Nakashima Sake Brewery

A Sake House on the Old Tara Road

Nakashima Sake Brewery (中島酒造場, Nakashima Shuzōjō) is a sake brewery in Hamamachi, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, said to date from 1650, whose main house of 1885 and four earth-walled brewery buildings were registered in 2006, each as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Its shop fronts the Tara Ōkan, a branch of the old Nagasaki Kaidō highway, in the historic riverside quarter of Hizen Hamashuku.

The founding year comes from the Kashima City Tourism Association, which calls Nakashima the oldest sake shop in Hama. The city itself is a shade more careful and lists it as one of the oldest breweries in town. No published record seen for this page confirms 1650, so it is best treated as house tradition.

The house label is Kun'on (君恩). Despite the name over the door, no sake is brewed on the premises any more. According to the tourism association, Kun'on is now made at Narutaki Shuzō in Karatsu, while Nakashima Sake Brewery keeps its shop and tasting counter in the main house. The registered storehouses survive as architecture rather than as a working plant.

Five Buildings, One Brewery Plan

Registration took effect on 3 August 2006 and was published in the official gazette on 24 August. The Main House, Brewing Storehouse, Koji Room, West Storehouse and Storehouse received consecutive numbers, 41-0065 through 41-0069, all under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the Main House to 1885, the Brewing Storehouse, Koji Room and Storehouse to the middle years of the Meiji era, and the West Storehouse to its later years.

The layout makes sense once you stand in the road. The Main House occupies the south side and faces north; its gable-fronted shop sits at the centre, with an entrance, a 2-storey detached reception wing and a storehouse extending west, and a warehouse extending east. Behind the shop's earth floor is the kamaba, the steaming room where rice was cooked, and south of that comes the Brewing Storehouse.

That Brewing Storehouse is really two long north-south blocks with the wall between them removed to create a single hall. The Koji Room stands against its east side with the south gables in line, and one tiled pent roof runs along the south face of both. West of the Brewing Storehouse is the West Storehouse, where sake was kept; the Agency singles it out as part of the view from the Hama River. Across the road to the north, set back a little from the frontage, is the Storehouse, three single-storey blocks joined end to end.

Shop, steaming room, fermentation hall, koji room and cellar all share one plot, with extra storage across the street. The value lies less in any single building than in the sequence, and the five were registered together.

Hizen Hamashuku and Its Brewers

Hama grew up near the mouth of the Hama River as a post town on the Tara road and a river port on the Ariake Sea. Kashima City cites a record of nine sake brewers operating here by 1838. The tourism association credits water from the Mount Tara range, rice from the Saga Plain and shipping across the Ariake Sea for the town's turn to brewing.

The brewery quarter north of the river, known locally as Sakagura-dōri, was selected on 5 July 2006 as a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings under the name Kashima City Hamanakamachi Happongishuku, in the category of brewing town. The five Nakashima buildings were registered the following month, and Kashima City lists Nakashima Sake Brewery among the district's sights.

The brewery has also been named a Saga Prefecture Heritage site, and according to the city it served as a location for the 1987 film Jirō Monogatari, based on the novel by Shimomura Kojin.

Visiting and Getting There

The shop inside the Main House opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m., with no fixed closing day. Sake can be tasted and bought at the counter, and the telephone number is 0954-62-2605. There is no announced public access to the storehouses or to the private rooms at the back of the Main House, so apart from the shop the buildings are seen from the road.

No posted rule on photography was found. Ask the staff before photographing inside the shop or into the yard.

The nearest station is Hizen-Hama on the JR Nagasaki Main Line, one stop south of Hizen-Kashima, and the walk to Sakagura-dōri takes about 6 minutes. IC transit cards are not accepted at Hizen-Hama Station. Drivers can leave the car at the free Hizen Hamashuku Machinami car park near the Minematsu brewery, which also takes coaches, and walk in.

For a guided walk through the quarter, the local non-profit Hizen Hamashuku Mizu to Machinami no Kai runs volunteer guides by reservation (tel. 0954-69-8004).