Tasting Notes:Bear Republic: Hop Rod Rye

Bear Republic: Hop Rod Rye (USA: IIPA:8% ABV)

Visual: A dark clear reddish brown. Bubbly brown mounds for a head.

Nose: Sweet and rye filled. Grapefruit. Vanilla toffee that becomes caramel as it warms.  Malt drinks with a light chocolate touch.

Body: Rye crackers. Bitter. Pineapple freshness. Vanilla. Pulped kiwi. Toffee. Drying even as you drink it. Nettle hop feel. Peach and apricot juice. Strawberry jam occasionally.

Finish: Solidly bitter. Hoppy and also very dry rye crackers. Kiwi again. Almost salty dryness. Apricot.

Conclusion:  This is one I have been keeping an eye out for since it was recommended to me. Rye based drinks intrigue me anyway. They always seem to bring so much to the aroma. Usually massive sweetness, with toffee, vanilla and caramel all in play. The style is utterly distinctive.  However so far in my experience, the drinks themselves never seem to live up to the bold promises of the aroma.

So far anyway. That is about to change.

With a base beer not unlike the Racer 5 IPA you get a huge amount of fruitiness going on before you even introduce the rye which brings its usual sweetness and a surprising dryness.  The face that you get rye cracker like flavour is hardly shocking, the fact that it feels salted on the other hand is. Even main body you feel it, but on the finish the tongue drying effect is remarkable.  This makes each future sip all the more welcome, even if it is still crisply dry.

There Is a great range of flavour brought with it. The rye and IPA elements have full impact without treading on each others toes.  The only problem I have is trying to decide when is the best time to have a drink such as this.  The competing sweet and fruit elements demand attention, but the dryness encourages quicker drinking early on, then discourages at the end as it becomes heavier. The abv however definitely discourage against the quick consumption. It is a delicious contradiction and the beer definitely deserves your attention. It is not an every day beer, about half way through drinking you get a tickling feeling at the back of the throat to remind you exactly what you are drinking.

A delicious beer to examine exactly what can be gained from merging the distinct styles. A beer of experimentation and contemplation on the beer styles themselves and the flavours they entail. Oh and a fine beer.

Background: Recommended by the booze dancers in response to my enjoyment of “Racer 5”. I had found this before in London at “The Rake” but didn’t get the chance to review it then.  Since I had enjoyed it I took full advantage of finding it at Beers of Europe and ordered myself some for enjoyment and review. This is made with 20% rye malt, and apart from that I would guess it is pretty close to racer 5 in build.

Tasting Notes: Weyerbacher: Double Simcoe IPA

Weyerbacher: Double Simcoe IPA (USA: IIPA: 9% ABV)

Visual: Dark browned amber and quite hazy. Large frothy head of solid tight bubbles. A medium amount of small bubbled carbonation.

Nose: Malt and digestive biscuits. Toffee. Apricot. Vanilla. Heavier mango notes as it warms.

Body: Solidly bitter, Liquorice sticks. Caramel. Honey. Lots of malt. Dried apricot. Passion fruit in the depths. Slightly green.

Finish: Bitter hops. Liquorice sticks again. Honey.  Pineapple. Cucumber. Hop oil.

Conclusion: What we have here is a brutally sweet and brutally bitter Imperial IPA. The sweetness cannot be contained with caramel and honey mixed with dried apricot all working against the massive bitter kick.  It then adds interesting twists top and tail with a very biscuit heavy aroma and strange cucumber like green vibe to the finish.

It feels indulgent to drink, smooth to slip down but you soon realise it has left clinging hop trails on the way down that build up to impressive levels on your tongue.

If there are complaints to bring to bare it would be that the massive malt sweetness sometimes doesn’t quite give the simcoe hop room to roam – it can dominate the conversation somewhat. The hop does always find its way back out again though, bringing out fruity yet green touched flavour. That along with the thick texture bringing hop oil touches to the finish give a distinct fingerprint of the hop character on this beer when it rides back out once more.  The malt may dominate at times, but the hop is what gives it character.

An excellent beer, one of a few minor quirks, but heavy set on flavour and a delicious bitter sweet balance.

Background: Simcoe. A hop with a copyright marker. I was going to make sarcastic remarks about copyrighting nature, but apparently this was a very carefully bred hop to get high alpha acids without increasing (double checks “1001 beers you must try before you die”) cohumulone levels which apparently not good for a beer. It has a harsher bitterness or something like that. Anyway, what I know is Simcoe fricking rules, it is up there with Nelson Sauvin, Sorachi Ace and the like on hops I keep an eye out for. Therefore I bought this beer. That is all.

