If you haven't already figured out, hops are a really important part of what we do at Epic. We love the flavours that hops give beer, and we put a lot of effort in selecting the right types of hops, as well as how we use them. Luke will be heading to Yakima soon to select our hops from the 2017 US Hop Harvest. Here's a fun fact for you: Epic has used more aroma hops than any other brewery in NZ in the last ten years. I had a chat with Ed Jefferies, Epic Production Manager, on the subject of hops....

We have released some absolutely cracking IPA's so far this year. The feedback has been truly overwhelming. We have decided to use this feedback as inspiration for our latest beer, Static. Static has a double meaning in this case. It refers to the constant noise we receive from fans about our incredible beers, and also static means to stay the same. The same as in making another amazingly hop forward IPA. This beer has been made by taking the best parts of MAGIC DUST and HOP HARVESTER to create another beer that will be a massive hit with fans of...

LUKE NICHOLAS on "Has New Zealand reached 'peak beer'?" Read full Stuff article here. Starting out as an assistant brewing for a new brewpub in Auckland in 1997, the challenge was to get people to drink a beer from other than one of the two big breweries. In 2007, when launching Epic, the challenge was to get a newly bottled craft beer stock on the shelves of supermarkets and liquor stores. In just 10 years, it has gone from desperately trying to convince a retailer that they should stock a craft beer, to all the shelf space being competed for and...

Over the last few days, a lot of people have asked Luke why we haven't got a stand at the Beervana festival this year. Here's Luke's response: This is the first year ever that Epic doesn't have a stand at Beervana. I love Beervana. I've been involved since 2002 when the first seed of Beervana was planted. This was even before Epic existed when I was brewing at Steam Brewing Company for the Cock & Bull pubs and also establishing realbeer.co.nz. Back then some of us in the fledgeling NZ craft brew industry came together to create the first competition...

PRECISION OF THE EQUINOXES Was there a lost civilisation before a cataclysmic event that resulted in the great deluge? Did the surviving few transfer their knowledge in plain sight to the geometry of the megalithic structures positioned around the planet? Are we a species with collective amnesia? Have we always had the answer? About the beer: ABV: 8.9% IBU: 70 FIND ON UNTAPPD About the beer: When making a big beer like this, it takes some pretty big ideas that challenge the mind as well as the tongue. Luke has been reading a lot of work by author Graham Hancock,...