Herevana – Eagle – Eagle10
It”s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas … and I’m, somewhat rashly, kicking off with a banger of a beer, at 10% ABV, and 2.1 drinks in a bottle, what could go wrong?
Eagle Brewing NZ have made Eagle10 in the lovely 🇳🇿 Kaiapoi, New Zealand, in the style that is of a Quadrupel / Abt with that 10.0% ABV and 2.1 drink payload.
I’ve seen a review that simply said ” A serious contender for the most authentic quad brewed in New Zealand.” and on that basis I sought this out, not that I would have gone past it, since it’s a beer in the want style of mine. Then I found out that the BeerJerkNZ beer club also had this in my subscription box, to my amazement and delight, so I get to ride this rodeo twice.
Malty and strong, with complex dark fruit esters brought to the fore by the authentic yeast from a renowned Belgian monastery brewery.
I really like the little touches, like the little sticky tab from the bottle over the crown cap, it makes it look like a beer that deserves respect, something that they’ve gone to a little more effort over.
There’s not a lot in the aroma at opening on this, it’s a deep malt a faint hint of banana. The pout is lovely dark wooden hue and what little head there was fades to a whisper of a film.
The Aroma in the glass is loud, and there’s hints banana, an alcohol tang, and toffee. It seems to be going well.
For me there’s a lot of carbonation in this, an, again, for me, that’s quite a palate distraction, but when you’ve pushed through that you get to a warm malt heavy curtain followed by some lovely familiar notes.
But having pushed through you’d hope for some more richness, more of those steeped fruits, toffee notes, stickiness and perhaps a little burn of that alcohol at the end.
This is an absolute gem of a find in New Zealand, a style that only a confident brewer would attempt, the meek would avoid. It’s very bold and very very close to being on the next rung of the ladder of greatness. The pdubyah-o-meter though only managed an 8 of the arbitrary things. I’m not an expert in how to age beers in bottles, or indeed if I leave the other one in the fridge that it’ll change, improve or just sit at the back seemingly unloved. I might just leave it a while and revisit this in a while.
Herevana beers are those I drink at home, I’m not at some beer festival, like, for instance, Beervana, but am just in my kitchen, usually, dining room table, sometimes, or outside, occasionally, where I can take an average picture and write in real time about the beer that I’ve invested in, both in a monetary and emotional way.
Philip himself.
A life just as ordinary 