Outdoor beer gardens are now drawing attention of the industries concerned, when an extremely hot summer is expected to come to Japan.
Takashimaya Yokohama Store, one of the most popular department stores in Kanagawa prefecture, opened its beer garden named “Farmers’ Beer Garden” on the roof floor this June for the first time during past 58 years since its foundation.
A beer garden opened on the roof floor of Yokohama Takashimaya Department Store enjoys enormous popularity by serving beer with locally-produced vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers. (Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa prefecture)
In the beer garden opened at Nishi-ku of Yokohama city in the prefecture, farm products are playing not a supporting role, but a leading role, so as to differentiate the garden from the existing ones.
The new beer garden is gaining popularity especially among health-oriented people. Ten kinds of vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and pumpkins harvested in the Kanagawa prefecture, which are to be served with beer, are displayed with producers’ names and photos every day in the beer garden.
The hot-selling vegetable dish is an ice-cold cucumber. Thick cucumber slices with spicy mayonnaise on them well fit the bitter taste of beer.
Masayuki Fujita, 22, one of the residents in the city, drinks beer at the Farmer’s Beer Garden saying “Vegetables are so fresh. They taste much better than those at local Izakaya (gastropubs).”