Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room

A brick-faced koji room built over a watercourse

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room (光栄菊酒造旧麹室, Kōeigiku Shuzō Kyū Kōjimuro) is a koji room in Oshima, Mikazuki-cho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, built in the early Showa period (1926–1945) and entered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 26 February 2021.

The single-storey timber building stands east of the Main Storehouse at Koeigiku Sake Brewery, attached to the south face of the Muromae. It has a gabled, pantiled roof and covers 98 square metres. Of the three buildings that run north to south along the Main Storehouse, the Motokura, the Muromae and this one, it is the southernmost.

A koji room is where the koji mould is grown on steamed rice, and it is the part of a brewery where temperature and humidity are most tightly controlled. As the word former in its name indicates, the building is registered as the brewery's earlier koji room.

One inconsistency is worth recording. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the name as 光栄菊酒造旧麹室, but its phonetic reading adds oyobi tsūro, "and passage", words that do not appear in the name itself. The database alone does not show which form reflects the registration correctly.

Brick worn over a timber frame

Even the footing is unusual. A continuous granite footing is laid on top of the stone-lined channel that runs around the edge of the site, and the building stands on that. Because it sits right against the water, its base is built up in stone and granite.

The walls are timber-framed, with brick laid against the outside of the frame to a height of 3 metres as a facing. The posts and beams carry the load; the brick is a cladding layer. Above the brick the walls are boarded vertically, with an opening high on the south side. The brick may also have helped keep the room's temperature steady, but no record of that intention has been found.

The roof is carried on a King post truss. The Muromae and Motokura to the north use traditional Wagoya frames with double tie beams, whereas the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room uses a triangulated Western truss. Its appearance in an early Showa koji room shows the brewery taking up newer building methods as it renewed its plant.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room shapes the view at the south-east corner of the site. It is registration number 41-118, listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.

What to look for: the brick wall seen from the south

Ogi City describes the view of the brewery from the south as a large storehouse and a brick storehouse standing among the fields. Along the east side of the Main Storehouse, the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room is the building that shows a brick wall, so it is very likely the brick storehouse in that view.

The thing to look for is the change of material: brick rising to 3 metres, then vertical boarding, with the opening high on the south wall. At the foot, the stone of the channel and the granite footing sit one on the other, showing that the building was set at the water's edge. Behind it rises the great roof of the Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse.

Visiting

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Former Koji Room is not open to the public. It is part of a working brewery, and as of 25 September 2026 no public visits were advertised, so the king post truss inside cannot be seen.

The exterior can be seen across the fields to the south. The fields are private, so stay on the road. The brewery has published no photography policy; take pictures from the road without getting in the way of farm work or traffic.