Koyanagi Sake Brewery Showa East Storehouse

A two-storey store sharing a wall, set along the channel

Koyanagi Sake Brewery Showa East Storehouse (小柳酒造昭和東蔵, Koyanagi Shuzō Shōwa Higashigura) is a two-storey timber brewing store of 1928 at 903-1 Ogicho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 14 February 2002.

It stands immediately east of the Showa West Storehouse. The building measures 14 metres along the ridge and 8 metres across, with a footprint of 112 square metres. The roof is Sangawara-buki pantile on a north-south ridge in Kirizuma-zukuri gabled form, and the doorways are set in the west and south walls.

There is no separate west wall. On that side the interior uses the wall of the West Storehouse itself, so the two buildings are physically one. Two neighbours built the same year made do with a single wall between them.

Wide-battened boarding and a western face

The finish differs from its neighbour. Both have a brick base, but above it Koyanagi Sake Brewery Showa East Storehouse is clad in Shitami-itabari weatherboarding with battens set at wide intervals. Where the West Storehouse uses sasarago battens notched closely to each board, here plain square battens run sparsely across the face. The horizontals of the boards and the verticals of the battens draw a coarse grid, and the result reads closer to western building practice than to a Japanese storehouse.

Orientation explains the choice. The east face of the building stands along the watercourse and is visible from the public side. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that this elevation gives the channel frontage its particular character. The western manner was applied to the face people would see.

The roof is a plain gable. The West Storehouse is hipped with half-hipped ends; the East Storehouse is not. Because the two roofs differ, a step appears in the silhouette from whichever end you look.

At 112 square metres the building is about a quarter the size of the 431 square metres next door. The difference states the relationship: a subsidiary store beside the principal one.

Listed for the face it presents

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the nation, and the registration number is 41-0030. The case for Koyanagi Sake Brewery Showa East Storehouse rests not on rarity but on what it contributes to a continuous scene along the water. That is very much the character of this group of thirteen listings: individually modest buildings valued because the row survives.

It was built in 1928, in the improvement works begun in 1926, alongside the West Storehouse, the kettle room and the bottling house. Little survives to show what stood on the yard before that campaign, but since the East Storehouse was built against a shared wall, the two stores must have been planned as a pair.

The thing to look at is the join. A hipped roof and a gabled roof meet side by side with different outlines, and the walls beneath them are boarded in two different ways. Two buildings, one year, one contract, two finishes. The distinction between the face that is seen and the face that is not goes a long way to explaining it.

One more relationship is worth noticing. The north gable of the East Storehouse faces the south gable of the kettle room beyond it. That building shows its fine roof truss openly on the outside, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs remarks on the contrast between the two faces.

Visiting

The interior of Koyanagi Sake Brewery Showa East Storehouse is closed. Because part of the adjoining West Storehouse operates as the Ogi Distillery, the yard itself can be entered, but no route leads into the East Storehouse.

The best view of the exterior is the east face, the side along the watercourse, where the coarse grid of the wide-battened boarding is seen square on. Fix your eye on the line where brick gives way to timber and the height of the change becomes clear.

From inside the yard, standing at the join with the West Storehouse shows the difference between the two roof forms. No photography policy has been published, so ask at the distillery or shop reception. Directions, parking and opening hours are set out on the Koyanagi Sake Brewery page. Details here were checked on 14 September 2026.