Herevana – North End – Fortitude

North End Fortitude. A Winter IPA. On a Sunday. On a Sunday when my Daughter, after a few weeks at home, left again to got back to Australia and her own home. This doesn’t get easier with time.

But there is happiness everywhere and opportunity abounds. I’ve had a bit of a splurge on beers, but it turns out I’ve either brought IPA’s and Stouts. So much for trying a bit of this and bit of that.

So I have this and the the that is of course some blue cheese, some Brie and some fixings.

North End Brewing Co make the North End Fortitude in  Waikanae Beach, Wellington, 🇳🇿 New Zealand which is an IPA – Rye of 6.7% this 440ml can is 2.4 standard drinks in NZ.

A lovely sharp bitterness on the aroma which is also quite sweet. The pour is lovely, that deep shiny brown with a magnificence of foamy head.

You can use the words piney, resinous, grassy, and they would not be out of place, but they are not quite right when you use them with this beer, you might have to preface them with ‘slightly’.

This is quite an unusual beer for the flavours that it unfolds and there is a lot to unpick from the lovely unassuming softness to that towards dry and full stop thud at the end. It is a lovely journey and leads you to quaffing rather than contemplation.

The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 on the arbitrary number scale. 8 is Great. It’s more 8.5 but I don’t do fractions. 8 is worthy though. This is surprisingly easy drinking really tasty good looking beer. I really enjoyed it.

Music: From 1982 – the Band ‘Orange Juice’ the album ‘ You can’t hide your love forever’

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.

Brewed in the muscular West Coast tradition , Fortitude combines rye malt , and a dash of crystal malt with a shed load of piny oldschool US hops to create a hop head winter warmer.

Brewers Notes

IPA – Rye

The Rye India Pale Ale (IPA), also seen as RyePA or RIPA, is a decidedly hoppy and bitter, moderately strong medium gold to light reddish-amber American IPA, showcasing modern American and New World hop varieties and rye malt. The balance is hop-forward, with a clean fermentation profile, dry finish, and clean, supporting malt allowing a creative range of hop character to shine through. Rye malt character should be noticeable and contributes to a dry finish. Drier and slightly spicier than an American IPA. Bitterness and spiciness from rye lingers longer than an American IPA. Does not have the intense rye malt character of a Roggenbier. “Imperial” and “Session” variants are generally closer-related to the base substyle and should be listed with them