BLACK HAMMER

What’s the most important stage of the brewing process? They all matter, of course, but the most crucial to how your beer turns out may not occur during the brewday at all. Neither is it fermentation; also vital but teach the yeast to eat and they will reward you in their own time. No, the critical moment in brewing is the conditioning stage, and more specifically knowing when a beer is ready for release; at the peak of its flavour and in a perfect state.

You can take our word for it – or you can try Black Hammer.

You can buy Black Hammer here

Yes, our second Hammer Head release has aced each and every taste panel over the last few days; it is absolutely ready to go – so we are releasing it a couple of weeks early to pass on the impeccable flavour profile to you. How brewers judge when a beer is at its peak is the art that can make or break the science of brewing. And this holds dearer for hoppy beers than pretty much anything else. Our black IPA has achieved the exact balance of hopload and malt backbone, so we aren’t waiting any longer.

The Hammer Head series exists to showcase the flavour changes a single twist in a recipe can yield. They all start down the same path that would eventually lead to our ruthless IPA Jack Hammer, before that lone addition or tweak is deployed. Following on from varying the yeast to create Monk Hammer, we have tweaked the malt bill to bring you this second piledriver. Black Hammer revels in the addition of highly kilned Carafa dark malt, adding colour and a deep roasty edge to our IPA.

This simple brewday variation has resulted in a fundamental change in our canned crusader; the dark addition furnishes the beer with a second peak of flavour – bitter, roasty coffee – to jut against and interplay with the citrus, pine and resin on show. The roasty malt element brings a different kind of bitterness, amplifying the grapefruit and pine resin and adding espresso and dark chocolate. It is a truly fascinating experiment, resulting in a devastatingly bitter black IPA.

Black Hammer is live now in our online shop, in cans and is already pouring across our network of UK Bars! It will be followed by the third Hammer Head – the spice-laden Chilli Hammer, and the series will round out the year with a perfect winter warmer in the shape of Rye Hammer. Before that, though, let us know in the comments below what you think of Jack Hammer’s dark and mysterious cousin!