Eats · August 19, 2026

Beer Bar North Island, Sapporo: four IPAs on the tenth floor above Tanukikoji

A Hokkaido brewery runs this bar ten floors up in the Tanukikoji arcade. Twelve taps the night we went, four IPAs in 430 ml glasses, garlic-pickled nagaimo, and ¥5,740 for two in June 2026.

Two glasses of pale beer on a wooden window counter, with a Sapporo street ten floors below going dark

Beer Bar North Island is on the tenth floor of the Large Country Building at Minami 2 Nishi 4, in the Tanukikoji arcade in central Sapporo. The brewery that owns it is in Hokkaido, the windows look out over the city, and on the evening of Sunday 14 June 2026 there were twelve beers on tap. We drank four of them, ate two dishes, and paid ¥5,740 (about $38) for the two of us — at ¥150 to the dollar, the rate we use here.

We have been coming here on and off for years. It is where we go when we want beer and do not want to think about it.

Getting into town first

We landed at New Chitose in the afternoon and worked out how to reach the hotel while waiting for bags. The airport shuttle bus costs ¥1,500 and takes an hour and a half. The train to Sapporo Station plus a taxi from there comes to a bit under an hour. We wanted a bath and then a drink, in that order, so the train won.

At the hotel we went to the hot spring bath first — the Sapporo Prince has one — and then walked out to Tanukikoji.

A covered shopping arcade full of people walking, with shop signs and a banner advertising raw oysters at 100 yen each — Tanukikoji on a Sunday evening in June. More people than we had seen in April.

More shops had put tables out on the street than in April, and they were full. There were more people about generally. “Maybe it has warmed up.” “Something to look forward to.” A clothes shop we like was having a sale, so we went in and came out with something, both pleased with ourselves.

Ten floors up

From the pavement, the only sign of the bar is a small A-board reading BEER BAR NORTHISLAND, ON THE 10TH FLOOR, with a food menu clipped to it. Inside the entrance is a floor guide: ten tenants, the bar at the top.

The street-level entrance of a city building with a metal floor-guide board listing tenants and an A-board reading Beer Bar Northisland on the 10th floor — The board on the right lists the bar at 10F. There is nothing else to go on.

Out of the lift, the room is brick and bare concrete with bottles lined along a shelf, and the far wall is glass. The streets ran off towards Odori Park with the light going out of them. Early enough that seats were free, so we took one at the window.

We looked the brewery up afterwards. Two people who had trained in Canada started it in Sapporo in 2002; in 2009 it moved to Ebetsu, which is wheat-growing country, and it now brews with local wheat (brewery site, checked July 2026). The bar itself moved from near Nijo Market into this tenth floor in 2018. That explains why the beer has been reliable for as long as we have known it.

Twelve taps, two IPAs already gone

Twelve beers were on that night. There are usually four to six IPAs, and two were sold out, which left four — a workable number for two people with an evening in front of them.

A laminated beer menu page listing five regular beers with style, ABV and IBU, plus prices for small and large glasses and two tasting-flight boxes — The regular page: small 275 ml ¥880, large 430 ml ¥1,080. Limited beers are priced by kind.

Small is 275 ml at ¥880, large is 430 ml at ¥1,080 for the regular beers. Put those two side by side and the large is plainly the better deal. We like a deal. Large, then.

First round: number 6, Lush Line, a juicy IPA, ¥1,280 for a large; and number 8, Glide Drive, a West Coast IPA, ¥1,180. The Lush Line has sweetness under the hop aroma and goes down easily. The Glide Drive is the bitter one, and good with it.

We had eaten on the plane and were still full, which suited beer you sip rather than drink.

Nagaimo with garlic, ¥500

There was a limited cut steak of beef chuck at ¥1,900 on the specials, and we thought about it, but a full stomach wanted something lighter. So: garlic-pickled nagaimo, ¥500. Nagaimo is a mountain yam, crisp and faintly slippery, and both of us like it enough to eat it at home.

Pale batons and slices of nagaimo yam piled in a shallow white bowl, dusted with a dark reddish powder, with two glasses of beer behind — Garlic-pickled nagaimo, ¥500. Salty, and then clean.

The garlic is not shy and the whole thing is salty, and then the yam does what a yam does and the finish is clean. When you are full and want another drink anyway, this is exactly the thing to have in front of you. “That was a good call,” we said, and both did a small fist pump about it.

The other two IPAs

A large is 430 ml, which for the two of us is still a little short. “One more, then.” That was as much discussion as it got.

Another beer means another dish, so: the new item on the menu, a chef’s-whim potato salad, ¥620. To drink, the two IPAs we had not had yet — number 4, the plain IPA, and number 7, Session I.P.A., ¥1,080 each for a large.

