Beer - #152 - 8 Wired - Tall Poppy India Red Ale

Back to something from a more established NZ brewery - the 8 Wired Tall Poppy India Red Ale - 8 Wired Brewing which is brewed at Renaissance Brewing, this one in the style of a  Amber Ale
and they're in Blenheim, New Zealand.

500ml bottle, 7% ABV, thats 2.8 Standard drink units, and 60 IBU's so at the lower end for IPA .... stand by for incoming......

Tall Poppy - India Red Ale This is an ale that is not afraid of standing tall among other great beers. The intense, sharp and fruity hoppiness is backed by its complex, caramel-like malty structure. Big, yet refreshing. Bold but balanced. This beer has been designed to have it all, to be the greatest common denominator.

Love the play on words they manage.

This sounds like the business but this is s brewer who takes risks and has delivered a mixed bag, in my opinion.

The immediate hop aroma is really nice, not ones I'm familiar with (Warrior, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo) Fantastic dark red colour, reasonable head,  and that fantastic aroma, almost spicy.

There's a mouthful of flavour too, caramel malts, backed with a fair hit of bitterness.

If anything this ends a little "dry" in the mouth, but there isn't a lot to tell you you're drinking a reasonably strong beer by way of alcohol astringent.

In the glass, given a few minutes, this really begins to bloom and blossom. this might be that I'm a bit over average beers in my enthusiasm, but this light up a lot of buttons on the pdubyah-o-meter. It could be that I'm comfortable with the bitterness that this delivers, or the way that the caramel and malt combine with the whole to make a nice.

The pdubyah-o-meter says 8.5, which makes this a fair decent beer. I'm happily necking this like there is no tomorrow, and I'll suddenly realise that there is only the one, and this is it.

For all it's good points I didn't get a head, I get no lacing, and if anything it's under hopped. It's easily drinkable, and if I was where this was on tap I'd be more than happy to pull up a barstool order me some fries and have a another, or two.

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