Yebisu Beer Station

Did not try the food but everyone around it seems to be loving it so I will give it a four. Rather small beer selection but the beers were decent. Nothing Extroidinare though.

 

 

This is a great place to visit if you're in Tokyo, but it's a difficult to rate because it's not exactly a brewpub or beer bar. The museum is interesting, and best of all, free! Not many things in Tokyo are free. There's a few different exhibits showing beer advertisements, a "magic theater" with some weird beer fairy hologram thing that's all in Japanese so I had no idea what was going on (but some beer was stolen... then it was water... then fireworks... I think), an exhibit that explains how beer is made, and a little trivia thing (again all in Japanese) with a dancing hop. Pretty odd and interesting overall. Then at the end you get to the tasting part... get a token at the vending machine; I'd suggest the 400Y taster that includes four samples and some crackers... not bad! Keep in mind that the beer tasting place closes at 5:30PM. The gift shop is great too, very reasonable prices and some unique beer-themed gifts.

This review is more of a review of Yebisu Garden Place and the Beer Museum as a whole, and not specifically of the Beer Station. My numerical ratings refer mostly to the Beer Museum and tasting room.

The Yebisu Garden Place is a sprawling complex of buildings not far from the Ebisu subway station and even closer to the Ebisu JR Yamanote station. The complex has shopping, a high rise building with a nice view from the 39th floor and restaurants on the 38th and 39th floors, a Beer Garden with several beer halls, and the headquarters of Sapporo Brewery with a Beer Museum and a tasting room attached.

I spent an hour or so in the Beer Museum. There are some interesting things, but you can get through the whole place in a half hour. There is a gift shop with some beer related items (the hop flavored chocolates were interesting), and there is a tasting room serving Sapporo products. The beers in the tasting room are not free, however. You must purchase tokens from a vending machine before entering the tasting area, which has many tables and a big screen tv. They give you a small bag of snack crackers with your beer(s). A sampler is available.

The Beer Museum also boasts a nice piano, and someone might be playing it during various times (check their web site for more information).

The actual Beer Station is a nice, red building modeled after the original brewery. I did not have time to stop in there and only observed it from the outside.

The Yebisu Garden Place is also home to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. If you are a fan of photography, this is a great place to spend an afternoon. They have rotating exhibits relating to photography and sometimes other Japanese art forms.