origin: Scotland
ABV: 9.2%
location: house
served: 330ml bottle to glass
This beer, it turns out, is actually Brewdog's 'Hardcore IPA' relabelled and sold slightly cheaper in Tesco.
The bottle was gifted to me by my manager at work (cheers Michael) to sample and review. He's a big fan of Brewdog, and craft beers in general. I'll admit that while I have a lot of respect for what the guys at Brewdog have accomplished, I'm not a huge fan of all of their beers. Some are excellent, but some i don't really care for.
I can't really decide if American Double IPA/Hardcore IPA is in the former or the latter category though. In many respects it's a fantastic beer, but it's not something that I found particularly easy to drink.I've written before about the blandness of big commercial beers, but this goes a bit too far in the opposite direction in my opinion. There's barrel-loads of flavour, but it's a bit overpowering at times. The high alcohol content is very obvious, almost to the extent that it starts to taste like a spirit - or that somebody's spiked your drink with a shot of rum.
The colour is fantastic though.
Smell: bags of aroma, immediately evident as soon as you take the cap off. a bit of a floral note, but mainly orangey citrus, and a hint of wood. 4/4
Colour: a great looking beer, with a warm mahogany red hue and a nice frothy head which lasts well. 4/4
Taste: No shortage of flavour! Plenty of hops and plenty of maltiness, with a little bit of sweetness - I got the feeling Belgian-style candi sugar might be part of the recipe, but that's just a guess. The strong alcohol taste doesn't really do it for me though. 3/4
Overall: A technically impressive beer with just a minor flaw caused by trying too hard to make stronger beers than anyone else for the sake of it. They could easily have made it slightly less strong without losing the flavour, and for me that would have made it just about perfect. 11/12
