Øl by Oslo Brewing Co.

Visited early on a Wednesday in February 2020. A rather cozy place that "smelled" Mikkeller. Only a couple of other guests during my visit. Friendly service and with a decent selection. (although I prefer more domestic beers on tap when abroad) It took me one hour to walk to this place from my Hotel. (ANA Intercontinental)

A cool bar in a hip district. They have an indoor and outdoor area. Rather Mikkeller like with all the pastel colours. They have 20 taps of mixed Scandinavian and local beers. Working Wi-Fi and friendly staff. English is no problem here. Worth stopping by.

A lot of the older reviews for this place seem very angry about Mikkeller...not sure why but I guess they like the Danish pellet brew a lot. Actually not that different from the current Mikkeller in Tokyo, less tourists perhaps and much better outdoor seating for sure. Great ever changing selection of draft beers, usually 10 from Scandinavia and 10 from Japan. Prices are high but quality high too. One review mentioned having Echigo Flying IPA as a bad thing but clearly that person is not my kind of beer geek as it’s actually quite nice and one of the cheaper choices on the menu. Nothing wrong with Echigo Breweries in Niigata...yes they tend to brew beers for the Japanese market but still they are a craft brewery and hey it’s Japan so what’s the problem? I’m happy they decided to do an ipa finally and double happy that I can get it on tap somewhere. It’s too bad when beer geeks turn into beer snobs but I guess it happens.

Interesting place. Odd one. Very spartan inside. Small. Had about 20 taps, some nice offerings from Norway and Japan. The service was fine. The food was very limited, had a bizarre hot dog on a tortilla with some mashed potatoes. The taps were solid though. Not a bad place for some decent beer. They did do samplers of most of the beers.

Wow, what a surprise, it’s rubbish now. The decor which was once kind of tasteful is now cluttered with ’artistic’ photography. Clientele seems to consist of people who aren’t really interested in the beer (which is good for them, I guess) but are here because someone told them it was trendy. I walk past a lot and it’s pretty much always empty, but was convinced to pop in for one as friends were in town and staying very close to here. Beer selection has tanked. Echigo Flying IPA on tap! Oslo brewing beer tasted like a Happoshu. Three staff on and few customers but still took a while to get served somehow. It’s like someone got a bright light shined in their eyes for a few minutes, then got spun around and had thirty seconds to take in the old Mikkeller bar and then had to recreate it with no prior knowledge of any kind of alcoholic drinks. Extremely superficially similar, but lacking everything that made the old place interesting. Beer selection plummeted whilst prices were cranked up. Stinker of a place. Avoid at all costs. The stupid thing is, I pretty much knew it would be before I went, but it was probably worth the money to have this rant.

Øl Tokyo in the old mikkeller space nothing has changed except for the tap list getting fairly boring with a smattering of j-craft and some Oregon beer geeks brews(lame) and tons of European stuff for similar prices as Mikkeller. It’s gone from pricey but fun to boring and plain.

Formerly known as Mikkeller Tokyo, this place reopened as a Scandinavian craft beer bar. Same minimalist design minus all the cute Mikkeller branding, same convenient location minus all the local beer geeks, same high prices and tiny pours minus all the rare exciting Mikkeller brews (replaced by some odd unappealing Oregon imports), ice cold staff (maybe for the Norwegian touch), zero food options...Not too sure what the background story was, but that place now feels like the shadow of the ghost of what it used to be...