There is a certain kind of beer name that tells you exactly what you are getting, and Heaps is one of them. Fairweather Brewing Company's newest hazy IPA does not pretend to be subtle. It is soft, cloudy, and loaded with, well, heaps of tropical hop character, courtesy of two Southern Hemisphere heavyweights: Nectaron from New Zealand and Galaxy from Australia.
Neither of those hops is famous for playing it quiet. Nectaron brings a punch of passionfruit and lime, while Galaxy leans into ripe peach and passionfruit territory of its own, and together they stack up into resinous mango and juicy stone fruit without stepping on each other's toes. Fairweather's approach here was refreshingly simple: throw in serious quantities of good hops, get out of the way, and let them do the talking. At 6.7% ABV it has enough backbone to carry that hop load without turning syrupy or heavy.
Fairweather Brewing has been doing this since 2017, when it set up shop in a revitalized warehouse in Hamilton's Ainslie Wood neighbourhood. The brewing system itself has a bit of a pedigree, having been sourced from Hoyne Brewing Company out in Victoria, British Columbia, where one of Fairweather's founders learned the ropes before heading east to open his own place. It is the kind of coast-to-coast brewing lineage that makes for a good bar story, and it explains why a Hamilton brewery ended up with west coast brewing DNA running through its tanks.
Heaps pours the way a good hazy should: a soft golden haze under a persistent white head, with aromas that hit before the glass even reaches your nose. The mango and peach show up first, followed by a gentler tropical sweetness that never tips into cloying, thanks to a finish that stays clean rather than syrupy.
This is a beer built for exactly the kind of long, warm stretch we are in the middle of right now. It rewards patience about as much as it rewards impatience, meaning it is genuinely good fresh off the line, but do not let it linger too long in the fridge either, since hop-forward beers like this are always best enjoyed close to the can date.
Heaps is available now at the Fairweather taproom, through their online shop, and at the usual good beer retailers who carry the brewery's lineup. Grab a can, or better yet, grab a few, because a beer called Heaps deserves to be shared in something more than modest quantities.