7th Day Brewery Red IPA

7th Day's Red IPA is one of the big-hitters in the Northern Beaches' brewery's core range, a beer that pours the sort of luscious dark red you might see Dracula sipping from a goblet, topped by a clinging biscuit-coloured head that sparkles with sweet aromas of peach and caramel fudge that might give you wobbly legs.

Even as a professional beer reviewer, the profile of this beer is hard to describe. Sugared biscuits and caramel are there, as they are in most red IPAs, but few boast this balance, complete with a level of alcohol that complements the warm flavour profile rather than weighing it down. It is an incredibly smooth beer: a luxuriously long red carpet in your mouth. Sipping this will make you feel like a judge at The Indies (where it medalled) because you’ll feel like awarding it too.

Benedict Kennedy-Cox