Not content with creating one IPA with a local brewer with which to see out 2023, the team at Copper & Oak made time for a second. However, short of the words "IPA" and "collaboration", and the fact they're both wet and come in cans, there's little in common between this and King Road's banging Old School IPA.
Where to start? Well, there's the vastly different selection of specialty malts required to deliver this deeply dark red number, which is the colour I imagine a chestnut would bleed. There's the shot of nitro that lends itself to the name of Nitro Superdelic Red IPA. Then there's the choice of hops: out go to the classic American "C" hops and in comes one of NZ's latest, Superdelic. And, finally, you have the label that's a long way from the austere cladding of Old School; here it's a big top and Phat Brew Club's green monster as a pink weightlifter.
That said, there’s nothing weighty about the beer – even at 6.2 percent ABV. Thanks to the nitro, it floats like a cloud and could almost be hand-pumped such is the softness of carbonation. Superdelic is know for its tropical and stonefruit characteristics, but in cahoots with the rich, sweet malts it's all berries hitting Ribena heights of fruitiness, carried forth on candy canes, with a well-judged and more-refreshing-than-it-has-any-right-to-be bitterness.
It comes together so well it’s pointless breaking down too much. It’s just a lovely, flighty, berrilicious red IPA worthy of any circus big top.
James Smith
Published December 14, 2023 2023-12-14 00:00:00
