Tanakaya Bottle Shop

The clouds part and a heavenly angel appears, riding a golden chariot pulled by a unicorn. There are rainbows. Not the lame kind, but the kind that Michael Jackson wore on his shirt. You are sober, but not for long. You avert your eyes from the miracle in the sky, and head down into the basement. The symbolism isn't important.



This is Tanakaya, a liquor store in Mejiro. If you want to drink, let's say, a beer, you might want to check this place out.



Looks to be around 300 different bottled beers, mostly from American microbrewery and Belgian providers. In cask-cooled condition. I may have broken my New Year resolution to only read Japanese manga, but finding a place like this lets me fulfill resolution #2. Progress!



With prices that are completely acceptable. Expect to pay around 1000 yen for a pint of good American, and more for Belgian, in an average Tokyo beer pub. Here at Tanakaya, bottles ranged from 400 yen for normal-ish stuff, to much more for rare, big bottles. "You can get a 6 pack of good stuff for about $8 back home? Shuduppayou!"



Belgian glassware and American pint glasses are available to match your brew. I'm no beer geek, so I don't need to match my beer with it's intended glass. But if I was a beer geek...



But it's not just the rare and unique beers on hand.



Cognac!



Armagnac!



Rum!




I wandered around, taking photos for far too long, almost missing my important appointment. This shop is set up like a museum. Each bottle, whether it be beer or wine, has a plethora of information on it's hand written price tag.



Yeah, you could spend a ton of cash here. And you should. It's just west of Mejiro station on the Yamanote line. And my important meeting?



Made it just in time!

Hat tip to Daniel from howtojaponese.com for this shop. He has a few beer related posts over at his site, with the most interesting being his Yamanote line beer crawl video.