In my ongoing personal quest to ‘complete’ Japan I recently visited a couple of Shikoku prefectures kind of en route between two football games. Our trip thankfully coincided with the fairly recent opening of a fancy new brewpub in Kochi. As we only visited Kochi city, right now this post will be quite short, but I hope to add to it after future visits as I really enjoyed Kochi, even if getting around wasn’t particularly easy. The two breweries in Kochi city are both fairly tricky to get to, and I can’t imagine it’s really possible to get to both in one day unless you’re happy to spend a lot of money on taxis and only pay flying visits. With that in mind, I should give an honourable but uninformed mention here to Tosaco a little out of the city to the east, which we couldn’t get to this time. It looked like a very nice location so will be back some time to tick that one off and add it. And there was also a bar in town called Kochi Beer Laboratory which we’d planned to go to but was closed for a holiday when we were in town.
Kochi-shi
South Horizon
Big, swish place out by the port of Kochi. Pretty inaccessible unless you use a taxi as the bus service is quite irregular. Also the bus is quite expensive so the taxi becomes even more of a good option. Built on a little mound by the ocean with some nice views and a big metal KOCHI sign. It’s a really nice place to spend some time having some beers. Somewhat annoyingly I’ve managed to delete my photos of the menu so everything is going from memory. (I’ve now found the photo!). They had about ten taps, I think…,(correct!) six of which were their own beers, I think…. (seven actually). Prices were really good for their beers (¥650 half, ¥1000 pint), so you can make back that taxi fee if you have a few pints. Guests were quite a bit more expensive but if you’re visiting Kochi you probably will be mainly interested in Kochi beers, won’t you? Very nice food menu too. Beer flight available for ¥1500 for four beers and it’s even ¥500 cheaper between 15:00 and 18:00 on weekdays. Lots of fridges of cans and bottles, some of their own beers, some Japanese guests and some imports too. Not sure if these were for on-site consumption, to take away, or both. Nice staff, really comfortable feel and good beers! Will definitely go back. Just wish they had a shuttle bus or something, but I realise this wish is an utterly ridiculous one.
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Cafe Jewel König / Yamamoto Bakushu
Small place a short walk to the north of Kochi station which feels like it used to be a German bar and restaurant but is now the taproom for the Yamamoto brewery. Six taps of their own beers and lots of bottles and cans, as far as I can remember, a few from Japanese breweries with the majority being European stuff. (Hope this is right. Sorry if my memory is failing me). Their beers were a mix of styles with some modern ones thrown in along with the more traditional European type things. Food too, but we only had the pretzel and some edamame as we’d stuffed ourselves at the previous stop. Very friendly staff who suggested some places for us to go to during our trip.
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