Ikebukuro is a place I have never had much luck with beer. There are a few places that I have been wanting to check out here for a long time, but events always conspire to frustrate my efforts. Admittedly, making a reservation would normally be enough to sort this out and fairly easy, but yesterday…
Ant n’ Bee is somewhere I have been meaning to go for a long time. Finally I made it there last week. It is a place that has been around for a while now, so is an elder statesman compared to many of the young upstarts that have recently enriched the beer scene here. On…
Today, a recently opened Nepalese restaurant in Kanda. Himalaya Table’s slogan is ‘Craft Beer and Spice’ so I guess you know exactly what to expect. Recently, there seems to be a trend of new beer places being restaurants that have good beer (Gar Eden), rather than beer places that have good food. I guess this…
*A quick warning here. I haven’t been to Big Love in ages and yesterday heard that you can only drink there if you buy something in the shop, so I suspect they are moving away from being a beer place and focusing on the record shop part. Which makes sense… as it is a record…
March is Lucky 7 Stout month at Baird taprooms. Given that I am a sucker for a stamp rally I thought it was time to revisit the Nakameguro Baird and start getting my stamps. Details on Lucky 7 Stout month can be found here. If you get cracking straight away you might be able to…
Back again to Koenji, and this time to Bankan, a small bar on the other side of the train tracks to Bakushu Kobo. Bankan is a nice little bar/restaurant with seating for around 20, a few more seats at the bar and a few seats outside, which unsurprisingly were not that popular in February given…
Today, one of the first Ji-Biru bars I went to in Japan, initially when I was over on holiday a couple of times, and now living here. Baird have four Taprooms dotted around Japan, two of which are in Tokyo, and one in Yokohama and one in the brewery’s home town, Numazu . Have yet…
Another one a bit out of central Toyko, but once again worth the trip. The Chuo/Sobu lines seem to have a lot of good bars along their length. So, Gambrinus in Kokubunji. We combined our visit with a bit of record shopping in the area and got to Gambrinus shortly after opening time. It’s a…
Something a little bit different. Shinshu Sake Mura is a standing bar near to Shimbashi station with ultra low prices. The reason for this is that this place is mainly designed to promote the sake and beer breweries of Nagano prefecture. This is fundamentally a shop, but with a recently expanded standing bar area allowing…
Another place that has opened during the recent explosion of good beer places in Tokyo. iBrew’s big selling point is their very low prices. However, that’s not the only reason to go there. The food is pretty good too, a mix of Japanese and international stuff, and once again at good prices. It’s a very…