Today a brief post about a new place out in West Tokyo in Inagi, which I discovered as part of my ongoing and slightly pointless challenge to have a craft beer in every part of Tokyo. Last year there was nothing in Inagi when it came to craft beer other than Yomiuri Land’s Tap Marche booth. Obviously that wasn’t ideal but I’d settled on it. But then I somehow discovered that this place was going to open. Inagi must be booming now, as there is also a new brewery not far from this shop. (Not brewing their own beer yet though, as the common refrain goes. Will check it out when they are). Anyway, enough of this preamble, here’s what you need to know about Hoppee.
- Very small place, under the Nambu line tracks at Inagi Naganuma station. Basically just a row of fridges on the left-hand side and a till where you can pay for your beers. There’s no seating as this is a bottle shop, and usually I guess people don’t sit down whilst shopping.
- Bottles and cans primarily from breweries in the Tama River area. There are some beers from a little further afield too though, but all of them are domestic. I’d guess, (and I should make it clear that this is a total guess as I didn’t make any notes), that there were something in the region of 50-60 beers from about 15 different breweries. I really should have made some notes… Looking at their website which is still a work in progress it looks like they might be setting up a webshop too.
There’s probably not much else to say as the concept is pretty simple. This place seems very much a labour of love and when I visited I could tell that the owner was passionate about what he is doing. He was also very friendly! There’s space in the fridges for more beers so I guess when they’re up and running more they might expand their selection. But there are still plenty of things to choose from and some of the beers are things that you don’t see around that often. So definitely a unique selling point and I wish them well with their business! Inagi isn’t somewhere I go to very often, but l will pop back in again when I go to the new Iina Brewing place that Hoppee told me about. Cheers!
Japanese breweries available when I visited:
Mizonokuchi
Tama No Megumi
Futako
Wolves
Riot Beer
10 Ants
Caghiya
Beach Culture
Vertere
and definitely some others that I have forgotten…
Opening Hours:
Monday-Friday, 15:00-20:00
Saturday & Sunday, 11:00-16:00
Location/map:
東長沼 516-2 SHARE DEPARTMENT ROOM R-1, Inagi-shi, Tokyo
Telephone:
042-379-9122