Tasting Notes: Brewdog: Anarchist/ Alchemist

Brewdog: Anarchist/ Alchemist (Scotland: IIPA: 14% ABV)

Visual: Rich ruby bronze. Large off white head that settles to a dusting

Nose: Resin. Grapefruit. Dry mango. Slightly thick pungent hops. Apricot. Dry malt. Quite a green feel.

Body: Sweet. Golden syrup. Pineapple. Resin. White grapes. Peach melba.  Custard. Glacier cherries. Moderate bitterness mid body, but wrapped in swetness. Shortbread. Apricot. Raspberry pavlova. Blueberry.

Finish: Resinous. Brown sugar. Sticky feel.  Custard. Light grapefruit hops and moderate bitterness.   Hop oils.  Light malt chocolate after a while. Blueberry.

Conclusion: Whew. This beer is going head to head with Dogfish Head’s 120 minute IPA for insanely sweet high abv IPA. It’s strong, sweet and somehow through that masks the abv with the exception of a slight fire on swallowing.

Like 120 minute it does seem like a highly hopped barley wine in some ways, but this beer goes further in pouring on resinous touches and hop oil feel that gives it a good claim to the IPA style despite the massively sweet main kick.

Like many at this abv it brings glacier cherries and custard styling to play, and the build up of flavour as you drink results in a great range of unexpected elements that show themselves as time and heat alter the beer.  The level of citrus hops they play with is another element that just snatches it back to being an IPA from the barley wine element it also claims.  The hops are odd though, more flavour and aroma than hop texture which is nearly completely absent.

It is worth noting that Brewdog does seem to be leaning towards almost over sweet beers as of late, at least at the high abv end of the range.  I would like to see more variety, even though it does work well here in contrast to the resin and hop aroma.  The sweet bomb beer is a style that can get wearing quite quickly. Still that is a note against the trend rather than this beer in itself.

So stylishly smooth, sweet and citrus hopped. Massive flavour – very expressive and holds up to a long time of examination with new flavours showing themselves. The flavours shift and mingle in great combinations.  It does have slight crude touches. The abv does show itself in fire on the swallow, and the over sweetness can be sickly, but I enjoy the sheer amount of flavour it brings to bear with that.  Mixed up, over sweet, and yet enjoyable.  It is a flawed gem but stills gem.  Of course I may have been a bit drunk when I thought that.

Background: Brewdog announced this initially at a higher abv and declared it the world’s first Triple IPA.  People pointing out that other Triple IPAs exist was answered with a comment that those beers were closer to double the expected abv and thus still double or imperial IPAs.  This beers reduction in abv kinda invalidates that claim, though the abv drop was apparently necessary as it was even more sweet at the original abv. Also, regarding the first triple IPA claim, well Dogfish Head’s 120 minute IPA exists already. Despite this I was still looking forwards to it, possibly because, as always mentioned, I am not unbiased on Brewdog beers.

Tasting Notes: Brewdog: Hardcore NZ

Brewdog: Hardcore NZ (Scotland IIPA: 9.2% ABV)

Visual: Clear reddened amber with a caramel tinted cream bubbled head.

Nose: Grapefruit. Tart. Gooseberry. Good malt shown. Caramel and tangerine.

Body: Malty. Toffee. Elderberry and gooseberry. Weird cherry like touches. Sherbet tingle. Solidly bitter. Passion fruit.

Finish: Gooseberry. Moderate bitterness and hop character. The hops grow over time to tingling nettle like levels. Dry biscuit.

Conclusion: Take your old favourite Hardcore IPA, then make it fresh and tart with an NZ hop kick. How can this not work out well?

It has evident grapefruit notes as you would expect from NZ, which provides a lot of the fresh and tingling elements. As always with Hardcore the malt and bitter back brace well against each other to create a heavy hop but sweet experience.

Will noted on drinking that it is beer that benefits massively from holding and swirling in your mouth for a while. Not one to swallow too soon. He also describes this element as “Blodge” because he is mad.

