Akasha Taproom & Brewery

The rise of the Akasha Brewing Company was swift. It was only in April 2015 that Dave Padden hitched his wagon to Sydney’s growing caravan of gypsy brewers and launched the first Akasha beer into the market. But being at the mercy of someone else’s brewing schedule was never a long term plan – or even a medium term one for that matter – and by October he was standing atop a sparking new brewhouse, about to release the first beers from Akasha’s home in Five Dock. In an industry where it’s not uncommon for a brewery to take several years to set up, going from homeless to fully functioning in less than one is quite a feat.

The warehouse in which they chose to build their new home was an empty shell, devoid of electricity, water and gas. What sounds like an inconvenience turned out to be the blank canvas they needed, letting them lay out the brewery exactly as desired. In went a brewhouse that’s relatively small but efficient, allowing them to do multiple brews to meet demand while offering the flexibility to do smaller specialty batches.

It also had a space that screamed out to be a tasting room, with floor to ceiling windows that give a view directly out onto the action in the brewhouse; the stainless steel tanks are so close you can sit there and watch yourself having a good time. And once you start trying a few Akasha beers you'll certainly be having a good time.

Dave is a hop lover at heart and almost all Akasha beers centre around them – usually American varieties, in high doses. But that doesn't necessarily make their beers aggressive. In fact, accessibility is a feature. That in no way means their beers have been dialled down to the equivalent of easy-listening, rather they’ve kept the volume up nice and loud but fiddled with the tone and balance to seek a slightly broader appeal.

Midway through 2020 – a little over five years from that first brew – Akasha rebranded to show how the mighty hop watches over everything the brewery does. The new look, featuring an Illuminati-inspired eye, aims to reflect the almost spiritual component of drinking fantastic beer, while also capturing the brewery’s desire to open up the doorway of better beer and let others inside.

The rebrand saw the team also launch Akasha Projects, a dedicated space for limited releases but, beyond that, the occasion was as much a pause for reflection over a revolution. That reflection is on where the brewery’s always focused on brewing hop forward beers with a focus on quality and consistency and being genuine sticklers for that old marketing phrase about not compromising on quality.

It's years of working with that attitude which has made Dave and his team so respected and their beers so loved in Sydney. That's what's enabled the brewery to grow its capacity several times over and allow them to send their beer farther and wider across the country.

For all the complexity in the beer world there's a lot to be said for simply having great beer made by great people.

Nick Oscilowski

Name
Akasha Taproom & Brewery
Address

10-12 Spencer Street
Five Dock
NSW 2046

Phone
(02) 9715 7156
Regular events

Food trucks Fri to Sun

Open Hours

Wed & Thurs: 4pm to 8pm
Fridays: 2pm to 8pm
Saturdays: midday to 8pm
Sundays: midday to 7pm

Tours

By appointment


This is a directory listing. To find out more, head here

Akasha Taproom & Brewery Regulars

Akasha Canada Bay XPA

Published September 10, 2020
Now here’s a beer that’s been many months in the making. When I hung out at Akasha for the brewing of the Resilience XPA in February 2020, Dave mentioned they had been working on their very own XPA but they really wanted to make sure any Akasha XPA was sufficiently Akasha-fied. And with the release of the Canada Bay XPA, an evolution of the Canada Bay Ale they first released in 2019, I can confirm their mission has been successful. Canada Bay XPA pours glisteningly bright and pale with aromas… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Little Smith IPA

Published September 10, 2020
Little Smith IPA was first released at the end of 2018 and has obviously found favour enough to warrant inclusion in Akasha's core range. And, as much as pedantic weirdos like to sneer: “Oh but isn’t a session IPA just a pale ale?” language is for communicating information and a "little IPA" conveys exactly what you need to know about Little Smith. The lil’ boy pours pale and crisp with a fluffy white head. There’s an immediate hit of lemon peel and grapefruit on the nose which… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
3.5%

Akasha Mosaic IPA

Published September 21, 2018
Sometime towards the end of 2016, Akasha launched a Single Hop IPA series. Every month, it saw them brew the same base beer but add a different hop variety – always one of the big and bold all-American all stars: Mosaic, Simcoe, Centennial et al. Of all of them it was the first, the Mosaic, that seemed to have the most cachet with the ordinary drinker (not to mention the brewers) and lived longest in the memory. It’s been made again on occasion since but, some two years after first appearing,… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA
ABV
7.2%

