Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu IPA Cask Finish 2017 - Review

It's been over 15 years since Chichibu Distillery in Japan's Saitama Prefecture has been operational - and so much has happened in those 15 years. Undoubtedly, no one else in Japan's whisky scene puts more oomph into the saying "it's not the years in a life that counts, but the life in the years" than Chichibu's Ichiro Akuto. In those 15 years, Chichibu has gone from a crazy idea that would never work, to one of the most highly regarded distilleries in the world with one of the most sought after whiskies.

But what's so fascinating is how in those 15 years, Chichibu has released slightly over 10 official distillery bottlings (13 by 2023 end, with the most recent being the Red Wine Cask Finish 2023; also not counting seven "The Peated" expressions) - with no core single malt releases, these official distillery bottlings have all been limited in quantity and released just once per expression. And again in a demonstration of how to make a statement with quality over quantity, the distillery has forged this sterling name for itself so productively in just such few expressions. It really is quite remarkable. 

Ichiro Akuto, founder of Chichibu Distillery.

Now of course every person who's into Japanese whisky will know that Chichibu has also a staggering number of private bottlings - but again, when it comes to its own output which stands as the distillery's own front, it's still remarkable no less.

And with so much constant excitement over Chichibu's whiskies, perhaps one other aspect that Chichibu has really seemed to go pretty hard on to fairly controversial results, is their heavy use of beer casks. We know the variety of beer's is immensely wide, but Chichibu has seemed to constantly enjoy an affinity with beer - IPA casks, Imperial Stout casks, Coedonado casks,... it's produced some very divided opinions! Some folks say it's the best damned thing out there, whilst others wouldn't come near it with a ten foot pole.

Tamamura Honten ‘The Far East’ Barrel Aged Imperial House IPA (Image Source: Untappd)

Well, today we're going to try Chichibu's only beer cask expression in its official distillery bottling lineup - the Chichibu IPA Cask Finish 2017.

For this expression, Ichiro had passed ex-Chichibu "The Floor Malted" whisky casks to the Shiga Kogen craft beer brewery (3 hours north of Chichibu in Nagano), where the craft beer brewery would then use these casks to age their Tamamura Honten "The Far East" IPA. After housing the IPA for some time, Shiga Kogen returned to Chichibu the beer washed casks which were then used to finish its ex-Bourbon matured whiskies. If you want the full experience, you can pick up some of Shiga Kogen's The Far East Barrel Aged Imperial House IPA which was aged in these Chichibu casks.

Let's give it a go!

Tasting Notes

Colour: Honey

Aroma: Opens with a scent of cider gone flat, lemon tea, honey lemon candy, also alittle bit of grapefruit. There’s some ginger candy, honey ginger candy, a light piney resinous quality, floral hops, it’s giving greenhouse vibes. There’s a more buttery malty base note, and also some dusty dunnage mustiness.

Taste: Rather punchy! Really malty and honeyed, there’s an initial hit of grapefruit bitterness, lemon tea, candied ginger, also some flashes of green apples, pineapples, apricots, lemons. The citrus and malt is incredibly apparent, with a side of savouriness and bitterness. There’s a more vegetal bit as well - wet leaves, crunchy agave, almost mezcal-like. There’s quite abit of mandarin orange peels too.

Finish: More pronounced bitterness here, not entirely sure if it’s the hops, it’s more pithy. Orange blossoms, more honeyed into the finish.

My Thoughts

With beer casks, it’s always a question of whether the whisky is able to get a grip on that and add to itself all those aromatics and fruits, whilst leaving out the hoppy bitterness.

With the Chichibu IPA Cask Finish, I think the whisky’s done a decent job of that - the hops bitterness is definitely still very present, but by no means overpowering, on the by and large it’s incorporated more of the fruits and florals than it’s taken to the hoppiness. In that sense, it doesn’t immediately scream “IPA Cask”, rather it’s created a pretty unique flavour profile for the whisky - that’s success in my books. 

I enjoyed the heavy notes of honey combos - honey lemon, honey ginger, as well as some of the fruits that made an appearance, the lemons, oranges, green apples, pineapples. There’s also this mezcal-like quality to it which I enjoyed as well - it was like mezcal sans the bitter herbaceousness and amped up on the honey. That said, I think that while the aromatics were great, the whisky could’ve used more body and depth. It’s whole lot of top notes, and not so much on the base. It was alittle lighter than I expected, but still very interesting.

I can however see why some folks might find this alittle disagreeable - that bitterness especially can be alittle pointed and intense, fair enough, but for me I found it not all that overwhelming.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot