A recent trip to Nagoya for a football game that got canceled left me with a bit of spare time and gave me an opportunity to pop over into Mie to visit that prefecture for the first time. Given that I went to a brewpub that is in a flower park that is in the middle of nowhere and which you need to pay to enter, I’ll probably hold back on making a Mie round up for a while. But visiting a new place in Nagoya and a new place in another city in Aichi means that here we have a new round up post. As three of the places here already have their own entries, I’ll just link to them instead of writing the same thing again. I should also add that there are lots of places I still haven’t been in Nagoya. Quite a lot of the places in the city were focused on imports (including to a certain extent the one I’m adding below). As this website generally focuses more on Japanese beer and I don’t like to write too much about places I don’t know, I’ll leave them for another day.
Nagoya
The biggest city in Aichi and where most of this post’s entries will be located. As stated above, there are a lot of places in Nagoya that I’ve never been to and should probably be on here, and will be when I manage to visit them. The three city centre places that are probably next on my hit list are Trunk, Binge and Grillman. All are on the map so you can see where they are and maybe pop in if you’re near. Other than that, Google’s your friend.
Y Market
See post here
Keg Nagoya
See post here
Beer Pub Brick Lane
See post here
Nagoroba
This is a new bar from Y Market with slightly different branding than usual and a bit closer to the city centre. If you know Nagoya, it’s in Hisaya Odori park, the narrow bit of green that runs north to south between two big roads. I don’t remember there being a shopping centre there the last time I was in that area but maybe it’s been there a while and I’m just not very observant. Anyway, Nagoroba is pretty new and has, if I remember correctly, 15 taps of Y Market beer, three of which are nitro. It has lots of fermented food too. Prices were about the same as the original Y Market place, so about ¥1100-¥1300 for a large which is 490ml, and ¥800-¥1000 for the regular which is 330ml. The big selling point apart from the central location (in between Sakae and Hisayaodori stations) is the fact that it is open all day! Lovely! But of course the beer and food was also very nice.
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Caravan
Slightly outside of my comfort zone, Caravan is a pretty fashionable place up on the second floor, full of young and trendy people spending quite a lot of money. They serve pizza and some other really nice food and their beers are from cans in a couple of fridges at the back of the bar. They are pretty much all imported and in fashionable styles with only a couple of domestic cans when I was there. Prices are as you’d expect for a place focused on imports and fashionable stuff. There is also a whopping ¥600 cover charge per person for which you get nothing after 18:00 (or some time near that, can’t remember exactly). They also have a lot of craft gins and a barbershop at the front of the building. The entrance is a bit hidden but I won’t spoil the surprise and just tell you that it’s not through the barbershop. Keep your eyes open and you’ll spot it. All in all, this place sounds like it would really not be for me. But, the fact that the young and trendy staff were actually really, really nice totally won me over. It also helps that it’s the only place that’s open past 11pm. It closes very late so I guess you’re paying for that to a certain extent. Oh, but beware, smoking is allowed.
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Mya Brew
Nice little brewpub a little way away from the main tourist areas but not so difficult to get to. Around eight taps if I remember rightly with five being made by them on site. Two of them were hard seltzers though. The brewery says it focuses on sour beers but only one of them was a sour so maybe we were unlucky. They were pretty good though. Some food too. And it was a nice place to stop with a friendly atmosphere. Will go back.
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Endoji Brewing
Admittedly I am a bit stupid, but I presumed this place was a brewery. No sure if that is the intention in the future or if it’s just badly named but right now they have only guest beers. Think they have about 20 taps, most of which were imports and some cans and bottles too, all of which were imports. Unsurprisingly, quite expensive. Standing bar with a couple of tables out front set up in the old shopping arcade the bar is in. They had a fancy Chinese restaurant upstairs and I’m guessing that you can probably order beers from downstairs if you’re eating upstairs. 100% a guess though. Some food available downstairs but it was all very meaty so no good for me. As I’m not really an imports drinker this probably isn’t the place for me, but I can imagine that if money is no object for you and you like hazies, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here.
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Buku Beer
Another Nagoya place that has quite a lot of taps of imported beers and has that kind of decor and atmosphere that you find in quite a few places recently. Think they had eight taps here and as these kind of places tend to do, a selection of cans too. They had two taps of Japanese stuff, one of which was an interesting local brewery and the other was Hideji. Seemed quite expensive but then again, I don’t drink imports very often so maybe I’m out of touch. Probably the kind of place that I wouldn’t go to very often if it was in Tokyo as I’m more of a Japanese craft kind of guy, but it was a fun place to stop for a beer on the way back to the hotel. The picture isn’t very good, but basically you need to go up those orange stairs to the third floor without getting distracted by the Irish pub.
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Nagakute
Totopia Brewery
A little bit outside of Nagoya, but not really that far. And then a little bit of a walk from the station. Interesting place that is kind of in the countryside, surrounded by a few houses, some fields and somewhat incongruously, a massive IKEA. They have a small taproom with a few seats but it’s mostly standing and drinking going on. Eight taps of their own beers served in one size (250ml) priced from ¥700-¥850, which I think is actually pretty good value as they would cost a lot more in other places. I was initially wary as they are quite a trendy brewery and they make a lot of hazies which I’m not a massive fan of. But I was really pleasantly surprised as everything was nice and some were REALLY NICE! Some cans in the fridge to take away too, which seemed to reflect what was on tap. Only open at the weekend for limited hours and some weekends they’re closed, so best check their website or Instagram to check they’re open before you set off. I had a lot of fun here. Sorry about the photo. I’ve made a nice and quite trendy place look boring.
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Inuyama
Inuyama is about half an hour from Nagoya on the Meitetsu fast train. In the city there are some old buildings and historical type stuff and one of Japan’s top castles. There is also the Inuyama Loreley brewery which has a beer hall (which we didn’t go to but is on the map), and the tasting room mentioned below.
Inuyama Loreley Bakushukan Marunocuhi
Tasting room of the local brewery located at the bottom of the hill the castle is on in an old Japanese style house on the main tourist street. When we were there it seemed to be mainly people popping in for the food. But they also have three taps of their beer available for ¥550-¥600 a pop. Think they are usually the same beers. Not sure how many beers the brewery actually makes to be honest. It’s traditional European styles mainly, (pilsner and weizen), but they had a lager with a Japanese twist too (Sakura Honey Lager). It’s a shame the beers are served in plastic cups, but I guess they have quite a high turnover of people coming in and perhaps taking their beers away which is an option they offer. But you shouldn’t do that as if you go through to the back of the building there are some really nice seating areas. We were lucky enough to get the pair of seats right at the back on the tatami (good but perhaps obvious tip – take your shoes off if there’s a step up to a seating area) with a view out to the (very) mini Japanese garden. It was a really nice experience and both the experience and the beers (the pils particularly) were a very pleasant surprise! Slightly bizarrely, their website doesn’t appear to acknowledge the existence of this place and instead focuses on the beer hall which is not so close to the touristy part of town and which we didn’t visit. So the link below is a bit useless, but I dunno, maybe it’s of some interest.
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