Epic: Armageddon IPA (New Zealand: IPA: 6.66% ABV)
Visual: Burnished gold. Large mound of off white head that leaves suds. Some small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Popcorn hops. Light kiwi fruit. Resin. Slightly musty. Crushed malt biscuits.
Body: High bitterness. Custard cream biscuits. Bready. Tinned topical fruit. Large hop character. Toffee. Lemon sherbet. Froths up easily, carrying hop oils. Pineapple tartness. Lime notes. Marmalade.
Finish: Bready bitterness. Good hop character and resin. Mango juice with pulp. Dried apricot. Lemon sherbet. Hop oils. Gooseberry and pineapple.
Conclusion: Ok, an NZ IPA that concentrates more on the big bitterness than the tartness that you can get with NZ hops. Interesting. Risky as well, as it plays down what is NZ IPA’s big selling point. Let’s see how well this gets over.
Initial impressions is that it may have lost a bit of freshness on the way over to the UK – the hop character is impressively large, but just slightly musty – an element I normally run into in an IPA that has been around a few months. Even with that it is impressive with the level of hop bitterness and hop oils. Not to Stone Brewing level excellence, but considering Stone are the kings of hop beers, it does well to be compared with them.
The tart flavours, even though they are played down, are still here. There is more dried apricot sweetness that tart notes, which reminds me of American hops. The pineapple tartness comes in third in emphasis, just keeping everything fresh enough that the big hops don’t wear out their welcome too early.
As it warms it keeps a similar balance of flavour, but the fruit character does become clearer. It is impressive how they deliver that flavor without letting it get too sharp. Overall, even muted as it is by the journey this is a big IPA and well made. It can’t compete with the layered subtle complexity of 8 Wired’s Hop wired, it is more a straight up hop assault, but it is very good at that.
Not as good as Enjoy By IPA for sheer hop assault, then again that was fresh as can be, not as complex as Hopwired – but it mixes the two well enough to be a very good IPA to enjoy.
Background: Woo, Epic back in the house. Unlike most previous Epic beers this was not brought back from NZ for me by craft beer sis. Instead it is one of a batch of NZ beers that turned up in Brew Bristol. A fine shop that has a whole wealth of home brew stuff, including all the fun malts and hops. So, having had to come the slow way here it is slighter older than previous NZ beers I have tried, but still seems to be doing well. Drunk while listening to LukHash – Falling Apart. As I am still on a chiptune kick.
