Kirei Sake Brewery

A brewery on Saijo's sake street

Kirei Sake Brewery (亀齢酒造, Kirei Shuzō) is a sake maker in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, founded in 1898 according to the company, and six structures on its grounds were each listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016.

The house name is Yoshidaya. In the Meiji era, the company says, it ran a liquor business in Jirōmaru, Yokkaichi, selling what locals knew as Yoshidaya's sake; Kirei Sake Brewery Co., Ltd. was incorporated in 1939. The brand name Kirei, written with the characters for tortoise and age, comes from the saying that the crane lives a thousand years and the tortoise ten thousand. The company's website credits the choice to Ishii Kōtarō, then head of the house.

Hiroshima sake has a reputation for softness and a touch of sweetness. Kirei has built its name on the opposite: a clean, dry style it has kept for generations. The brewery still points to an honorary prize it received in 1917 as a milestone in its history.

From post town to brewing town

In the Edo period central Saijo was Yokkaichi-juku, a post station on the old Saigoku Kaidō highway. Higashihiroshima City explains that brewing here began in small storehouses tucked behind the houses fronting the highway. In the late Meiji and Taisho eras, as the new railway station widened the market and brewing technique improved, much larger storehouses went up on the farmland behind the street.

What makes Kirei's six listed structures worth seeing together is that they cover that expansion and carry on into the postwar years, all within one company. The oldest is the late-Meiji No. 1 Storehouse. The No. 1 Storehouse Chimney, the Western-style building and the No. 5 Storehouse belong to the Taisho era, while the gatepost and the No. 7 Storehouse Chimney date from around 1955.

Their registration numbers run in sequence, 34-0192 to 34-0197, and all six were announced on the same day in the 84th round of registrations. Each qualifies as a contribution to the historical landscape of the nation. The Agency for Cultural Affairs picks out the small Western-style building as a typical example of the Saijo brewer's habit of keeping a Western-style room beside the brewhouses.

Three plots and a walking order

The six structures stand on three separate plots. The main one, at 666 Saijo Honmachi, meets the sake street along its south edge. The Western-style building and the gatepost line that edge, the No. 1 Storehouse runs along the back on the east side, and the No. 1 Storehouse Chimney rises from the middle of the plot. Across a lane to the northeast, at 693-1 Saijo Honmachi and adjoining lots, is the No. 5 Storehouse. About 150 metres further northeast, at 614-1 Saijo Honmachi, stand the No. 7 Storehouse and its chimney.

Start on the street at the gatepost and the Western-style building. From there, get your bearings on the No. 1 Storehouse at the back and the tall chimney in front of it. Then work around to the northeast, where the No. 5 Storehouse presents a long white wall to the lane, and finish with the walk of about 150 metres to the No. 7 Storehouse Chimney. Seen one after the other, the square chimney on the main plot and the round one further out make the point that even a single brewery did not build its chimneys to one pattern.

According to the city's tourism association, the white-walled storehouses carry a family crest of a single horizontal bar above three dots, a design associated with retainers of the Mōri clan.

Visiting and getting there

Kirei is a working brewery, and its website makes no mention of tours inside the storehouses. The part open to the public is Manekiya (万年亀舎), the shop on the grounds, which sells the brewery's sake and offers tastings of a limited number of pours.

Manekiya opens from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays, with a lunch break, and from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekends and holidays. It trades almost all year apart from the New Year holidays, though it sometimes closes on weekends and holidays without a fixed pattern. Saijo's October sake festival brings a closure for setting up and clearing away; for 2026 the brewery has announced that the shop will be shut from 6 to 15 October.

Saijo Station on the JR Sanyo Line is about a 5-minute walk away. By car, allow about 10 minutes from Saijo Interchange on the Sanyo Expressway.

Higashihiroshima City reminds visitors that some of its listed properties are closed or open only under conditions, and asks them to take care with photography and anything involving fire. Kirei Sake Brewery's six structures belong to a brewery still in production, so most of your looking will be done from the street. Ask the shop staff before taking photographs inside the grounds or the shop.