Video games and beer go well together. Why shouldn’t they? There’s a fine balance between beer boosting your enjoyment of a game and it diminishing your skills (though that, in itself, can be entertaining).
It’s not at all unusual to find at least one arcade-style game in brewery taprooms in the U.S. Some taprooms have devoted entire sections of their floor space for video games. A few of these places we’ve featured in these pages before, including Pizza Port in San Diego or Barebottle in San Francisco. The latter city even has a couple of popular arcades that serve craft beer.

In Japan, where game centers are everywhere, you’d expect there to be a lot of this, but that hasn’t been the case. Now, it seems we are finally turning the corner.

EXBAR TOKYO in Ginza is a game center operated by the Taito Corporation that features a bar with about fifteen taps of both domestic and import craft beer, and even some sake and wine on tap. Grab a pint and try your hand at a giant game of Space Invaders, Star Wars pinball, or shooting games. There’s even a shuffleboard table. You can conveniently pay with a Suica card, even one loaded into your phone.

In a space adjacent to EXBAR is a pop-up Antenna America, which will last only until the end of this year. Rows of refrigerators offer a large array of American craft beer in cans that you can purchase and take back into the game room.

We love to see new retail concepts like this that amplify one’s pleasure. We hope to see more of this in Japan and hope Taito runs with the idea.

This article was published in Japan Beer Times # () and is among the limited content available online. Order your copy through our online shop or download the digital version from the iTunes store to access the full contents of this issue.