Harrington's Brewer's Selection IPA

Harrington's brewery is another one of those breweries which has actually been around for a while (since 1991) but is now able to ride the craft brewing wave. If you check out their photos on their website you can see that these aren't young upstarts, they have been at it for a while. My latest bottle out of my Beer Cellar box is a bottle of Harrington's Brewer's Selection IPA. Harrington's is in Christchurch, the most English of New Zealand Cities. Despite its name, the Indian Pale Ale is a very English beer. However, many New Zealand and American brewers see it as an opportunity to fill an IPA full of hops and call it an APA (Aotearoa/American respectively). Don't get me wrong, those beers have their place and there are many that I very much enjoy. Nonetheless it is great to drink some of the  more subtle flavours that you get in British Real Ale. Harrington's seem to have followed this older line of thinking when they created their IPA. They even say on their label that their aim is to go beyond the hop and create balanced brews. That is exactly what they have delivered. It has a nice golden colour to it. There is definitely the taste of hops there but they work with the other flavours in the beer to give you a nice balanced taste, that doesn't leave you feeling like the hops have beaten up the other flavours. Overall it is as close as I have found to an English beer from an NZ brewery. Well done. Very drinkable.