Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2014

With so many Belgian beer halls opening around Tokyo, the bar is set pretty high for inclusion in these pages. Beer Bar Brugse Zot, which opened March 20 in the Nihonbashi Coredo 2 building (2-3-1 Muromachi Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku), makes the grade with its classy, art deco-inspired interior and as the first place in the city to serve only beer actually brewed and lagered in the Belgian city of Bruges. With up to seven brews on tap, like the prize-winning Brugse Zot Blond, the bar will also stock 100 varieties of Belgian beer in bottles. Management plans to independently import drafts, meaning most of them will not be available anywhere else in Japan. Food selections include mussels steamed in Belgian beer (¥1,280) and, of course, pommes frites (¥780).