Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office

A wooden Western-style office beside the old honjin site

Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office (賀茂鶴酒造本社事務所, Kamotsuru Shuzō Honsha Jimusho) is a two-story wooden Western-style building from the early Showa era (1926 to 1945) in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 28, 2017. The brewery dates it to 1927.

It stands in the center of Saijo, next to the site of the honjin, the inn where feudal lords lodged when the town was a post station on the Saigoku Kaido highway. With a building area of 108 square meters, it holds offices on the ground floor and reception rooms upstairs.

A hipped tile roof over clapboard walls

The hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) is covered in Japanese pantiles, with the entrance on the gable end (Tsumairi), so a traditional tiled roof sits on a Western-looking body.

The building rises from a two-course stone base, and its walls are clad in overlapping horizontal boards (Shitami-itabari). Sash windows set close together give the facade its rhythm and fill the offices with light.

Among Kamotsuru's white plaster and tiled storehouses, the timber walls and tall windows of the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office stand out. The Agency for Cultural Affairs regards it as a local landmark expressing the modernity of the sake industry.

Why the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office was registered

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The brewery became a joint-stock company in 1918, and the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office followed about a decade later as the public face of the incorporated firm.

Visiting the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office

The Kamotsuru Sake Brewery Head Office is still in use and its interior is not open; the exterior can be seen from the street in front.

During the Saijo Sake Festival (October 10 and 11 in 2026), booked tours of the No. 2 Brewhouse gather just east of the head office's front entrance.