On a recent trip to Hachioji I realised that I was quite close to somewhere that has been on my ‘to go to’ list for a long time. I was always curious about the name of this place and recently when I heard some good things about it, I decided that I should finally give it a try. The name refers to the fact that you can brew your own beer here with the assistance of the brewing staff. The beer might also be served in the bar apparently which is quite a unique selling point. They also offer home brewing workshops. The brewery is situated between Naganuma and Hirayamajoshikoen stations on the Keio line, slightly closer to the latter and going there in the early evening of a Sunday night in March, it didn’t feel like I was in Tokyo which was quite a fun experience. Anyway, here’s what you need to know.
- Quite a small place with a counter for maybe four, a bench for two and tables for about 10. The usual craft beer brewery decor that you might expect and there’s a window through to the brewery if you are into being able to see where the stuff you’re drinking was made.
- Eight taps of their own beer served in two sizes, half and pint. Pricing ranges from ¥650-¥900 for the half and ¥1100-¥1500 for the pint. There is also a beer flight of 4x150ml for ¥1700. Fridge full of their cans and bottles, some of which looked very interesting. As far as I can remember, (and to be honest, some strong beers had knocked me about a bit in the previous place so my memory is slightly hazy), the stuff in the fridge is available to take away or drink on site with ¥100 corkage fee (I think…). Maybe half of the selections in the fridge were also on tap so it’s unlikely you’ll be drinking those on site, but there were two things that I was quite interested in drinking so ended up taking them away.
- No cover charge and daytime opening at the weekend, (oh, check their opening times as they are quite limited). Forgot to check to WiFi, sorry. Or perhaps I did check and forgot to write it down and have forgotten since then. Some food items too.
I was pretty impressed with the beers I had here and the fact that they have made a Brett Ume Saison is a very good thing as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook some of the smaller breweries that you don’t find around very often but this was a good lesson to me to give every brewery a chance before judging them. I’ll definitely be going back here, even if it’s a little off the beaten track.
Japanese breweries available when I visited:
Shared
Opening Hours:
Friday, 17:30-22:00
Saturday & Sunday 14:00-21:00
Closed Monday-Thursday
Location/map:
長沼町 58-214, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo
Telephone:
042-657-2671