Brewdog: How to Disappear Completely (2013) (Scotland: Imperial Mild: 2.8% ABV)
Visual: Mahogany with a large chocolate dust coloured creamy head. Some suds are left as you drink the beer.
Nose: Kiwi. Toffee. Chocolate dust. Tiny touch of crushed charcoal. Bitter hops. Apricot. Digestives.
Body: Charred bitterness. Kiwi and passion fruit. Prickly. Peach. Malt chocolate. Green apples.
Finish: Bitter hops. Dry. Malt chocolate. Kiwi. Pineapple. Toffee.
Conclusion: Yay. Another entry in the lower abv beer set, though this one is a bit heavier than most, weighing in as it does at a whopping 2.8% abv. I know. Dangerous. However it does use that bit of extra weight to good effect.
The body has a slight chocolate taste to it with a good level of bitterness added. Not IPA level, nor early Nanny State level, but still prickling and vibrant. The hop flavor is interesting though, calling to the black IPA in style if not intensity. The heavier fruit flavours like kiwi and green apples comes through in that BIPA style giving it just a slight tart edge.
I’ve had this on keg and the texture feels slightly thin there, not quite delivering the flavor. Here on the other hand it has more grip which comes with a charring like touch but also much more robust flavor.
The flavour, as mentioned, is like a mini black IPA but not as intense. Bitter but more soothing than punching. Though that could say more about my ongoing immunity to hop bitterness rather than any characteristic of the beer. Very easy to drink despite the bitterness and robust flavor. It doesn’t bring that instant wow like 0.3% Drink In The Sun but holds up very well over time. A great entry into a difficult weight category and very sessionable.
Background: Ok, imperial mild is a very silly term, and basically a bit of a marketing fluff from Brewdog. Those of you who with to be a bit more serious pretend I just listed this as mild. Anyway, while I have been a Brewdog fan for a long time, coming across Punk IPA in their first year of Brewing, it took a bit of time to find their website, and the existence of their small run beer, so I just missed the release of the first edition of this. I loved the idea of a low abv high flavor beer which has been part of my search around “Drink In The Sun” and the like. So, when in 2013 they released a new version of this I grabbed it. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. This was drunk while listening to a bit of Alanis Morissette. I was a huge fan of “Jagged Little Pill” in my youth, but never rated the second album. Listening to it now I think I really underestimated it, it’s got a lot more weight than I gave it at the time.
