I have to say, it’s been a long time for me between Craft Beer Server Land visits. A very long time. My main memory from the Kagurazaka branch is that I quite enjoyed going there in those days when there weren’t many bars around. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they’d opened a branch in Akasaka, (not at all recently, I was very slow on this one), and even more surprised to hear that they have a decent selection of vegetarian food. Seeing they had an event where more of their taps than usual were turned over to lagers, I decided that it was probably time to pay the ‘new’ place a visit. Here’s what you need to know:
- Kind of hidden away in the basement on one of the two main Akasaka eating and drinking streets. I’ve broken my usual rule by using a photo of the actual entrance rather than the street level entrance as the street level entrance was extremely nondescript. I guess this is a bit stupid of me as in the case of a nondescript entrance the street level photo might actually have been more useful. Reasonably sized place with a counter for about 10 and seating for about 30. Looks exactly how you’d expect a pub to look in Akasaka. Basically somewhere that manages to appeal without discouraging customers who might not be used to the bare concrete craft beer pub thing.
- 30 taps and the prices are generally very good. There are some slightly bizarrely higher priced breweries though. Usually when there is tiered pricing in these kind of places this is due to the expensive stuff being ultra fashionable mainly NE IPA breweries This is the case for the top tier stuff here, but the middle tier seems to be breweries that I might usually imagine would be cheaper kegs but are priced kind of high here. But maybe I’m out of touch. Anyway, the highest tier is ¥1200 for the half and ¥1850 for the pint. The medium tier is ¥900 for the half and ¥1500 for the pint. But the majority of the taps are priced at ¥700 for the half and ¥1100 for the pint which in 2025 is excellent value. They also have a beer flight of 4 x 180ml for ¥2200. As it sometimes the case for places that are a bit cheaper than others, there is really good value to be had if that’s what you’re after.
- Lots of food. And lots of vegan and vegetarian food. I guess they’re aiming to get some of the international tourists in the surrounding hotels in. The food is a bit expensive to be honest, but this is often the case in budget beer bars and there’s no obligation for you to order it. They have WiFi but it seemed pretty weak when I was there. There is a ¥500 cover charge ‘during weekday dinner times and on public holidays’. I think public holidays include the weekend. But this too is not unusual for budget beer places. Basically, you shouldn’t pop in here only intending to drink one of the high value taps at dinner time. But if you stay for a few beers you can easily burn off the cover charge. Some daytime opening, but during the week they open for lunch, then close and reopen at 17:00.
I was quite excited to come here for their lager event and the vegetarian food. It didn’t 100% live up to my expectations as the food was quite expensive, but to be honest, I should have expected that as the beer prices were so good. The ¥500 charge might shock some, but I think it’s pretty standard in the neighbourhood, and when you consider you can get pints of good stuff for ¥1100, even if you only have three, you’ve still pretty much worked off the charge. I would definitely come back here. I suspect it’s quite busy during the week. I visited on a weekend and it was moderately busy. For me, these kind of places will never be my favourite bar, but I do always enjoy visiting them.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Bacca
Wuchawteng
Cotama
Bighand Bros.
Ishinomaki
Chichibu
Gangi
Himitsu
Hideji
2nd Story
Bay Brewing
Tazawako
Kyoto
Nude
Upcycle
Flora Fermentation
Primary Barrels
Shonan
Oni Densetsu
Beer Brain
Let’s Beer Works
Nomcraft
Ise Kadoya
West Coast
Opening Hours:
Monday, 17:00-23:30
Tuesday-Friday, 11:30-14:00, 17:00-23:30
Saturday, 12:00-23:30
Sunday, 17:00-23:30
Location/map:
3-10-4 赤坂, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Telephone:
03-6230-9012