Koyanagi Sake Brewery East Water Tank

Six piers linked by arches

Koyanagi Sake Brewery East Water Tank (小柳酒造東貯水槽, Koyanagi Shuzō Higashi Chosuisō) is a brick water tank of 1941 at 903-1 Ogicho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 14 February 2002.

It stands east of the West Water Tank, built against the south face of the kettle room. The plan is a rectangle of 2.5 by 1.6 metres, the height is 4.4 metres and the footprint 4 square metres, the smallest of the thirteen listed structures on the site.

The support differs from its neighbour. Six brick piers are linked at their heads by arches, and the arcade carries the tank. A single-pitch roof of corrugated iron runs down from the south face of the kettle room to cover it.

What the arches are doing

Everything worth looking at on Koyanagi Sake Brewery East Water Tank happens below the tank. Standing six piers and joining their heads with arches is not the same as simply lining up legs. The weight of a full tank presses on the whole of its floor, yet only six points hold it up. The arches gather that load and run it along their curves into the pier heads.

Brick is strong in compression and weak in tension, so an arch, in which every part works in compression, is the form that suits the material best. The West Water Tank sets its vessel straight on the piers; this one inserts an arcade. Both were built in 1941, both did the same job, and each solved the structure differently. Because they survive side by side, the comparison can be made on the spot.

The roof is a lean-to, falling one way from the wall of the kettle room, with no ridge of its own. That is simpler than the maneki roof next door, which runs a ridge north to south. The covering is the same corrugated iron.

At 4.4 metres the height is all but identical to the 4.5 metres of the West Water Tank, which suggests the two water surfaces were meant to sit level. The plan, 2.5 by 1.6 metres, is turned through 90 degrees relative to the 1.7 by 2.8 metres of the other tank, presumably so that it would fit along the south wall of the kettle room.

Listed as part of the setting

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the nation, and the registration number is 41-0034. The Agency for Cultural Affairs groups Koyanagi Sake Brewery East Water Tank with the chimney and the West Water Tank as a principal element of the outdoor setting: not a building, but one of the structures that decides how the yard looks.

Four square metres is roughly the area of two and a half tatami mats. That something this small carries a listing of its own follows from the way the thirteen structures are treated as one working sequence, in which this tank holds a step in the supply of water.

It was built in 1941, the same year as the chimney and the West Water Tank, and the three were evidently put up in one campaign. That was thirteen years after the improvement buildings of 1928, so the renewal of production came first and the water and smoke services followed.

Look along the line of arches. Seen from the side, the curve between each pair of piers shows brick laid radially, and the direction of the joints records the path the load was meant to take.

Visiting

Koyanagi Sake Brewery East Water Tank is a structure with no interior to visit. Only the outside can be seen, and it has no board or charge of its own.

Find it by looking east from the West Water Tank. The two stand in a row along the south wall of the kettle room and are told apart by their supports; the one with arches is the East Water Tank. From a low viewpoint the curve of each arch and the direction of the brick joints can be read.

The yard can be entered during the hours of the Ogi Distillery, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with irregular closing days. The ground south of the kettle room is the working side, so how close you can get depends on the day. No photography policy has been published, so ask at reception. Directions and parking are set out on the Koyanagi Sake Brewery page. Details here were checked on 14 September 2026.