Koyanagi Sake Brewery Chimney

An English-bond brick stack before the kettle room

Koyanagi Sake Brewery Chimney (小柳酒造煙突, Koyanagi Shuzō Entotsu) is a brick chimney of 1941 at 903-1 Ogicho, Ogi City, Saga Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 14 February 2002.

It stands in front of the western end of the south gable of the kettle room. The shaft is 1.8 metres square in plan, tapers as it rises, and is laid in English bond English bond. The head is finished with a projecting band and a coat of mortar.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the height as 17 metres in its structural field and 16.5 metres in the description on the same page, so a difference of 0.5 metres sits inside the primary source itself. One figure may be taken from the foundation and the other from ground level, but neither is stated.

A square section that narrows as it climbs

Most modern factory chimneys are round. A circle sheds wind and uses less material. Koyanagi Sake Brewery Chimney is square, 1.8 metres across, a form that can be built by laying brick flat, course upon course. A country brewery choosing what it could build with its own hands is the likeliest explanation.

English bond alternates a course of stretchers, laid lengthways, with a course of headers, laid end on. Because the direction changes with every course, the bricks interlock through the thickness of the wall and the bond is stronger. The same bond appears on this site in the brick gable wall of the koji room.

The taper follows from both structure and function. The base carries the weight of everything above it and the whole of the wind load, so it is thick; higher up the demand falls away and the wall can thin. At the same time, narrowing the flue raises the speed of the draught.

The head is handled simply. One course is corbelled out to form a band and the whole is rendered in mortar. The mouth of a chimney suffers most from rain and frost, and the render is there to protect it.

A marker announcing the brewery

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the nation, and the registration number is 41-0032. The Agency for Cultural Affairs writes that Koyanagi Sake Brewery Chimney rises far above the ridge of the Showa West Storehouse and serves as a landmark announcing the brewery to the district. For this structure the criterion means exactly what it says.

It was built in 1941, thirteen years after the improvement buildings of 1928 and in the same year as the two water tanks. Once the replacement of the production plant had settled, the equipment concerned with fire and water was renewed separately.

The chimney worked as one with the kettle room, drawing off the smoke of the fire that boiled the water whose steam cooked the rice. It stands in front of the south gable because that is the point nearest the firebox. The West and East Water Tanks are attached to the same wall and supplied the water.

What repays attention is how it reads from the street. As the tallest thing on the site, its head shows above the roof of the main house to anyone walking past. Closer in, the square section, the narrowing outline and the alternating brick courses all become legible.

Visiting

Koyanagi Sake Brewery Chimney is a structure without an inside. Only the exterior can be seen, and there is no admission charge or interpretive board.

From the public road, stand on the prefectural road side and look up behind the main house to find the head. The clearest view is from within the yard, south of the kettle room, where the shaft can be followed from base to top. The band and the rendered finish above it only resolve at that distance.

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. 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.