Editor’s note: Cosugi Lodge in Musashi Kosugi, Kanagawa closed at the end of September. This review is being kept up for posterity.
Cosugi Lodge The Bottom Line
If you’re in the area, and there isn’t much else to be in the area for, then Cosugi Lodge is worth a visit in. It doesn’t offer up a varied or wide range of selection of beers, so those looking for something new or rare will be out of luck. But Cosugi Lodge does offer up some of the cheapest craft beers we’ve come across on BeerTengoku – even without the tax added on the beer menu. The whole place is non-smoking, has no table charge, and there is even free Wifi too. The downside? Prices don’t include tax, the number of taps is quite small, and the menus only have a smattering of English on them – but then the whole area is a sleepy commuter town and not a bustling hub like Yokohama or Kawasaki, both a few stops along.
Cosugi Lodge The Full Review
Musashi Kosugi. A funny place. Not ha-ha funny but weird funny. In less than ten years, it’s gone from a random station to a bustling commuter hub that is rumoured to be angling for a shinkansen stop. Yet there has been a distinct lack of craft beer places to stop in – Cosugi Lodge has gone someway to changing that pattern. It opened in May 2018, with the idea of offering up some craft beer at Kanto’s cheapest prices to encourage people to drink.
Cosugi Lodge is located about a 5 minute walk from main Musashi Kosugi exit. I really don’t recommend coming to this bar via the Shonan Shinjuku or Yokosuka line, unless you’re willing to work up a big thirst for your beer. The bar has space for about 30 people inside, dotted around some tables around the edge of the bar. But like Yokosuka Beer in Yokosuka, there is an interesting area out back. There are a series of teepees set up to resemble a camp site, so you can recreate those camping days around a campfire if you’re so inclined, or pretend you know how to start a BBQ if you’re trying to impress someone. It’s a nice little quirk but once is enough. Perhaps. There is no table charge and there is also some free Wifi too if you’re looking for that.
There are five taps of craft beer at Cosugi Lodge – with four of them dedicated to domestic craft beer and one imported tap. The taps are supposed to rotate throughout the year; however, there is no online listing of the taps – a thorn in the side of craft beer hunters. Beers come in two sizes: medium (250ml) at ¥450 to ¥550, and large (500ml) at ¥730 to ¥980. Those prices don’t include tax but the cheaper ones are also perhaps the best value priced beers we’ve come across for mainstream craft beer. The beers were served up well without a massive amount of head though it was hard to look past the Baird Teikoku IPA at that price (It was cheaper here than at a Baird Beer!). One thing to mention though is the prices may go up in the future so we’ll update this if that occurs. I didn’t notice any happy hour nor any beer flights but it’s so cheap that you probably don’t need to. You can also get some Brimmer beers to take away if you want as well.
If you hadn’t guessed by now, the whole bar is chicken and camp site themed and as such, most of the food is camp themed. But the bucket of chips that were served up to the table next to us got me – and I wasn’t disappointed. Well I was a little bit because I wanted the bucket to be full up but it came up half full with lashings of cheese on top, so I was happy for a good 30mins. The rest of the food is based around chicken and sausages, so vegetarians are out of luck here really, unless you want chips and pickles.
Cosugi Lodge Details
Open: Daily 11:30 – 14:30, 16:30 – 22:00
Happy Hour: None
Phone: 044-543-9151
Homepage (in Japanese): N/A
SNS: Facebook
How to Get to Cosugi Lodge
Cosugi Lodge is located about a 5 minute walk from main Musashi Kosugi exit, which is on the Toyoko Line as well as the JR Nambu, Shonan Shinjuku, and Yokosuka Lines.
