Here's three beers from Deeds, all of which were released at roughly the same time, each including the words "pale" and "ale" in their style, but otherwise share little in common.
Let's start with Elementary, given it's inspired by beers that have been around the longest: English IPAs. Wrapped in a parchment style label and featuring English hop varieties Harlequin and East Kent Goldings, it brings the world of IPAs before Americans took them some place else back to life. This is all tasted wholemeal bread crusts topped with marmalade, a mouthfull of banana bread on the site, and a twiggy, lingering bitterness.
Apparently, Fetch is their love letter to Mean Girls. Given I've never seen it, I'll leave it to those who have to work out the link between that and the hazy pink ale hopped with Lotus, Nelson Sauvin and Galaxy and coloured with dragon fruit powder and instead focus on the liquid. It pours like a carbonated guava juice but lands somewhere else entirely. It’s not guava, it’s not berries, it’s kind of drily spicily and bitterly fruity, like a supplement that’s meant to be good for you. As a result, the citrus / peach qualities of the hops feel like they're wrapped around the dragon fruit rather than dominating.
Closing out the trio is a beer that tips its cap to Crowded House. Something So Strong is an NZ-hopped double IPA with that deeply hazy, hop-gazpacho appearance Deeds helped to popularise. With 8 percent of booze and a malt bill designed to boost haze and body, it crosses your palate with a full, slightly prickly texture. Set amid such things, I found the Nelson Sauvin coming across as sweet stonefruit more than the white wine / grapes usually referenced. Or, to be completist, like sweet stonefruit blended with vanilla cream atop a crushed biscuit base.
James Smith
Published August 26, 2023 2023-08-26 00:00:00
