Brewdog: Watt Dickie (Scotland: Eisbock: 35% ABV)
Visual: Very dark amber to brown. Clear and still of body.
Nose: Thick and very resinous. Malt liquor. Hops. Treacle sponge. Vanilla. Slightly muggy.
Body: Treacle sponge. Toffee. Hops. Very thick. Grapefruit. Resinous. Syrupy texture. Water makes texture more manageable.
Finish: Pineapple. Hops. Dry at the back. Charring and chocolate. Fudge. Orange liquore. Sticky. Much more charring with water and more hops.
Conclusion: The offspring of the high abv wars, this one in the “Sink The Bismarck” mold. That beer was more an event than a beer but was fun to try. So, does this ice distilled beer follow in its footsteps well?
No.
Now the flavor range has some play, very sponge cake and treacle with a massive resinous hop presence. There’s even a touch of vanilla and fudge. It has play is what I am saying.
However…
The problems is that flavor is crushed under the thick, cloying texture which leads to the treacle taste and feel dominating very rapidly. The aroma really hinted that this would be the case, closed, resinous yes, but still closed and almost malt liquor like at times.
So, I thought, I’ve started with the drink quite chilled down, and I have let it rapidly heat up due to drinking during a heat wave. Hmm, this is basically a spirit, maybe a drop of water will help out. Well, it helped the texture a bit but at the cost of ramping up the charring filled texture and making the hops cling too much.
So, I thought, maybe let’s treat this like American bourbon and try over ice. (Ok I virtually never have bourbon with ice, but you get the idea). Well, this did better, bringing out toffee and easing the texture, but it still felt too treacle filled. I find it very odd that the stronger “Sink the Bismarck” actually felt less syrupy and also actually hid its abv better.
Now, this does have elements that work, the flavor range is good, the reaction with ice is pleasant, but overall it is pretty terrible. Over syrupy, over sickly and sticky. The dominant tastes are the least pleasing. It is not very good to my mind.
If I wanted something of this strength I would say give me a good whisky as this isn’t working either as a beer or a spirit.
Background: Ok, beer styles pretty much give up on this one, I was tempted to put it as an IIPA like Sink The Bismark, but even that only barely fit into the style. Ratebeer seems to flip between styles, currently listing as Eisbock. It is a freeze distilled beer, doesn’t really match any other style, yeah, sure what the hell. So yes, continuing on from their ultra strong beer releases of the past few years they have released this highly hopped ice distilled spirit beer thing. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers, but as I hope this review demonstrates, I try. Since it is slightly spirit like I decided to experiment with water for the beer as I would for a whisky.
