Yesterday, during my Golden Week holiday, I visited the Yebisu Beer Museum at Ebisu, in Tokyo. Yebisu Beer is a famous beer produced by Sapporo, and just celebrated its 120th birthday in 2007. Ebisu is the modern day spelling of Yebisu. There used to be a Ye character, but it has disappeared from contemporary Japanese.
The Yebisu Beer Museum is quite easy to find as part of Ebisu Garden Place from Ebisu Station, via the JR Yamanote or Hibiya subway line. The Ebisu Garden Place is clearly marked from the JR station, and there is even a convenient set of travellators provided to whisk patrons more comfortably and quickly to their various Garden Place pursuits. Ebisu Garden Place used to be a brewery, but today is home to other shops including a Mitsukoshi department store, a Sapporo Beer Station, and a Michelin 3-star French restaurant. Sapporo does maintain business offices here too, though.
The museum itself is most easily found by walking through Mitsukoshi. Admission to the museum is free, although there is an option for a 500 yen tour. This takes 40 minutes, and includes a 10-15 'communication' session where you taste 2 or 3 glasses of beer. All of the tours are in Japanese.
I find the old labeling and advertising quite interesting.
The final stop is a tasting salon, where 4 different kinds of Yebisu are on tap and can be purchased for Y400 a glass. (For those who know Japan, this is a bargain). In looking at the tour, though, it may be worthwhile for non-Japanese speakers to become conveniently fluent, as the 500 yen tour glasses were the same size and contained the same amount of beer as those being served in the tasting salon for 400 yen each.
