Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae

The oldest building at the brewery

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae (光栄菊酒造ムロマエ, Kōeigiku Shuzō Muromae) is a brewery building in Oshima, Mikazuki-cho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, dating from the mid-Meiji period (1883–1897), and it was 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 Motokura. Its pantiled roof slopes to front and back from a single ridge in the form called ryōsage, and it covers 94 square metres. The Former Koji Room adjoins it on the south, so it sits exactly in the middle of the three buildings lined up along the Main Storehouse.

Muro is the brewers' word for the koji room and mae means "in front of"; written in characters, the name would be 室前. With the Former Koji Room attached directly to its south, the Muromae is quite literally the room in front of the koji room.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs identifies the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae as the oldest building on the site and important to the history of the brewery. It is roughly a generation older than the Street-Front Storehouse of 1920 and the Main Storehouse of 1927, and it shows that the brewery had working buildings here by the mid-Meiji period at the latest.

A brick plinth and a changed wall finish

Starting at the base: a few courses of brick are laid on a continuous footing, and the posts rise from the brickwork. Lifting the timber off the ground keeps it clear of damp, and the use of brick in a Meiji building of this kind is worth noting in itself.

The lower walls are clad in vertical boards, and the upper walls are now finished in Shitami-itabari, horizontal overlapping weatherboards. According to the Agency's description, the upper walls were originally plastered in Shikkui. When the white plaster gave way to boards is not recorded, but the change shows that the exterior was reworked over time.

Inside, part of the framing of a former upper floor survives, and the roof rests on a Wagoya frame with double tie beams. The Motokura next door uses the same system; along the east range only the Former Koji Room to the south switches to a Western king post truss. The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae is registration number 41-117, listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.

What to look for: the oldest wall in the middle of the row

Squeezed between the Motokura and the Former Koji Room, the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae has no free-standing outline of its own. Count the low roofs along the east side of the Main Storehouse from the north: the second one is the Meiji-period Muromae.

The walls reward attention. A horizontal line divides the vertical boards of the lower wall from the weatherboards above; picture the upper half in white plaster and the building comes close to its Meiji appearance. At the foot, the few courses of brick show that the posts are raised off the ground.

Visiting

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Muromae 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 interior framing cannot be seen.

The exterior can only be viewed from outside the site. The fields to the east and south are private, so do not walk onto them. The brewery has published no photography policy; take pictures from the road without getting in the way of work.