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とりあえずビール toriaezu biiru
Beer first, decide later.
What does toriaezu biiru mean?
The opening line of an izakaya evening. Nobody has read the menu yet, so everyone orders the same thing and the toast can start on time.
Example
席に着いたら、とりあえずビールで乾杯した。
As soon as we sat down we ordered beers and toasted.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
Culture note
The point is speed: one shared order means the first drinks arrive together and nobody waits to raise a glass. Plenty of people order tea, a highball or a lemon sour instead, and nobody blinks.
The story behind toriaezu biiru
Notice that the famous part is not the beer. とりあえず means for now, provisionally, pending a proper decision — one of the most Japanese adverbs there is. The evening opens by admitting nobody has read the menu yet, and the order is a placeholder so that the first glasses arrive together and the toast is not held hostage by one person's indecision.
The ritual came out of postwar izakaya culture, when draft beer was the fast, obvious default, and it has outlived its own premise. Young drinkers order sours, highballs and increasingly nothing alcoholic at all. The phrase survives anyway, mostly as a signal: we are starting, put the menus down.
Get toriaezu biiru in your pocket
とりあえずビール is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
