Beer Boy Shibuya Parco

Beer Boy is the standing-bar offshoot of Craft Beer Market, run by the same Tokyo company, Steady Works, and this branch sits on the B1 floor of Shibuya PARCO on Udagawacho, about seven minutes' walk from the Hachiko exit of JR Shibuya Station. Beer Boy opened with the relaunched PARCO in November 2019. It's tachi-nomi style, with Kirin beer crates for furniture and barrel-top counters, and no fixed seats, so it suits a quick couple of glasses rather than a long sit-down session.

There are ten draught lines, picked daily from Japanese and overseas breweries, with occasional limited releases. Japanese microbreweries dominate, alongside imports, and regular tap takeovers bring visiting breweries in. Prices are still lower than the main Craft Beer Market branches and there is no table charge; the current menu lists a half pint at around ¥650 and a pint at around ¥990. Non-beer drinkers are covered by shari-kin sours, made with fruit steeped in Kinmiya shochu and kept slushy by a special dispenser, plus highballs and chuhai.

The food is better than a standing bar needs to be: chef-made izakaya plates mixing Japanese and Western ideas, such as mackerel potato salad, steamed chicken with shiso and mentaiko, ago-dashi salt karaage and a thick-cut pork loin steak, most of the small plates priced under ¥700.

It is open from 11.30am to 10.30pm every day, closing only when the PARCO building does. Drop in before or after shopping, a film at the PARCO cinema or a show at the PARCO theatre.