I recently stopped by one of my favorite craft beer breweries, Folkways, over on the east side of the Sumida River near Kiba Park and met a family from San Francisco who were in Tokyo to visit breweries and drink craft beer. I have met many Japanese people who have gone to Portland, Oregon (my hometown) specifically to enjoy the craft beer scene, but this was the first time I had met people from the U.S. who traveled to Japan to do the same.
I was sitting at the bar when I noticed a San Francisco Giants cap on the table where a group of four—plus a one-year-old in a babycar—was seated. Being a Giants fan, I went over to say hello. That was when I discovered that they, fiftyish year-old parents, with their daughter and her husband and the baby, were doing a brewery crawl. The mother (grandmother) had a file with printouts of most of the breweries in the Kanto region. Folkways happened to be their first stop. When they asked my what other places I liked I mentioned Beer Vista, a short walk away going towards Morishita. I also told them about Beer Club Popeye, pretty much the first craft beer bar in Tokyo, and the only place when I first moved to Japan.
How the beer scene has changed!