Izu no Kuni Climb is a 5% scottish ale from Izu no Kuni Brewery, based in Shizuoka, Japan. It’s part of the all-year round range of beers and can be found in both cans and on tap across Japan. This review of Izu no Kuni Climb has been a long time coming (almost three years in fact) as it was the bottle of beer that broke during my return from the Autumn Keyaki Festival back in 2014.
Izu no Kuni Climb Aroma and Taste
I was expecting something much darker than Izu no Kuni Climb appeared to be – a light golden colour with a large frothy white head on top. I was hoping for something darker, like a Wee Heavy but at 5%, I guess Izu no Kuni Climb is more lager like than Scottish ale-like. It had a sweet biscuit and caramel aroma and whatever hops were used could not be detected easily. It was only when I had fallen asleep on the floor, well kotatsus will do that to it, and woken up and remembered I still had a beer on the go that I noticed a light floral aroma.
And the body is pretty much the same as the nose with not much going on besides lots of malt flavours of honey, biscuit and caramel – I wish there had been something else to Izu no Kuni Climb as it ended up being quite one dimensional in the end besides a faint sour bitter note at the end. It’s hard to say what the Scottish part about Izu no Kuni Climb is – perhaps the stereotype of Scots being tight with money meant Izu no Kuni Beer were tight with the ingredients.
Izu no Kuni Climb The Bottom Line
It looked like when I dropped Izu no Kuni Climb that it would be a great loss. As it turns out, it wasn’t.
Where to Buy Izu no Kuni Climb
Izu no Kuni Climb can be bought online at the following places
