The economy might be in the toilet and in the future we might be fighting each other over scraps of shoe leather to boil, but that doesn’t mean you can’t treat yourself once in a while.
Seijo Ishii （成城石井 in kanji) is an upscale supermarket chain usually found in department stores around Kanto and Kansai, although not nationwide at the moment- their stores are found only between Ibaraki prefecture and Hyogo prefecture. Find a shop near you here. They specialise in imported goods and – in my local store at least- have recently gone into high gear in the beer department, bringing in both imported and domestic craft beer.
My local Seijo Ishii is in Terrace Mall, Tsujido (contact details here). Take a look at what they’ve got. They also do six-packs of Yo-Ho Brewing beers, and six-packs of IPAs from time to time.
Yo-Ho Brewing six-packs on the right there.
Domestic breweries include:
- Shonan Beer
- Kamakura Beer
- Minoh
- Nanto Brewery
- Coedo
- Hitachino
- Konishi
- Nagahama
- Yo-Ho Brewing
- Ginga Kogen
- Otaru
- Helios
- OH! LA! HO Brewery
Seijo Ishii also has an online store located here, although the selection is deeply lacking in comparison to the brick-and-mortar store. At the time of writing the only Japanese craft beer available for purchase on the site is Baird Beer. The store is only available in Japanese as well.
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Seijo Ishii’s beer selection varies very much, not only from shop to shop, but only in one shop. I have been shopping in the Seijo Ishii stores around Nagoya for many years, and the only Japanese craft beers that I have seen all the time are from Yo-Ho Brewing. All others have been available for some time, and then have vanished again. For example, Baird’s beers have only started to appear here last year. Coedo was available for a long time, but now seems to have vanished from the shelves. Ginga Kogen and Hitachino are also often available, as is the local Kinshachi brand. Recent additions are Nagahama Roman and Echigo beers, but the lineup can vary very much from one store to the next.