Brewdog: Abstrakt AB 17 (Scotland: Imperial Porter: 10.9% ABV)
Visual: Black. Large inch of dark creamy brown froth.
Nose: Milky coffee and raw coffee beans. Sour dough touch. Roasted nuts.
Body: Big bitter coffee. Big bitter chocolate. Cream. Chocolate rolls. Cashew nuts. Creamy thick texture.
Finish: Chocolate icing. Bitter coffee and coffee cake. Creamy. Walnuts.
Conclusion: Coffee cake. The beer. Coming to a cinema near you. There! There is now not that much more left for me to say actually. Well, despite that, I am quite the garrulous one, so I will keep talking anyway.
This is, roughly, 90% coffee flavours, easily – and gets an even higher percentage as it warms. Yes, more that 90%. Those chilled down times really benefit from that 10% of variety though, mainly because that 10% is made up of a huge wodge of cream and chocolate. Very smooth and rich, giving a much needed contrast as well – there’s a dash of mixed nuts which gives a sprinkling of extra flavours that progress through the beer. That 10% of other flavours means that the beer slips down like a fine coffee based desert and is very enjoyable for it.
As it warms up it starts approaching 100% coffee, and it gets a bit over bitter in the coffee expression for me – it loses that class that let it manage being such a single minded beer.
So, another one of those beers that are a screaming advocate for chilling beer down, and a very luxurious one at that. Very classy, like coffee silk. It is odd that this works so well chilled as I usually find darker beers are the ones that work better at room temperature.
So, is it worth the high price abstrakt beers command? Well, do you like coffee? Because if the answer is no, then run away, don’t walk, run, you will not like this beer. If you like coffee, then this is a genuinely great coffee beer – but be warned that is pretty much all there is – there is not really much else to it. It is a sign of the skill that has gone into making it that, despite that, it still manages to impress. There are better porters and stouts, but this has its specialised place as chilled down it is the luxury dessert of coffee.
Which is a fine beer to have now. At 11pm. Just before I sleep. Shit – I really hope this doesn’t have caffeine in it.
Background: As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. This is their latest Abstrakt, a set of one off brewed beers. This one is a rye porter which has had coffee added at three different times during the making. Which is slightly insane. Drunk while listening to the FLCL soundtrack. because FLCL!
