Zaima Brewery

What Is the Zaima Brewery?

Zaima Brewery (財間酒造場, Zaima Shuzōjō) is a sake brewery on the old San'in-dō highway in Nakaza, Tsuwano Town, Kanoashi District, Shimane Prefecture, built around a store and main house dating from the late Edo period (1751 to 1830), and its five buildings were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 13, 2012.

The business trades today as Zaima Sakaba Co., Ltd. and is best known for its Takasago sake. Both the company website and the Tsuwano Tourism Association give its founding year as 1791. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists some of the buildings under the name Zaima Sake Brewery Co., Ltd., so the company name is not written consistently across sources.

How the Zaima Brewery Is Laid Out

The brewery sits toward the southern end of Tsuwano, with the old San'in-dō running north to south along its western edge. Putting the Agency's descriptions side by side gives a clear plan. The Store and Main House stands at the center of the street frontage. To its north, the Funekura and the Hyakkokugura run together as one long storehouse along the same road. The East Storehouse joins the back of the shop section of the main house, and the Brewing Storehouse stands parallel to it on the north, linked to it by a covered bridge at second-floor level. The New House occupies the southwest corner of the plot, facing the old road toward Hatsukaichi.

From the street, the tiled roof of the main house sits next to the white plaster walls and vertical board skirting of the Funekura and Hyakkokugura. The Agency calls the main house the core building of a large, long-established sake brewery in a mountain district, and praises the long storehouses for creating a streetscape that reads clearly as a brewery. All five buildings were registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country, with consecutive registration numbers 32-0160 to 32-0164.

The Agency's database gives the following dates and sizes for the five buildings of the Zaima Brewery.

• Store and Main House: late Edo period, altered in the mid-Meiji period and in 1979. Single-storey timber building with a partial second floor, tiled roof, 266 m² building area, with a chimney
• New House: 1915. Single-storey timber building, tiled roof, 102 m² building area
• Funekura and Hyakkokugura: the Funekura from the late Edo period and the Hyakkokugura from the Taishō period (1912 to 1926), both extended in the Taishō period and altered in the mid-Showa period. Single-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, 423 m² building area
• East Storehouse: late Edo period, altered in 1915, 1979 and around 2003. Two-storey dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, 236 m² building area
• Brewing Storehouse: 1924, altered in the mid-Showa period and around 2003. Two-storey dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, 316 m² building area, with a covered bridge

Read in order, the dates show a late Edo core of main house, Funekura and East Storehouse, filled out in the Taishō years by the New House, the Hyakkokugura and the Brewing Storehouse.

Two Centuries of Brewing at the Zaima Brewery

Counting from its founding in 1791, the Zaima Brewery has been making sake on the same ground for more than 230 years. The main house was reworked in the mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897), and 1915 saw both the building of the New House and repairs to the East Storehouse. The newest of the five buildings is the Brewing Storehouse, put up in 1924.

Work continued after the war. The main house and the East Storehouse were altered in 1979, and the East Storehouse and the Brewing Storehouse again around 2003. The buildings have been kept in use and adjusted to the needs of each generation of brewing, and the date columns in the national database record those changes in some detail.

Visitors should not confuse the brewery with the Zaima Family Residence, a group of seven registered buildings on Honmachi-dori in the Ushiroda district of Tsuwano. It is a separate property with a different address and registration year, and no public source confirms a connection between the two.

Visiting the Zaima Brewery

The Zaima Brewery is a working brewery, and sake is sold in the Store and Main House. The company website says it is open every day of the year and welcomes visitors to look around the brewery at any time. On the premises is the Takasago Sake Brewery Museum, which displays brewing tools and sake vessels from the Edo period to the early Showa period. According to the Tsuwano Tourism Association it opens from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with no closing days (checked on October 16, 2026). Neither official listing mentions an admission fee or whether photography is allowed inside the storehouses, so ask at the shop when you arrive.

The nearest station is Tsuwano on the JR Yamaguchi Line. The brewery lies about 2.2 kilometers south of the station in a straight line, and the tourism association puts it at 5 minutes by car, with parking available. Because the buildings front the old San'in-dō, the Store and Main House and the long Funekura and Hyakkokugura can be seen directly from the street.