Double Queen Red IPA by Akasha Brewing

This week we return to the usual blog fare of great beers and cool breweries I’ve come across in my travels and searches through local bottle shops.  And the first beer back comes to us from Sydney’s Inner West with a first appearance from Akasha Brewing: Double Queen Red IPA.

Double Queen had been recommended to me a while back so I’d been keeping my eye out for it.  However, it’s proved to not be the easiest of beers to track down.  I finally found one on a recent work trip up to Port Macquarie.  And it was worth the wait.

I’ve written about quite a few red IPA’s on this blog.  And there have been some good ones from Captial’s Evil Eye to Modus Operandi’s Former Tennant to the Dark Red IPA from Six String just to name a couple at random.  By all means feel free to go back and peruse those other red IPA’s if you feel so inclined.  The point being, I love a red IPA.  As my good friend Weeksy once put it: ‘if I had to choose only one type of beer for the rest of my life, I’d kill myself.  And as I waited for the poison to take effect, I’d drink a red IPA’.

And this red IPA, in particular, is a damn good one.  It’s probably the most balanced and the smoothest red IPA I’ve ever tried.  I tend to like my red IPA’s with a bit more of a hoppy bite, but Double Queen may well change my mind.  The depth of flavour is brilliant.  Caramelly and rich rolling smoothly into a hoppiness that almost sneaks up on you at the end.  Again, I often prefer a bit of a hoppier hit with my red IPA’s but this just works so well exactly as it is. The marriage of the red maltiness and the hoppy after taste is seamless. This is a very well made beer.

Akasha is a brewery that has slipped through the cracks of the blog for a little while now.  But they’ve certainly made an impression with their first appearance on the blog.  Double Queen Red IPA is an absolute cracker of a beer.  If I find it again, I’m definitely buying it again.