Heat 4 Is Live - Canyon x Pirate Life, Round Four

The horn sounds and Heat 4 is live.

An NZIPA built on Nelson Sauvin, NZ Cascade, and Motuka hops, Heat 4 doesn't wait for a set. Assertive bitterness rolls in first, lifting ripe grapefruit, candied lime, and lively passionfruit off a clean, subtle malt base. Bright straw in the glass. Water, malted barley, wheat, hops, yeast. This beer that knows exactly what it is.

What Is an NZIPA?

NZIPA stands for New Zealand India Pale Ale - a regional variation on the classic IPA style, built entirely around locally grown New Zealand hops. Think Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, Riwaka, Nectaron. Hops with character. Tropical fruit, white wine, gooseberry, passionfruit, bright citrus. All of it sitting on a clean, light malt base that gets out of the way and lets the hops do the work.

Heat 4 is exactly that - hopped with three of the country's finest, dialled to a 6.5% that drinks cleaner than it has any right to.

Four Years. Four Heats. One Ongoing Argument About Hops.

This is the fourth year in a row we've teamed up with our mates at Pirate Life Brewing to enter the Smiths NZIPA Challenge and it never gets old.

Each year we get together, pick a direction, and brew something that neither of us would make alone. True to form for a Canyon x Pirate Life collab - bold where it needs to be, effortless where it counts.

Four heats in and we're still charging hard.

The Smiths NZIPA Challenge

The NZIPA Challenge is one of the biggest craft beer events on the New Zealand calendar, hosted annually in Queenstown by Smiths Craft Beer House. Dozens of top breweries enter - each producing a never-brewed-before NZIPA, judged blind by punters, industry panels, and beer lovers who make the trip south.

The rules are simple: NZ hops only.

It's the kind of competition that brings out the best in a brewery, partly because the standard is genuinely high, and partly because the weekend itself reminds you why craft beer is worth caring about.

Third Place. 

We came home with big grins on our faces.

Heat 4 took third place at the 2026 Smiths NZIPA Challenge, competing against some of the best breweries in the country. Four heats in with Pirate Life, and we couldn't be prouder of the hard work that has gone into this one.

The Tee

Because a great collab beer deserves the merch it earns, we made a tee. Limited run on a black long sleeve with the full can artwork on the back and a chest badge up front. Wear it to the pub, wear it on the hill, wear it until someone asks where you got it.

Grab the tee on its own, or bundle it with four cans of Heat 4 NZIPA. We know what we'd pick.