Akasha Hopsmith IPA

Although Akasha launched with a pale ale, there was something approaching unspoken agreement in beer circles that this was a brewery that could only properly be measured once it had released an IPA. The reasoning stretched back mainly to Dave’s time creating the hugely successful IPA variants as head brewer at Riverside, but that legacy was merely a culmination of many years honing his skills at a home brew level, which had in turn had been formed by trips to the USA that tuned his palate to that… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
7.2%
Bitterness
60 IBU

Akasha Freshwater Pale Ale

When the Freshwater pale ale was launched in April 2015 as Akasha’s first beer, you could say there was a certain weight of expectation. Dave had forged a reputation for brewing fine beers, but Akasha was new and unproven. Every Sydney beer geek from Bondi to the Blue Mountains would be watching and waiting to see what this new brewing company could do. And what they were met with was a face full of hops in the form of the Freshwater Pale Ale. This American-style pale plies its trade mainly on… Read more
Style
American Pale Ale
ABV
5.2%
Bitterness
35 IBU

Akasha Taproom & Brewery Specials

Akasha Projects: Dark Side Schwarzbier

Published June 2, 2023
Take a malt-driven German beer style that’s more than 600 years old, and throw in one of the newest hop varieties to come out of New Zealand. Why not? New Zealand pilsners have been popular for ages now, but this is definitely my first NZ Schwarzbier. Schwarzbiers normally keep hops in the background, but when the Akasha team decided to brew one, they considered giving the style the Akasha treatment. Rather than just loading it with hops for the sake of it, though, they ran a pilot batch and trialled… Read more
Style
NZ Hopped Schwarzbier
ABV
5.0%

Reckless X Akasha Helen Red XPA

Published March 8, 2023
We are Reckless, hear us roar, With every glass of beer we pour, You taste our values as you sip, and sip again. Brewed by women, drunk by all; Equality is at our core. No matter who you are, come drink with us as friends. Reckless is a woman-led-and-run brewery that’s never been afraid to fly the equality flag high, whether that’s in the form of this blog post or a beer paying tribute to the singer of one of the great anthems of feminism. Helen Red XPA* is a collab between Reckless and Akasha… Read more
Style
Red XPA
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Project Hopic Thunder

Published February 7, 2023
For the hop grower, surely the most important moment in a hop’s life is when it’s given a name. Prior to that, when a new variety is just a collection of numbers and letters, its chance of never getting a proper release is always present and with no fun title, how is the beer drinker meant to connect with it? But brewers don't hold such concerns and instead love getting their hands on new hop types whenever they can. HBC 586 is the kind of hop that seems like its best days might be ahead, with… Read more
Style
West Coast Pale
ABV
5.0%

Akasha Barrel Aged Belgian Quadruple & Triple Amber Ale

Published November 7, 2022
If you're a regular reader of this site, you'll know Akasha opened a second venue in spring 2022 – The Barrel Room by Akasha. It's designed in part to showcase their barrel program – it's the only place you can buy their barrel-aged beers as things stand – and also a venue promising high end drinks (and pizza) across the board. When we called in ahead of opening, we nabbed a couple of bottles of the first two beers to be ready (if you swing by now they're open there's a Sour Blonde and Wee… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Belgian Quad & Imperial Amber Ale
ABV
Both 10.5%

Akasha Project The Chronic West Coast IIPA

Published August 24, 2022
It occurred to me while tasting Akasha’s latest release, The Chronic, that I was no longer certain what a standard double IPA is supposed to be? I started thinking about all of this because when I first tasted the beer, there was something about it that seemed so much more, for lack of a better word, modern about it. For a bloke that writes mostly about individual beers and their styles, I’m not sure I’ve read the BJCP entry for a double IPA in a very long time. I get there’s plenty of valid… Read more
Style
West Coast IIPA
ABV
8.0%

Akasha & Reckless NAS XPA

Published March 8, 2022
There's a couple of ways you can approach this collab by close brewing buddies Akasha and Reckless. On one level, it's an easy-going XPA that sits neatly in the middle of the range of XPAs released by Aussie brewers: delicate tropical aromas and the lightest of grain sweetness; good body for a beer of its size, with a rising citrus character on the palate. In short, well put together and sessionable. Rather louder than the liquid itself is the message – tied to the #breakthebias theme of International… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Project Electric Boots & Mohair Suits

