Iimori Sake Brewery

Iimori Sake Brewery and Its Five Registered Buildings

Iimori Sake Brewery (飯盛酒造, Iimori Shuzō) is a Taisho-era sake brewery on the old Tara road of the Nagasaki Kaidō in Furueda, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, whose main house, No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses, No. 3 Storehouse, koji room and chimney were entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 3, 2006. The registration was published in the official gazette on August 24 of that year, and the five entries carry the consecutive numbers 41-0060 to 41-0064.

All five were registered under the same criterion, as buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the chimney to around 1921 and the other four to the late Taisho era, which its database renders as 1912 to 1925. Only the No. 3 Storehouse has a later addition, a lean-to built onto its west side in the early Showa era.

No sake is brewed at Iimori Sake Brewery today. According to the Kashima City Tourism Association, its best-known label was Kanpai, and the business now uses its Taisho-period storehouses to cure vegetables in sake lees (kasuzuke) and Nara-style pickles, which it sells in its shop alongside local sake. The five Registered Tangible Cultural Property buildings have stayed in commercial use since brewing stopped.

From Tama no Ka to Kanpai: The Iimori Brewery's Past

The north face of the Iimori brewery chimney still carries the characters for Tama no Ka, a sake label. The Agency's description explains that this was the brand made here before the Iimori family acquired the brewery. Neither the name of the earlier brewer nor the year of the Iimori purchase appears in the published sources.

Kashima City's plan for maintaining and improving its historic character cites the 1967 History of Sake Brewing in Saga Prefecture to show that Iimori Sake Brewery was in business by 1939 at the latest. The same plan, drawing on a 1999 survey report, describes Fukuchiyo Shuzo, a brewery on the road running southwest from Hizen-Hama Station, as a branch of the Iimori family founded in the late Taisho era. If that is right, the Iimori family was already brewing before the Taisho era ended.

The district the brewery belongs to, Hizen Hamashuku, grew up as a river port at the mouth of the Hama River on the Ariake Sea and as a post town on the Tara road. The city says brewing took hold along the street now called Sakagura-dōri (Brewery Street) in the Genroku era, and that nine sake makers were on record by 1838. The Iimori buildings are a complete set from a Taisho-period brewer on that street.

How the Iimori Sake Brewery Site Is Laid Out

Kashima City places Iimori Sake Brewery where the road heading south from Hizen-Hama Station meets Sakagura-dōri. Pieced together from the Agency's descriptions, the buildings sit like this.

• North side: the main house faces the old Tara road, with an earth-floored work area to the east and the family rooms to the west. A boiler room is attached behind the work area on the south.
• East of the main house: a brick chimney about 9 meters tall rises against the outer wall of the work area, just north of the boiler room.
• East side: the two-storey No. 3 Storehouse stands behind the work area, and the single-storey brick koji room is joined to its south face, filling the southeast corner of the lot.
• South side: the two-storey No. 1 Storehouse runs along the southern boundary, linked to the koji room by the single-storey No. 2 Storehouse.

The result is a lot enclosed on three sides: the house to the north, the No. 3 Storehouse and koji room to the east, the No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses to the south. The Agency notes that the koji room's plan is a trapezoid, slightly wider on the west, to fit the shape of the plot, and the No. 2 Storehouse is trapezoidal too.

From the old road you see the front of the main house and the chimney beside it. Most of the storehouses sit behind the house and are hard to see from the street. The city notes that a lane beside the Iimori garage leads to the Former Norita Residence, a samurai house that is open without charge.

Conflicting Dates for Iimori Sake Brewery

The sources do not agree on when the Iimori buildings went up. The Agency's database gives the late Taisho era for both the main house and the No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses. Kashima City's plan, citing the 1999 survey report, dates the main house and No. 1 Storehouse to 1928 and the No. 2 Storehouse to 1915.

The two also describe the buildings differently. The city's plan speaks of a pressing house attached to the main house, with the No. 1 Storehouse standing on its own behind it. The Agency, by contrast, identifies the No. 3 Storehouse, behind the work area of the main house, as the building used for pressing and bottling. This page and the pages for each building follow the Agency's database, which is the basis of the registration, and give the plan's figures as a second record.

Visiting Iimori Sake Brewery

Iimori Sake Brewery operates as a shop selling kasuzuke and local sake. The Kashima City Tourism Association lists its hours as 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with irregular closing days. Visitors can taste the pickles, and work clothes and sake barrels from the brewing years are on display. There is no published offer of tours inside the storehouses, so the buildings are seen from the street and the shop front.

By rail, get off at Hizen-Hama Station on the JR Nagasaki Line and walk straight down the road that runs south from the station. The brewery is where that road ends, about 5 minutes on foot according to the Saga Sake Brewers Association. The tourism association warns that IC transit cards cannot be used at Hizen-Hama Station. Drivers will find room for about 5 cars in front of the shop, and the free Machinami Parking Lot serves Sakagura-dōri.

Sakagura-dōri fills with visitors during the spring Hizen Hamashuku Flower and Sake Festival and the autumn Kura-Kura Festival. To look at the Iimori buildings in peace, choose a day without an event.