Kamotsuru Sake Brewery

A brewery founded in 1873, with 19 registered structures beside Saijo Station

Kamotsuru Sake Brewery (賀茂鶴酒造, Kamotsuru Shuzō) is a sake brewery in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, founded in 1873, and 19 of the structures on its premises were entered together on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on June 28, 2017. The company writes its name in English as Kamotsuru Sake Brewing Co., Ltd.; the reading is "kamotsuru", not "kamozuru".

According to the brewery's own history, the Kimura family had brewed in the old Kamo District for generations. Kimura Wahei, the fourth head, trained in the Nada brewing district and began making sake in Saijo in 1873; the name Kamotsuru, pairing the local place name Kamo with the crane (tsuru), was chosen on September 9 that year, the Chrysanthemum Festival. The Sanyo Railway reached the town in 1894 and put Saijo Station a few minutes' walk from the brewery. In 1898 Kamotsuru installed a powered rice-polishing machine ordered from Satake Riichi, a machine maker in the same town. The business became a joint-stock company in 1918.

Higashihiroshima City describes the No. 1 Brewhouse, built by Kimura Wahei in 1873, as the first sake brewhouse put up in Saijo in the modern era. On February 21, 2024, it was also designated a national Historic Site as one of the four components of the Saijo Sake Breweries (西条酒蔵群).

The 19 registered structures of Kamotsuru Sake Brewery, oldest first

The Kamotsuru Sake Brewery listings carry registration numbers 34-0213 to 34-0231. Sorted by the dates in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, they fall into four periods.

• Early Meiji (1868 to 1882): the west wing, east wing, north and south storehouses and well of the No. 1 Brewhouse, on the founding site. The west wing gained extensions in the Taisho era and early Showa era.
• Late Meiji (1898 to 1912): the east-west wing, north-south wing, east well, west well and chimney of the No. 2 Brewhouse.
• Taisho era: the No. 3 Brewhouse and its chimney (early Taisho), then the No. 4 Brewhouse with its well and chimney (late Taisho).
• Early Showa (1926 to 1945): the head office, the research laboratory, the No. 8 Brewhouse chimney and the Horaian art studio, which was moved here from Tokyo in 2005.

That makes 11 buildings, 4 wells and 4 brick chimneys. Three listings were registered under criteria other than contribution to the historic landscape: the No. 3 Brewhouse as hard to reproduce, and the No. 2 Brewhouse west well and the Horaian art studio as models of design.

The scale varies a great deal. The No. 4 Brewhouse covers 1,099 square meters, while the No. 1 Brewhouse north storehouse covers only 31. The chimneys run from 14 meters (No. 2) to 23.4 meters (No. 3), all laid in English bond.

How the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery site is laid out

The brewery describes its site as lying just east of the plaza in front of JR Saijo Station, at the northern end of Sakagura-dori, the street of sake breweries. The registered structures sit in two blocks. The western block is the founding site: the long west wing of the No. 1 Brewhouse runs down the western edge, the east wing faces it, two small storehouses stand in a row south of the east wing with their gables to the west, and the old well sits in the southeast corner. Higashihiroshima City has turned the plot south of the No. 1 Brewhouse, where the Kimura family house once stood, into a public history square.

The eastern block holds today's head office and working brewhouses. The head office stands next to the site of the old honjin inn, with the research laboratory to its east in front of the No. 2 Brewhouse. The No. 3 Brewhouse and the north-south wing of No. 2 adjoin the back of the No. 2 east-west wing, the No. 4 Brewhouse lies north of No. 3, and No. 8 lies east of No. 2. Four red-brick chimneys rise beside these brewhouses, each lettered with the Kamotsuru name near the top.

The brewery's history records renovations of the No. 2 Brewhouse in 1984, No. 8 in 1985 and No. 4 in 1987. When a new suburban brewery at Misonou began production in 1995, No. 4 was closed, while hand brewing continued in Nos. 2 and 8 at the head office.

Visiting Kamotsuru Sake Brewery: the No. 1 Brewhouse shop and brewery tours

The only Kamotsuru Sake Brewery building that anyone can walk into is the No. 1 Brewhouse, converted into the company's shop and museum in 2019. Inside are brewing tools and documents, a film on sake making with English subtitles, a paid tasting bar and a shop. It opens 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (last entry 5:45 p.m.), admission is free and no booking is needed. It closes for the Obon holidays, the New Year period and occasional days such as the eve of the sake festival; groups of 20 or more are asked to give notice through an online form.

The working brewhouses are normally closed. The brewery runs occasional booked tours of a brewhouse at 2,000 yen per person, about one hour long, limited to 15 people and starting from the east wing of the No. 1 Brewhouse. Guidance is in Japanese only, and children of elementary school age or younger may not enter the brewhouse. During the Saijo Sake Festival in autumn (October 10 and 11 in 2026), the No. 2 Brewhouse toji, or master brewer, leads booked tours inside.

When the registration was announced in 2017, the brewery said the buildings could be seen from outside only; the No. 1 Brewhouse has opened since then as the shop. Horaian is the company's guest house for entertaining clients and is not open to the public.

Getting to Kamotsuru Sake Brewery

The nearest station to Kamotsuru Sake Brewery is Saijo on the JR Sanyo Line, about 3 minutes on foot from the No. 1 Brewhouse shop according to the brewery. By car it is about 15 minutes from Higashi-Hiroshima Station on the Sanyo Shinkansen and about 20 minutes from Hiroshima Airport.

Cars and buses up to 9 meters long can use the brewery's own parking; large coaches are directed to the city's tour-bus car park. The shop's postal address is 9-7 Saijo Honmachi and the head office is at 4-31 Saijo Honmachi, while the national database gives each listing by its land lot number.