Published February 11, 2022
As anyone with even a passing knowledge of the life and times of Reg Dwight will know, there wasn't much of a mood- and mind-altering nature that wasn't part of his diet through much of his rise, imperial phase, and subsequent rather dodgier period. I doubt, however, that 7 percent ABV oat cream IPAs were on the rider as he took his show on the road. Yet such is the beer Akasha have decided to christen with a name taken from a line in Bennie and the Jets (which I have today discovered is often misheard… Read more
Style
Oat Cream IPA
ABV
7.0%

Akasha Project Mandatory Czech In

Published January 25, 2022
An elegant beer name is a wonderful thing. Granted the best are almost always puns and puns are, on the most part, abominable. But every now and then, it just works. Akasha’s newest project release, Mandatory Czech In, is just such a name. Every single pale lager in the world can pretty much trace its lineage back to the Czech or Bohemian pilsner. First brewed in the 1840s in Pilsen, the pilsner was a combination of extra pale Moravian malt, locally grown Saaz hops, soft Pilsen water and a Bavarian… Read more
Style
Czech Pilsner
ABV
5.0%

Akasha Project Lime Zest Gose

Published January 14, 2022
In Australia, what we label as limes are actually Persian limes, sometimes called Tahitian limes. They’re the most widely cultivated lime variety in the world, beating out the makrut and key lime varieties. The origins of the humble Persian lime aren’t known for certain, but they appear to be a cross between the key lime and either a citron or lemon. Although the Persian lime's origins aren’t known, what we do know for sure is that they were first cultivated on a large scale in Iran and used… Read more
Style
Lime Gose
ABV
4.5%

Akasha Project Juice Factory IPA

Published December 24, 2021
Let's face it, if there was a market on what sort of beer Akasha would choose to sign off with for 2021, you'd get terrible odds on it being an IPA. But if it ain't broke, why fix it? Juice Factory is their second hazy IPA in quick succession, although this is [pretty distinct from the recent NZ hopped affair in that it's genuinely hazy, landing in your glass with a translucent yellow glow. The brewers plumped for a trio of hops known for their citrusy nature, Citra, Amarillo and Azacca, although… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.2%

Akasha Projects Summer Slice IPA

Published December 7, 2021
If I’m going to be honest, should I never drink another fruited kettle sour again, I don’t think my life would be any worse off. There was a period there six or seven years ago where I couldn’t get enough. But I think eventually I worked out that using fruit in beer can be wonderful, but the base beer itself has got to have something else going on in the first place. The reason you don’t see any straight-up, unadulterated kettle soured Berliner weisse around is because it’s just lactic… Read more
Style
Watermelon IPA
ABV
6.0%

Akasha Projects Dream Juice

Published December 3, 2021
It’s been just over a year since Sydney’s Akasha Brewing Co completed a total rebrand, and their Akasha Projects series of special releases shows no sign of abating. At the time I stupidly thought to myself, there’s no way they’re going to be able to come up with a new hop-focused beer every fortnight or so to keep this thing going. I mean, how many different kinds of IPA are there? The answer, of course, is: "Heaps". This Project release is Dream Juice NZ Hazy IPA. By my calculations,… Read more
Style
NZ Hazy IPA
ABV
6.2%

Akasha Project Third Eye IIIPA

Published November 10, 2021
Maybe it was Tool-esque name on Akasha’s newest IPA release, or maybe it was the fact I’d drunk a 9.8 percent ABV beer in about 25 minutes while cooking dinner on a Thursday night, but I found myself in somewhat of a reverie while tasting Third Eye. Do you ever just stop and think at how maddeningly incredible it is that we have found a way to derive such a vast array of distinct flavours and aromas from what is otherwise just a dull and bitter flower? We can bung some flower pellets into hot… Read more
Style
Triple IPA
ABV
9.8%

Akasha Super Chill

Published October 14, 2021
You know what this is. Have a look at the aqua green seascape and golden sun on the can, look at the name, look at the ABV, look at who brewed it and pour it into the glass of your ample imagination. Is your Akasha Super Chill hazy? Tropical? Refreshing? Sessionable? Congratulations! You’ve bloody well nailed it. Released mere days after their home city tentatively emerged from a gruelling lockdown, Akasha have cooked up an absolute warm weather classic here. For many Sydneysiders in particular,… Read more
Style
Hazy Pale Ale
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Projects DDH IPA

