Hopful Thinking

Nestled in the natural beauty that is the Coromandel Peninsula, just a few short hours drive from Auckland, there is a brewery known simply as the Coromandel Brewing Company. Neil Vowles has been brewing beer since his student days.  In the 80’s good beer in the UK was hard to come by; this combined with a student budget made brewing his own an attractive option.  His passion for brewing carried on as a hobby until moving to the Coromandel in 2008, and finding a lack of craft beers in the area.  The solution was obvious – start a small brewery and fill the void!

(more…)

Tigers. Balls of Twine. Pyramids. Waimea Bay Waves, Ohakune Carrots. Some things are meant to be big. Not least the Imperial Pilsener we’ve all been waiting for. Well, at least we have been here at the Hopful Thinkers. The beer we are talking about is of course, Epic Larger.

We were fortunate enough to score a couple from the lads at Epic for a wee taster. Far be it from us to refuse. So here we go.

Light in colour; white head dissipates to a lasting lace, nose reveals a fruity bouquet, smooth and wet mouthfeel, stalky red grapes, sherbety tang and a shitload of potential… The slightly bitter finish rounds it out nicely.

If you’d not read the bottle, you would have no clue it was hiding 8.5% of alcohol, I must say Larger sure goes down easy.

This is an absolutely superb example of a Pilsener. I can’t wait until it’s had a couple of weeks to open up and reveal its true colours, it’s damn good already!

For sure this will be my boozy summer afternoon beer of choice…