La Boca Double Hazy IPA by Urbanaut Brewery

This week’s beer comes from Auckland, New Zealand.  I’ve written about a few Kiwi beers previously (Garage Project and Tuatara specifically) but this is the first from Auckland. Auckland doesn’t quite have the craft beer reputation of Wellington. But this beer shows there’s some very good things happening there. It’s a fantastic Double Hazy IPA from Urbanaut called La Boca.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I found this one really enjoyable, but also very hard to put my finger on exactly why.  As I’ve mentioned previously, the whole ethos of this blog is to only write about beers I love.  If I don’t like a beer, I’m just not going to write about it.  So take the fact that La Boca is featured at all in this blog as a sign of how much I liked it, even if my descriptive powers fail me.

This beer is bitey but also malty.  It’s a rare beer that is unmistakably excellent, but that I also can’t put my finger on any single aspect of it that is really exceptionally out of the ordinary.  It’s definitely got a good hop bite, but definitely not over the top.  The malts are very strong but not massive either.  But that’s also not to say it’s bland or middle of the road, there are still some big flavours involved.  I guess that would mean what I’m trying to say (granted arriving there via a VERY roundabout route) is that it’s just a really well-balance beer.  At 7.5%, it’s got a bit of a kick as well. But you don’t really notice that all that much either, again due to the perfectly balance nature of the beer.

This would be a great beer for entry level craft beer aspirants. It’s a high-end, unmistakably tasty brew that’s done really really well. But it doesn’t hit you with some of the over-the-top big flavours that some beer drinkers can find a bit off-putting about craft beer.

La Boca doesn’t have the extreme hoppy hit of a straight double IPA like a Pirate Life or the Kumma Gutza from Little Rivers.  It’s not as fruity as some hazy’s either (Uraidla’s Sundown Sacrifice or Otherside’s DDH are good examples of those).  But again, far from being just middle of the road, La Boca just hits the mark perfectly.  It’s a balanced delicious beer that’ll definitely have me seeking out other Urbanaut offerings in the future.