Brewdog: Blitz Apricot (Scotland: Berliner Weisse: 3% ABV)
Visual: Very hazy bruised apricot to grapefruit juice. Thick yellowed white head that leaves some lace.
Nose: Stewed apricots. Prunes. Figs. Tart but emphasizes the stewed fruit. Slight sulfur. Stewed banana. Mead and honey.
Body: Apricots. Sharp lemon. Tart and sour. Sulphur. Slight toffee or possibly caramel. Honey.
Finish: Prunes and stewed apricot. Drying, into a dried apricot taste. Slight dusty feel early on but freshens up. Caramel apples.
Conclusion: A stewed Berliner weisse? Maybe, or at least that is what it tastes like. This thing is heavier and thicker than I expected. Most Berliner weisses are quite crisp, but not this one. The main flavor is the expected apricot, albeit in stewed style, but beneath that are hints and calls to darker fruit.
The sweetness is pushed up with a honey like aroma that smoothes into a caramelised like touch in the body. This, when combined with the stewed fruits, could become sickly but here the sharp sourness against it just cleans it right up and cleanses the pallet.
The beer manages huge flavor without wearing out its welcome and at an abv well within session range. It is however a bit single minded, for all the flavor they are the same elements from start to finish.
Not as high quality as the Brewdog/Brodies collaboration, but it is a big refreshing beer of surprising weight for the abv. It wouldn’t work well for a sole drink for a session, but having repeated halves in between pints of other beers it would work brilliantly as one to come back to.
Background: Drunk in Brewdog Bristol. They were releasing it at 7 and I walked in at two minutes to after watching the new Alan Partridge movie. Perfect timing. There was a previous Brewdog prototype called Blitz, but this seems to have nothing in common with that apart from both are attempts at comparatively low abv beers. In case you hadn’t guessed, it is made with apricots.
