Craft Stand The Bottom Line
In all of the bars I went to in Kyoto for the #BTinKyoto trip, none of them had as good as an atmosphere as Craft Stand did. It’s located in an unusual area of Kyoto that is neither in the tourist area or the main shopping area, but it is highly recommended. Serving only beers from Kyoto Brewing Company at the time of writing, it offers up a fun evening with lots of variety of things to do. Go along, get a seat, and as long as you don’t mind the smoke from the locally grilling and conversation around you, you’re in for a good time. If the weather is fine, then get upstairs ON TOP of the containers and be the owner of all you survey.
Craft Stand The Full Review
“I’ve got to take you to this place” has never sounded more ominous until it was uttered about this “quirky” place. Craft Stand came highly recommended by both Kyoto Brewing Company (well they would recommend it as their beers are served on tap there), and also Mark Meli too. The Sujin Shinmachi “building” has to be seen to be believed. It’s essentially a few shipping containers that have been stuck together, with wooden frames and some plastic sheeting tying it all together to ensure the wind and rain can’t get in.
Craft Stand, well the Sujin Shinmachi plot, is located about a 5 minute walk from Kyoto station and it sticks out like a sore thumb in the Kyoto area. Tower blocks and apartment buildings in the area open up to once was an empty plot of land. The Sujin Shinmachi area is filled up with stalls, varying from European bistro to Japanese cuisine, hamburgers and ramen, and only one bar, Craft Stand. The whole place is non-smoking and there is a lot of seating as you can sit wherever you want. Heck, you can even pop in to pick up some food and beers to take back home or to your hotel if you’re so inclined. It should also go without saying there is no table charge either. The main issue with the place is the amount of smoke generated from grilling, with one particular bad plume of charcoal smoke filling the area outside of one shop.
Craft Stand has six taps of beer, with a heavy leaning towards beers from Kyoto Brewing Company. I want to say there were other breweries on tap, or have been, but three sizes of beer – small (235ml) at ¥700, medium (350ml) at ¥850, and large (470ml) at ¥1,000. All the prices included tax and the beer can be drunk in the building or taken away too. I didn’t notice any happy hour nor were there any beer flights going either.
Craft Stand doesn’t sell food but there are plenty of options in the local area.
Craft Stand Details
Open: Daily 11:00 – 23:00
Happy Hour: N/A
Phone: N/A
Homepage (in Japanese): http://sujin-shinmachi.com/shop/09.html
SNS: Facebook
How to Get to Craft Stand
The closest station to Craft Stand is Kyoto station.
1 comment
Well this is much bigger than the Brimmer Beer Box set up which was just two containers on top of each other. This place had about 10 of them, with seating on top of the containers as well as seating outside too. It really does need to be seen to really get the size and scale of it.