Kyoto Beer Lab — Restaurant in Kyoto

What a great little gem of a place. In a quiet street just a stroll from the station...you feel like you're in the wrong spot but believe me just keep walking along the narrow canal and you will find it. The staff here are really welcoming and speak fantastic English to make you feel comfortable. There's only a handful of seats but it wasn't hard to get a seat when we visited. (7pm on a Monday in early July) There are 8 different types of beer brewed on site all with various interesting and unique flavours. (They may vary from season) We opted for the tasting selection of 3 to try something different. The variations included beers with green tea, wasabi and a watermelon beer. All were very different and very nice. We also ordered some snacks including edamame some vegetable sticks with a dipping sauce and some potato fries (we'd call them wedges in Australia...and they were delicious!!) Unsurprisingly the night we visited the crowd was pretty much all western tourists looking for the same thing. Because the space is smaller it encourages you to have a chat with the other people... which is what us Aussies love to do. Great way to unwind from a days sightseeing. Great beer. Great snacks. Great people. What else do you...

If you like craft beer this is the place to go in Kyoto. While it is not cheap by UK standards - 1000 Yen (about £6.50) for a pint - it is quite reasonable by Kyoto standards and the beer is good! It is basically a microbrewery and all their beer they make themselves in small batches. They had 8 beers on tap while we were there ranging from 4.5% to 8.5% (all the same price!) And all 4 that we tried were of a very high quality. The lean towards IPA style beers but other types were also available.

The staff were all friendly and spoke good English. This isn't a place to go for a meal but they do have a variety of snacks and sharing plates available which were pretty good.

Unfortunately is was quite quiet when we went in there. Admittedly it was a Wednesday night, so maybe it picks up on a weekend, but I feel they might be a bit 'off the beaten track' to attract much passing trade. Hopefully the word gets out and people start finding this hidden gem because they...

A bit pricey for beer and food, but I absolutely loved the atmosphere, so much so that I stayed here for a good 2.5 hours.

It is a small space, great for starting conversations and enjoying time with the staff. As a foreigner, I felt safe conversing and practicing my broken Japanese 😅. They are very English speaker and foreigner friendly!

For those who are a bit unsure about the beer, I was able to try some small samples prior to choosing a size so I didn’t have to only get half pints and still have to finish it if I didn’t like it. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend the white tea ale with fried chicken (karaage) and I also liked the sour that they had for the day.

They typically have one of their specialty tea brews on draft for the day, but if you wanted to try any others, you can buy cans to take home! Or you can try it in store for an...