Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse

Two long storehouses joined at one end

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse (光栄菊酒造通り蔵及び本蔵, Kōeigiku Shuzō Tōrigura oyobi Hongura) is a sake brewery building in Oshima, Mikazuki-cho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, made up of a street-front storehouse of 1920 and a main storehouse of 1927, and it was entered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 26 February 2021.

Although it contains two buildings, it is registered as a single entry and counted as one building. Both are two-storey timber structures under pantiled roofs finished with half-hipped gables, where the apex of each gable is clipped back into a small sloping plane. The two run north to south and stand side by side, the Street-Front Storehouse (tōrigura) to the west and the Main Storehouse (hongura) to the east. They meet at their southern ends, so that from above the plan forms a U that opens to the north.

The building area is 955 square metres. Of the six registered structures at Koeigiku Sake Brewery, the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse accounts for roughly two thirds of the floor area on its own. A lean-to roof extends from the north side of the Main Storehouse; the Washing Room and Kettle Room joins the Street-Front Storehouse on the north, and the Motokura, Muromae and Former Koji Room line up along the east side of the Main Storehouse. Everything else on the site is organised around this block.

The two storehouses went up seven years apart, and in 1936 both were remodelled. The Agency for Cultural Affairs does not say what the work involved; the record only notes that both buildings were altered in the same year.

Rows of free-standing posts under a heavy roof frame

What the Agency's description singles out is the interior. Each storehouse has two rows of free-standing posts carrying a wide span, and the junction at the south end is left open to the roof, with no upper floor, so that a massive, heavy-timbered roof frame is exposed overhead.

A brewhouse that holds fermentation tanks needs a broad, uncluttered floor and enough height to keep summer heat away from the mash. Setting the posts in rows clear of the walls is a timber answer to both demands.

The building was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation, as number 41-114. The Agency singles out the great roof on the south side as the feature that defines the local scene. Fields run right up to the south of the site, so nothing interrupts the bulk of the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse when seen from a distance.

Koeigiku Sake Brewery closed in 2006 and reopened under new owners in 2019. According to an interview with the brewery in the sake magazine SAKETIMES, the building was so solidly made that there had once been talk of dismantling it for reuse by an American art museum. After renovation it is again used for brewing and storage.

What to look for: the great roof from the south

The south is the side from which to see the Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse. On the north, facing the old road, the main house stands in front and hides the scale of the storehouses. From across the paddies to the south, the two half-hipped roofs and the broad roof linking them read as one long mass.

Look at the clipped tops of the gables: the angle of the cut is easy to compare between the two buildings even from far off. To the east, three lower roofs step along the Main Storehouse from north to south. They belong to the Motokura, the Muromae and the Former Koji Room, and the brick wall at the southern end is the koji room.

The view shifts with the seasons. When the paddies are flooded in early summer the storehouses can be mirrored in the water; after the harvest the roofline stands out hard against the bare fields.

Visiting

The Koeigiku Sake Brewery Street-Front Storehouse and Main Storehouse is not open to the public. It is a working brewhouse, and as of 25 September 2026 no public tours were advertised that would let visitors see the rows of posts or the open roof frame.

The building can only be seen from outside the site. The fields to the south are private farmland, so stay on the road rather than walking onto the paddy banks. The brewery has published no photography policy; if you take pictures from the road, keep clear of farm vehicles and brewery traffic.