We had the pleasure of running into Luke the brewer of Epic Pale Ale from New Zealand thanks to Twitter. Thanks to Twitter – that’s a whole other ‘power of social media’ post one day – we managed to track him down at the Market Porter next to Borough Market. He’s been over in the UK brewing a guest ale for the upcoming JD Wetherspoon beer festival next month. Being a friendly kiwi he immediately gave a bottle of Epic Pale Ale to take home to try. This beer is not available anywhere in the UK – yet. He also let slip he’d be back at The Rake for small tasting the next day.
Of course the next day we headed out on a small raid of the Rake in the hopes we’d get to try Epic with the brew master. Lady luck was on our side and we got to try two Epic’s – the Pale Ale and season brew the Mayhem. Here’s a brief review and ranking of both…
| “the facts” | Epic Pale Ale | Epic Mayhem |
| Style | pale ale | IPA’-esk |
| ABV | 5.4% | 6.2% |
| Bottle Size | 330ml | 500ml |
| Origin | Auckland, New Zealand | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Notes | arrived by way of Luke’s luggage on Air New Zealand. | Sweeter than a normal IPA but very apple-hop tones. |
| “the ranking” | 0-5 for each | 0-5 for each |
| Nose | 3 | 4 |
| Appearance | 4.5 | 5 |
| Taste | 3.5 | 4 |
| Finish | 3 | 4 |
| Total | 14/20 | 17/20 |
We are looking forward to the Epic UK mashup brew at the Weatherspoons festival and also to following more adventures of @epicbeer on Twitter. Be sure to visit the Epic website and blog for more info on these great beer from New Zealand.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
@Doc D,
To be fair, you had said the Mayhem was first and big and lovely.
I’d be keen to see what you think next time you try it, maybe pitting it up against the Thornbridge Kipling!
April 16th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Ok, fair enough. btw – Epic on tap is pretty sweet.