Pintology Craft Beer & Whisky

Recently the north of Shibuya-ku has had a lot of new places opening. A few of them have made it on to digest posts, some are still yet to be visited but Pintology having 2nd Story Ale Works’ Italian Pils on tap encouraged me to tick this one off the list and get it on here very soon after it opened. You can find Pintology in Sasazuka, not far from the station and over the other side of Koshu Kaido to the new Sasazuka brewery OURDAYS, which I am still yet to visit (coming soon, I intended to go there after visiting Pintology, but I ended up staying a bit too long so threw off the rest of my schedule). Here’s what you need to know.

• Nice feel to the place, a friendly and relaxing atmosphere. There’s a counter for maybe six, some smaller tables for maybe a few more and a larger sharing table near the window. I quite enjoyed the music playing here and there was a subtitled movie being projected on to the wall too which is great if you want to practice your kanji reading or just if you want something to look at.
• 12 taps of craft, a mix between Japanese stuff and imports. Not all 12 are on at the moment, but they are still in the soft opening phase, so this is totally understandable. There were eight on when I went there and six of them were domestic. Beers served in the usual pint (US) and half sizes you get in most places. Prices ranged from ¥1300-¥1700 for the pint and ¥800-¥1100 for the half with the imports obviously at the higher end. They seem to usually post their taplist on Instagram so you can check what beers are on and prices there. I think you need to order your beers at the counter and pay as you go. At least that’s what people were doing when I was there. I guess if you’re sitting at the counter maybe you can pay at the end. Not sure though. There is also a fridge of bottles and cans. When they are fully open this will be for consumption on site and for take away too, but right now, they’re for drinking in the bar only. These beers were again a mix of Japanese craft and imports and had some interesting stuff that I hadn’t seen before.
• No cover charge, daytime opening, no smoking. As usual I forgot to check for WiFi. If you know whether they have it or not, let me know and I’ll put that info in the following bracket (THEY DO). Along with the beer they have a lot of whisky. As I know next to nothing about whisky I think you’d be better off checking their social media to find out about that. Not sure if they have any food. Can’t remember seeing a menu. Damn this is even vaguer than usual…

Perhaps it was the music, perhaps it was the beers, perhaps it was the atmosphere or perhaps the nice staff, but I really enjoyed coming here and can definitely see myself being a regular visitor. Unlike some new places which feel like they come with an agenda, the feel here was just of a really nice and comfortable place to have some drinks. Apologies if this sounds like I’m damning it with faint praise. The truth is perhaps that my faint praise is quite unusual and you should take this as a big recommendation. I think plenty of people will be pairing a visit here with a nice stroll along a busy main road and having some at Gremlin too, which is obviously what I did. And which I will certainly be doing again soon!

Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
2nd Story
Hop Kotan
Distant Shores
Nomcraft
Tall Boys

Opening Hours:
Wednesday-Monday, 15:00-23:00
Closed Tuesday

Location/map:
笹塚 1-33-10, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Telephone:
None

Links:
Instagram