I always feel that while the Hardcore IPA is a more flavoursome beer than punk IPA, I prefer punk IPA as it is a beer I can enjoy in more occasions. This has a similar arrangement between itself and Hardcore IPA. It has much more flavour and has a wonderful tart to bitter balance. However it is a beer for select occasions, as a more challenging, expressive and punchy beer it is impressive, but definitely not an any time beer.

So a beer that is a wake up call of butter fruity freshness and flavour. Very impressive

Background: Found at Brewdog Camden, this keg only release takes the Hardcore IPA and uses purely NZ hops for it. This was the first drink of what turned out to be an epic all day drinking session. Which was nice. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers.

Tasting Notes: Odells: Myrcenary

Odells: Myrcenary (USA: IIPA: 9.3% ABV)

Visual: Very pale apricot flesh. A rising mound of creamy slightly cinnamon coloured head.

Nose: Peaches and cream. Cinnamon on fresh doughnuts. Graceful prickly hops. Bitter with an odd touch, maybe mustard, and maybe a  possibly coffee

Body: Lots of hop bitterness and nettles. Very creamy texture, very thick. Brown bread and dried apricot.

Finish: bitter and nettles again. Dried apricots. Some malt drink and coffee remains.

Conclusion:  This beer is both strikingly unusual, and yet simply straightforward. Not a combination you get often really.  For the unusual we have the nettle prickle, the very thick texture which makes for such an impressive hop delivery system, and the wide ranging aroma.

For all this we also get the main body, which is the straightforward seeming element. Pretty much just hops and texture. The emphasis on the hop oils makes it seem much closer to the less aromatic and thicker hops of the English IPA style than the more light touch of their American brethren.

Thus it is odd, and yet straightforward, an obviously heavily dry hopped beer for the wonderful nose, but almost leaden in the main body.  Its tingle hopped to high heavens, so isn’t terrible, but just not that interesting.

Imagine a good version of an American IPA and take its aroma. Imagine a badly done English IPA and take its body. Put them together and you have this.

Background: What a cool name, named for myrcene, apparently one of the oils that makes up the hop flavour. That wasn’t the odd reason why I bought it though. No. The odd reason I bought it is because I got an Odell carry box at the GBBF this year which was based on this and I loved the picture on the front.  Yes I am that shallow some times. Live with it.

Tasting Notes: Baird: Suruga Bay: Imperial IPA

Baird: Suruga Bay: Imperial IPA (Japan: IIPA: 7.5% ABV)

Visual: Clear honeyed apricot amber. Good thickness of white bubbled head yet low carbonation on the body.

Nose: Passion fruit. Custard. Mango, peaches and syrup, Tropical fruit juice drink.

Body: Peaches. Hop bitterness. Pineapple juice and grapefruit.  Solid bitter middle. Smooth and slightly thickened texture. Custard sweetness. Slight mint.

Finish: Grapefruit. Peppermint. Bitter hops. Pineapple. Thick clinging hops.

Conclusion: Imperial IPAs live or die by their hops.  It’s just the way it goes.  This one goes very much for the tropical flavour, with peach being the unusual but tasty pick for the primary punch.  This makes it very juicy and sweet. It comes off like a tropical punch with hop bitterness thrown in for good measure.

While bitter it keeps it restrained mid body, saving the punch for the end. On the down side the hops are a bit clingy in the finish, though that could be a side effect from the bottle having to come so far to be drunk. I have noticed highly hopped beers can become slightly sticky in a comparatively short space of time.

While it doesn’t punch the same level of flavour as say, Wipeout IPA, it is fruity fresh drink and the emphasis on sweetness and peach is a good choice creating a fantastic sweet/bitter contrast.

So a few flaws, but generally a good ‘un. A tasty IPA with a touch thicker texture than normal.  Japan is turning out to have fine craft beer scene growing.

 
Background: Baird have before this had one very good and one mediocre beer to their name in my experience. Oddly the bottle image initially made me think of the Gotenba Kohgen before I realized which brewer it was actually from.  Picked up at the great British beer festival.

Tasting Notes: Mikkeller: 1000 IBU

Mikkeller: 1000 IBU (Denmark: IIPA: 9.6% ABV)

Visual: Massive lace leaving, or possibly coffee cup rim bubbles leaving, coffee froth coloured head.  A reddish brown body, with some sediment in due to an over enthusiastic pour.

Nose: Grapefruit, bitter hops, coffee cup remains. Orange peel and crushed peanuts.  Quite dry.  Mixed spices including ground pepper, chilli pepper and so on. Quite acrid.

