Beer – #972 – Garage Project – DIPK
Garage Project DIPK, one of the ‘Silk Road‘ series of beers. Lovely bit of artwork and interesting and different twists on familiar beers. Garage Project always thinking ahead.
lovers do not despair
This is a 500ml bottle of a beer that is 7.5% ABV, making it about 225 calories a serve, this is about 3.8 standard drinks in NZ.
Brewed by Garage Project This is in the style that is a India Style Lager and they are in Wellington, New Zealand
A Fight of Fantasy
Hop lovers do not despair – we’ve stretched credulity to its limits to bring you a hoppy treat 400 years before the first IPA took to the seas.
To do this we’ve brewed DIPK – double India pale Kölsch, a fantasy beer that asks what would happen if brewers of this traditional German ale made it stronger and dry hopped it in barrel to make it travel better?
Could it be the kind of brew to slake the thirst of travellers when they finally arrived in the markets of Europe?
So, What could possibly go wrong?
Hoppy hoppy aroma on opening, then something softer.
in the glass the aroma is much more to Kölsch style, soft but green hop tartness. The pour is a hazy yellow with a head that was big and firm that falls to a smaller but firm version of a stark whiteness. Looks lovely.
Oh I say that’s interesting. The aroma is tart grass hops, like a Kölsch might be, then the taste is bitter like a bitter, but not wildly or dangerously, just full in the middle of this, surprising and pleasing. Looks brilliant hazy pale yellow with a lovely stark white head on top.
The familiar unusual. This has a surprising amount of bitterness but whilst it is sharp it isn’t insistent, and folds out to a dryness at the finish, There’s a lot of softness in there too, a pillow or cushion for that.
Did I say unusual?
I didn’t however say that this is beer that might not have a lot of legs, and becomes much more a harsher lager type of beer, that softness just not strong enough to carry this over the distance, falling away.
It’s also a beer that seems to get more aggressive as it warms, and be honest it’s only a few minutes in the glass since, but it’s like a different level of bitter.
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 of its things from the thing. It is a lovely looking beer, it has soft unassuming aroma, and a sledgehammer of bitterness that wasn’t really expected, but it’s not daunting or demanding, There is a lovely softness that flows in this and the dryness of the finish is a reminder of loveliness. It was then I discovered that this beer became a slightly different prospect and finishes the glass as quite a brash hopped up lager thing. Not a bad thing, but it shrugged off that softness and carried on like a thug.
The double dip review
- Where did I get it? The local Liquorland had them
- Am I enjoying it? Yes, it’s unusual and interesting.
- Would I have another? Yes I would, be interesting on tap.
- Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? I would because this has a strange two face, the lovely lager looking bitter IPA beer, you get a bit of both together and each has a bit to say and the both is a smile on the tongue.
Music for this: You and Me Against the World by Egil Olsen on Spotify
“one of Norway’s very best songwriters”.
