Beer #41 - W/C 7 December 2015
BREWERY //
Yeastie Boys is a small brewery with big prospects. Basically- they are three extremely talented blokes who are steadily working to take over the World with their always interesting beers. Yeastie Boys stay lean by contract brewing with great breweries like Invercargill Brewery in New Zealand and BrewDog in Scotland. This allows them to focus on the business of creating excellent beer without needing to operate a brewery.
2015 saw Yeastie Boys take their beers to the UK market where it has been received with open arms (and gullets). We're pretty happy about this because we have a lot of mates in England who are trying their beers and realising that New Zealand is producing some World class beers.
As well as being a bloody nice bloke, the newest Yeastie Boy, Zane, is as comfortable making 23L brews as 10,000L ones being a former national home-brew champion. We'll be hitting him up for tips for our next brew...
TASTING NOTES //
Pot Kettle Black is a special beer for me (Luke). When I moved from England to New Zealand 6 years ago, good beer was fairly hard to come by. Yeastie Boys' hoppy porter was a revelation and made me realise that I would not have to return to the old country or, worse, switch to drinking wine. Not content with creating one of my favourite beers, Yeastie Boys 'remix' this iconic beer each year with previous versions seeing PKB aged in Pinot Noir Barrels or the addition of bumper hops. The 2015 remix is more of a mash-up between PKB and another of breweries' headline beers- Gunnamatta, an Earl Grey IPA. The malt base of Dark Matta is more like a pale ale than porter with a little caramel malt and dehusked dark malt which give it an impenetrable black hue and a rich malt character which is more subdued than classic PKB. The hops add pine flavours and bitterness. A 'big load' of Earl Grey tea is included with substantial 'dry teaing' meaning that the beer retains the aromatic properties of the tea. The bergamot orange in the tea pairs beautifully with subtle dark chocolate flavours in the malt. The hops and tea are especially prominent in the nose.
BREWERY // Yeastie Boys
BEER // Dark Matta. PKB Remix 2015
STYLE // Black Earl Grey IPA
ORIGIN // Invercargill
ABV // 7.5%
TEMPERATURE // Cool - 7-10C
FOOD MATCH // Almond Butter & Marmalade on Toast. Grilled Venison. Terry's Chocolate Orange
GLASS // IPA Glass, Pilsner Glass
Beer Style Blog - Read more about beer styles over on the BLOG.