Brewdog: 8 Wired: Dog Wired (Scotland: Imperial Pilsner: 6.8% ABV)
Visual: Clear yellowed gold with a slight apricot hue. Moderate ripe banana coloured head with bubbles mounded up around the edges. The head leaves lots of lace.
Nose: Lemon. Pineapple. Good hop character and bitterness. Pink grapefruit and blood orange. Vanilla toffee malt character.
Body: Pink grapefruit. Bitter hops. Lemon meringue. Toffee and custard. Pineapple. Apricot.
Finish: Liquorice. Lemon and grapefruit. Good hops and bitterness. Elderberry air. Crisp. Vanilla toffee.
Conclusion: This is a seriously hoppy lager. It just screams NZ citrus all the way through. The aroma promises it all, tart, bitter and hoppy with huge fruit flavor.
The body cuts cleanly between the two poles of crisp lager texture and big hoppy bitterness. Similarly the flavours are balanced between the tart freshness against the sweet toffee malt flavours. It goes down too easily, the flavor of the beer is so full that you could, hypothetically, hold it on your tongue for ages. However when chilled down you find it so easy drinking that it is easy to swallow it down, forgetting to take time to fully appreciate it.
It works nicely through the beer as well, with the big hops present early on and the backing malt coming out after the half way point to dominate, preventing the hops from getting dull
In fact it is only in the finish, once you have performed that too early swallow of the delicious body, that you find the only flaw. Amongst the dry, next sip inducing feel, there is a liquorice flavor which , while not unpleasant, feels out of place.
Ok, also the near seven percent abv on a beer that both encourages you to swallow an has a finish that encourages the next sip is dangerous, however that is more a point to be aware of than a flaw.
Despite those minor points this is great, huge hoppiness, huge depth of flavour, and subtle complexity. The citrus to toffee flavor is almost dessert like beneath the hops. Lovely.
Background: BREWDOG! 8 WIRED! Seriously, there is few collaborations that could get me more excited. Hair of the Dog/ Three Floyds probably would. Anyway I digress. Erm, by the way I mean a collaboration between Hair Of The Dog and Three Floyds. Not HOTD and Three Floyds Slash Fic. Really. Anyway, digressions, yes. Drunk at Brewdog Bristol on tap and also grabbed a bottle to drink at home. I haven’t broken the bottle open yet so this is all based on the tap version.
