Bakushu Club Popeye - Japanese Pub

Address - 2-18-7 Ryogoku, Sumida-ku, Tokyo
Opening hours - 17:00 to 23.00. Closed on Sunday and holidays
Phone - 03-3633-2120
Menu - In English and Japanese
Credit Cards - OK

Some time ago my friend Steve Cassidy, who has reviewed beers for the Tokyo Food Page, introduced me to Popeye, a small Japanese-style pub which, if very weak in terms of food, is surely a beer drinker's paradise. But who cares about food, you are here to drink.

Visually speaking it's little different from your average izakaya. Food is also the kind of half European/half Japanese, barely eatable stuff you get in this kind of place, but the variety (and quality) of beers is astonishing. Forty different beers on tap, mostly excellent products of Japanese microbreweries, but also German Weissbier and British or Irish ales. Pale ales, India Pale Ales, bitters, lagers and so on, Popeye has everything. Just look at their Site. (By the way, finding it was no mean feat: it's way down the list of links of all search engines.)

I liked a lot especially their Yona Yona Pale Ale on tap, and the Iki Iki bitter.

To be able to enjoy the variety of ales on offer I always ordered the smallest glass there was, but still by the time we left the place I was roaring drunk, literally barely capable of walking. My fault, of course, but while drink at Popeye comes in seconds, food naturally takes more time, and that's why out of sheer gluttony I had gulped three strong beers before touching any food.
From now on, I will have dinner before going to Popeye, and I recommend you to do the same.

Oct. 2004

Internet - www.40beersontap.com

Ryogoku