the banger - dipa

Craft brewers have a few tricks up their sleeves to make their creations even more intense and interesting. Hops, malt, and yeast are excellent tools for shaping the aroma and offer a wealth of flavor nuances, but these days there are far more options—especially if you don’t take the restrictions of the Bavarian Purity Law quite so seriously.

From the very beginning, the Budapest-based FIRST Craft Beer brewery has placed the flavor of its beers at the center of its daily work, freeing itself from the shackles of the four-ingredient rule to offer its customers an even broader range of options. The Banger is a popular brew in its range, which, in addition to two types of grain and the hop varieties Idaho 7, Cashmere, Citra, and Riwaka, also contains an additional ingredient: Phantasm. Attentive beer fans may have stumbled across this brand-new raw material over the past few months. Phantasm is a powder made from the dried skins of the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc grape and is used for its high content of thiol precursors. When these compounds meet yeast, intense fruit notes are released.

In FIRST’s The Banger, they combine with the hop elements to create a firework of tangy citrus and juicy tropical fruit notes. Combined with a substantial bitterness, this results in a full-bodied drinking experience.