Body: Solidly bitter and full of hops. Malt and chocolate orange peak through, initially barely come out but reveal themselves more over time.  Touch of pineapple.  Quite a smooth cream styled middle.  Sweetness in the form of sugar coated chocolate eggs makes an appearance.

Finish: Bitter, dry popcorn hops. Clinging texture and bitterness. Milk chocolate hint and orange crème.

Conclusion: Wow, bloody hell, the hops still haven’t left. I put the glass down to do some writing about five minutes back, yet the hops have set up a makeshift town on my tongue and are playing away through the night.

So, yeah I guess you know what the finish is like now, the full affect of the sack full of hops  that go into this beer really take hold there and the more you drink the more it builds up.  I thought the barrel aged version had some kick, but this goes an extra yard and then some.

Now of course the theoretical 1000 IBU is just a silly boast as there no way your tongue tells the difference at that level, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less intense for the bitterness you do recognise, or the fact it seems to be designed to bring the full force to the fore.

Thankfully still a drinkable beer though, though not half as complex as the barrel aged version.  They have done well at giving a smooth main body, laced with sweet chocolate orange that restrains the assault somewhat, holding back the sledgehammer hit until the finish.   A nice trick that makes the beer enjoyable as opposed to just bitter as hell.

So, if you are only drinking the beer for the hop kick, it’s a surprisingly restrained beast (comparatively that is) until the end kicks in. If you are in it for the taste then there are better, the barrel aged version for one.  If you are in it for numbers then there have been higher since.

Still a decent kick at the end, and that’s enough to sell it for a try, though I doubt I’ll be having more than one, favouring instead the barrel aged version if I get the chance to try it again.

Background:  I drank the barrel aged version of this a while back, which I very much enjoyed, but wanted to see how this hop bomb bastard worked in the nude. At 1000IBU it was once the most bitter beer on the planet, though that crown is now held by something around the 2000 mark these days. Not that it matters so much as your taste buds can’t tell the difference at this level, but I am such a sucker for the big numbers.

Mikkeller don’t actually have their own brewery, instead brewing at many different facilities.

Tasting Notes: Brewdog: Royal Virility Performance

Brewdog: Royal Virility Performance (Scotland: IIPA: 7.5% ABV)

Visual: Light bronzed amber with an off white head that rose to the occasion quite remarkably.

Nose: Pink grapefruit, sharp and crisp.  Slight greenery. Peach and strawberry. Barley. Lemon meringue. Great oaken wood. Golden syrup cake bars and slight red wine.

Body: Distinct greenery, chives and mint. Bitter hops. Rock sturdy malt backbone. Apricot. Strawberries. Custard splashing and caramel. Light toffee.

Finish: Bitter. Christmas spice like mulled wine. Quite dry kettle hops. Mint again. Nothing I can really innuendo up in this section, apart from the word finish maybe.

Conclusion: I am so fricking childish. That’s the main conclusion after the amount of innuendo I found whilst doing the tasting.  But beer is serious business, yes?

So, the bastard offspring of an IPA and mulled wine in flavour.  Comes very close to overdoing the spices, but just about holds it back. Just.  Not a bad beer then I must admit, the minty and herby flavours give an unexpected twist to the bite at the end, very different to the expected hop overdose.   Compared to the “There is no Santa” beer, which overdid the hops to the exclusion of all else, I’d say this shows they learnt from their mistakes with herbed beers then.

As for it’s, ahem, other properties.  Well I have to admit I haven’t done a side by side test here, but I don’t hold much hope for you if you’re relying on a beer to help you in the bedroom department anyway. (Now if Brewdog want to provide me with some more bottles, then I will have to indulge in more extensive testing, for SCIENCE! of course)

Overall, I like it, in fact I would go so far as to say it is very good, but I must admit, for the cost you could always grab two bottles of Hardcore IPA and drink them through a fresh mint leaf. The remaining money can be spent on a more reliable and, ahem, photographic ways of ensuring a solid member.

Background: A Brewdog mix of two beers (Different sources say hardcore IPA and 5 am saint, or Punk IPA and 5 am saint) with, allegedly herbal Viagra, horny goatweed and a bunch of other bullshit alleged aphrodisiac .  Despite being a massive Brewdog fan (usual disclaimer: I am not unbiased on Brewdog beers) I was a bit unsure of picking this one up as it seemed a tad gimmicky.

