Higashi Brewery Inspection Room

Higashi Brewery Inspection Room: A Bay Window Among the Stores

The Higashi Brewery Inspection Room (東酒造場検査室, Higashi Shuzōjō Kensashitsu) is a small 2-storey wooden building from 1949 set between the West and Middle Storehouses of the Higashi sake brewery in Noda-machi, Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on January 8, 2009.

The 2-storey core is tiny, just 3.6 meters by 3.2 meters under a gabled roof of pantiles. A broad lean-to on the north side brings the building area to 59 square meters, and part of the structure is single-storey.

The name suggests a room built for checking the sake the brewery produced. In the row along the south edge, the Higashi Brewery Inspection Room is the one building that plainly shows a Western face.

Why the Inspection Room Was Registered

The Higashi Brewery Inspection Room was registered under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to features inside and out. The interior is finished in white Shikkui plaster in the ōkabe manner, with the posts buried in the walls and the plaster carried all the way up to the ceiling. Outside, the south wall is clad in clapboard above a stone base and fitted with a bay window glazed with stained glass.

The brewery itself highlights the Western-style bay window. A projecting window of colored glass tucked between stone and earthen storehouses makes this building unlike any other of the 12.

What to Look For at the Higashi Brewery Inspection Room

Head first to the bay window on the south side. It pushes out from the flat plane of the clapboards and throws a crisp shadow across the wall.

The stained glass changes with the light. From outside you read the outlines of the colored panes; from inside, the colors would fall across white plaster that runs unbroken to the ceiling, a surface well suited to catching them.

On either side stand taller buildings, the stone Middle Storehouse and the earthen West Storehouse. Squeezed low between them, the Inspection Room's small size only concentrates the effect of its design.

Seeing the Higashi Brewery Inspection Room

The Higashi Brewery Inspection Room sits in the south row, and its bay-windowed south wall can be seen from the southern road. Whether you can go inside depends on the reserved tour offered by the brewery.

Ask when booking whether the stained glass can be viewed from inside and whether photography is allowed. Directions and booking details are on the Higashi Brewery page.