Maruo Brewery

The story of Maruo Brewery

Maruo Brewery (丸尾醸造所, Maruo Jōzōsho) is a soy sauce and miso maker founded in 1890 in Enai, Kotohira-chō, Nakatado District, Kagawa Prefecture; four of its buildings, the East Main House, West Main House, Raw Material Storehouse and Workshop, and West Miso Storehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2005.

The company's own history traces the business to its first head, Maruo Tonata, who began selling soy sauce in Enai under the Kaneto mark, bottled in the stoneware flasks known as konpura bottles. Miso joined the line around 1935, and the family firm was incorporated in 1949.

Today the products go out as Maruo soy sauce and Konpira miso. The Konpira miso name was registered as a trademark in 1960, and an umami soy sauce in dark and light versions followed in 1968.

For brewing water, the company says it has drawn on groundwater from the nearby Kasuga Shrine since its founding. These are not museum pieces: soy sauce is still heat-treated and miso still prepared by hand inside the registered buildings of Maruo Brewery.

How the Maruo Brewery site is laid out

Read together, the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes describe a site split in two by a narrow lane. The northern plot fronts the Higashinaka shopping street, and the Maruo Brewery East Main House faces that street to the north. The West Main House stands beside it to the west, so the two main houses form the brewery's public face along the road.

South of the shop end of the East Main House lies the workshop, with the raw material storehouse lined up along its east side. The note for the West Miso Storehouse says it shapes the lane's character together with the raw material storehouse on the northern plot, which suggests that storehouse backs onto the lane.

Across the lane, on the southern plot, the West Miso Storehouse shows its north gable end to the passage. The national database even gives the plots separate numbers: 94 Hataoka for the three northern buildings and 90-3 for the miso storehouse.

The East Main House note describes the street as part of the old road into Kotohira, the shrine town at the foot of Kotohira-gū. For a visitor, the interest of Maruo Brewery lies in the pairing of two street-front houses with two working storehouses facing each other across the lane.

The four registered buildings of Maruo Brewery

All four buildings of Maruo Brewery were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 10, 2005, under the consecutive numbers 37-0283 through 37-0286. Each was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

• Maruo Brewery East Main House: early Taishō era, two-story Nuriya-zukuri plastered building, tile roof, building area 155 square meters
• Maruo Brewery West Main House: middle of the Meiji era, enlarged in 1937, two-story timber, tile roof, building area 103 square meters
• Maruo Brewery Raw Material Storehouse and Workshop: 1932, single-story timber, tile roof, building area 216 square meters
• Maruo Brewery West Miso Storehouse: middle of the Taishō era, enlarged in the early Shōwa era, single-story timber, tile roof, building area 248 square meters

The West Main House is the oldest of the four and the 1932 storehouse and workshop the newest. All four have gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roofs laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles, but the roof framing varies: a timber King post truss over the storehouse and workshop, and in the West Miso Storehouse a Japanese Wagoya frame on the east building and a Western Yōgoya truss on the west.

Kagawa Prefecture's list of registered properties gives the owner of all four as a private individual.

Visiting Maruo Brewery

Maruo Brewery is a working plant run by a company that still makes soy sauce and miso. We checked the company website and material from the Agency for Cultural Affairs and Kagawa Prefecture and found no offer of public tours of the storehouses or workshop. Plan to see the buildings from the street and the lane only.

The company website lists business hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Product inquiries are taken by phone or through the contact form on the site.

No photography policy has been published. Take pictures from the street so as not to get in the way of the work, and do not photograph the shop front or the inside of the site without permission.

The nearest station is Enai on the Kotoden Kotohira Line. Measured on a map, the Maruo Brewery East Main House is about 300 meters south of Enai Station in a straight line, and about 700 meters east of JR Kotohira Station on the Dosan Line. Kasuga Shrine, named as the source of the brewing water, is about 80 meters south of the East Main House.