Kiwis and Aussies love a winner, we love a hero, but get too big for your boots and you’ll soon be brought back to earth with a thud. “You’re good, but don’t you dare think that you are or there’ll be retribution.” Even though 8 Wired Brewing is doing beer better than most, no-one can accuse them of displaying any arrogant tall poppy traits. They go about their craft (excuse the pun) quietly and get results that get them noticed.

If this beer was a person, it’d probably be despised by the other beers that come from from low economic backgrounds, ridiculed for its snappy red dress, and teased about its floral aroma. The bogan beers would gang up and try to run it out of town for being too dark, and mock its honest, malty personality, calling it a ‘do-gooder’, ‘PC’, while continuously, perhaps deliberately, missing the point completely.

Tall Poppy doesn’t seek attention, but it surely gets it as soon as that cap pops off and releases the almost pungent fruitiness of its four hops into the atmosphere. The pour colour pleases the eye, deep and rich and red with a thick head of white sitting atop. When it hits the taste buds for the first time, it’s a not-too-subtle reminder that it isn’t a beer to be taken lightly, and the 7% kicker makes certain that you don’t.

This is not an every day/everyday beer, more like a special treat for when you’ve been good and want to really savour some flavour… it’s not “sessionable” by any means, but by the time you’ve gotten to the end of 500mls, if you’re not craving another then you may well have been desensitised by hanging out with the wrong crowd.