Name: Temple Brewing Company Anytime IPA

Style: IPA

Country: Australia

ABV: 4.7%

Beer description: 

Temple Brewing Company comes out of Brunswick East in Melbourne. They’re a smaller brewery but, as they say there, they “worship beer” and obviously put quite a bit of care into their brewing.

The Anytime IPA is designed as a session IPA. Session IPAs can be a difficult beer. They’re designed to be low enough in alcohol and easy drinking enough to have a few, but still be big and bold enough to taste and feel like a proper IPA. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, they either push the alcohol too much to be a sessionable beer; they lack the big flavours expected in an IPA; or the flavours simply aren’t balanced enough. With that in mind, we’ll see how Temple Brewing did trying to make a session IPA.

At first glance, this is an excitable beer. It poured very rigorously with a ton of light and airy head. On the pour, even at arm’s length, this beer is pretty fragrant, so that’s a good sign. The colour of this beer is the typical darker shade of tan seen in other IPAs, even though this one is lighter in alcohol. So at least they got the colour right.

While on the side of the bottle, Temple describes this beer as reminiscent of of classic IPAs, the aroma is absolutely packed with pine and grape fruit, more reminiscent of a classic American IPA. Admittedly though, it was hard to tell what they meant by the word “classic.” There’s not a lot of malt in the aroma, which isn’t surprising considering they were trying to keep the alcohol down on this beer. All in all, while it’s a very fragrant beer, it’s coming exclusively from the pine, grape fruit, and citrus. A “proper” (read non-session IPA) generally has a bit of malt and sweetness in the aroma.

This hoppiness continues in the taste of the beer and the bitterness is all in all very dominant. As with the aroma, there isn’t a lot of malt in the taste of the beer. Unfortunately it makes the beer lack body a little bit and it’s a little bit on the thin end of things. That’s the thing with adding so much hops to a beer: it needs malt to sit on to balance everything out. There’s not much flavour interaction happening in this beer, and it’s just a simple bitterness: and a lot of bitterness at that. Sparks of lemon come through, but there’s none of the sweetness to provide relief that is so good in a nice IPA.

Because of this, Temple have done a pretty good job at make a simple bitter beer for the hop heads who just want that kick without the high alcohol. Getting the alcohol all the way down to 4.7% without having all that hop oil thin out the beer too much from lack of malt is pretty good. There’s not a ton of body here, but it’s not entirely lacking.

Go with this beer if you want a bitter beer without the weight or alcohol.

Drink when: As it’s pretty light in alcohol and body, this beer would go well in the heat or on the beach.

Drink with: This feels like an easy pub beer. It’s a session beer, so have a few on their own.

Rating to style/intention – 5/10: It’s sessionable, but it’s not really an IPA. It’s got the bitterness but lacks the depth of flavour to really give it that IPA feel. It feels more a hopped up American pale ale.

Rating on sessionability – 8.5/10: Nice and low in alcohol and not too heavy. While bitter, the bitterness doesn’t dwell too much and makes for surprisingly easy drinking.

Rating on complexity – 6/10: This beer is lacking the complexity that an IPA needs. It’s all just big hops and bitterness and not a lot of depth.

General rating – 6/10: It’s a good beer but it’s not really an IPA. It’s too hoppy for an American pale ale which just leaves it confused and too much. If you like lots of bitterness, this beer is for you. If you want an IPA, have an IPA.

Overall rating and summary – 6.38/10: A good craft beer that’s worth trying. Not quite a proper IPA, but still a nice beer.

Temple Brewing Company Anytime IPA:

6.38/10