Published September 24, 2021
OK, I’m just going to put this out there at the start – just get it out of the way, early doors. I’m a big dumb goose. Akasha very kindly sent me a couple of these DDH IPAs and, instead of eliciting any kind of excitement like an Akasha beer usually would, I made the grave error of treating the drinking of this fine beverage as work. “Double dry-hopped, they reckon? Oh yeah, sure. Whatever.” Let me confess to you now, dear reader. I could not drink this beer fast enough. Maybe it’s because… Read more
Style
DDH IPA
ABV
6.5%

Akasha Project Grand Tour

Published August 9, 2021
As we all know, International IPA Day is celebrated on the first Thursday of August every year. This dearly beloved and internationally celebrated day was first observed in 2011 as a US only national day started by the prophet, The Beer Wench. A mere decade later, on August 5 2021, people across the globe raised a glass of IPA to their lips and whispered a quiet prayer to the humble India Pale Ale, in all its glory. On the east coast of Australia, many of those glasses contained the Grand Tour IPA,… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
7.2%

Akasha Project Little Korben

Published June 13, 2021
"Oh, have a look at the little bloke! Bless his little cotton socks, he’s adorable. Now, I thought he was supposed to be bigger?" "No, no, mate – this one’s a new species or something. It’s what they call a Little Korben." "A Little Korben, they reckon? You wouldn’t bloody read about it!" "He’s still built like a brick shithouse, though." "My oath! Still… he is very cute." Akasha’s latest Project release is Little Korben: a dramatically… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Find Little Korben here

Akasha Project Romeo & Juliet DIPA

Published May 20, 2021
Bloody Romeo and Juliet they reckon? A marriage of Montague and Capulet? In this economy? Akasha, reaching the very height of audacity, have endeavoured to bring West and East together in holy matrimony with their newly released double IPA. But how can one conjoin these two bitter enemies? I guess only one of them is bitter, the other is sweeter and more tropical hop focused, but you get the idea. Can Akasha be the ones to stop this senseless bloodshed on the mean streets of Verona? Will six people… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.0%

Akasha Project Triple Hazy & Wooden Leg IIIPA

Published April 18, 2021
No messing from Akasha as they turned six (even if things could get messy in the wrong hands). Not just one limited release, but two – one making its debut, the other making one of its occasional comebacks. The new beer is Triple Hazy, which is, um, a triple hazy IPA that comes across like a fruit forward IPA reduction, with a glowing yellow hue that seems to possess a little of the label's lurid green (maybe a trick of the mind). The hop character – with limey citrus to the fore – is most… Read more
Style
Hazy IIIPA & IIIPA
ABV
10.0% & 10.5%
Stockists

Find other stockists here

Akasha Projects Azacca IPA

Published March 19, 2021
The experimenting at Akasha isn’t slowing in 2021, with the Akasha Project releases continuing with a showcase of US hop Azacca in another single hop IPA. The variety is named after the Haitian god of agriculture and it can impart a wide variety of hop flavours, including mango, papaya and citrus plus notes of pine and spice, while Azacca's high alpha acids can bring forth a lot of bitterness too. In the case of Azacca IPA, there’s a soft swell of papaya and mango along with slightly more brash… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA
ABV
6.8%

Akasha & Reckless Frida XPA

Published March 11, 2021
Brewed to coincide with International Women's Day 2021, Frida is a collaboration with fellow Sydneysiders, Reckless Brewing. Named after the early 20th century Mexican artist, icon and all-round legendary figure, Frida Kahlo, this is a bright and tropical XPA that somewhat belies the deeply serious and, frankly, disgraceful level of gender inequality that still exists in this country and the world at large. Really, it’s a testament to Grace, Alice, Katy, Alex, Nichole and all the other women associated… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Project Talus IPA

Published January 27, 2021
We know 2020 may have been a pretty awful year all round but, for weird beer freaks like me, at least there was an unprecedented bonanza of new hop varieties getting a full commercial release. There’s been a bumper crop coming out of the US with a lot of experimental breeding of the neomexicanus stock resulting in hops with intense and distinct aroma and flavour profiles that seem to be perfectly suited for the ongoing lust for big tropical fruit flavours. Formally known as HBC 692 – first coming… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA
ABV
6.2%

