A Brewer's Shop on the Makabe Street
The Nishioka family has brewed sake at the northern foot of Mt. Tsukuba since 1782, and the building that fronts their brewery in Makabe still carries the Hananoi name. What looks like a long-established shop began differently: it was first the main house of another brewer, Shimizuya, before the Nishioka business made it the public face of its own sake.
The shop sits on the eastern side of one of the old merchant streets in Makabe, part of Sakuragawa City in Ibaraki Prefecture. It is a timber building of two stories with a partial single-story wing, roofed in clay pantile, covering roughly 189 square meters. The main block measures seven bays along the street by five and a half bays in depth, raised in the gabled kirizuma form.
A half-bay lean-to, called a geya, runs along the eastern frontage, and a single-story shop section steps forward to the south. Local heritage records place the construction in the early Meiji period, the years after 1868. Before the Nishioka family took it over, the building had served as the main house of the Shimizuya brewery.
Registration and What It Protects
The shop was added to the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on August 28, 2001, with the official gazette notice following on September 14. Registration, or toroku, is the lighter of Japan's two principal heritage categories. Where designation, shitei, is reserved for the most exceptional works such as National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, registration was created to safeguard the much larger number of buildings, many of them from the Meiji period on, that give a town its texture and remain in everyday use.
Years of working life have brought changes to the building. Even so, the outer form, the earthen-floored work area known as the doma, and a tatami room once set aside for the toji, the head brewer, still preserve the shape of the original. A registered property that continues as a living workplace is the kind of heritage this category was meant to keep.
Visiting the Brewery
Because the shop now serves as the brewery's office, its interior is generally closed to casual visitors. The street view is the reward here: the long gabled roofline, the lean-to eaves, and the projecting store front read clearly from the road. A small granite marker out front, cut from the local Makabe stone the town is known for, identifies the building as a registered cultural property.
Guests are welcomed instead at the rear of the property, where the former storehouses now hold a gallery and exhibition space. A retail counter on the grounds sells the Hananoi sake and rotates its displays with the seasons. Tours of the brewing rooms can be arranged by booking ahead; the brewing season, roughly mid-December through March, is the busiest stretch, so a quieter visit is easier outside those months.
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Visitor Questions
- Can I go inside the shop building?
- The shop now works as the brewery's office, so its interior is not open for general viewing. Visitors are received instead at the on-site sake counter and the gallery in the former storehouses, and brewing-room tours can be booked in advance.
- What is Hananoi, and where does the name come from?
- Hananoi is the brewery's sake label. The name looks back to a cherry tree that once grew beside the well on the property; the blossoms by the well suggested the idea of a well of flowers.
- How old is the Nishioka brewery?
- It was founded in 1782 by Nishioka Hanemon, a merchant who came from Hino in the old province of Omi, present-day Shiga. That makes it one of the longer-running sake houses in the area.
- How do I get to Makabe?
- The town no longer has a railway. Most people arrive by car, about 20 to 25 minutes from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei interchange, or by local bus from JR Iwase Station on the Mito Line.
- When is a good time to come?
- Many visitors plan around the Makabe Hina Matsuri in February and early March, when houses across the district set out displays of hina dolls and the streets are at their liveliest.
Basic Information
| Name | Nishioka Honten Shop (西岡本店店舗) |
|---|---|
| Location | 6-1 Ta, Makabe-machi, Sakuragawa City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) |
| Registered | August 28, 2001 (gazetted September 14, 2001) |
| Count | 1 building |
| Structure | Two-story timber with partial single story, pantile roof |
| Floor area | Approx. 189 m2 |
| Period | Meiji period (1868-1911); early Meiji per local records |
| Access and viewing | In use as the brewery office (exterior viewing); on-site sake shop and gallery open to visitors; brewing tours by reservation |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Database of Cultural Properties: Nishioka Honten Shop
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00002205
- Cultural Heritage Online (NII): Nishioka Honten Shop
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/148815
- Kabushiki-gaisha Nishioka Honten (Hananoi), official site
- https://hananoi.jp/
- Sakuragawa City Tourism Association: Makabe and its registered cultural properties
- https://www.kankou-sakuragawa.jp/page/page000255.html
Last verified: 2026.06.25