Brewdog: Prototype: Elvis Juice 2.0 (Scotland: IPA: 6.5% ABV)
Visual: Amber touched gold. Brown bubbled head. Low carbonation.
Nose: Digestives. Moss and hops. Dried apricot. Lemongrass.
Body: Good bitterness and hop prickle. Key lime. Lemongrass. Bubblegum. Elderberry. Some toffee. Shortbread. Quite dry. Palma violets. Sweeter as it warms with golden syrup touch and grapes.
Finish: Kiwi and lime. Good bitterness. Bubblegum. Apricot. Palma violets. Fudge. Grapes.
Conclusion: Version 1.0 of this was an interesting mixed bad. 2.0 is… better. More balanced than before in delivering its various ideas. It feels like it is aiming at trying for the same range that Stone’s Delicious IPA was going for. Now it isn’t as good as Delicious IPA, but that is ok. Delicious IPA was fucking delicious.
This is bloody tasty, which as we all know is a mere one level below fucking delicious. I have a chart. This is science.
This has quite a dry base IPA but it ramps up the flavor range going from fresh citrus fruit, bubblegum, though to lemongrass and palma violets. The expected, more toffee, base is there, but really just a backing note.
If you let it warm up it still has some of the sweetness of 1.0, but far more restrained. Chilled down it feels just as dry at the base as the beer needs. Oddly the special ingredients never seem to stand out in themselves, just seeming to mix into the overall citrus medley.
As is it feels like a serious rival to Punk IPA for the mainstay IPA of the Brewdog set. Punk is more stand out to me, but this seems more towards the expected IPA notes. It has bigger citrus flavours which are oft what is expected.
A seriously good IPA, I look forwards to the final release.
Background: A second run for Elvis Juice. The original I found fun, but seemed to have two contrasting, clashing styles within. This is a reworked recipe so I decided to give it another run, albeit with a shorter set of notes as it is similar to the original which I already gave a full write up. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. This was made with orange and grapefruit peel to accentuate the Magnum, Simcoe, Amarillo , Citra and Mosaic hops.
