As Rocky Ridge celebrate their seventh year of operation, they’re partying the only way they know how: going as big as possible. But it’s the sort of big that bodes well for WA drinkers as they release eight collabs – one for each year – plus a cardinal tin that slots in nicely with the "Seven Deadly Sins" theme.
Starting with Pride, it's a straight up and down West Coast IPA landing at 7 percent ABV and brewed with Fox Friday. It's pale with a moderate mouthfeel thanks to a simple malt bill featuring wheat in the mix. Hops lean larger with Simcoe, Strata, and Idaho 7 added heavy-handedly in the dry hop. Wrath features as a West Coast IPA, too, although this collab with Ronin Fermentation Project has been bumped to 10 percent ABV and featuring a dank hop profile with mango, pineapple and citrus dominating.
After pride and wrath, comes a little Greed (8.0%). In this instance, it takes the shape of an oat cream IPA brewed with Banks. Talus hops are the centrepiece here, backed by additions of Cashmere. In the kettle, wheat dried malt extract is added late to boost malt complexity and a velvety mouthfeel. A full body, citrus, pine and lemongrass collude with moreish results.
Greed will inevitably bring a little Envy (8.5%), with this Bracket Brewing collab a hazy IIPA that boasts sizeable NZ hop additions, yielding orange, white wine and rockmelon. Sloth, on the other hand, takes haze to another level: a triple IPA landing at 11 percent ABV, and brewed with Mountain Culture. A layered, four-day dry hop and a whopping ten hop products – including T90 pellets, Cryo, CGX, Lupomax, Centennial Salvo and Nelson Sauvin Hop Oil – ensure this beer takes hops (and booze) to the absolute max.
Lust for lager isn’t unusual in today's craft beer scene, but Rocky Ridge and Range Brewing have turned things up a notch with a Chinook, Amarillo, El Dorado and Eclipse-loaded red IPL weighing in at 7.5 percent ABV. There’s a delicate balance of hops and malt, with coffee, rye, biscuit and toffee meeting tacky pine and stonefruit in equal measure.
On the other end of the style spectrum you'll find Gluttony, a 24-hour boil imperial pastry stout. The One Drop collab lands at 14 percent ABV and is stacked with coffee, chocolate, cacao, donuts, cinnamon, lactose, vanilla, marshmallow, caramel fudge and 3,000kgs of malt. You might be thinking, ‘That’s ridiculous!’ and you’d be correct. This is an unapologetically ridiculous beer that falls in "must try" territory.
Closing out the octuplet is The Cardinal Tin: a double-decoction doppelbock (6.8%). A favourite of head brewer Ross Terlick, this final beer was brewed with the input of all seven deadly collaborators. It’s rich in malt character, heavily leaning into burnt sugar and toffee, with a medium body and balanced bitterness.
Jono Outred
Published May 7, 2024 2024-05-07 00:00:00