Akasha Project Blood Orange Gose

Published January 15, 2021
The first Akasha Project release for 2021 also happens to be the Sydney brewery’s first limited release tin that isn’t driven by hops (since rebranding last year anyway). Instead, they’ve traded heavy hopping rates for kettle souring and buckets of citrus pulp to brew Blood Orange Gose. It’s a pink-hued beer that would fit with any picnic in a park and largely that’s thanks to the balance between sourness, juiciness and saltiness. Many modern kettle sours land pretty close to soft drinks… Read more
Style
Gose
ABV
4.5%

Akasha Project The Shape Of Hops To Come Hazy IPA

Published December 18, 2020
As their Project series continues its beer-a-fortnight schedule, it's clear the team at Akasha aren't in a hurry to confound expectations or throw curveballs. On the back of the Eclipse single hop IPA, Cloud 9 Hazy IPA, and Endless Haze hazy pale, comes another hop driven beer: an IPA with the hazy tag and much of a hazy's character, even if it doesn't actually bring much in the way of haze. Whether it's a trick of the mind caused by the colour of the cans or not, the triple dry-hopped addition of… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Akasha Brewery

And other stockists here

Akasha Project Endless Haze

Published December 4, 2020
For Akasha, much like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and the nostrils of all members of the band during the majority of the 70s and 80s, the hits just keep coming. This time it’s Endless Haze, a 4.2 percent ABV hazy pale ale. Brewed before the rebrand as a keg only release, Endless Haze has graduated to Akasha Project status and sauntered into a very fetching can in time for the start of summer. Hazy pale ales might just be the style of the 2020/21 summer, with breweries all over the country dialling… Read more
Style
Hazy Pale Ale
ABV
4.2%
Stockists

And other stockists found here

Akasha Project Cloud 9 Hazy IPA

Published November 20, 2020
I used to think I had a pretty good handle on the nomenclature of hazy/New England IPAs, but I’m not nearly as sure anymore. At one point, it seemed pretty clear cut that hazy IPAs were more or less in line with West Coast IPAs with some protein haze and a lot more cold side hopping, and NEIPAs were of the minimal bitterness variety that look and taste like fruit juice. However, lately, it feels like more and more Australian breweries are happy with calling any IPA that’s not crystal clear hazy,… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.2%

Akasha Projects Eclipse IPA

Published November 14, 2020
There’s something kind of thrilling about the official unveiling of a new hop variety. They go through an incredibly gruelling development process so, when one is finally bestowed with a name, it stands aloft on the broken and battered corpses of thousands of others that didn’t quite make the cut. Naturally, it’s gotta have something going for it, right? Eclipse has been floating around for years under the slightly less snappy moniker HPA-016, and has been spoken about in hushed tones of reverence… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
6.8%
Stockists

Akasha Brewery

And other stockists here

Akasha Projects Double Queen Red IPA

Published October 6, 2020
I think it was sometime at the end of 2012 I had my first red IPA. It was Brewtal’s Jack The RIIPA at the original Tippler’s Tap in Brisbane and I was instantly enamoured. To this day, if I ever see a red IPA on a tap list it’s going to be the first beer I get 100 percent of the time. Unfortunately, red IPAs are about as popular as the Reinheitsgebot at a GABS festival so it’s not exactly a common occurrence in 2020. If there’s one brewery I’d trust to keep the flame alive, however, it’s… Read more
Style
Double Red IPA
ABV
8.0%

Akasha Projects The Eagle IIIIPA

Published September 25, 2020
After a makeover and core range shakeup mere weeks ago, Sydney’s Akasha Brewing Co have eased into their snazzy new duds with aplomb. And what better way to really announced your new self to the world than with something that should be utterly absurd but is actually grouse? Everything about The Eagle is so obscene, I almost feel compelled to write to ABAC and tell them that not only is this beer completely unsafe for the eyes of children, I’m not even entirely sure it’s appropriate to be consumed… Read more
Style
Quadruple IPA
ABV
12.0%
Stockists

And other stockists here

Akasha Projects Double Hazy Mosaic IPA

Published September 14, 2020
When Akasha let loose their rebrand at the start of spring 2020, they also took the opportunity to adjust their core lineup, tweak a few old favourites and introduce a couple of brand new beers. In what is surely a sign of the times, consumer purchasing behaviour and, ultimately, founder Dave Padden’s love of hops, they settled on a core range that's essentially five different hoppy pale ales. And you could argue the first beer in their Akasha Projects series fits under that broad categorisation… Read more
Style
Hazy Double IPA
ABV
8.0%