Two glasses of beer on a window counter, one amber and one pale gold, with lit city buildings behind them at dusk — Round two: the plain IPA and the Session I.P.A., ¥1,080 each.

The session is 4% and drinks light — the kind you can go at without noticing. The plain IPA has real bitterness and nothing odd hiding behind it.

Then the potato salad arrived, and it was not potato salad in any sense we had pictured. Deep-fried potato under a heap of grated yamawasabi — horseradish — with a raw egg yolk sitting on top and cucumber pickle at the side, in a dark blue bowl.

A dark blue ridged bowl of fried potato pieces topped with grated white horseradish, a raw egg yolk with black pepper, and sliced cucumber pickle — The chef's-whim potato salad, ¥620. Fried potato, yamawasabi, yolk.

Break the yolk, drag it through the yamawasabi, put it on the potato. Think of it as chips with horseradish and it makes sense; two or three bites in, the yolk and the yamawasabi and the potato pull together and it is genuinely good. My wife, on the horseradish: “Yamawasabi is pretty hot, and it has a taste of its own, doesn’t it.”

What we noticed about the food

With the menu still open we started planning the next visit. The Hokkaido potato fries are billed as the shop’s number one and we have never once ordered them, because we always arrive full. Today’s Pizza, ¥1,500, is entirely the kitchen’s choice, and we spent a while guessing what turns up on it.

Meanwhile we were reading the tables either side of us: grilled young corn on one, roast turnip on the other, both worked out from the photographs in the menu and both ¥780. It started to look like a place that does vegetables properly.

Beer food tends to be fried, and then fried again. A run of nights like that does not hurt exactly, but we feel it now in a way we did not use to. Somewhere that will put a roast turnip in front of you is worth filing away.

One more thing, which we had almost forgotten. We had come in intending to have the chef’s-whim starter platter with beer, because that is what we always have here. It was sold out. That is the only reason the evening became nagaimo and a strange potato salad instead, and we are not sure that was worse.

Would we go back

Yes, and we will, on the next Sapporo trip.

The comparison that settles it: the 33-tap beer bar in Susukino we tried in April is somewhere we would happily go again, but it costs more and the plates were modest, and the food here runs at roughly half those prices. North Island is the cheap-and-good one, and that is how we will file it.

Two things worth knowing before you go up. The IPAs sell out: two were already gone early on a Sunday evening. And a large is 430 ml, so plan the round count accordingly.

Unfinished business: the potato fries, Today’s Pizza, and the starter platter that beat us this time. The yam, at least, followed us around the rest of the trip — we ordered a nagaimo pickle again at a yakitori counter a couple of nights later.

Practical bits

Where: Minami 2 Nishi 4-10-1, Large Country Building 10F, Chuo-ku, Sapporo — in the Tanukikoji arcade. Street-level A-board and the lobby floor guide both point to 10F; take the lift. Site: northislandbeer.jp/beerbar (checked July 2026).
Beer: twelve on tap when we visited on 14 June 2026, of which four IPAs were still available. Regular beers: small 275 ml ¥880, large 430 ml ¥1,080. Limited beers are priced individually and run higher — ours were ¥1,280 and ¥1,180 for a large. Menu prices tax included; they change.
Tasting flights: three 200 ml glasses for ¥2,000, or ¥1,700 as a Happy Hour version, Monday to Thursday 17:30–19:00 with one food order per person. Guest beers cannot be picked in either. From the menu we photographed, 14 June 2026.
What we ate: garlic-pickled nagaimo ¥500, chef’s-whim potato salad ¥620.
What we didn’t: chef’s-whim three-item starter platter ¥2,000 (a half portion is offered for solo drinkers), cut steak of beef chuck ¥1,900 as a limited item, roast Ebetsu turnip with yamawasabi ¥780, oven-baked young corn ¥780, Today’s Pizza ¥1,500.
The bill: ¥5,740 for two, the six items and nothing else, paid by card. Water was free.
Hours: we didn’t check. The Happy Hour printed on the menu runs 17:30–19:00, Monday to Thursday.
English menu: we didn’t check. The regular page of the beer menu gives each beer’s name, style, ABV and IBU in Roman letters with the tasting notes in Japanese; the limited and one-keg beers were partly in Japanese only. The food menu we did not note.
Reservations: we didn’t check.
Smoking: we didn’t check.
How busy: early on a Sunday evening we walked in and took a window seat with no wait. By the second round the tables on both sides of us were taken.
Getting there from the airport: New Chitose to the hotel — shuttle bus ¥1,500, about an hour and a half; train to Sapporo Station plus a taxi, a bit under an hour. June 2026.

Facts checked 2026-08-19. Prices, hours and menus are what we saw on our visit; they change. Nothing here was sponsored or comped.