West Yorkshire based brewery Vocation have been a staple in the supermarkets for quite a few years now. From Tesco to Waitrose both their specials and their core range have featured on the shelves. Vocation are also another brewery that had a facelift during my beer review hiatus. I can’t believe the brewery wouldn’t personally inform me of such drastic changes! We can discuss that later on however. Today’s beer, is of course from Vocation’s core range and it’s their ‘Heart & Soul’ Session IPA. It comes in at 4.4% ABV and, despite not being able to find any information on the can, is actually gluten-free according to the brewery website!

‘Heart & Soul’ pours a mostly clear, but slightly hazy, straw colour with a classic white head, that had fairly large bubbles. On the nose the beer is fairly straightforward, with a light citrus aroma to it. The flavour is similar in that regard, with a grapefruit flavour coming across the strongest but with hints of pineapple as well. Overall it is clean and crisp drinking with a light bitterness to the finish.

A quick-ish note on the can art: Craft breweries rebranding is always controversial. Some people love the new design, others hate it. Perhaps a topic to go more in-depth with at some point. Anyway, since I first had a Vocation beer, the core range has had not one, but two rebrands. Quite a lot in a relatively short space of time. That said I do think this design is overall my favourite. While rebrand number 1 was a bit too streamlined for me, the original was rather iconic on the shelves. Overall the new cans have the most character in my opinion while maintaining the core motifs. I’ll let you judge by comparing the old designs below! So much for a quick-ish note on the can art…

On the whole, I think this is a pretty solid Session IPA. While the lack of haze lets you know it isn’t the most heavily hopped and explosive with flavour, I think that’s okay. Not everyone is looking for that in their Session IPA’s and prefer to keep that to your big hitting NEIPAs. Sometimes, what you want is a clean easy drinking beer, on a hot summers day, with more flavour than your bog standard lager and not letting you down like a can of Neckoil or Punk IPA would. Plus it’s gluten-free! And I can tell you right now it is hard to find much of quality in the GF beer department in the supermarkets. One to let my Dad know about for sure!

Score: 7/10

I am always torn on rebrands personally but I completely understand the need at times to totally redesign not just the visual but what you are selling as a concept and product. I would love to know what you think below about redesigns and you favourite (or least favourite) ones from recent memory. Cheers and thanks for reading!

Additional Information:

Style: Session IPA

Hops: Mosiac

Malt: Extra Pale, Caramalt

IBU: Not Available

ABV: 4.4%

Gluten Free: Yes!

Vegan: Yes!

Location: Multiple Supermarkets

Price: 4 for £5.50 in various retailers such as Waitrose and Sainsbury’s