Puddle Maker by Last Rites

In between weeks in which I do accounts of brewery visits, I am going to be sharing one of my favourite beers. The first beer I’d like to share with everyone is the Puddle Maker Imperial Red Ale from Last Rites Brewing Company in Hobart.

Last Rites is one of my absolute favourite breweries at the moment (stay tuned for a full brewery visit review in the coming weeks) and this beer is easily my favourite one they do.  I don’t have a locked down top 10 favourite beers list as such, but I definitely have a pretty good idea of a few of the beers that would likely be involved, and this is 100% one of them.

It’s an imperial red and comes in at a hefty 10% ABV so you know right away it’s going to have some punch.  And boy it does not disappoint.  Right away there is a massive hit of not only hoppiness, but of maltiness as well.  That double-barrelled smash of flavour is why I think I’d have to rate the red IPA/imperial red/hoppy red genre of beer as my absolute favourite.

This is straight up a fantastic beer.  It genuinely makes me wish I knew more of the slightly wankier beer tasting terms to better convey just how good it is.  But I’ll settle for re-iterating that this a big beer with huge amounts of hops and maltiness.

But now comes the bad news.  Upon a recent visit to the brewery in Hobart, I found out that Puddle Maker was a limited run and will be very hard to find.  Upon receipt of this information, I promptly went to my local craft beer bottle shop and bought every can they had.  Hence, if you’re lucky enough to find it, BUY IT (and maybe drop me a line to let me know if there are any left after that).  But if you can’t find it, give the other Last Rites beers a try.  They will also be featured at some point in this blog as well, but feel free to jump ahead a bit, don’t wait for me.