Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1

About the Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1

The Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1 (山野家住宅酒蔵一, Yamano-ke Jūtaku Sakagura Ichi) is a Meiji-era brewing storehouse in the northwest corner of a sake-brewing family's compound in Kisabe, Katano City, Osaka Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2003.

It is one of the brewing buildings lined up behind the main house: a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse with a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) roof of pantiles and a footprint of 194 square metres. Of the storehouses that survive on the site, the Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1 is the oldest.

The numbering hints that the family once had several brewing sheds known by number. Two were registered: this one and Sake Brewery 4, which stands against its south side.

Why It Was Registered

The building was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the plastered exterior with tall timber wainscoting and a Wagoya roof frame, and credits the Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1, together with the brewery just to the south and the storehouse north of the main house, with presenting a row of large and small gable ends to the street that gives the compound its distinctive look.

Dozo-zukuri wraps a timber frame in thick clay walls. It resists fire, and the mass of the walls evens out summer heat and winter cold, which is why the method was widely used for sake breweries, where fermentation dislikes sudden swings in temperature. This storehouse has been part of brewing on the site since the Meiji era, and as the oldest shed of a brewery that is still working, it carries the family business in built form.

The wagoya frame is the traditional Japanese way of roofing: short posts stand on the tie beams and carry the purlins. Here it spans a floor of 194 square metres.

What to Look For

From outside, it is the gable end that tells you most. Set in the northwest corner, the brewery turns its triangular gable toward the street. Sake Brewery 4 follows to the south and the domestic storehouse beyond that, each with a gable of a different size rising above the earthen wall. This is the northernmost of the three.

Look too at the wall finish. The upper wall is plastered, and timber boarding runs high up the lower part. The boarding protects the clay from rain and splashback, a common finish on storehouse-type breweries.

The roof frame and the brewing floor inside cannot be seen from the street. What you can confirm is the wall, the roof and the way the gables line up with their neighbours.

Visiting

The Yamano Family Residence Sake Brewery 1 belongs to a working brewery and is not open to the public. Only its gable and outer walls are visible from the street on the northwest side of the compound.

Take photographs from the public road and do not enter the grounds. When brewing is under way, be mindful of work traffic.