BOWDEN BREWING DIVE IN
To ensure you're ready when the call comes, share one of these with a mate and together get your hours up in the flight simulator, so to speak!
Origin – Bowden, South Australia
ABV – 6.9%
Size – 375mL can
Style – IPA
Social media has birthed a slew of space-saving initialisms. Today's slang has become a kind of lexical garbage compactor, crushing whole phrases into acronyms. My daughter appends her texts to me with 'ILY', which I only recently found out means 'I love you'. When I repeat a favourite joke, she says, 'That's TITF' (Taking it too far). When I ask if she liked the joke in the first place, she says, 'TBH, no.' (To be honest, no.). When it comes to Bowden Brewing, the one piece of slang from the digital age that captures their entire philosophy is 'IYKYK' (If you know, you know).
From the way the brewery is embedded into the Bowden community to the range of cans simply stamped with the beer style, if you know …well, you know, and if you don't, you're likely scratching your head right now wondering what the fuss is all about. The idea began when co-head brewer Alex Marschall and several mates were thinking about ways to bring the growing craft beer scene from the East Coast to Adelaide. Realising they didn’t have the funds, they opted to open the craft beer bar Nola as a stepping stone both into the community and towards a brewery. With capital in hand and overwhelming neighbourhood support, the hyper-local brewpub and brewery were born six years on. True to their word, for the team and new co-head brewer Jake Phoenix, the talk of staying local wasn’t just lip service – Jakes lives one suburb over, and Alex has an apartment in one of Bowden's new residential developments. 'We're embedded in the community,' says Alex. 'Hence the name, Bowden Brewing – we're not looking to take over the world and be a massive chain with mass-produced beer. We want to make beers we love on a big enough scale to share with the community.'
Initially, you physically had to be in the community to get your hands on it, though with the recent installation of a canning line, those further afield can now also be in the know. Aside from the weekly rotation of seasonals, you’ll find a draught, a sessional and this a West Coast IPA in those cans. As you'd expect from the style, the malt profile in this Dive In is stripped back – pale, clear and lean – while the US and NZ hops are layered on heavy. The upfront hit is dominated by citrus fruit before, the sort of characters you might associate with such IPAs join the party: piney, earthy and forest floor like.
Despite the 6.9%, go and have another …Why not 'YOLO'! (You only live once).
