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Battle of the Brewdog IPAs

Thee Brew Dog IPAs sitting on a wall
Thee Brew Dog IPAs sitting on a wall

Do we need to say how good Brewdog Punk IPA is? Even the hard-to-please Tandleman is a fan. It’s obviously influenced by hop-bomb American IPAs, but the thinner body makes it seem rawer and fresher

We thought we’d try it again, together with two other Brewdog IPAs.

Storm IPA is 8% and is aged in a whisky cask. It smells just like whisky and tastes like a bonfire. Actually, it’s quite harsh up front, but that does mellow into a nice rounded malt flavour. We couldn’t taste any hops beyond the smoke, so this is a totally different beast to the Punk. Absolutely fascinating, but we’re not sure we’d drink loads of it. Maeib wasn’t a fan either, but some people do like it.

Finally, we tried “Hardcore IPA”, an “explicit imperial ale”. It probably has the same level of bitterness as the Punk, but the malty flavours come through more. It’s 9%, but still tastes like a watered down Goose Island — that is to say, it’s not as special as a 9% beer should be. It’s jolly nice, but there are even nicer beers that do less damage to the liver…

We’ll probably stick to Punk.

10 replies on “Battle of the Brewdog IPAs”

Interesting. I’ve been itching to try the Hardcore IPA, convinced it would be a winner. They stopped producing it for a while due to the spiralling cost of the hops used in it. Another cracking pic too btw.

I have to confess I don’t really like the Punk IPA that much. I find the hop aroma a bit harsh (reminds me of Simcoe, which I’m no fan of, although I don’t know if that’s what they used), and with a thin body with little maltiness it just fails to offer me very much of what I like.

I was very surprised by this, because I like most of what BrewDog has done, and I generally love hop bombs. Not this one, though.

Welcome Haddonsman – Punk is indeed deceptively easy drinking!

Knut – welcome back!

PF – thanks for the link – when we posted ours we hadn’t had a chance to catch up with the other blogs.

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