Orkney IPA

As we’ve said before, we’re big fans of Orkney here on the BeerCast (not least panellist Grooben who grew up there), and the ales that come from that part of the world, courtesy of Sinclair Orkney and Highland. Rob Hill started off at the first, and then left to found the second. It’s been a tremendous few weeks for the Swannay brewery, recently winning the Champion Beer of Scotland with Orkney Blast. Of course, Dark Munro won in 2007 and Scapa Special in 2008 [Sinclair got their own back in 2009 when Raven Ale got the gong], the islands are dominating the beer festivals. Bottled beers have become more and more important for Highland, having released their first batch in 2004. I’ve managed to track down most of them, until finding Orkney IPA (4.8%) in one of our local Edinburgh-area bottle shops (probably having been hand-delivered by Rob’s son Lewis).

The label isn’t short of superlatives, advertising “A world-class IPA”, and “A stunningly hopped modern IPA”. It’s extremely pale and golden, with a bustling initial fizz that totally disperses within thirty seconds. The aroma is really eye-opening – massive tropical fruit, with only some hops, and a touch of citrus. The taste is sweet hops, with a slightly building dry finish that pushes into a long hop aftertaste. This is the best part of the flavour – the incredibly fruity mango start is pretty sweet for an IPA, which is probably also due to the sub 5%abv not supplying an alcohol kick. But the back end saves it, and that refreshing aftertaste makes it a very good session beer indeed.