Saijo Tsuru Brewery

A Small Brewery on Saijo's Sake Street

Saijo Tsuru Brewery (西條鶴醸造, also spelled Saijotsuru) is a sake brewery in Saijo Honmachi, Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, founded in 1904, and five of its structures were listed together as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 1, 2016.

The founder was Inomoto Ichimatsu. According to the brewery, he named his sake by joining the place name Saijo to tsuru, the crane, a bird associated with long life and good fortune. The Inomoto family still heads the company.

The brewery calls itself a small house on the sake street, and it works like one. From the 2006 brewing season it stopped hiring a seasonal master brewer and made its own employee, Miyaji Mitsuyoshi, the toji. Since then the whole staff has brewed together rather than splitting the work by process. The five listed structures are not museum pieces: sake is still made in them.

Five Listings on One Day

The five structures carry consecutive registration numbers, 34-0198 to 34-0202, and all were announced on the same day as part of the 84th round of registrations. Each was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property under the same criterion, that it contributes to the historic landscape of the nation. Higashihiroshima City reports that the same announcement covered 42 brewery-related structures belonging to five sake makers in the city, Saijo Tsuru Brewery among them.

The buildings fall into two generations. The Store and Main House and the two Shuhogura storehouses, one for brewing and one for fermentation, date from the late Meiji period (1898 to 1912). The Tsunoya annex and the brick chimney belong to the Taisho period (1912 to 1926). Since 1904 falls inside the late Meiji range, the brewery's claim that its storehouses and family house have been in use since its founding sits comfortably with the dates recorded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Four of the five are counted as buildings. The chimney is listed as a structure and counted as a single stack.

How the Long, Narrow Lot Is Laid Out

Read together, the Agency's descriptions give a clear picture of the site. The lot runs long from south to north. At its southwest corner, facing the street, stands the Store and Main House. The Tsunoya is built right against its back, and just west of the Tsunoya, near the middle of the lot, rises the brick chimney. Toward the rear is a line of storehouses known as the Shuhogura (酒宝蔵, "sake treasure storehouses"): the brewing storehouse on the south side and the fermentation storehouse on the north.

On the official register, the Store and Main House, the Tsunoya and the chimney sit on lot 706-1, and the two storehouses on lot 707-2. The brewery gives its street address as 9-17 Saijo Honmachi.

Higashihiroshima City explains that in the Edo period, when Saijo was the post town of Yokkaichi on the old Saigoku highway, licensed households brewed in small storehouses set behind their main houses on narrow plots along the road. Newcomers who entered the trade after the Meiji era followed the same arrangement. Saijo Tsuru Brewery, founded in 1904, keeps that order: shop and house on the street, storehouses behind.

The buildings are also linked by function. The Agency notes that smoke from the kamaba, the rice-steaming room south of the brewing storehouse, travels through a flue and leaves by the chimney in the middle of the lot. The fire that steamed the rice and the stack that carried off its smoke were built as one system.

The easiest way to take it in is to look at the street front of the Store and Main House first, then walk into the shop and on toward the back. The city's tourism site mentions that panels on the passage walls explain traditional brewing. After placing the Tsunoya and the chimney, the Shuhogura interiors are seen on the brewery's own tour.

Visiting and Access

Saijo Tsuru Brewery is a working brewery, and the part normally open to the public is its shop. The brewery describes a room with a brick floor and a stained-glass door, where it offers tastings and sells sake available only at the brewery. The shop opens from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and closes on irregular days. The city's tourism site adds that on weekdays it breaks for lunch from noon to 1:00 p.m., that entry is free, and that there is no parking on site.

The Shuhogura interiors can be seen only on the brewery's Sakagura Monogatari (Brewery Story) tour. The brewery's notice says that from November 15, 2025, tours start at 2:00 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, last about 45 minutes, cost 2,200 yen including tax and take up to 6 people. Guests walk through storehouses that are in daily use and normally closed, led by the owner or the toji, and finish with a tasting. Photography inside the storehouses is fully permitted.

The city's tourism site, however, lists the same tour on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, open only to guests aged 20 and over and payable by credit card only. Because the two sources disagree on the days, check the booking site before you go. As of September 27, 2026, the brewery's notice said bookings had closed because the tours were full.

During the Saijo Sake Festival each October, the brewery adds a brewery tour led by the owner and the toji and a concert held inside its listed storehouse. In 2026 these fall on October 10 and 11, and both need advance booking.

The brewery is a 3-minute walk from Saijo Station on the JR Sanyo Main Line, by its own count; the city's tourism site says about 5 minutes. By car it is about 10 minutes from the Saijo interchange on the Sanyo Expressway: turn right in front of Saijo Station and continue about 100 meters.