Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse

A 918-square-meter Taisho brewhouse that turns a corner

Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse (賀茂鶴酒造三号蔵, Kamotsuru Shuzō Sangōgura) is a two-story Dozo-zukuri earthen-walled sake brewhouse from the early Taisho era (1912 to 1918) at the head office of Kamotsuru Sake Brewery in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 28, 2017.

It joins the rear west end of the No. 2 east-west wing and turns a right angle, giving an L-shaped plan. At 918 square meters it is the second largest of Kamotsuru's 19 listings, after the No. 4 Brewhouse.

Board-clad base and an undivided upper floor

The gabled roof (Kirizuma-zukuri) is pantiled. The walls are clad in boards at the base and finished in Shikkui plaster above, unlike the namako tilework at the foot of the No. 2 and No. 4 brewhouses, a difference easy to see where the buildings meet.

On the ground floor a passage runs along the north side of the north-south range, but the upper floor is left as one open room across the whole L. The No. 3 chimney stands to the west, its base enclosed in the boiler house.

A registration criterion unique to the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse

The Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse was registered as a building that would not be easy to reproduce. It is the only one of Kamotsuru's 19 listings registered on that criterion; the rest were registered for their contribution to the landscape or as models of design. The difficulty of building such a large earthen brewhouse again with the same materials and skills is presumably what the agency had in mind.

The brewery's history records renovations of Nos. 2, 4 and 8 but says nothing about the present use of No. 3.

Visiting the Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse

The Kamotsuru Sake Brewery No. 3 Brewhouse stands inside the brewery grounds behind the No. 2 front wing; no public access is announced and it is hard to see whole from the street. The 23.4-meter No. 3 chimney, lettered for the third brewery, marks where it is.