My beer obsession (Alcoholic?)

Last Sunday, I went to a beer pub in Ikebukuro with my friends. The pub is called 'Beer pub Camden".

I was really excited to go there since I went to a popular brew pub in (real) Camden and tasted really good draft beers when I was living in London. The pub is run by a famous micro-brewing company Brewdog! It was one of my best moments in London when I was having good and freshly poured beers with good pub foods. London has seen a real micro brewer boom and happily I happened to be there! So I tried so many bottles there but I always prefer draft beer for some reason. I guess it is kind of Japanese culture to have draft beer (but choices are limited to Asahi, Sapporo, and Kirin) at Izakaya or restaurants when we have some meals.

I had some pints of beer from Brewdog and a few bottles and have 'pub food' cooked in japanese way. I always think 'fish and chips' really is small in Japan but tastes actually ok or better than British ones! (Sorry, but I miss british pubs!) And portion size is really moderate so we can order lots of dishes at once. It seems Japanese prefer various small dishes and share with friends or families. It is really Japanese type of tapas. We ordered fish and chips, oil sardines, pickles, and smaked oysters. The oysters were surprisingly good and I ate a lot of them. But overall prices are high so it's more for a place for dating. Around us, all the customers were couples indeed:) But I enjoyed tastes of British beer and other American craft beers as well.

Lately, Suntory's (one of the biggest japanese beverage companies) premium beer is getting popular and my mother and I went to its factory tour last month. The tour is completely free although going there is a bit hassle.
But if we go to a station called Bubai-Gawara on Keio line, they will pick us up at the station.

The tour wasn't so interesting since it targets mass groups and staffs didn't give us much explanation about production there. But it was good enough for me since I could drink free beer at the end of the tour. We were allowed to have maximum 3 glasses of beer (within 30 mins) at the tasting room.

This tour reminded me of Greenwich Meantime brewing company, which is often considered as one of the most famous craft beer companies in London.

When I took its beer factory tour in Greenwich, London, I really enjoyed beer tasting and seeing a factory operation. It still gave us impression of small-scale brewing and actually beer tasted so good. My favorite was its pale ale.

 Sometimes I couldn't understand what the staffs were talking about. I wish I could have better listening ability then.

The layout was nice too.

I miss their beer. I couldn't find Greenwich meantime beers at the beer pub in Ikebukuro. Why is that?

Anyway, I should stop talking about beer for now........