Brewdog: Hinterland (Scotland: Imperial Stout: 9% ABV)
Visual: Black – pours like chocolate liqueur, has a short lasting brown bubbled head.
Nose: Bitter cocoa. Crushed chocolate bourbon biscuits. Light roasted character.
Body: Bitter chocolate and cocoa dust. Dry roasted nuts and hazelnuts. Chocolate cake. Black cherry hint. Liquorice hint. Chocolate icing. Light sugar cane. Cream.
Finish: Vanilla. Cocoa. Bitter chocolate cake. Light sugar dusting.
Conclusion: This is one of those beers that would have blown my mind early on in my beer drinking life, but with all the water under the beer bridge I have become slightly blasé to.
Basically, this is chocolate. Mainly bitter, sometimes creamy, sometimes cake like and sometimes icing like, but in general – chocolate. That is the strength and the weakness. Strength as well, about five years back this level of layered, varied chocolate would have put me in the mind of a chocolate equivalent of what Beer Geek Brunch Weasel does for coffee – layered and lovely.
Thing is, these days it seems kind of one note – a fricking impressive note, but one note. I have now tried other beers have done the wonder of many layered chocolate and managed to add other elements to match and oppose it. I promise I’m not just being picky as I recently disagreed with Brewdog on some stuff – I still genuinely like a lot of their beers and what they do. This is nice, impressive even – but doesn’t stand out as an exceptional Imperial Stout amongst Brewdog’s range, let alone the insane range of high quality Imperial Stouts in the world.
Still, thickness wise it has a good texture. Chocolate wise it has a good range; Creamy, rich, bitter, heavy and tasty. It is just not as good as some others. You won’t be let down though if you want a chocolate Imperial Stout – I am just spoiled.
Needs something none chocolate added to it to make it special, but still pretty good.
Background: An imperial oatmeal milk stout made with cocoa and vanilla pods. Again Brewdog are making me pack in the extra words to describe their beers This thing has an awesome pretty label, which is cool – The photo doesn’t really show it off. With it being so dark I either got it looking like a black bottle, or with a level of flash back depending on the setting. An expert photographer I am not. Bias warning, despite my recent disagreements with Brewdog, I still benefit financially from them doing well as a minor shareholder. Despite that I still try to be as unbiased as possible. This was drunk after blowing yet another promising Binding of Isaac The Lost run. Grrr. Drunk while listening to the great fun Television Villain! Check them out. Bias warning – a friends band.