Kanpai has been open for quite a while now and is in a fairly easily accessible area, so the fact that I’ve only just managed to visit it probably demonstrates quite how little time I’ve been able to dedicate to this blog recently. It ain’t easy being a blogger in the craft beer arena. Too many bars and too little time. And actually too little money. Prices are rising like crazy, in sharp contrast to my income which is absolutely static. And there are just quite a lot of apparently not very interesting places that have opened recently. As a certified grumpy old git, I’m not going to rush to go to a new brewery who are pumping out the hazies and charging import prices. Anyway, this is not really relevant, as Kanpai don’t focus completely on hazies and their prices were pretty reasonable! Here’s what you need to know.
- Pretty small place next to the Kanda river. If you’ve never seen the Kanda river, I suggest that you don’t romanticise this description too much as there’s a lot of concrete involved. But it’s a nice spot anyway. The brewery is upstairs and the bar on the ground floor, made up of a small table for four and a counter for about eight. And that’s it! They have a focus on exotic meats, which as a vegetarian has absolutely no interest for me and perhaps makes the name of the bar slightly weird. Not sure eating the animals is exactly the first thing people think of when they hear the word zoo.
- Eight taps of their own beer served in three sizes, S (200ml), M (310ml) and XL (1000ml), which to be honest isn’t a very common range of sizes! Prices ranged from ¥750-¥1090 for the S, ¥990-¥1290 for the M and ¥2400-¥2700 for the XL. Decent range of styles available, with some hazies but also some nice stuff too 😉
- No cover charge… what else do I normally put here? There didn’t seem to be WiFi. They don’t open in the daytime. Sure there was another thing I usually mention but can’t remember what that might have been. Sorry, I’m a little out of practice.
I have to say this was a real pleasant surprise and not only because of the reasonable pricing. Perhaps the unusual sizes have skewed my thinking on the value slightly though. I’ve had a few Kanpai beers in other bars before and have generally enjoyed them so I was delighted to see that trend continue when I visited their taproom. Seems like they know what they’re doing! Good beers at (maybe) decent prices! Can’t say that about many places recently. So this one comes with a thumbs up from me.
Japanese breweries on tap when I visited:
Kanpai
Opening Hours:
Monday-Saturday, 17:00-23:00
Sunday, 16:00-22:00
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Location/map:
関口 1-28-12, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
Telephone:
03-6233-8172
