Hop Zombie was arguably New Zealand's most successful craft beer release of 2011. With its invasion, Epic continued to push the hop envelope. Ravaging hordes of craft beer drinkers scoured the shelves of every bottle they could find, hunting them down via word of mouth and social media in what one could only compare to preparation for a coming apocalypse. Unfortunately, the supply of top secret special hops for this highly aromatic beer were exhausted - not only at the brewery but on the whole planet!! No one had any. Not only had the hops run out, but the next...

Epic Apocalypse Black IPA will start rolling out this week in bottle. So why a Black IPA? When this style started becoming popular in the USA I become fascinated by the style, which at the time was being referred to as a Cascadian Dark Ale (named after the Cascade mountain range, which also gave its name to the hop, because the beer style was being made in Oregon.) In 2009 we started bottling Armageddon IPA. The same year, Apocalypse was brewed for the first time. The key behind making a Black IPA is to keep all the hop aroma and...

How many hops can you fit into a bottle of beer? Does fifty seem like too many? Most of the beer produced in New Zealand today uses the equivalent of less than one hop per bottle. Auckland’s Epic Brewing Company have done exactly the opposite and utilised this intensely perfumed flower to the greatest of their ability. Epic, founded by Luke Nicholas in 2006, is known for its big hoppy beers, especially their Epic Pale Ale and the boldly hopped Epic Armageddon IPA. They’ve now taken hoppiness to a whole new level with their new double IPA, the Hop Zombie....

An Epic beer label generally has inside jokes, references to popular culture and memes (we like to have fun, be a bit silly, but clever at the same time. Tasting notes aren't always that valuable, as it is so subjective, and you can find plenty of peoples thoughts about taste online on beer rating websites.) ** EPIC MOSAIC IPA **FRONT OF LABEL “One Trick Pony” was a comment made by Phil Cook, Beer Writer of the Year 2012 in a blog post about the fact Epic only brews hoppy beers.“One Trick Pony” was appropriate for this beer (Zythos at the time) as...

Blog Post by Neil Miller from The Malthouse Blog In 450BC, noted toga-wearer Sophocles philosophised that the best diet for the Greeks was bread, meats, various vegetables and beer (the last of which they called Zythos). I would not be unhappy living on such fare as, to me at least, it sounds like endless ploughman’s lunches, ham sandwiches and barbeque roast boar platters, all washed down with ale. Although the Greeks invented Pythagorean Theorem, the Hippocratic Oath and the modern concept of drama, they most certainly did not create beer. Zythos is the Greek version of a very old Egyptian word for beer. [1]...