Beavertown Brewery
8 Ball Rye IPA
6.5%
Hackney, London, UK

Founded in 2011 in Hackney, it’s named Beavertown because centuries ago Hackney was apparently called Beavertown. I previously gave Gamma Ray a glowing review here, with an overall of 5, probably one of the highest reviews thus far. How would the Rye IPA compare? Pretty fucking well.

As most people are aware beer is made with four main ingredients including malt, water, hops and grain. Of course the 8 Ball includes all of that but the difference being that the malt has a mixture of rye and traditional American hops like cascade, columbus and citra. The Beavertown website states, “Mash up of spicy Rye and zesty Hops. One of our first recipes that made it out the kitchen.”

Let’s not fuck about, this is an incredible beer. One of the finest I’ve ever tasted and you can really taste the craft (sorry) that’s gone into making it. Clearly made with some of the best ingredients available at 6.2% it packs a punch; although you can’t deal, which is the beauty. It has almost a caramel aroma to it and the taste is both sweet yet bitter. It’s an absolute pleasure to experience beer that tastes so good. In my opinion Beavertown are leading the way for UK craft beer right now.

They have everything right. The branding, the ethos but most importantly the beers. I can’t recommend the 8 Ball highly enough. Well, actually I can, with these scores:

BITTER: 3
SWEET: 3
DESIGN: 4
OVERALL: 5