Kasen Brewery

What Is Kasen Brewery?

Kasen Brewery (華泉酒造場, Kasen Shuzōjō) is a working sake brewery founded in 1730 on Honmachi-dōri in Ushiroda, Tsuwano Town, Kanoashi District, Shimane Prefecture, and five of its buildings, a combined shop and main house and four earthen storehouses, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 10 September 2010. The storehouses date from the late Edo period and the shop-house from the mid-Meiji period.

The name is read Kasen, not Hanasen. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the reading kasen shuzōjō for all five buildings.

The business that still brews and sells sake on the site is Kasen Shuzo, a limited partnership. By the company's own account, its founder, Tawaraya Chōshichi, was a rice merchant in Tsuwano who turned to brewing in 1730, in the time of the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune. The present head of the house is the tenth generation, and the eleventh serves as toji, the master brewer.

Five Registered Buildings

All five buildings of Kasen Brewery were registered together on 10 September 2010, in the 68th round of registrations, under consecutive numbers 32-0140 to 32-0144. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives their periods and sizes as follows.

• Store and Main House: mid-Meiji period, 2-storey timber building, 303 square meters
• Tool Storehouse: late Edo period, 2-storey earthen storehouse, 27 square meters
• Former Clothing Storehouse: late Edo period, renovated around 1996, 2-storey earthen storehouse, 38 square meters
• Middle Storehouse: late Edo period, single-storey earthen storehouse, 191 square meters
• East Storehouse: late Edo period, 2-storey earthen storehouse, 144 square meters

The registration criteria differ by building. The shop-house was registered as a model of form and design; the four storehouses were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape.

According to Tsuwano Town, a fire in 1853 swept through most of the castle town, and the streetscape seen today was rebuilt after it. The national database dates the four Kasen Brewery storehouses only to the late Edo period, without saying whether they stood before or after the fire.

A Lot from Street to Back Lane

The Kasen Brewery lot is long and narrow, running east from Honmachi-dōri to a small lane at the back. The shop-house faces west onto the street, with the Tool Storehouse to its north and the Former Clothing Storehouse to its south. Both storehouses run east to west, and on the street side each has a Namako-kabe lower wall and a window hung with copper doors. From the street, the effect is a merchant's frontage bracketed by two white storehouses.

Behind the house lies a work yard, and beyond it the single-storey Middle Storehouse stretches 30 meters to the east. At the far eastern edge of the lot stands the two-storey East Storehouse, facing the back lane.

Tsuwano's culture portal notes that brewers and other merchants on Honmachi-dōri typically set their storehouses behind the main house and took the whole block through to the next street. Kasen Brewery keeps that sequence complete, from the shop at the front to the last storehouse at the back.

The old merchant quarter centred on Honmachi-dōri was selected, together with the samurai quarter along Tonomachi-dōri, as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings on 7 August 2013. Agency for Cultural Affairs material records that owners of registered buildings in Tsuwano formed an association in fiscal 2010, and that work toward the selection began there.

Visiting Kasen Brewery

The front of the Kasen Brewery shop-house operates as the company's sake shop. The Tsuwano Tourism Association lists its hours as 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., open every day. Visitors can enter the shop during those hours; the living quarters behind it and the storehouses are not open. We found no regular brewery tours offered.

From the street you can see the shop frontage and the walls of the Tool Storehouse and Former Clothing Storehouse on either side. The East Storehouse faces the lane at the eastern edge of the lot and can be seen from there. Take photos from the public road, and ask the staff before photographing inside the shop.

The nearest station is Tsuwano on the JR Yamaguchi Line. Walk south into Honmachi-dōri; the shop is about 500 meters from the station, a walk of 5 to 7 minutes.