before9 is a minimal sake beer bar located in Kyoto, Japan, designed by PUDDLE. The owner of the bar is a former sake brewer, who is dedicated to restoring his brewery, and at the same time, to preserving the declining number of Kyoto’s “machiya”. The existing dirt floor portrayed an image of the interior space extending to the outside street (or the outside street extending into the interior, depending on one’s view). In the original kitchen space area, the designers constructed a beer tap inspired by a traditional Japanese-style oven called “kudo” out of a block of mortar. Served from this beer tap are craft beers from all over the world.

Photography by Takumi Ota