イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

Fussa Sake Brewery Walk: Day Trip from Tachikawa, Water and History

400 years old or 700? The Ishikawa family’s great zelkova and registered buildings

Walk into the grounds of Ishikawa Brewery and the first thing you see is a great zelkova covering the sky. The brewery’s tour guide calls it “a sacred tree 700 years old,” says it is among the largest in the city in both height and girth, and notes that on 22 February 1990 it was designated a natural monument of the City of Fussa as “the Ishikawa Family Zelkova.” Yet a paragraph or so higher up on the same tour guide, it is introduced as “a zelkova more than 400 years old.”

Four hundred years, or seven hundred. Within a single page, the tree grows 300 years younger, or older. I laughed out loud as I read it. But when you think about it, the age of a tree cannot be known precisely unless you cut it down and count the rings. Precisely because it has been protected and never cut, its age is unknown. I have decided to take that 300-year margin as proof of how well the tree has been looked after.

There are other old buildings on the grounds, too. According to the brewery, the nagaya-mon gatehouse was built in the Edo period and is said to date back about 250 years, from before the Ishikawa family started brewing. The name on the nameplate, “Ishikawa Yahachiro,” is a name inherited by each successive head of the family. The bunkogura storehouse was built in 1863. The new storehouse used for ageing dates from 1897. The ground floor of the mukaigura storehouse is now a beer workshop.

Here we return to the beer in the quiz. From the late 1870s through the 1880s, beer began to be brewed in many parts of Japan. Ishikawa Brewery brewed beer from 1887 using the German method, making about 300 koku of lager a year. The beer kettle it used then still survives on the grounds, inside the “Bakushu-gama no Yakata” (“House of the Beer Kettle”), built in 1987, exactly 100 years after that first brew. The Meiji beer lasted only a short time. According to the encyclopedia, Ishikawa Brewery started making beer again in 1998: a second attempt after 110 years. Today beers called “Tama no Megumi” and “TOKYO BLUES” are brewed inside the 1880 storehouse.

The grounds of Tamura Shuzojo, too, have white storehouses, a tall chimney and a long stone wall. The brewery’s tour guide says visitors go round the historic cultural properties scattered across the grounds, the rich natural surroundings, and the brewery itself. At both breweries, tours have rules about reservations and dates, and the content changes. Check each brewery’s official site before you go.

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Showa-era Fussa: the Tama River ferry, Nagata Bridge and gravel

From the water for sake, I want to come back up to the river on the surface for a moment. In the Showa era (1926–1989), Fussa and the Tama River looked completely different from today.

Nagata Bridge over the Tama River in Fussa, with a grassy riverbed and shallow stream in front.
Nagata Bridge over the Tama River in Fussa, with a grassy riverbed and shallow stream in front.
Photo: W.CC / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

To begin with, there was no bridge. According to “The Bridges of Fussa” by the tourism association, the roads from the Itsukaichi direction into Fussa were narrow and winding, and in April 1952 the town of Fussa and the village of Tasai jointly petitioned the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly to build a new, straight road from the front of Fussa Station across the Tamagawa Aqueduct to a new Nagata Bridge over the Tama River. Work began in September 1957. With two main structures — Nagata Bridge over the Tama River (241.5 m long and 6 m wide) and a new bridge over the Tamagawa Aqueduct — and a total cost of ¥107.6 million, it was completed on 31 March 1961.

What did people do before that? According to the encyclopedia, Nagata Bridge became a wooden bridge in the late 1930s or early 1940s, but it was washed away by Typhoon Kathleen in September 1947. Because Yokota Air Base was in Fussa, a temporary bridge 151 m long and 3.6 m wide, made of boards laid across concrete piers, was put up in 1949. A list of the Tama River’s ferry crossings records that the “Fussa Ferry” was discontinued in 1961 with the building of Nagata Bridge. Until the middle of the Showa era, the people of Fussa sometimes crossed the Tama River by boat.

