Name: Yeastie Boys Digital IPA

Style: IPA

Country: New Zealand 

ABV: 7.0%

Beer description: Yeastie Boys are a New Zealand craft brewery who have had a fairly quick rise to fame, mostly because they make some pretty good beer. The Digital IPA is a limited release that is “all about malts and hops.” For those extremely keen, Yeastie Boys have decided to make this beer open source and have released the recipe here.

The Digital IPA has a nice pour to it. There’s not much head, but that often doesn’t matter. It was expected that the beer would be quite a bit darker, it’s really a light amber. It’s also quite crisp and clear.

There’s a lot of biscuit in the smell here. It’s nice that the brewers have remembered the malt aspect of an IPA. There’s some caramel in there as well and a basic sweetness and a general dough smell. In the hops, there’s the familiar citrus, but not the citrus found in many American style IPAs. This is a much fresher citrus aroma with hints of tropical fruits. It’s crisp.

At the front of the beer is a small amount of sourness; it’s very minor. It’s actually pretty light on the body, bordering on thin. A little extra body in this beer would have been welcome actually. However, the general lightness here works well with the fruitiness of the hops, but it just feels like a beer that needs to be chewed on.

The hop bitterness doesn’t hit at the back as it usually does, but the side of the mouth. There’s a fair amount of bitterness here, but hops doesn’t always mean bitter, it can mean fruit, floral, spice, and much more. This is more of a fruit driven beer and many berries, particularly strawberry, can be found at the end of this beer.

This is a pretty good beer, but nothing to get too excited about. There’s a lot of tropical fruits right through the beer, and it would be nice if it took a bit of a turn somewhere but nothing else really jumps out.

Check out other IPA reviews.

Check out other reviews of Yeastie Boys beers.

And for those not in the know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. Find out why it’s called IPA.