宝庫 and 天保庫; the national register uses the character 蔵 (Enpōgura, Tenpōgura).

Brewing began under Shima Rokurobei Harumasa, who traded as Katoya. A family record kept by the company says his grandfather, Hikotaro Tadamasa, was the second son of Shima Sakon, a strategist on the losing Western side at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, and that he fled west and settled at Yokkaichi in Saijo. The Shima family counts Sakon as the first head and Rokurobei as the fourth; the current president is the fifteenth.

In 1805 the comic poet Shokusanjin (Ota Nanpo) stayed at the Shima house and drank with oysters, an evening he recorded in a travel diary. In December 1839 the regent Takatsukasa Masamichi, whose family crest was a peony, granted the brewery the name Hakubotan, "white peony." The business became a company in 1939.

Two artists are tied closely to the label. The novelist Natsume Soseki wrote a haiku on a peony painting by Yokoyama Taikan, and from 1955 onward the woodblock printmaker Shiko Munakata carved the lettering still used as the logo.

The Two Compounds: Enpogura and Tenpogura

The eight registered structures of Hakubotan Sake Brewery split evenly between Enpogura, at lot 709 in Saijo Honmachi, and Tenpogura, at lot 879. The two sites lie roughly 100 meters apart on a north-south line, with Enpogura to the north. Both sit inside the old street grid of Yokkaichi, a post town on the Saigoku Kaido highway.

Enpogura

The company identifies Enpogura as the place where the business started. The South End Building keeps a copy of a Munafuda (ridge tag) dated 1675, and a town map of 1862 marks the site as a brewing storehouse. A main house once stood south of that building, facing the highway. The pattern of a street-front house with storehouses running back along a long, narrow plot, typical of a post town, is still legible here.

The South End Building forms the west edge of the site; the North End Building continues north from it and then turns east. The well lies southeast of the South End Building and the chimney stands to its east. According to the company chronology, Enpogura lost its brewing license in 1944 under wartime industry consolidation and resumed brewing in 1960.

Tenpogura

At Tenpogura a large brewing storehouse occupies the middle of the lot and the rice mill stands at the south end. The well is north of the brewing storehouse, behind the main house, and the chimney rises to the northwest. The chronology records that Tenpogura was put into service in 1996 by converting the former head-office bottling hall, and that year-round brewing equipment followed in 2000. Hakubotan still labels its competition daiginjo as a Tenpogura sake, so this is a working brewery.

Enpō is the era of the founding and Tenpō the era in which the brewery received its name, but no source found for this article explains how either compound was named.

Why the Eight Structures Were Registered

All eight structures of Hakubotan Sake Brewery were listed on June 28, 2017, each as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, in the 87th round of registrations, under consecutive numbers 34-0234 to 34-0241. The numbering runs through Enpogura first (South End Building, North End Building, well, chimney) and then Tenpogura (brewing storehouse, rice mill, well, chimney).

Six were listed because they contribute to the historic landscape of the country. The Tenpogura rice mill and well were listed as models of design. Their dates run from the mid-Edo South End Building and well at Enpogura to the Tenpogura brewing storehouse of the early Showa era. What ties the set together is that one brewer kept all three kinds of structure a sake works depends on, earthen-walled storehouses, stone wells, and brick chimneys, across two neighboring sites.

Separately, Enpogura was designated on February 21, 2024, as one of the four sites that make up Saijo Sake Breweries (西条酒蔵群, Saijo Sakagura-gun), a national Historic Site. The designation cites Enpogura as the storehouse of the Shima family, the earliest recorded brewers in Saijo, and as an example of the small brewing buildings that stood behind town houses in the post-town era. Tenpogura lies outside the historic site.

Visiting Hakubotan Sake Brewery

The part open to the public is the exhibition room at the head office, 15-5 Saijo Honmachi, which the company lists together with Tenpogura in its visitor guide. It shows the brewery's history and tools along with letters and works by Shiko Munakata. Admission is free, and there is tasting and a shop selling sake available only at the brewery.

The company gives opening hours of 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays and 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, closed on national holidays. The Higashihiroshima tourism site adds closures on the second and fourth Saturdays from April to October, and its brewery hours table shows a weekday break from noon to 1:00 p.m., with visits handled by phone booking and intercom. No staff member is on duty full-time on weekdays, so ring the intercom on arrival. Groups of 10 or more are asked to call ahead.

In front of the head office you can drink Myoga no Isui, the well water the brewery also uses for its sake.

Enpogura is closed to the public because of the age of its buildings, and Higashihiroshima City also lists it as a non-public component of the historic site. The company's visitor guide does not include the interiors of the Tenpogura brewing storehouse or rice mill. All eight registered structures are therefore seen only from outside the premises, as far as they are visible. The company publishes no photography rules, so ask staff before taking pictures inside the exhibition room.

The head office is about a 5-minute walk from JR Saijo Station on the Sanyo Main Line, within the Saijo Sakagura-dori brewery district by the station. By car it is about 10 minutes from Saijo Interchange on the Sanyo Expressway. Parking is at partner paid lots, and a purchase covers one hour of the fee. Hours can change, so check the company website or the tourism site's brewery hours page before you go.