Then and now

  • Then (1949): Nagata Bridge across the Tama River was a temporary bridge of boards, 3.6 m wide. Now: according to the encyclopedia, the rebuilt Nagata Bridge has a total width of 16.8 m, with a 3.5 m footpath on each side. The bridge of those days was hardly wider than one of today’s footpaths.
  • Then (1955): according to the encyclopedia, there were about twenty sake makers in Tokyo, and Fussa in particular was a busy brewing town. Now: about ten sake makers keep up the tradition in Tokyo, and two of them remain in Fussa.
  • Then (1988): according to the encyclopedia, ten Nanbu toji brewers from Iwate came to Tamura Shuzojo in late November to make the sake. Now: according to the brewery, Tamura Shuzojo’s brewery workers are local, and its toji (master brewer) joined in 1983 and has been toji since 1999. The skills of the makers who came from the north each winter have passed into the hands of Fussa people.

There was something else in the Showa-era Tama River: gravel. According to the encyclopedia, from the Meiji era onwards the Tama River became a major source of gravel for concrete, and after the war, gravel extraction continued for the construction of US military bases in Tachikawa and Chofu and for the building works of Japan’s high-growth years. In 1927 a freight branch line of about 1.8 km opened on the Ome Line, running from Fussa Station to a loading point on the bank of the Tama River. The branch was closed in 1959. In 2013, the Fussa Board of Education published a report surveying this line and the ferries, Fussa’s Gravel Line and Ferries (according to the encyclopedia’s sources).

The Ome Line itself was once mainly a freight line. The encyclopedia records that passengers mocked it with a comic verse:

The Ome Line — the gravel looks more important than the people

A railway where the gravel outranks the people. The grumbling senryu (a comic cousin of haiku) of Showa-era commuters.

Did some of the gravel that built the base in Tachikawa come from the riverbed at Fussa? That much I could not confirm. All I can say is that gravel from the same Tama River travelled along the tracks of the same Ome Line and was used, in the same era, to build bases.

And as the Showa era drew towards its end, the Tama River’s gravel banks were close to losing something else.

Kawara-nogiku and walks on the Tama River’s gravel banks

Kawara-nogiku (河原野菊), the riverbed aster. According to the Fussa City Tourism Association, it was once the emblem flower of the Tama River, and it is listed as endangered in the Ministry of the Environment’s Red Data Book. Around 1990, about 45,000 plants flowered along the Tama River basin, but by 2002 that had fallen to just 60. From 45,000 to 60. In twelve years, roughly one in 750 was left.

Since then, researchers and volunteers have carried on conservation and restoration at an experimental plot for restoring the gravel riverbed in the Nagata area of Fussa. According to the association, it has reached the point where about 100,000 plants flower, but it will still take time and effort before the plant can grow wild without human help. The encyclopedia writes that the wild colonies of the middle Tama River were almost wiped out by Typhoon Hagibis (Typhoon No. 19) in 2019, and that the colonies are recovering, on a small scale, from seeds scattered by the few remaining plants and from sowing. Fussa City’s news page still carries notices recruiting volunteers to protect the kawara-nogiku. The flower is a biennial that dies once it has bloomed. Unless someone stands on the riverbed every year, it will not survive.

It flowers in October and November, pale purple to pink, and grows about 50 to 70 cm tall, the association says. It grows only on gravelly ground strewn with stones that is flooded from time to time. It is a flower found only on the Tama River and a few other rivers in the Kanto and Tokai regions.

If you walk the Tama River banks in Fussa in autumn, I would like you to keep this flower a little in mind. Downstream of Nagata Bridge is Yanagiyama Park, one of the Ten Views of Fussa. According to the association, big zelkova trees spread along the Tama River here, showing the changing seasons through the autumn colours and the cold winds of winter. Along the river there are also riverside green spaces such as Tamagawa Chuo Park and Tamagawa Ryokuchi Fussa-Minami Park. According to Ishikawa Brewery’s sightseeing guide, Fussa-Minami Park has a 1.5 km jogging course. From the town on the plateau to the riverbed, you go down the terraces step by step.

From a town of two waters, back to Tachikawa

I went looking for the water of Fussa’s sake, and what I found was not river water but water from beneath the river. Tamura Shuzojo draws water that rain on the Chichibu and Okutama mountains has carried underground, from a well at the foot of a great zelkova. Ishikawa Brewery draws its water from ancient strata 150 metres down. Between the two lies a gravel layer that swallowed even the Tamagawa Aqueduct, and Kumagawa Village on its high ground had to wait until the Meiji era for its branch channel.

