Saturday, 16 July 2011

An IPA a Day #9

Day nine and it's over to New Zealand to continue my lead up to the first International IPA day. I want this beer in the UK but I doubt I'll ever see it. Luke Nicholas started the Epic Brewery in 2006 and is almost single handedly bringing the craft beer to the masses in New Zealand. I say almost single handed because he recently 'stole' Kelly Ryan back from us(we will never forgive you Luke).
Together they are making some fantastic beers, I know this because I am lucky enough to have tasted some of them even though they don't export to the UK.
Hop Zombie is their latest double IPA and I want it over here! It uses four different hops, two US and two NZ when I asked Kelly Ryan which ones he replied "really yummy ones!" Bloody secretive Kiwis!
This is one beer that I really want to try now, and I'm having to take my tasting notes from the Epic Beer Website.
Tasting notes: 
The Hop Zombie has huge tropical fruit characters on the nose, mango, guava, and a hint of ripe raspberry, which continue in the mouth, with a rich sweetness and mouth-coating hop character and bitterness.
At a hefty 8.5% it's one to enjoy with meals as well as drink on it's own. According to Epic it could easily replace a dessert wine and compliments strong cheeses really well.
So here's the question for Luke and Kelly....When do we get to have some?
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous18 July 2011 at 06:10

    It's very important to keep secrets here in NZ. Most of them revolve around our failure to win a Rugby World Cup for a very long time... Even the colour of our RWC jersey is no longer kept under wraps! ;)

    If the All Blacks win the RWC 2011, I will tell you the hops that we use in Hop Zombie :)

    If they don't, it will be revealed in the next Dan Brown novel :)

    Kelly

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  2. rabidbarfly18 July 2011 at 07:31

    Damn, since everyone Knows Wales are going to win the RWC it looks like I'm going to have to decode the next Dan Brown novel ;-)

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