Devil Craft is multi-floored craft beer bar with added pizza, not far from Kanda station. What with Kura Kura and St. Bernardus, Kanda is becoming a good place to drink good beer. The place is run by three American friends and you can always be sure of there being someone who can speak English working if you don’t know any Japanese. The ground floor houses the bar and a small standing area, and the floors above have space for 15 on the 2nd, and 18 on the 3rd, so it’s not the biggest of places, but let’s just say that makes it cosy! Last time I visited my standing table was on one of the landings of the staircase, but let’s be honest, you are here to drink good beer, and not to sit down.
There are 15 taps and these are split roughly half and half between US imports and Japanese micros. I have seen beers and brewers here that I have never heard of, so there will always be something interesting on. The US brewers on tap on my last visit were Karl Strauss, Epic, Southern Tier, Crabtree, Coronado and Lagunitas. Nice! Prices are pretty much normal for Tokyo. Pints and glasses are 473ml and 260ml respectively. US imports range from ¥1100-¥1300 for pints and ¥700-¥900 for glasses. Japanese micros from ¥1000-¥1100 and ¥600-¥700. Pretty reasonable I think. And also they have happy hours where you get ¥100 off. These are from 17.00 – 18.00, Monday to Friday, and 15.00 – 17.00 on Saturday and Sunday.
The pizzas are pretty nice too. They specialise in Chicago-style pizzas. Not being an expert in pizza styles I think this means that they are quite deep, pie-style pizzas. Being an expert in enjoying eating pizza, I can tell you that they are delicious. There is a decent amount of veggie options too which is nice. There is also a good selection of appetizers and snacks too. A good place to eat and enjoy good beers.
They are apparently planning to brew their own beer. So far this has meant them making their own beers at other breweries, but there are plans to make the bar a brewpub, which will make things all the more interesting and enticing. Not that I need much persuasion to go there anyway. It does tend to be crowded, but then I guess good places are like that. Maybe best to call ahead and book if you are in a group, or if you are solo-drinking, you might be able to get my spot on the stairs.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Aqula
Bayern Meister
Ise Kadoya
Iwatekura
Harvest Moon
Baird
Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday, 17.00 – 23.30, Saturday 15.00 – 23.30, Sunday and holidays 15.00 – 22.00
Location/map
石川ビル1-5F, 日本橋室町4-2-3 Chuo, Tokyo, 103-0022
Directions:
From Kanda JR station, head out of the South exit. If you arrive on the metro, to get to this point leave the metro station via exit 1 and walk across the concourse to the East JR exit. If you turn right and follow the tracks you will come to the JR station South exit. From the South JR exit turn right and follow the tracks till you get to the main road. Cross here and carry straight on, but instead of following the tracks, take the left hand fork. Carry on, past a couple of side streets and cross the first zebra crossing. Devil Craft is on the left-hand corner of the next side street. Their website says to call them if you get lost, so I guess people do lose their way.
Telephone:
03-6265-1779
Links:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Ratebeer listing
Other craftbeer persons in Tokyo told me about here. I was bemused to try one of its four standard pizzas there on my initial visit.
It passed.
This would be acceptable for "Chicago-style" deep dish pizza.
I will put in a recommendation to make a reservation. Back in April, I was having a rough time of it in Ikebukuro [I could not find either of the two bars I wanted to visit. The two bars where I stopped in did not have a wi-fi connection I could use to try and find them.]. So I bailed out and hopped the Yamanote Line (I don't habituate riding JR trains.) around to Kanda.
Devil Craft was definitely busy. Obviously, I did not have a reservation.
After some minutes, I was offered a small table in the stairway. Here is the resultant photograph of me thereupon.