Tachikawa’s Sunagawa Village, by contrast, had its branch channel three years after the aqueduct was built. The same single aqueduct kept villagers waiting in Fussa and watered a village at once in Tachikawa. And today, aqueduct water that has flowed past Fussa’s breweries heads through Akishima towards Tachikawa, and Tama River water that has washed Fussa’s riverbed flows along the south of Tachikawa and under Hino Bridge.

The road that crosses Nagata Bridge, according to the encyclopedia, is Tokyo Metropolitan Road No. 29, the Tachikawa–Ome Line. Above the Tama River in Fussa, the road signs carry Tachikawa’s name.

In front of the black board fences of the breweries, the story of the water split in two: above ground and below. If you see the Tama River from the window of the train back to Tachikawa, remember that there is another water flowing beneath it.

Quiz answer

The answer is (B). According to Ishikawa Brewery, from 1887 it made about 300 koku of lager a year, but because there was no crown-cap technology yet and the bottles tended to burst, among other reasons, it sold its brewing equipment in 1890. Beer was not brewed there again until 1998, 110 years later.

Before you go

  • From Tachikawa Station: take the JR Ome Line to Haijima Station. According to Ishikawa Brewery, it is about 12 minutes from Tachikawa to Haijima by rapid train, and from Haijima Station to Ishikawa Brewery (Kumagawa 1-banchi, Fussa) about 8 minutes by taxi or about 20 minutes on foot. Tamura Shuzojo (626 Fussa, Fussa City) is, according to the brewery, about 10 minutes’ walk from Fussa Station on the JR Ome Line (its tour guide says 10 to 15 minutes). Check train times on JR East’s information.
  • From Shinjuku: take the JR Chuo Line to Tachikawa and continue on the Ome Line (change at Tachikawa if your train does not run through). Check the current timetable before you set off, and carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO.
  • Tours and opening: at both breweries, tours require reservations or run on set dates, and their content and prices change. The opening days of the shops and restaurants also vary by facility. Always check the official sites (Japanese): Ishikawa Brewery https://www.tamajiman.co.jp/ / Tamura Shuzojo https://www.tamurashuzojo.com/ . If you don’t speak Japanese, it is worth asking whether a tour suits you when you book.
  • Tasting: the legal drinking age in Japan is 20. If you came by car or bicycle, you cannot drink — in Japan the drink-driving rules apply to cyclists too.
  • Combine it with: near Ishikawa Brewery is Minami Inari Shrine, one of the Ten Views of Fussa, with a great zelkova that is a city natural monument and a red torii gate. Also in Kumagawa is Kumagawa Shrine, said to date back to the Heian period. The old dug channel of the Tamagawa Aqueduct can be seen in Mizukuraido Park. Go down to the Tama River banks for Nagata Bridge, Yanagiyama Park and Fussa-Minami Park. The base and the Route 16 scenery are covered in our article on Fussa’s Yokota Air Base and Route 16.
  • Shrines: these are places of worship. Walk quietly and follow any notices.
  • All of Fussa’s sights: Fussa City Tourism Association (Japanese): https://www.fussakanko.jp/

Back from the sake town, the North Exit at Tachikawa

Tour the brewery grounds, see the old dug channel of the aqueduct, and walk down the slope to the riverbed. The way back is uphill. Fussa’s terraces are a little higher on the way back than on the way there.

One minute’s walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio heated by lava-stone plates. Besides lava-stone hot yoga, it offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lesson.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. Whether you come back from Fussa in the morning or the evening, there is time to drop in.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a yoga mat included in the rental, so you can come empty-handed. One word of advice, though: on a day you have been tasting sake at a brewery, save the warming-up for another day.

Pregnant guests cannot take part in lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information: https://ontheshore.jp/ — trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

From a town that draws its water from deep underground to the third floor of a building by the station. A day spent tracing the story of water ends on a staircase in Tachikawa.

Cover photo: Tamura Shuzojo in Fussa: black board fences and white-walled storehouses, with a tall chimney behind. (Photo: W.CC / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

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