Mojiko Retro District is not the only place with red brick buildings. The nearest station to Mojiko Red Brick Place is Moji Station, not Mojiko Station.

Moji Red Brick Place is a complex located in Moji-ku, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, a 3-minute walk from JR Moji Station, using the former Kyushu factory of Sapporo Beer, and includes a museum, gallery, restaurant, etc. Speaking of red-brick buildings in Kitakyushu City, the Mojiko Retro District, an area centering on JR Mojiko Station, is famous, and Mojiko Red Brick Place is another tourist spot where brick buildings remain as well.

The former Kyushu factory of Sapporo Beer operated as a beer brewery until 2000, and 4 brick buildings still exist: the Old Office Building (Moji Beer Brick Building), the Old Brewing Building, and the Old Warehouse Building, built in 1913, and the Old Union Building, built in 1917. This beer factory changed its name to Teikoku Beer, Sakura Beer, Dainippon Beer, Nippon Beer, and Sapporo Beer, and through mergers, consolidations, and divisions, carved a history of beer production here for 87 years, but it was closed down when the new Kyushu factory was built in Hita City, Oita Prefecture. The buildings have a retro atmosphere from the Taisho era (1912-1926), which is a mix of Japanese and Western culture called Taisho Roman, and are registered as national tangible cultural properties.

Teikoku Brewery was founded in 1912 in Dairi Town (now Kitakyushu City), Fukuoka Prefecture, and was the first full-fledged beer manufacturer in Kyushu with the trademark “Sakura Beer.” Demand in Japan and overseas grew from Moji, an international port and railway hub. At its peak, Teikoku Brewery had a 9% share of the domestic market, making it the third largest beer maker in Japan. After 1929, the company’s name was changed to Sakura Brewery. However, due to fierce market competition in the beer industry, a shortage of beer ingredients, and government policies of economic control in the early Showa era (first half of the 20th century), Sakura Beer merged with Dai Nippon Beer in 1943. In 1949, after World War II, as a result of the dissolution of the zaibatsu, financial clique, the “Law for the Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power” was applied, and Dai Nippon Beer was split up into Nippon Beer and Asahi Beer (now Asahi Beer). Nippon Beer started out under the Nippon Beer brand, but struggled against Kirin Brewery and Asahi Brewery, and with beer lovers hoping for a revival of Sapporo Beer, the company was revived in 1956, first in Hokkaido, and then sold nationwide in 1957. In 1964, the company name was changed to “Sapporo Beer.”

*Sapporo Beer was established in 1886 as Sapporo Beer Brewery. In 1906, due to intensifying market competition, Nippon Beer fell into a management crisis, so Sapporo Beer, Osaka Beer (now Asahi Beer) and Nippon Beer merged to become Dai Nippon Beer, but the Sapporo Beer brand survived in some areas. In 1943, beer trademarks were banned due to economic controls, and the Sapporo Beer brand temporarily disappeared.

The Moji Beer Brick Building was built in 1913 as the office building of the former Teikoku Brewery. It is a two-story building made of slag brick with a tower. Slag is the residue produced when making iron, and the building uses slag bricks manufactured by the Government-Managed Yawata Steel Works. It is the earliest slags brick building in Japan and the oldest authentic slag brick building in existence.

The largest red brick building is the Old Brewery Building. It was a factory that actually made beer, but the large-scale preparation facilities inside the Brewery Building are not open to the public. But at the special open houses held several times a year, you can observe the preparation facilities with a guide.

Cafe de Brick is a dining bar located in a corner of the “Old Brewery Building”. The interior makes use of the red brick walls and steel pillars and beams of the 100-year-old building. The name of the bar, Cafe de Brick, comes from a fictional store depicted in the autumn-themed “Brick Town” of four landscape paintings by Kitakyushu-born illustrator Watase Seizo that feature Moji Red Brick Place.

Moji Red Brick Place is exhibiting ceramic panel paintings by Seizo Watase. Seizo Watase’s gallery is located in the former O.S.K.Line Building in the Mojiko Retro District.

Dairi Kaigan Ryokuchi (Dairi Coast Green Space) is a promenade across National Route 199 from Moji Red Brick Place. You can see people taking a leisurely stroll or jogging while enjoying the view of the Kanmon Straits.

Access to Moji Red Brick Place

It takes about 1 hour and 50 minutes from Haneda Airport to Kitakyushu Airport. It takes about 35 minutes by Nishitetsu Bus from Kitakyushu Airport to JR Kokura Station.

It takes about 5 minutes by Kagoshima Main Line from JR Kokura Station to JR Moji Station. Get off at JR Moji Station, a short walk.

It takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes by Shinkansen from JR Shin-Osaka Station to JR Kokura Station.