Brewdog: Misspent Youth (Scotland: Scotch Ale: 7.3% ABV)
Visual: Dark reddened brown to black. Sud leaving beiged bubbled head.
Nose: Smoke. Honey. Chocolate malt drink. Barley fields. Treacle toffee. Slightly closed sour notes underneath.
Body: Honey. Milky chocolate and chocolate liquore. Low choc bitterness. Slick and thick texture. Treacle. Orange liquore undertones.
Finish: Honey and chocolate. Belgium chocolates -Sweet initially into bitter. Treacle. Roasted touch.
Conclusion: Ok, this beer I can sum up pretty quickly. Honey and Chocolate (liquore) and chocolate (bitter) and treacle. Boom. Job done. It’s hardly the anti life equation there is it? Though let’s face it, that isn’t what we are trying to solve here. We are trying to solve if it is any good.
Well it follows in the path of Dogma and the prototype scotch ale before it with massive honey all the way through. It is very sweet like it has been mead infused. The texture is an improvement over the prior beers, more liquore and more delivering the chocolate range well. It really runs the gamut of chocolate experiences, from bitter to sweet Belgium luxuries. That is the main element and a fully expressed one.
Definitely not a session pint, or even one for a few in a sitting. I had a half and while it was tasty it was heavy going by the end. Now remember I have a slight anti scotch ale bias here, so it may be worth taking that into account.
Early on it was very enjoyable, the honey and chocolate mix well and the treacle just ramps that up. However it is a too big beer for its own good, and that huge wodge of flavor becomes too heavy too soon. Never bad, but loses the sparkle quickly.
Still, very nice in small doses.
Background: OK, let’s see what I remember from the Brewdog Bristol’s staff’s detailed description of this beer. OK, it is made with ten different types of malt, lactose, heather honey. Brewed with top fermented yeast, but for a short time and then lagered. There was more but I was enjoying the beer so only wrote down what I could remember half way through. Anyway, first put on Draft at a Copenhagen beer festival, drunk by me in Bristol. As always, I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers.
