Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura (Pressing House)

What the Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura is

The Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura (Pressing House) (萱島酒造中蔵（搾り場）, Kayashima Shuzō Nakagura, Shiboriba) is a two-storey timber sake storehouse built in 1915 at Kayashima Sake Brewery in Tsunai, Kunisaki City, Oita Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on January 16, 1998. It has a hipped Yosemune-zukuri tiled roof, and the national database gives its building area as 687 m².

Nakagura simply means the middle storehouse; the bracketed shiboriba, pressing house, says what it was for. This is where finished mash was pressed to separate sake from the lees. With the brewing storehouse, the Kayashima Nakagura is one of the two big buildings on the site, running long from north to south.

4 ken wide, 26 ken long

The Nakagura is 4 ken wide and 26 ken deep. Taking 1 ken as about 1.8 meters, that is roughly 7.3 by 47.3 meters, more than six times as long as it is wide. No other building at the brewery has proportions like it.

Multiply those dimensions and you get about 344 m², which does not match the 687 m² in the database. Whether the figure includes lean-tos or is closer to the total floor area, the sources do not say. Kunisaki City's list gives the depth as "2 ken," which appears to be a typo.

The brewery's own account of its process explains the work. After about 20 days of fermentation the mash is squeezed in a press to separate sake from lees; the press is called the fune, the spout the funeguchi, the first cloudy run arabashiri, and the jars that catch the sake taregame. A long hall lets that sequence be laid out in a line.

King post trusses and board walls

According to the official description, the Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura is roofed with simple King post truss frames whose side struts clamp the members from both sides. The same truss repeats down the whole length of the building, leaving the upper floor largely free of posts.

Like the brewing storehouse, the Nakagura is clad in boards, and the official description singles out the two buildings' imposing exteriors as the most striking of the brewery complex. It was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. Built a year after the brewing storehouse of 1914, the Nakagura completed the core of the brewery's Taisho-era expansion.

Seeing the Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura

The Kayashima Sake Brewery Nakagura (Pressing House) is still part of the working brewery, and its interior is closed. Contact the brewery (+81-978-72-1181) or ask at SAKE GALLERY Tohzai on site if you hope to see it.

If you get a view from outside, follow the length of the roof. Because the ridge runs north to south, the narrow gable end and the long side give completely different impressions, and the full 26 ken only registers when you see it from the side.