Let’s Beer Works is a place that has been on my ‘to visit’ list for a while but the limited opening hours have always foiled me. Well, until now! I managed to finally get there on my way to Urawa for a football away game. En-route my shoe self-destructed. This is of no interest to you, but made the day even more memorable. There are quite a few places up in this area of Tokyo, but I’m ashamed to say I’ve been to hardly any of them. Let’s was so much fun though that I don’t think it will be too long before I’m off up that way again to revisit it and will try some of the others too. Here’s what you need to know:
- Pretty small place. I’d heard it was standing but there were some seats at a small counter inside (maybe for five) and a few seats outside (presumably not all year round). The place is foremost a brewery, which goes some way to explaining why there isn’t a lot of seating and they don’t open very often. This might not be of much help to many people, but it reminded me a bit of one of the smaller Bermondsey mile breweries in London with a modern and relaxed feel to it. When we visited you ordered and paid for your beers outside and they were brought to your at your seat. Not sure if this is a COVID times only thing. There was free popcorn when we were there which was very welcome!
- Nine taps of their own beer available when we were there and some cans too. There was a decent variety of styles on offer with a bit of a modern feel to some of them (fruited sour IPAs!). Beers were served in two sizes, half (273ml) and pint (472ml). The halves ranged from ¥600-¥800 and the pints were from ¥1000-¥1400. About half of the tap beers were available in cans, presumably to take away. Someone was drinking a beer flight when we were there but there was no sign of this on the menu, so maybe it’s not something they really offer.
- I don’t think they had any food (aside from the popcorn). I didn’t notice WiFi. They have some daytime opening on the weekend. In fact it’s the only time they are open. And there was no cover charge.
This place was a really pleasant surprise. I was a bit worried it might be all hazy IPAs but there was only one on tap. The mixed culture farmhouse ale was REALLY nice. And I enjoyed the fruited sour IPAs too. it was a really fun place to visit and I will definitely be going back. As I said above, the opening hours are quite limited and given that there aren’t many seats, I suspect people normally pop in for a couple and take some stuff away. There are a lot more bars in Jujo and in Akabane so there is a real potential for a Kita-ku pub crawl now. Visiting here made me realise that I should really go to some different neighbourhoods more often instead of sticking to the same usual places. And if you do decide to do a Kita pub crawl, you definitely should go here.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Let’s Beer Works
Opening Hours:
Saturday & Sunday, 13:00-19:00
Closed Monday-Friday
Location/map:
東十条 2-15-7, Kita-ku, Tokyo