I made another trip out to Albuquerque New Mexico not only to visit family, but to try and find some beers I can not get back East. One of the beers I picked up comes from Epic Brewing Company in New Zealand. Their Armageddon, an American IPA, can hopefully live up to bold giant red letters on the label and creepy 6.66% ABV.

On the pour there’s a nice clean, clear copper body with an off-white head that leaves good lacing around the glass. The aroma emerges as soon as you pop the cap off the bottle, essentially it’s hops in a glass. If you really want to try and dissect the aroma over the hops, you can pick up some mellow caramel malt accents. The hop notes are predominantly citrusy in nature, but you do get some slightly herbal and floral notes too.

The taste follows the aroma with bitter citrus hops coming at you nonstop, while sweet caramel malt comes through too helping take the edge off. The back end is again filled with herbal and floral notes taken from the Centennial hops. The body was medium-bodied with plenty carbonation, essentially what I look for in a single IPA.

The Armageddon IPA was a very easy drinking beer for your average hop-head and was enjoyable to say the least. I feel obligated to dock it a few points as it does not quite meet the “Epic” standard that I was anticipating. With that being said this is a wonderful IPA with many great qualities, and if there is one thing to take away from this beer, the Kiwis can make an impressive American-style IPA.

Rating

93
out of 100