Traveling the World #335 - Sapporo Beer Museum @ Sapporo, Japan

Hi Everyone,

Sapporo Beer - I’m sure many of you have heard of this Japanese beer. Here in Australia, we have Asahi and occasionally we see Kirin and Sapporo but in Japan, the beer is everywhere. From the name, you would have already guessed, the beer was founded in Sapporo and is still one of the best selling brands of beer in Japan. I’m not a beer drinker and have visited a few beer breweries around the world so being in Sapporo, we have to go and see this factory and give the kids a bit of an understanding of how beer is made. The factory is a little outside of the main city so we took a cab from our hotel and arrived very quickly. A note, next to the museum, there is a large shopping complex so after the museum visit, there is something to do right next door.

Entry to the museum is free. There is a beer garden where you can book a seat at the restaurant ahead of time and have a nice BBQ meal there with a glass of Sapporo Beer. There is also a beer-tasting experience you could line up and cannot book ahead. The tasting set is 800 yen with non-alcoholic beer or soft drink available for those who don’t want to have any alcohol. Another thing to note when you arrive is that the museum allows taking photos but not videos. In Japan, some places are extremely strict with what type of media can be taken so make sure you take note of all signs before you enter the building.

As we walked up, the first thing we saw was a massive boiler. It was huge and the kids were thinking it was actually cooking something but we told them only for display purposes. At that stage, the kids were super curious about what is ahead of them. As we continued on, there is a large room with lots of photos, timelines, and posters about Sapporo beer. The only downside is that everything was in Japanese so we cannot read many of them. I read that there are guided tours in English if you wanted to know the full history of the brand.

There were lots of cool posters from past advertisements, the gradual change of logos through the years, and how the bottles have changed over time. Due to covid, we were able to touch or make any beer like we have at previous breweries so that was a bit of a disappointment for the little ones. It took around 30 minutes for us to walk through the museum mainly because we couldn’t read all of the information but most of us were more interested in the videos on display. It showed past TV ads and how people would pack and deliver beer back in the day.

We didn’t go for the tasting experience so we went straight to the souvenir store. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything exciting keeping in mind we can’t buy too much due to needing to travel later on so we got a magnet and some cookies there. As I mentioned previously, I am not a huge fan for beer, but if you are, this place is a must visit in particular there is no entry fee, so it is worth coming for a visit. Just FYI, the cookies we got from there was super delicious!!

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