Tanaka Honke Museum Sake Brewery

What the Tanaka Honke Museum Sake Brewery Is

The Tanaka Honke Museum Sake Brewery (田中本家博物館酒蔵, sakagura) is a later Edo-period clay-walled brewing building at the middle of the south edge of the Tanaka merchant estate in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, built after a fire in 1790 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 19 September 2003.

About 31 metres long with a building area of 291 square metres, it is the largest of the registered buildings. The roof is a gable on an east-west ridge laid in pantiles; the building is basically single-storey with an upper floor over part of it.

The Kamaba Storehouse adjoins it on the west and the Hasuike Storehouse on the east, turning the south edge of the estate into one long run of storehouses. Brewing was part of the family business alongside the grain trade.

Why the Sake Brewery Was Registered

The Tanaka Honke Museum Sake Brewery was registered as contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it the oldest of the Tanaka storehouses, and Suzaka City describes it as the oldest building on the estate.

The roof is framed as Wagoya, with heavy beams carrying slender struts and tie beams. Thick beams and a light upper frame leave a big, open floor with few posts, just what a brewery needs for rows of vats.

A National Museum of Japanese History study, however, cites a record that the residence and the brewery burned in the Suzaka uprising of 1870. That does not square with the Agency's Edo date, and the sources at hand cannot tell whether a different building burned or the damage was partial.

What to Look For: Clay and Plaster

The walls are mostly bare clay, with white lime plaster only at the eaves, around windows and at other vulnerable points. Among storehouses that are often white all over, the brewery's earth tones stand out. Plaster goes only where fire and weather do the most harm.

The 31-metre length is best felt from inside the estate. Walk it end to end and you realise that one building takes up roughly a third of the south side.

Look at it together with the ridge vent of the Kamaba Storehouse next door and the sequence of brewing, from the kettles that steamed the rice to the hall where the mash was made, can be read in the order of the buildings.

Visiting the Sake Brewery

The Tanaka Honke Museum Sake Brewery sits in the middle of the south edge and is seen from inside the estate after entering. Stand a little to the north to take in the whole long wall.

The interior is not normally open; ask at reception. Opening days and admission are on the Tanaka Honke Museum page.