Today, a quick post to add a place in Nishi Tokyo that I recently visited as part of my ongoing challenge to drink a craft beer in every part of Tokyo. I was very unfamiliar with the area and had no idea about this place until my friend told me about it and mentioned it was serving a beer from a Fukui brewery. As Fukui was the last prefecture of Japan for me to tick off a beer from we made hasty plans to visit. Here’s what you need to know:
- Interesting looking place. Pretty small and cosy with tables for maybe 20, one of which is right next to the door and gave me a bit of a shock when I entered. Has a kind of unique feel to it which is difficult to explain. Lots of wood, but feels quite old school rather than the newer kind of wood packed places that are around. Of course the beer is important here, but so are the numerous other types of booze available and the food. Guess it’s basically a small izakaya which just happens to have craft beer.
- Nine taps of Japanese craft (one of which is Tap Marche, but was a decent offering when we were there), with some interesting names in there alongside some more common breweries. Beers are served in two sizes, 330ml and 473ml. The smaller costs ¥790 and the larger ¥1090, but tax is added to this price so it ends up being ¥869 and ¥1199. As mentioned above, if you’ve had enough beer, there is a veritable plethora of other booze available. You name it, they’ve probably got it, including two pages of gins on the iPad menu.
- There was a cover charge of ¥330 which I guess is pretty standard for an izakaya. They aren’t open in the daytime and they didn’t seem to have WiFi. These are the three things I normally put in this end section and get excited when they all are a positive. In this case, they were all negative, but to be honest, it didn’t worry me that much. I think that is pretty par for the course with izakayas so there’s no point getting troubled by it.
I have to say, I quite enjoyed myself here. It seemed to be family run and there was a really nice local feel to the place. It’s not the easiest to get to, but that kind of made it feel a bit more special, almost like we were on holiday somewhere. If you’re planning on visiting from central Tokyo, your best bet is to use the Seibu Ikebukuro line and get off at Hoya. It’s about a 15 minute walk from the station. Alternatively, you can get a bus from Mitaka, which is what I did on the way there. Beware that they close quite early. We didn’t notice and were happily ordering away well past their closing time. Sorry! Also beware that it seemed to be quite popular, so if you’re making the trip from further afield, it might be worth booking to avoid what I would imagine could be a significant disappointment. This is another place that gets added to my ‘I’ll go back when I’m in the area’ list. Not sure when that might be though.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Our Brewing
Kaneshige
Repubrew
Ise Kadoya
Hansharo
Nomcraft
Opening Hours:
Tuesday-Thursday, 17:00-21:00
Friday-Saturday, 17:00-22:00
Sunday, 17:00-21:00
Closed Monday
Location/map:
泉町 5-11-15, Nishi Tokyo-shi, Tokyo
Telephone:
042-439-6692