Newstead & Akasha Vampyre Lovers Red IPA

Published March 16, 2020
What kind of beer would a vampire drink? It's a question that has plagued mankind (me) for much of human history (the last six minutes). And, given this little write up is specifically in relation to the Newstead Brewing Co/Akasha collaboration beer, Vampyre Lovers, it’s probably easy to jump to the conclusion that a blood-red IPA is the aperitif of choice for the blood drinking undead. However, dear reader, you may have fallen into a classic trap that I have fiendishly laid in your rather predictable… Read more
Style
Red IPA
ABV
8.0%

Akasha All Australian IPA

Published January 22, 2020
At the end of every AFL season, an illustrious panel of experts select an All Australian team. The best players in each position are given a guernsey in recognition of being the best of the best throughout the season. What if we were to adopt this tradition in the beer world? What would an All Australian beer team look like? Now, I’m a Queenslander living in Sydney and the last game of AFL I watched was when I unceremoniously leapt clear of the Lions bandwagon as it careened into a ravine that… Read more
Style
Australian IPA
ABV
6.8%

Hop Nation & Akasha East/West IPAs

Published October 21, 2019
If you were to compile a list of Aussie breweries best known for their hop forward releases, Sydney's Akasha would be up there. And, while they've diversified into many more areas of beer (and wine), Footscray's Hop Nation have a fair few hoppy beers with more than a few fans, led by their Jedi Juice NEIPA in the popularity stakes. So, when the pair decided to get together to brew a collab, it was only ever likely to go one way. Except it ended up going two ways, and not necessarily as you'd have… Read more
Style
IPAs
ABV
6.2% & 6.8%
Stockists

Akasha

Hop Nation

Forager’s Drop

Bar Josephine

Sneaky Baron

The Tap House

House of Brews

Blind Monk

More stockists...

Akasha Blacksmith Black IPA

Published May 23, 2019
It was fun for a while but at some point we just have to acknowledge what doctors have been saying for decades: “Too much juice will kill you.” And, by God, I’ve been at death's door for a while now. It may be too much to hope for but, over the last few months, drinkers have been throwing open the curtains to find that the haze blanketing IPA Town for the last two years appears to be lifting. Dave Padden and the Akasha brewing team have been releasing finely honed IPA variants since the brewery's… Read more
Style
Black IPA
ABV
6.8%

Akasha Canada Bay Ale

Published March 22, 2019
An Australian pale ale named after a foreign lands? Sounds a bit iffy. But it's not, as this beer isn’t named for the Great White North, but for a suburb in Sydney’s Inner West where French Canadian rebels ended up when they were deported in 1838 (along with a couple of Irish for good measure). Convicts being sent to sunnier climes – it doesn’t get much more Australian than that. With their neighbouring suburb in mind, Akasha brewed Canada Bay Ale as an easy-drinking favourite for the locals.… Read more
Style
Australian Pale Ale
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Toucan Tropical IPA

Published August 9, 2018
Toucan Tropical IPA is the latest limited release from the hopsmiths at Akasha and it’s hard to recall them having made one that’s so darn user friendly. The general idea behind it was to make something that looked like a classic American IPA and had the requisite high hop fruitiness, but with an atypically low bitterness. And you’d be hard pressed to argue they didn’t nail the brief with a beer that’s a delightful melange of tropical and stone fruits, a supple salad mix that seems to… Read more
Style
Tropical IPA
ABV
6.8%

Akasha Lupulin Fog

Published July 20, 2018
Cast your mind back a year or two. It’s not that long but in some ways a lifetime, and certainly so in the swift moving beer world. It was a simpler time, one when extreme murkiness in an IPA was likely to be perceived more as a fault than a fad. How times have changed. Few are the breweries that haven’t toyed with a "hazy" New England style IPA. When Akasha unfurled its Lupulin Fog at the 2017 GABS festival there were few local versions of the style. Here was a super fruity beer strikingly… Read more
Style
NEIPA
ABV
8.5%

Akasha The Mountain & Sequoia

Published July 6, 2018
Ever found yourself standing at a bar or bottleshop stuck in an infinite loop of indecision: am I in the mood for a pale ale or IPA? Akasha figured the conundrum presented a legitimate gap in the market so they’ve decided to plug it with The Mountain, a strong pale ale. This is every bit an Akasha beer. In other words, it’s clean and hoppy as hell. Relatively light in colour, they’ve worked their customary magic on the malt front to give it the kind of strong base which can stand up to a cavalcade… Read more
Style
Strong Pale Ale & American Stout
ABV
6.2% & 6.0%

