A quick post today on Mountain River, a brewery and kind of taproom in Kugayama on the Inokashira Line. The reason I say kind of taproom will become clear further down. There have been a spate of new brewery openings in the last few years. Unfortunately, that has coincided with a bit of a slack time as far as this blog is concerned so many haven’t yet been visited or covered. Hopefully this post is the first step towards rectifying this situation. Here’s what you need to know.
– Interesting place, slightly reminiscent of some of the London railway arch brewery taprooms. Things are on a bit of a smaller scale here though, but it’s still pretty fun to visit. The brewery is on the ground floor of a building, the main purpose of which seems to be a wood warehouse (though there wasn’t much wood there when we visited). The taproom drinking area consists of a table to stand and drink at and four seats. It’s quite low key, but as I said, it’s quite fun too. Could be cold in the winter though.
– Beers are available on tap and in bottles. When we visited there were two taps available and a further six bottles. Tap beers are served in two sizes, M and S, which were a little tricky to judge as they were served in plastic cups, but I’m guessing they were around the usual pint and half sizes served in Tokyo bars. The M was ¥900 and the S ¥500. The bottles were ¥600-¥650 and were available to drink on site or takeaway.
– There’s really not much else to say to be honest. Beware of the very limited opening hours (check them below). And there’s no cover charge. I guess that’s it!
So maybe not somewhere that you’re going to go every week, but it’s always nice to visit a brewery and directly give them your support. You don’t really see their beers around that much either, so this is the place to get them, I guess.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Mountain River
Opening Hours:
Saturday 14:00-18:00 only!
Location/map:
久我山3-17-18, Suginami-ku, Tokyo