Sometimes you just want to hunker down somewhere simple. You're not looking for anything cutting-edge or fancy, just a place where the welcome is warm and the food is good, plentiful and satisfying — and ditto the beer. If you're anywhere near the Koenji neighborhood just west of Shinjuku, there is a high probability that Craft Beer Market is the kind of place that you're looking for.
When it opened just over a year ago, this was the fifth location of the ambitious, dynamic CBM chain. Since then three more have followed, including one in Sendai, the first outside Tokyo. All dispense 30 different beers from smaller breweries around the country, at prices that are enticing to hard-core ale enthusiasts and neophytes alike. And all have substantial food menus that go well beyond the standard parameters of pub grub and bar snacks.
CBM Koenji follows this same formula that is proving so successful. But while it springs from the same DNA, it has a character all its own.