Akasha Red Kelly Red IPA

Published May 24, 2018
Having first appeared earlier in the year as a one-off small batch release created on their pilot system, Akasha’s Red Kelly has now been picked for promotion to full scale production. It’s the first red IPA they’ve done on any sort of scale and, by the bottom of a glass, you’re left wondering what took them so long. The aroma is immediately inviting, fuelled by the big American hops which are there in an abundance of citrus and sumptuous tropical fruit characters. But, unlike a regular… Read more
Style
Red IPA
ABV
7.0%

Akasha Black IPA

Published August 4, 2017
For IPA Day 2017, Akasha did what it does best: released an IPA. The difference to the norm is that this one is a black one. With brewery founder Dave Padden professing a love for all things West Coast USA and hoppy in nature, he’s a bit fussy about what constitutes a “proper” black IPA. His contention is that many brewers have the right intention but perhaps approach from the wrong angle, focusing too much on the malt and colour and ending up with a a dark beer that too closely resembles a… Read more
Style
Black IPA
ABV
7.0%

Akasha American Stout

Published July 20, 2017
It’s long been customary, when winter arrives, for breweries to release a dark beer of some kind. There’s just something about all those extra malt characters – the richness, the sweetness and the roast – that serve as comfort to the cold when you sip away at them nice and slow. But malt has never really been what Akasha is about. They use plenty of malt, of course – and are as fussy as any brewer about the kinds they use – but their beers are ultimately designed to put hops on a pedestal.… Read more
Style
American Stout
ABV
6.0%

Akasha Wooden Leg IIIPA

Published April 12, 2017
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… Read more
Style
Triple IPA
ABV
10.3%

Akasha Brewing Single Hop Series: Centennial

Published March 30, 2017
Would it surprise you in the slightest to learn that Akasha’s latest limited release is an IPA? If so, it really shouldn’t; they don’t brew real ale. Sours are out. They’re not into witbiers – though they once brewed a stout. These guys do hoppy beers and only hoppy beers. Fortunately, they tend to do them rather well. That was certainly the case with the first two beers in the Single Hop series, a line of limited release IPAs that uses the same 7.2 percent ABV base beer (also, incidentally,… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA
ABV
7.2%

Akasha The Angry @$#% XPA

Published February 17, 2017
What should you do when your brewing equipment, mid brew, becomes so jammed with hops that the most likely result of your toil appears to be a ruined beer whose only fate seems to await down the nearest drain? You’d probably do what comes naturally: sweat and swear, channel your inner Hulk and let your anger loose. That’s more or less the story behind Akasha’s Angry @$#%, except, for all the distress and despair, the beer actually turned out fine. Better than fine, in fact. It’s an XPA,… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
6.6%

Akasha Fire Within (Retired)

Each of Akasha’s four core beers have been created to represent one of the four key elements. Hopsmith is earth, Tradewind is air, Freshwater is obvious and that leaves us with the Fire Within. So why should Akasha’s American amber ale be considered the fiery one? Perhaps it’s something to do with malts being dried in a kiln and this is the maltiest beer of the range. Perhaps it’s a reference to the beer’s roaring copper colour. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for the fervour that burns inside… Read more
Style
Amber Ale
ABV
5.8%
Bitterness
45 IBU

Akasha Tradewind Lager (Retired)

Of the beers that form Akasha’s core range, you’d have to say Tradewind is the surprise package. Brewer Dave’s preference for hop-dominant beer styles is well known so it’s hard to imagine a lager having formed an important part of the brewery’s plans. And it may never have were it not for the team making the effort to ask what kind of beer their customers – in this case publicans – would like to see. The resounding answer was a craft lager, thus Tradewind became the first new beer… Read more
Style
New World Lager
ABV
4.4%
Bitterness
25 IBU

Akasha Korben D IIPA

In this age of rampant consumerism and unending self entitlement we, as one of the world’s more privileged societies, have come to expect everything all of the time – and we damn well expect it to be good, too. So when you can't get something you want, you get angry; there are surely a hundred others out there prepared to serve your need for immediate satisfaction. But there can be such pleasure, such reward, in being made to wait. And that, albeit with a little less exuberance, is the general… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.5%
Bitterness
80 IBU