Yano Sake Brewery

A Sake Brewery on the Old Tara Road since 1796

Yano Sake Brewery (矢野酒造, Yano Shuzō) is a sake brewery founded in 1796 on the old Tara branch of the Nagasaki Kaidō highway in Takatsuhara, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, and its seven buildings (main house, former rice mill, annex, east, middle and west storehouses, and koji room) were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 3, 2006. Its best-known labels are Takenosono and Hizen Kuragokoro.

Kashima sits between the Tara mountains and the Ariake Sea, and the Saga Prefectural Heritage Database credits the town's brewing tradition to groundwater from the Tara range and good local rice; brewers' houses and earthen storehouses still stand across the city. Yano Sake Brewery has made sake on the same plot, facing the old road, since it opened.

A turning point came in 1906, when Yano Kazuyoshi took over as the fifth head of the family. Born the fifth son of the brewer Yano Gon'emon, he followed two elder brothers into the business and set about enlarging it. The brewery says the Takenosono name dates from his time: to mark the enthronement of Emperor Taishō, it borrowed takenosonou, a poetic word for the imperial family. According to the Kashima Sakagura Tourism Council, from the late Meiji period into the early Showa years the brewery shipped sake across Saga and Nagasaki and as far as Shanghai.

Kazuyoshi also left his mark on the town. The brewery's account says he blamed a feared local fever, known as Kashima fever, on the water supply, mortgaged his property to pay for a well-digger, and after two years found a good source at Nishimuta. A water-users' cooperative then brought piped drinking water to Kashima households for the first time. He also organized the Kashima fire brigade, led it for many years, and served on the town council and as head of the Kashima chamber of commerce.

Much later, the eighth head, Yano Yoshinori, began brewing pure rice sake in 1987 and in 2003 declared junmai sake the core of production. Since 2018 the ninth head, Yano Motohide, has been both president and master brewer (tōji).

Seven Buildings Registered Together

The seven Yano Sake Brewery buildings belong to the 51st round of registrations, numbered 41-0053 through 41-0059, and were announced in the official gazette on August 24, 2006. All seven were listed for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The value of these Registered Tangible Cultural Properties lies less in any single facade than in a complete brewery compound surviving on the old road.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database dates the buildings across roughly 30 years, from 1904 to the early Showa period:

• Main house: 1904, wooden, 2 storeys, building area 284 square meters
• Former rice mill: 1904, wooden, 1 storey, building area 127 square meters
• Middle storehouse: 1906, south end extended in the decade after 1945, earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, building area 389 square meters
• East storehouse: 1916, earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, building area 281 square meters
• West storehouse: 1921, earthen storehouse, 2 storeys, building area 204 square meters
• Annex: around 1921, wooden, 2 storeys, building area 98 square meters
• Koji room: early Showa period, brick and timber, 1 storey, building area 81 square meters

Read in order, the street-front house and rice mill went up at the end of the Meiji era together with the largest brewing storehouse, the middle one; the Taishō years added the east and west storehouses and the guest annex; and the koji room followed in the Showa period. The middle storehouse dates from the very year Kazuyoshi took charge, but no source ties any single building to a change of head or to the growth of the business.

The complex is also recognized as Saga Prefectural Heritage No. 2012-1. The brewery's own page on the former rice mill gives 2014 as the year of that recognition, which does not match the year in the certificate number.

How the Yano Sake Brewery Compound Is Laid Out

Putting the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions beside the prefectural heritage entry, the Yano Sake Brewery plot meets the old Tara road along its east edge, and the seven buildings step back westward from the street.

On the street stand the main house and the former rice mill. The main house presents its gable end to the road in the Tsumairi manner, with the rice mill running on to the south beyond an earth-floored passage. Behind the house to the west, a roofed corridor leads to the annex.

West of the annex the storehouses begin: the east storehouse near the center of the plot, the middle storehouse beside it, and the west storehouse at the far edge, all three with ridges running north to south. A doorway links the east and middle storehouses, and the west storehouse gave up its own east wall to share one with the middle storehouse. The koji room adjoins the west storehouse on its south side.

For the exterior, start on the old road to take in the white plaster of the main house and the rice mill. The prefectural entry names a second view, the line of storehouses seen from the west side of the plot, where the iron-clad west storehouse and the brick koji room come into sight. No route to that side is published, so stay on public roads and do not enter private land.

Visiting Yano Sake Brewery and Getting There

Yano Sake Brewery is a working brewery, and most of its listed buildings are still used for production and storage. The brewery's company profile says visitors may see only the adjoining Tatsumi no Kura, the converted former rice mill; sake is sold on site, tastings require a reservation, and large groups cannot be accommodated. The Kashima City Tourism Association and the Kashima Sakagura Tourism Council, by contrast, say brewery tours can be booked except during the brewing season from December to March. Because the two accounts differ, phone ahead before visiting.

The brewery gives its hours as 9:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. It closes on Sundays, opens irregularly on Saturdays and public holidays, and also closes from December 31 to January 3 and from August 13 to 16. Enquiries go to Yano Sake Brewery Co., Ltd., telephone 0954-63-2008.

Around March each year Kashima holds its Sakagura Tourism event, a walk between the city's breweries, and Yano Sake Brewery is one of the venues. The prefectural heritage entry adds that the tourism association sometimes runs a hands-on sake-making day here in winter.

By rail, get off at Hizen-Kashima Station on the JR Nagasaki Main Line; the Saga Prefectural Cultural Tourism Federation and the tourism council both put the brewery about 5 minutes' walk away. Drivers will find free parking for a few cars beside the shop, but no space for coaches.