Brewdog: Omnipollo: I Wanna Be Your Dog (Sweden: Imperial Stout: 12 % ABV)
Visual: Thick oily black. Thick creamy brown head. Still.
Nose: Nougat. Condensed cream. Sugared nuts. Milky chocolate. Black cherry yogurt. Black forest gateaux. Vanilla.
Body: Black forest gateaux. Vanilla fudge. Black cherry yogurt. Milky chocolate. Bitter black chocolate. Bitter cashew nuts. Slight caramel.
Finish: Black cherry yogurt. Vanilla fudge. Black forest gateaux. Truffle oil. Unsweetened cocoa. Crushed peanuts. American style pancakes.
Conclusion: Damn. This is two great beers. It is the beer it wants to be and manages to be, then the beer it didn’t set out to be but also is. That was a convoluted sentence, let’s try and break that down.
The beer it wants to be, and is, is pretty good. It is intensely creamy and nougat like from the get go – heavy but not sickly. Lots of the sweet touched nuttiness, and lots of vanilla fudge. It is definitely going for the creamier, nuttier, fudge filled style stout and does that well. That is enjoyable, but if that was the only beer it was then I would be disappointed. By itself an overly fluffy, milky style stout can end up feeling like you a drinking a glass full of marshmallows while trying to play a variant of the fluffy bunny game.
Then there is the beer that it did not intend to be but it is – and this is what makes it special. A black-forest gateaux to black cherry yogurt beer. This is more emphasised up from, letting the creamier notes take center stage later as it fades.
Thus, I am a fan – up front the cherry meets cream comes across as a balance of bitter chocolate, dessert styles against savoury and sweet nuttiness – and this balance last pretty much to the end of the beer. Near the end the creaminess does become over done – but you can counterbalance that by holding the beer in your mouth longer and letting the bittersweet balance come out – it just takes more work than normal.
So, a bloody good beer – lots of depth – eventually seems to move away from its best points and makes it an effort to get back that beautiful balance but it is still possible. Depending on how you like to try your beers that may be an acceptable trade off or not, but for me it is very impressive.
Background: This is described as a whisky barrel aged coffee pecan mud cake stout. I figure of all of those, the only parts actually used in making it is the oak aging and possibly the coffee. I couldn’t read most of the can as it was in Swedish, so I am guessing. Yes, I know I could have typed it into google translate, but I am feeling lazy today. At least I’m honest on that. Anyway, Brewdog have had a bit of a rough patch recently but are generally very good brewers – Omnipollo generally knock stuff out of the park, so hopes were high. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. This was grabbed directly from Brewdog’s store. Due to “I Wanna be your dog” sounding vaguely S&M themed I put on some Genitorturer again. Also because that band is ace.
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