In the end I was sold by the absurdity of the whole situation. As an anti monarchist the whole wedding thing was getting on my tits slightly anyway, and something that mocked the whole thing in such a surreal way ended up appealing more than it off put me.

As a side note, apparently the poor bastards at the wedding did not get beer on offer due to the fact that it would be “considered rather unseemly for such a regal affair”. The poor wankers denied the joy of a good beer in order to keep up appearances, it’s almost enough to make you sorry for them. Almost.

Tasting Notes: Mikkeller: Barrel Aged 1000 IBU

Mikkeller: Barrel Aged 1000 IBU (Denmark: IIPA: 9.6% ABV)

Visual: Very dark brown black. Bubbled brown head of little life.

Nose: Very dry hops and bitter chocolate. Oaken. Extremely malty. Black cherry. Real buckets full of hops. Nasal puckering. Figs. Toffee sweetness. Almost imperial stoutesque touches (under the hops).

Body: Sweet malt chocolate and bitter back. Vanilla type sweet lacings throughout the bitterness. Sweet liquors. Very sticky hoppiness. Peppermint.

Finish: Dry chocolate dust air and cough inducing hop kick. Massively bitter and dark chocolate. Rough on the tongue. Very earthy – turmeric. Belgium chocolate.

Conclusion: I really shouldn’t like this beer; it’s unbalanced, harsh as hell and doesn’t make any attempt at subtlety. Yet it’s bloody great.

This makes Ruination IPA look like malted milk. It throws rough and dry hops scratching barbed wire style down your throat. Despite that though it throws chocolate sweetness, imperial stout touches and massive malt into the mix as well. I can but guess that the sweetness comes from the whisky ageing, and wonder exactly how hard the non aged version must have kicked.

It reminds me a lot of Moors JJJ IPA but this works better by shoving up the sweetness to contrast the clinging hops.

This is sweet under the onslaught, yet works so well. As always it is surprising how fast your taste buds acclimatises and allows you to enjoy the chocolate subtleties.

So with all that I love drinking this beer, even if it may be a bit mad, and I may be a bit mad to like it.

Background: The bitterest beer in the world at 1000 IBUs. I come to this considering the highest I knew of before was the two hundred mark odd and that was a kicker.  Still IBU is often not much of an indication of exactly how bitter a beer can be, with what your taste buds can actually discern maxing out pretty quickly, and oft lower IBU beers can seem a lot more hoppy depending on how the beer is styled.  So what I’m saying in all that is that I really shouldn’t be lured in by beers with astronomical numbers.  Yet I’m still drinking this beer. Go figure. I am such a sucker for an oddity.

This version is aged in whisky casks, and was brewed by the “Phantom brewers” Mikkeller. So known as they don’t actually have a brewery, all beers are made at other breweries facilities.

Tasting Notes: Brewdog: Hello My Name Is Ingrid

Brewdog: Hello My Name Is Ingrid (Scotland: IIPA: 8.2% ABV)

Visual: Hazy amber hued orange with a decent off white bubbled head.

Nose: Gooseberries that come in lightly up close, yet are evident up to a significant distance. Lots of malt. Strawberries and pineapple hops. Bitter, yet quite creamy. Fresh sponge cake.

Body: Slightly sour, grapefruit and sour grapes. Decent bitter. Pineapple. Custard styling and strawberry. Very tart.

Finish:  Grapes, bitter hops. Quite dry bitterness. Still sour. Lots of dry malt. Cloudy lemonade and wine hums.

Conclusion: Obviously not satisfied with the sour grapefruit and pineapple taste that hops can bring to a beer, Brewdog have gone and dumped a bunch of cloudberries into this somewhat Hardcore IPA styled beer and really ramped up the fruit.

It’s a tart wee fellow, sparkling on the tongue. More towards the refreshing tartness that explosive excessive sourness and this style works well with the high amount of hops present.

Very evidently another spin on the ardcore IPIPA Hardcore IPA base rather than being radically different. It does however seem almost like a Berliner Weisse influenced IPA and that’s a pretty cool thing.

Considering how hard this is to find outside Sweden I wouldn’t kill yourself looking for it, but if you see it, well worth a gulp.

Background: As hinted above, this beer is made specifically for the Swedish market, but I managed to get hold of a bottle.  Made with cloudberries (which I have not tasted outside of this beer) being added.  As always I am not completely unbiased when it comes to Brewdog beers.