Former Kagamiyama Sake Brewery

The Former Kagamiyama Sake Brewery

The Former Kagamiyama Sake Brewery (旧鏡山酒造, Kyū Kagamiyama Shuzō) in Shintomicho, Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, keeps three sake storehouses from the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa eras, registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 7, 2008 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). All three belong to Kawagoe City.

Since October 2010 the brewery has been the Kawagoe City Industry and Tourism Center, better known as Koedo Kurari (小江戸蔵里). The Meiji Storehouse is the souvenir hall, the Taisho Storehouse the restaurant and the Showa Storehouse the sake tasting room; a fourth, unregistered building, the Tenji-gura, serves as a community space (Koedo Kurari). Saitama Prefecture's landscape survey identifies it as the former bottling plant's warehouse.

A Brewery and Its Afterlife

According to Koedo Kurari, the family began brewing in about 1860 under the trade name Kyūboshi, and in about 1875 built storehouses on the present site and founded Kagamiyama Sake Brewery. The name comes from Mount Kagami in Ryūō, Shiga Prefecture, a peak that appears in a poem by Fujiwara no Teika. Kawagoe City's newsletter adds that Kagamiyama sake was once served on Japan Airlines' international flights.

The brewery closed in September 2000. A case study by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism records what followed: residents asked for the storehouses to be saved, the buildings were donated to Kawagoe City, the city's land development corporation bought the land in fiscal 2001, and the city bought it back in fiscal 2005. Saitama Prefecture notes that a condominium had at one point been planned for the site.

Renovation began in the fiscal year in which the three storehouses were registered (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism). Saitama Prefecture describes the work as a restoration of the traditional buildings combined with modern additions such as seismic bracing and new eaves, and records that it won a Saitama landscape award for fiscal 2009. The center is run by Machizukuri Kawagoe, a local company appointed as designated manager.

Three Storehouses, Three Stages of Brewing

The site faces a street to the west (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The Meiji Storehouse stands on the west side along the street, the Taisho Storehouse lies east of it, and the Showa Storehouse sits southeast of the Taisho. All three are Dozo-zukuri storehouses with gabled roofs of interlocking pantiles and walls finished in Shikkui lime plaster.

Koedo Kurari explains that brewing moved from one storehouse to the next. Rice koji was made in the Kojimuro of the Meiji Storehouse; the yeast starter (Shubo) and the main mash were prepared in the Showa Storehouse; the mash came back to the Meiji Storehouse to be pressed, blended and filtered; and the finished sake was stored, bottled and packed in the Taisho Storehouse. Walking the three in turn, you follow the brewery's production line from vat to shipping crate. Each building has its own page.

Kawagoe City's historic townscape plan places the brewery on the Renjakucho-Shintomicho road, which leads from the stations toward the old warehouse-style streets and Kitain temple. The ministry's case study adds that Koedo Kurari sits where the shopping district meets the sightseeing area, drawing visitors through the shopping streets. A float house on the grounds holds the Shintomicho 1-chome float of the Kawagoe Festival (Koedo Kurari).

Visiting

Koedo Kurari gives Hon-Kawagoe Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line as the nearest station, a 3-minute walk, with Kawagoe Station on the JR and Tobu Tojo lines 15 minutes away on foot. There is no car park, so visitors are asked to come by public transport. The Koedo loop bus run by Eagle Bus has a Koedo Kurari stop.

All three storehouses of the Former Kagamiyama Sake Brewery are open as shops and a restaurant, so you can step inside during business hours. Hours differ from building to building and change during the Kawagoe Festival and the Kawagoe summer festival (Koedo Kurari).