Beer Ballistic & Deep Creek Hybrid IPA

If we want to know what to expect from this beer, where should we look? It’s called a Hybrid IPA, with “the grit and bitterness of a West Coast IPA” and an "East Coast style dry-hopping schedule”. Well, if we look halfway between West Coast USA and East Coast USA, you’re landed smack bang in the middle of America. Nebraska, perhaps? Or Iowa, or the Dakotas? Nowhere particularly renowned for their IPAs, anyway.

Or, since this is a collaboration between Brisbane’s Ballistic Beer and Deep Creek Brewing just out of Auckland, maybe we should look halfway between them… and be left floundering somewhere in the Tasman Sea. Equally unhelpful.

This is a beer that has to speak for itself - and it speaks loud and clear. A full head gives off wafts of tropical fruit, and it presents in the mouth with sweet, sticky pineapple… but then the beer hits you with a dry and earthy whack of bitterness, like you’ve been kicked in the teeth by the mule displayed on the label of the can (whimsically carrying two kegs - one marked W, one marked E).

Doesn’t taste like Nebraska or seawater. Does show the skill of Ballistic and Deep Creek.

Mick Wust