Monday, March 22, 2010

Brewdog/Stone Bashah

In honor of last week's BrewDog tasting at Petrol Station I picked up this beer from my local Spec's. Not the cheapest 12 oz beer in the world, but cheaper than many other's BrewDog offers. It also got my interest for being a collaborative beer with Stone Brewing. This brew is a 8.6% Black Belgian Double IPA.
The Beer: Pours a pitch black with a quarter inch taupe colored head. Notes of chocolate, malts, raisins, citrus. Medium mouthfeel, coco, roasted malts, some mild hop bitterness on the finish. As I sipped it, I really didn't get much hop presence, it honestly tasted a bit like a stout. However as I work through it, the hop flavors build in intensity and once you are finished your surprised that there is a tongue coating hop resin left behind. Slight grapefruit bitterness mixed with coco, dark roasted malts, and raisins. Slightly disappointed at the lack of Belgian ale qualities. Yes there is some dark fruit here, but its not what I would have expected in a strong dark Belgian ale. Its a good beer, but missing some complexity. Although a collaboration, this beer sums up my issues with BrewDog. They are staggeringly inconsistent, and I believe that instead of producing high alcohol publicity stunts they would be much better served producing a solid line up of beers. The publicity stunts will only let you last for so long, after the hype is over, there is nothing to go back to. This one gets a C+ from me. Here's what the folks at BA think.

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