On my first Sunday in Japan, I felt a bit adrift. Fall Sundays for me are usually spent in my basement, a collection of delicious snacks and excellent craft beer near at hand to sustain me for a day’s worth of watching football. I didn’t really have any desire to spend my precious time in Tokyo seeking out a bar to watch NFL football in, but I had a plan for visiting some excellent craft beer bars and thought that would be a nice way to enjoy an afternoon.

After filling up my belly with a healthy amount of sushi at a fun conveyor-belt place in the neighbourhood, I made my way to the taproom at the Baird Brewing Company. While there was no football on, the World Cup of Rugby was underway so I had a prime seat with a group of ex-pat New Zealanders watching their country take on Namibia.

I tried a couple of craft beers here and especially liked their Harajuku Ale, a higher alcohol take on an English bitter. That paired nicely with a snack of squid. Good beer and tasty bar snacks had me off to a solid start in my Japanese craft beer explorations.

While most convenience stores only stocked the normal macro beer options (Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi), my neighbourhood 7-11 carried four pretty tasty craft beers from Yo-Ho Brewing Company that I was happy to keep on ice at my hotel room.

Aside from significant differences in the food being served, the craft beer bars I dropped in on all had similar vibes to those I’m familiar with here in Canada. At the laid back Craft Beer Bar IBREW, they had a solid list from which to sample. This tasting flight introduced me to a delightfully clove forward hefeweizen (left) from Kanko Kaihatsu, a delicious pale ale from Ise Kadoya Brewery (middle) and a lighter amber lager (right) from KOBO Brewery.

At the Tsukiji Market, there was a small craft beer bar that was open at the crazy hour of 9:30am. After a breakfast of interesting snacks I picked up while walking around the market, I sat down to try a 496 India Pale Lager from Yokohama’s Spring Valley Brewery. The beer was nothing memorable, but any beer on vacation at 9:30 in the morning is a good beer.

On my day trip to Kamakura, while I was unable to find a craft beer bar or brewery to visit, I took a pause for an alt beer by Kumazawa Brewing. I enjoyed both the beer as well as the patio seat for watching people walk by on the main shopping street in Kamakura.

Much like in Tokyo, I had a short list of beer bars to visit in Osaka. On my first night in that city, I dropped in to Craft Beer W&W later in the evening on my way back to my hotel. The bar had a great vibe and was pretty full of American, New Zealand and Australian ex pats…

… and one Canadian representing the colours of Saskatchewan while enjoying the Tokyo IPA from the amazingly named Far Yeast Brewing Company.

I kept bumping into other beers by Far Yeast while in Osaka. On a day I spent mostly inside while a typhoon passed through Osaka, I managed to get to Liquor Shop Maruho Namba Skyo which was part craft beer bar, part food court inside a downtown shopping complex. This Hop Scrum IPA by Far Yeast was one of the best beers of my trip.

With the rain coming in sideways and me pretty comfortable not heading back out into the weather, I ordered this delicious porter from Voyager Brewing, a brewery in Tanabe, a bit south of Osaka. It clocked in at 7% so luckily I had ordered these delicious dumplings to soak up the beer. What was looking like a lost day during a typhoon ended up being a fun and relaxing vacation day.

While on a day trip to Kyoto, I walked past Beer Pub Ichi-Ya and looking through the windows I could tell it was my kind of bar. My first of a couple of pints was a delicious pale ale from Kyoto’s Yamorido brewery.

I struck up a conversation with a lovely group of people from the north of Norway who were stranded in Kyoto when their flight home was cancelled due to the previous day’s typhoon. We shared tales of how bad winter weather was in our respective home towns and we all agreed Saskatoon is far worse than Tromso.

My last craft beer experience in Osaka was at Craft Beer House. It was a tough find in the basement levels of a major shopping complex that stretched beneath a group of office buildings in the north of Osaka.

But it ended up being worth the challenge in finding this place. I ordered fried chicken for dinner (a great selection!) and a pint of Platinum Dragon Citra & Mosaic by Ise Kadoya Brewery. It was a brilliant choice as it was not only the best beer of the trip, but the best beer (by my Untappd records) of any of my travels in 2019.  A great way to end a my ad hoc tasting tour across Tokyo, Kamakura, Kyoto and Osaka.