Ayagiku Sake Brewery West Sake Storehouse

A Timber Storehouse from the Postwar Years

The Ayagiku Sake Brewery West Sake Storehouse (綾菊酒造西酒蔵, Ayagiku Shuzō Nishi Sakagura) is a two-story timber brewing storehouse built in 1950 in Yamadashita, Ayagawa Town, Kagawa Prefecture, and was registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 2, 2006. It is the only postwar building among the four registered at Ayagiku Sake Brewery.

The West Sake Storehouse stands parallel to the Middle Sake Storehouse on its west side, running north to south. With a building area of 474 square meters it is the largest of the four. Where the Middle and East storehouses are earthen-walled Dozo-zukuri structures, the West Sake Storehouse is timber-framed.

It is also the only one whose registered name lacks the words "formerly Izumiya Sake Brewery". The other three were once buildings of the Izumiya brewery; the difference in naming signals that the West Sake Storehouse joined the compound later, after the war.

Two Halls of Different Heights

The West Sake Storehouse was registered as number 37-0307 under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape.

The building is made of two parts. The northern part is a two-story storehouse 16 meters long and 13 meters wide under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pan tiles. Joined to its south end is a second gabled hall, 19 meters long and 14 meters wide, with its ridge set a step higher. The southern roof is laid in red pan tiles, so the two sections differ in color as well as height.

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out is the southern part of the west elevation, facing the national highway. Its vertical board cladding, with windows arranged in two tiers, is described as well preserved.

Because a postwar storehouse was registered alongside earthen storehouses from the Meiji and early Showa periods, the group lets you trace how this brewery kept adding to itself over more than half a century.

What to Look For

The best view of the Ayagiku West Sake Storehouse is the west side, from the highway. Two rows of windows are set into the vertical boarding. No other registered building on the site offers such a large face to anyone standing outside the property.

Then follow the roofline. The red-tiled southern roof sits higher, the northern roof a step lower. Walk a little north along the highway and you can find the point where the two gables change in both height and color.

Finally, compare it with the white plaster of the Middle Sake Storehouse next door. They stand side by side on the same site, yet plastered earthen walls and timber boarding give entirely different surfaces.

Visiting the West Sake Storehouse

The west face of the Ayagiku West Sake Storehouse looks directly onto the national highway, so you can see the exterior well without entering the property. It is a busy road, so keep well to the side and watch for traffic.

This is a working brewery building, and the interior can be seen only as far as the brewery shows it on its reservation-only tours. Whether a tour enters the West Sake Storehouse, and whether photography is allowed inside, is not published, so check when you book.