The Oldest Building Where Kamokinshu Begins
Stand at the northwest corner of the Kanemitsu Brewery grounds in Kurose, a farming district of Higashi-Hiroshima south of the well-known Saijo sake quarter, and you are looking at the oldest structure on the site. The brewing storehouse, or shikomigura, holds the tanks where rice, water and koji are combined and left to ferment. Its earliest sections go back to the early Meiji period, close to the year the brewery opened in 1880, and a further range was added in the later Meiji decades as production grew.
The building follows the dozo method: a heavy timber frame packed with earth and finished in white lime plaster, a fireproof construction long favoured for storehouses. Two full storeys rise under a clay-tiled roof. The ridge is set out in a T-shape, with the longer east-west range and a north-south range that carries a lean-to along its eastern flank. Brewing work occupies the ground floor; the upper floor was given over to storage.
A National Register Built Around Landscape
In April 2020 the shikomigura was entered on Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties. This register, introduced in 1996, works differently from the older system of Important Cultural Properties. Rather than singling out isolated masterpieces, it protects buildings valued for the way they shape the character of a place. The Kanemitsu structures were listed together under that reasoning, recognised for holding the historic look of a working brewery quarter.
The plan of the hall reflects use rather than show. The east-west range is roofed in a hipped form, the north-south range in a plainer gable, and the walls carry the same white plaster seen across the compound. What registration records is not a single grand gesture but a purpose-built working hall that has kept doing its job for well over a century.
Craft You Can Still Taste on the Grounds
This is the hall where the brewery's turning point of 2003 plays out season after season. In that year the fifth-generation head, Kanemitsu Hideki, set aside the automated plant his family had installed and returned to hand brewing with a small resident crew, launching the Kamokinshu label. The name joins Kamo, the old district name, with two characters from his own. Careful low-temperature control from fermentation through storage lets a faint natural sparkle remain in the finished sake, and the results have drawn repeated gold awards at the national new-sake competition.
Visitors cannot enter the working storehouse itself, but the brewery keeps a shop on the grounds selling Kamokinshu alongside the older Sakurafubuki label and fruit liqueurs. Seeing the plastered walls of the shikomigura from the yard, then tasting what is made inside, gives the visit a directness that a museum display cannot match.
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Q&A
- What is a shikomigura?
- It is the hall where the main fermentation tanks stand and where rice, water and koji are brought together to brew sake. At Kanemitsu the ground floor is used for this work, with storage above.
- How old is the building?
- Its earliest parts date to the early Meiji period, around the brewery's founding in 1880, with a later Meiji-era extension. It is the oldest surviving structure on the grounds.
- Can I go inside?
- The storehouse is a working brewing space and is not open for interior visits. The brewery does run a shop on the grounds where its sake and liqueurs can be bought.
- What does dozo construction mean?
- It is a traditional Japanese method in which a timber frame is packed with earth and coated in thick lime plaster, giving fire resistance and steady interior conditions well suited to brewing and storage.
- When was it registered, and why?
- It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in April 2020, recognised together with other Kanemitsu buildings for preserving the historic character of a working sake-brewing compound.
Basic Information
| Name | Kanemitsu Sake Brewery Shikomigura (Brewing Storehouse) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1364-2 Nomio, Kurose-cho, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building); registration no. 34-0268 |
| Registered | 3 April 2020 (95th round of registrations) |
| Count and size | 1 building; two-storey dozo construction, tiled roof, building area approx. 409 m2 |
| Period | Early Meiji period, with a later Meiji extension |
| Access | About 10 min by car from Maki IC on the Higashi-Hiroshima Kure Expressway; about 3 min on foot from Nishimonzen bus stop. A brewery shop is on the grounds. |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database — Registered Tangible Cultural Property record
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00013326
- Kanemitsu Sake Brewery — official website
- https://www.kamokin.com/
- Higashi-Hiroshima Tourism (Higashiru) — Kanemitsu Brewery
- https://higashihiroshima-kanko.jp/spot/kanemitsu/
Last verified: 2026.07.05