Of all the beers to come out of the Akasha brewery, you could make a reasonable argument that the most important one is the Hopsmith IPA. Not only is it a darn popular beer in its own right but it’s become the foundation for several other offshoots; their recent single hop IPA series, for example, is simply the Hopsmith recipe stripped of all but one of its hop varieties each time one is brewed. Then you can go the other way and find the Wooden Leg which doesn't hold back on the hops but actually multiplies each of them by a factor of three and thus creates a triple IPA.
A beer of such substance is necessarily a bit special, which is why they only brew it once a year for a suitably special occasion: the brewery’s birthday. This year is its second and the key, as with the first time out, is balance; you may have lashings of Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo hops but plenty of effort has gone into ensuring it retains a high degree of drinkability – no mean feat for a beer that clocks in at a hearty 10.3 percent ABV. If you plan on getting your lips around the Wooden Leg, it's only available in kegs, it's meant for drinking fresh and there ain’t much of it around so you'd best act quickly.
Nick O
Published April 12, 2017 2017-04-12 00:00:00
