Tokyo Beer Drinkin': An Introduction

The Good Beer Country Boys split up this past weekend. Miyuki and I headed to Tokyo for beer drinkin' and meetin' and DH and Michi went to Nagoya for window shoppin’ and street drankin’.

Miyuki and I took the Moonlight Nagara Express to Tokyo. To be honest, I didn't see much moonlight because the inside lights were on the whole time. Mainly I saw the inside of my jacket hood while I was trying to sleep. The Moonlight is cheaper than the Shinkansen but much slower and it runs at night. The train left at 12:47 pm and arrived in Tokyo at 5 am. Finding ourselves in Tokyo at 5am on a Saturday morning, Miyuki and I did what any beer lovin' person would do and went to the Ginga! (open from 5pm to 9am!) in Raponghi (sp?) Hills and had a Weizen and a Stout off tap. This beer was very good in the early morning hours but the Tokyo prices gave us a bit of a shock. It was almost 1700 yen for our beer and after hours fee (load of horseshit). After this, we found a Manga Café and slept for 3 hours.

We made our way to another part of Tokyo (not really sure where) to the Delirium Café Reserve. We had some Kwak beer, which is served in a very interesting glass with a wooden contraption for holding it upright. I will admit that I know very little about Belgian beer and why certain beers can only be drank out of the matching glasses. During lunch at the Café you can get an entre (I had the pork, Miyuki the fish) and a decent salad bar for around 1200 yen.

After this we visited Baird Beer’s Nakamegura Taproom. I love Baird Beer but I will probably never go to this place again because it made me love Baird Beer less. Baird Beer’s brewery and original Fishmarket Taproom is in Numazu, Japan, one train stop below where Miyuki's cousin Akira goes to school. I have been there 3 or 4 times and it only gets better. In Tokyo, the price of everything is raised 200 yen and has that impersonal feeling (maybe that is most things in Tokyo). In Numazu, you feel at home, the beer is made across the street, the prices are better, and you are sad when it is closing time. In the next month or so, the Good Beer Country Boys will be taking a trip to the Mishima area and a better review will follow.

Later that night we went to the Beerfest meeting, the reason for our trip to Tokyo in the first place. This experience was so amazing that it will get its own post. This is only the beginning…