Asagaya has a great new craft beer bar and I dropped by last night to check it out. It's called Stone, in homage to the W.Coast brewery of that name. There's no actual formal connection, it's just that owner Sakamoto-san loves those big intense in-your-face brews. As his pint glasses proclaim, he's a real hop addict.
That said, there weren't any Stone beers on any of the 13 taps last night [on opening night (June 20) this was the line-up]. All the stocks have been guzzled dry and won't be replenished for another week or so. This (below) was what he was offering — except that at least 3 of them were unavailable by the time I got over there.
Nonetheless, I did very well with a few of the local brews. The photo at the top was (IIRC) the Fujizakura Dunkelweizen. And here (below) is Sakamoto-san delivering a pint of the Shiga Kogen DPA — I had a couple of those — to go with a serving of his home-made smoked eggs...
His food menu is more extensive than I'd expected, especially since it's a totally one-man operation.
The pâté looked good going out to my neighbours, and so did the fish and chips. But there was one thing I just had to try, once I'd spotted it: hatcho-miso-fumi pizza:
It's made with just a basic thin frozen pizza dough. But on top of that he smears a thin layer of the rich black hatcho miso, then slices of eggplant and negi (the white base of the spring onions), and tops it with a layer of mozzerella cheese and a scattering of green negi. It's a great combination of rich savoury flavours that goes amazingly well with those craft beers!
Big thanks to the indefatigable @chuwyboy for drawing my attention to Stone on his invaluable "Beers now on tap in Tokyo & Yokohama" blog, aka the one and only booze list...
Here's a link to the Stone blog/site...
And here's a map link...
