Furuhashi Sake Brewery

What Is the Furuhashi Sake Brewery?

The Furuhashi Sake Brewery (古橋酒造場, Furuhashi Shuzōjō) is a sake brewery founded in 1878 on Honmachi-dori in Ushiroda, Tsuwano Town, Shimane Prefecture, whose five buildings of around 1921, the store and main house, the workshop, the brewing storehouse, the storage house and the former clothing storehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on September 10, 2010.

The five carry consecutive registration numbers, 32-0132 to 32-0136. The company that still brews here, Furuhashi Sake Brewery Co., Ltd., sells its sake under the name Uijin (初陣), a word for a warrior's first battle. Because the premises sit on a crossroads, the brewery says, people in town have long called it the Kado Sakaba, the corner sake shop.

Honmachi-dori was Tsuwano's merchant street, and several other shops along it were registered on the same day, among them the Hashimoto and Kasen breweries. What sets Furuhashi apart is that its street-front shop and the run of earthen storehouses behind it survive together as one working brewery.

A Brewery Named for a First Battle

The brewery dates its founding to 1878, when Furuhashi Hachitarō set up in business. By the family's account, he had gone into battle at seventeen as a mounted guard of the Hiroshima domain at Toba-Fushimi, the opening clash of the 1868 Boshin War, and the sake's name recalls that first fight. Brewing water comes from Tenzen, a spring at the foot of Mount Aono, and the rice is Yamada-nishiki and Sakanishiki grown in Tsuwano.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates all five registered buildings of the Furuhashi Sake Brewery to around 1921, some four decades after the founding. No public record explains why the shop and storehouses went up at the same time.

Two later changes are recorded. A tatami reception wing was added to the store and main house in 1955, and the former clothing storehouse was renovated in 2003. The workshop, the brewing storehouse and the storage house show no recorded alterations.

Sources differ on the owner's name. The national database lists 古橋酒蔵株式会社, the brewery's own company profile uses 古橋酒造株式会社, and Tsuwano's board of education lists the five as privately owned. This page follows the national database and gives the trading name alongside it.

How the Furuhashi Sake Brewery Is Laid Out

Tsuwano's board of education describes the usual Honmachi-dori plot as a shop on the street with a garden courtyard behind; on a brewer's or sake dealer's lot a line of storehouses filled the back and ran through to the rear street. The Furuhashi Sake Brewery keeps that arrangement.

Pieced together from the national descriptions, the plan runs like this. The store and main house holds the west end of the lot and faces Honmachi-dori with a 13-meter frontage. Behind it to the east, the workshop runs along the street on the north side of the lot, and the brewing storehouse carries on from there to the lot's east end. Between them, the two buildings put more than 50 meters of storehouse wall along that north street.

On the south edge, centered, stands the long storage house. West of it, southeast of the main house, is the little former clothing storehouse, whose door opens north onto the garden, a sign that the house and storehouses enclose a private garden in the middle of the lot.

The national database gives these dates and sizes:

• Store and main house: around 1921, extended in 1955. Two-story timber building, tiled roof, 310 m² building area
• Workshop: around 1921. Two-story earthen storehouse construction, tiled roof, 165 m²
• Brewing storehouse: around 1921. Two-story earthen storehouse construction, tiled roof, 301 m²
• Storage house: around 1921. Single-story earthen storehouse construction, tiled roof, 197 m²
• Former clothing storehouse: around 1921, renovated in 2003. Two-story earthen storehouse construction, tiled roof, 23 m²

All five were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. Of the brewing storehouse, the Agency adds that it gives the premises the look of a proper sake brewery.

Visiting the Furuhashi Sake Brewery

The store and main house of the Furuhashi Sake Brewery is still the shop, and the brewery says every sake on sale can be tasted free of charge. Anyone driving should skip the tasting.

Brewery tours are offered too. The brewery asks visitors to sign up at the shop and to get in touch by the day before, by phone on 0856-72-0048 or by email, so that staff can show them round the storehouses. During the brewing season some days are unavailable because of the work. Opening hours are not posted on the brewery's site and tourist listings disagree, so a call ahead is the safest plan (checked October 4, 2026).

The nearest station is Tsuwano on the JR Yamaguchi Line. The brewery is about 500 meters south of it in a straight line, roughly an 8-minute walk down Honmachi-dori. The street forms part of the Tsuwano Preservation District, selected in 2013 as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. From outside you can take in the street front of the main house and the storehouse walls of the workshop and brewing storehouse along the north street.