Brewdog: 2cabeças: Hello My Name Is Ze (Scotland: IPA: 6.4% ABV)
Visual: Apricot with a large yellowed bubbled head. The head leaves sud rims around the glass.
Nose: Passion fruit and prickle. Pepper. Wheaty. Some hop bitterness.
Body: Bitter up front in a big way. Malt chocolate and toffee. Prickle of hops. Guava. Gherkin touch. Tart grapes. Passion fruit.
Finish: Toffee. Slight sour touch. Bitter hops. Dried passion fruit. Elderberry. Popcorn hop feel.
Conclusion: This is another beer that didn’t come in as expected. It is the latest in an ever increasing life of “Hello my name is” beers, and, as such, I figured I knew what I was getting, or pretty much so.
Not really it turns out; the beer is both more and less than expected. The bitterness for example, is much brasher than expected. It really feels like it has little resisting the bitterness as it punches up front. The feel of it is very fluffy hops and very brash. However the flavor doesn’t come out with an intensity as big as the bitterness. The passion fruit, sour grapes and such like are present but in a way that feels like a toned down Trashy Blond in some cases. For a big IPA, toned down should not be the words used. The fruit also seems to let too much of the malt toffee and malt chocolate from the malt base come through for an IPA.
I think a lot of it comes down to the texture, or lack of it. The actual beer itself seems to fade into the background mouth feel wise, resulting in flavours seemingly floating without context on your tongue.
It is a weakness I would say, it lets the bitterness go unchallenged and the flavours unrounded and unchampioned. Worse still it feels kind of light.
So, not great. I mean it isn’t terrible in flavor but everything seems to come out of nowhere due to that light body. It does make me wonder why this beer is lower abv than most of the hello range; it seems to beg for that extra weight. Needs work to say the least.
Background: Despite this being brewed in Scotland I wonder if I can use this to add 2cabeçasto my beer and whisky map. Probably. It is my map after all, I make the rules. The bottle calls this a double IPA. I call bullshit. At 6.4% this is barely stronger than old school Punk IPA. Anyway this is a *cough* double IPA made with passion fruit, which makes it the…sixth I think…entry in the Hello My Name is series which mix IPAs with fruit. This was drunk while listening to some “Accountable to None” a small band I saw live years ago. A quick search of facebook seems to indicate that they still exist, and even allegedly turn out new tunes, but googling didn’t seem to turn up any new tracks for me to buy. Oh yeah, as always, not unbiased on Brewdog beers.
