DEYA - Routine Bites Hard

In collaboration with Craft Metropolis, Chris Bilko reviews DEYA’s first ever Triple IPA – sign up to their newsletter for the latest craft beer news, reviews and releases from the London based indie craft beer specialists.

Routine Bites Hard is the first ever Triple IPA from the independent Cheltenham-based craft brewery DEYA. The brewery itself, of course, has long been considered a craft juggernaut: DEYA stormed to the very top of Untappd’s independent brewery ratings chart all the way back in 2016… less than a year after moving to its own dedicated brewhouse.

It’s kinda surprising, then, that (a collab with North Brewing aside) it’s taken DEYA so long to board the TIPA train. Surprising – but not inexplicable. After all, DEYA has hardly been a brewery hellbent on following the crowd historically. And even if it was, the Triple IPA only really rose to prominence mid last year as a relatively new phenomenon.

Either way, TIPAs are, in many ways, the best of the best. They’re the ‘biggest’ beers made by the ‘best’ breweries out there. Polly’s are all over them. Wylam are in. Pomona. Howling Hops. Brew York. Neon Raptor. Pentrich. And now DEYA, too.

In their inaugural TIPA, DEYA choose to use ‘the most potent hops at our disposal’, by which they mean a combination of Simcoe and Mosaic. They also call on a clean and neutral ale yeast to massage Routine Bites Hard’s ABV all the way up to 10%.

In practice, the neutral yeast deliberately does almost nothing to the beer’s flavour profile, which means Routine Bites Hard showcases the Simcoe and Mosaic hops in all their unadulterated glory. The mosaic seems to do the majority of the lifting, with mango, stone fruit and tropical layers all shining through. The Simcoe is presumably responsible for the subtle citrus twang.

Taken as a whole, Routine Bites Hard is pretty much everything you’d expect in a DEYA TIPA: a soft, thick, juicy and – let’s be honest – outstanding tropical fruit-soup that ticks all the boxes.

That said, you might question whether there should be more going on. With more hop variety, for example, we might well be treated to a more complex beer.

But then is complexity always necessary? The Simcoe and Mosaic combo has long been a winner. So what DEYA seem to have done is take a stellar hop combo to its ultimate, soupy conclusion… which is pretty much what made the brewery so famous in the first place. Still, you can’t help but wonder what might have been.

There’s also the mysterious caveat DEYA include with the beer’s backstory. DEYA go to great lengths to explain they’ve used potent hops – a big tick – but then they round off the sentence saying they’ve used the most potent hops ‘at their disposal’ and as you glug away, it’s hard not to dwell on what that line really means.

It’s confusing: from the beer itself, you get the sense – no doubt accurately – that DEYA went to extremes to dream up, plan out and bring to life the most epic Triple IPA they could possibly muster but it almost sounds as if DEYA spent the day on the couch watching Sky Sports and come 7pm, decided to make a beer using whatever they had lying around in a cupboard.

We must, however, look past the description. From the Untappd reviews, hundreds have, and at Craft Metropolis, we sold out in days.

Worth the £8.75 price tag? Come on. It’s DEYA’s first ever TIPA! Do you really have to ask?!