Oimatsu Nagata Brewery

About Oimatsu Nagata Brewery

Oimatsu Nagata Brewery (老松永田醸造) is a miso and soy sauce maker in Kamicho, Watari Town, Watari District, Miyagi Prefecture, whose shop and main house of the 1890s (1887 to 1896) and Taisho-era Inari shrine hall were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Property structures on February 14, 2002. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a long-established brewer in the centre of Watari.

According to Nagata Jozo Co., Ltd., the business was founded in the Enpo era as the miso and soy sauce house Nagataya, and its trade name Oimatsu, "old pine", expresses the wish to stay as green and vigorous as a pine.

Three Buildings

The two-storey shop faces east onto the old highway, with four bays of shopfront to the south and a two-bay storehouse wing to the north; the upper front is finished in namako-kabe tilework, giving it a solid presence. The main house, joined to the shop at the back by a covered corridor, is fully two-storeyed with a hipped roof and refined sukiya-style reception rooms. In the north-west of the compound stands a small hall sheltering an Inari shrine (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The shop was registered as difficult to reproduce, and the main house and shrine hall as models of design (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Location and Opening Hours

Oimatsu Nagata Brewery is at 31 Kamicho, Watari Town. According to the company, it is open Monday to Friday (closed weekends and public holidays) from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; telephone 0223-34-1234. We found no official information on visits to the buildings; the shop front can be seen from the street.