Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery)

What is the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery)?

The Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) (旧櫻井醸造（ヤマカノ醸造）, Kyū Sakurai Jōzō) is a group of soy sauce brewery buildings at Teraike Kanaya in Toyoma-machi, Tome City, Miyagi Prefecture, whose office of 1909 and two earthen storehouses were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on June 29, 2022.

According to Miyagi Prefecture, the Sakurai Brewery was founded sometime after 1877. After the Second World War, its land and buildings passed to a firm called Suzuhiko Shoten, which the prefecture identifies with today's Yamakano Brewery.

Yamakano's own company history fills in the story. Suzuhiko Shoten was a pharmaceutical wholesaler and retailer set up in 1948. It bought brewing works in the town twice, in 1955 and in 1959, and in September 1959 spun off its brewing business as Yamakano Brewery Co., Ltd. Suzuhiko Shoten itself went on to trade only in medicines and is now known as Vital Net. Both companies appear in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, which records Yamakano Brewery as the owner of the office and the South Storehouse and Vital Net as the owner of the Brewing Storehouse.

The site is still at work. A Miyagi Prefecture business directory lists 15 Teraike Kanaya, the office plot, among Yamakano's factory addresses, so the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) remains part of a working miso and soy sauce operation.

Three corners of one crossroads

The three buildings of the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) stand at the Teraike Kanaya crossroads on the southern edge of the old castle town. Putting the Agency's notes together gives this arrangement:

• Office: a two-story timber Machiya townhouse on a corner plot, facing north. The Agency describes the positions of the other two buildings in relation to it
• South Storehouse: a single-story storehouse on the corner plot across the street to the west. At 174 square meters, it has the largest footprint of the three
• Brewing Storehouse: a single-story storehouse on the corner plot diagonally across to the northwest, with two raised ventilating roofs (Koshi-yane) along its ridge

Each building holds a corner of its own. Stand in front of the office facing north, and the South Storehouse is across the street to your left, with the Brewing Storehouse on the far corner ahead and to the left. Crossing clockwise from the office to the South Storehouse and then to the Brewing Storehouse takes you past all three.

The layout is the familiar one of a Japanese soy sauce maker, a townhouse office on the street with brewing storehouses behind it. Here, though, the two halves face each other across public roads rather than sharing a single walled lot.

The three registrations

The Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) for registration on March 18, 2022, and the three buildings were registered on June 29 that year under consecutive numbers 04-0211 to 04-0213. All three were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

• Office (04-0211): built in 1909 and remodeled in the early Showa period. Two-story timber building with a tiled roof; building area 58 square meters
• South Storehouse (04-0212): built in 1912. Single-story Dozo-zukuri storehouse with a sheet-metal roof; building area 174 square meters
• Brewing Storehouse (04-0213): built in the late Meiji period and remodeled in the early Showa period. Single-story dozo-zukuri storehouse with a sheet-metal roof; building area 125 square meters

The Council's summary treats the office as the brewery's main house and describes it together with the two storehouses across the street. Miyagi Prefecture adds that each of these late-Meiji buildings forms one corner of the streetscape, and that, as modern buildings in a Japanese style with the character of their period, they show how merchant houses and storehouses in this area developed in structure and design.

Toyoma and Yamakano's two sites

The town is written 登米 and read Toyoma, while the city that now contains it uses the same characters but is read Tome. Toyoma was a castle town of the Toyoma Date family, a branch of the Sendai Date clan, who ruled it for 13 generations over about 300 years. In the Meiji era it prospered as a rice market served by boats on the Kitakami River.

Yamakano's head office and main works are about 500 meters' walk to the northeast, in Teraike Kokonokamachi, on the former estate of the wealthy Yamada merchant family. Six buildings there, including the shop storehouse, were registered in 2021 as the Former Yamada Main Store (Yamakano Brewery). Miyagi Prefecture presents the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) as the company's next set of registrations, so one brewer now keeps two separate groups of historic buildings in the same small town, each inherited from a different family business.

Getting to the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery)

By public transport, take the Higashi Nippon Kyuko highway bus on the Sendai-Toyoma line from Kencho Shiyakusho-mae or Sendai Station (stop 32, formerly in front of Sakuraya) and get off at Toyoma Meijimura. There are three departures a day toward Toyoma. The 10:00 a.m. bus from Kencho Shiyakusho-mae reaches Toyoma Meijimura at 11:35 a.m. Fares are cash only and no reservation is needed (checked October 2026). The same company runs a bus to Tome Shiyakusho-mae, which goes to a different part of the city, so check the destination before boarding.

From the Toyoma Meijimura stop, the office of the Former Sakurai Brewery (Yamakano Brewery) is about 550 meters to the southwest through the town, roughly an 8-minute walk. Drivers should use Tome Interchange on the Sanriku Expressway; the local tourism company puts the drive from there to the town center at about 4 minutes.

No interior viewing or tours are advertised for any of the three buildings. Because all of them stand on the crossroads, their exteriors can be seen from public roads. Please do not enter the premises or park where you might block factory traffic. For any questions about visiting, contact Yamakano Brewery in advance (tel. 0220-52-2511).