Yokoya Sake Brewery and Sato Family Residence

A Brewer's House and Sake Brewery in the Middle of Senmaya

The Yokoya Sake Brewery and Sato Family Residence (横屋酒造・佐藤家住宅, Yokoya Shuzō and Satō-ke Jūtaku) is a complex of a sake brewer's house and brewery buildings in Senmaya, Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture, assembled through the Meiji and Taisho eras; 25 of its structures were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2003.

The site covers roughly 9,000 square metres. Behind a stone wall on the street lie the family's living quarters and garden; beyond them stand the storehouses and workshops where sake was brewed, stored and bottled. Everything happened on one plot: brewing, wholesale, retail, and even lodging for the toji (master brewer) and the seasonal brewery hands.

Ichinoseki City owns the complex today, and a local company, Senmaya Machizukuri, runs it as the Senmaya Sake no Kura Exchange Facility (千厩酒のくら交流施設). Local signs and tourism sites also call it the "former Yokoya Sake Brewery and Sato Family Residence," but the Agency for Cultural Affairs registers each building under either "Sato Family Residence" or "Yokoya Sake Brewery."

How the Complex Came Together

According to the national database, the Sato main house dates from 1901, and the three great storehouses of the brewery (the Brewing, Front and East storehouses) from 1902. The tank shed is older still, built in 1899.

Yokoya Sake Brewery itself came later. In 1912 a branch of the Sato family split from the head Yokoya house in neighbouring Daito and, by tradition, took over an existing brewer's premises here. The dates suggest that most of the Meiji-era storehouses were built by that earlier brewer and inherited by Yokoya.

The Taisho years brought a wave of building on the residential side: the New Storehouse in 1922, the Document Storehouse in 1923 and the Western-style Building in 1924, with the garage, miso storehouse and main gate following toward the end of the era. The oldest structure on the brewery side is the bottling plant, a village office built for Senmaya in 1881 and shifted a short distance to be reused.

Yokoya's label was Tama no Haru. After Yokoya stopped brewing, the brand passed to Iwate Meijo of Oshu City, which ran the storehouses as its Tama no Haru plant. After the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, Suisen Shuzo, whose main brewery in Rikuzentakata had been swept away by the tsunami, borrowed the equipment here to keep brewing.

The earthquake damaged the complex as well. The operator says four damaged buildings were taken down, and the national database now lists 20 registered structures: 11 for the Sato Family Residence and 9 for Yokoya Sake Brewery.

Layout and a Walking Route

Through the main gate and stone wall (stone, 3.5 metres wide, with 45 metres of wall) you reach the two-storey earthen-walled main house, with the two-storey timber Western-style Building beside it. On the north-east edge of the grounds, between the New Storehouse and the Document Storehouse, stands the Harada Gate, said to have been moved from the residence of the Harada family, senior retainers of the Tamura domain.

The brewery sits behind the house. The Brewing Storehouse runs north to south along the road on the west; the Front Storehouse lies east to west across its northern end; the East Storehouse runs south again from the eastern part of the Front Storehouse. The three long earthen buildings form a U, with the timber rice-steaming house between the Brewing and East storehouses and the brewers' kitchen tucked into its northern corner. North of the Front Storehouse, the stone koji room and the tank shed stand parallel to it, and on the lot east of the East Storehouse (137-2 Kitakata) are the bottling plant and the drying shed.

A sensible route: see the main house and Western-style Building first, look at the west face of the Brewing Storehouse from the road, then follow the brewery round to the East Storehouse, the koji room and tank shed to the north, and the drying shed and bottling plant to the east. That order roughly traces the process from mash to bottle. Access to interiors differs building by building, so check each building's page.

The Registered Buildings

All 20 current entries became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (buildings) on the same date, January 31, 2003.

• Sato Family Residence (11): main house, Western-style Building, Document Storehouse, New Storehouse, Miso Storehouse, Small Storehouse, former garage, bathhouse, main gate and stone wall, garden gate and stone wall, Harada Gate
• Yokoya Sake Brewery (9): Brewing Storehouse, Front Storehouse, East Storehouse, Rice-Steaming House, Koji Room, Tank Shed, Brewers' Kitchen, Bottling Factory, Drying Shed

Each was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. Beyond the merits of any single building, what makes the Yokoya Sake Brewery and Sato Family Residence worth the trip is that house and brewery survive together, so the working life and home life of a country sake brewer of the late Meiji and Taisho eras can be read on one site.

Getting There and Visiting

The Senmaya Sake no Kura Exchange Facility is open 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It closes on Mondays (or the next weekday when Monday is a public holiday) and over the New Year holidays. Entry is free and no booking is needed. The main house, the East Storehouse and other spaces are sometimes rented out for events, which can limit where and when you can walk. The operator notes that a fee applies during the Senmaya Hina Matsuri doll festival in spring.

By rail, take the JR Ofunato Line from Ichinoseki Station to Senmaya Station, about 60 minutes, then walk about 15 minutes. Iwate Kotsu buses stop at Honcho, about 2 minutes on foot. By car, allow about 50 minutes from the Ichinoseki interchange of the Tohoku Expressway via Route 284, or about 40 minutes from Kesennuma-Chuo interchange on the Sanriku Expressway.

There is a visitor car park, but the lane to it is narrow; when it is full, visitors are asked to use the car park of the Ichinoseki City Hall Senmaya branch office. Trains on the Ofunato Line are infrequent, so check the return times before you set out.