Brewdog: Pump Action Poet (Scotland: IPA: 7.5% ABV)
Visual: Pale. Clear yellow. Large white, loose mounded head. Some small bubble carbonation.
Nose: Musty hops and dried pineapple. Moderate bitterness.
Body: Vanilla and vanilla yogurt. Tart grapes. Fresh peach and dried apricot. Moderate bitterness. Thick hop oils and fluffy hop character. Quite thick, gripping feel.
Finish: Pineapple. Dried peach. Light hop character and bitterness. More peach as it warms. Shortbread. Tart grapes.
Conclusion: The cult of super fresh would be severely let down by this beer. This is an IPA, right? Made with fruit right? So surely the most fresh you could get it would be the best, drunk on the day of arrival straight from the brewery? In my experience, no. I tried one of these the day it arrived and it felt a bit empty – it really didn’t bring the range of flavours you would hope for and felt a bit thin even. The very fresh character just felt prickly and undeveloped.
The difference a couple of weeks can make, eh? I’ve had this a few times since and it gained a thicker, slightly hop oil led feel, with a very raw, hoppy character. More importantly, that raw hoppy character has also managed to leave room for the special ingredients to come into play where before they were lost in the not quite settled beer. Now it is tart and even slightly sour in how it delivers the peach and apricot notes, with lots of the sour stone character showing through. It merges these with tart pineapple and sour grapes for a solid tart and sour mid body.
So we have here a muggy thick, hop feeling bitterness and sour fresh tart fruitiness. They are cemented together by a slightly neutral vanilla yogurt character, which is probably the weakest part of the deal. It is a thickness that gives little in return and doesn’t rein in, nor accentuate the two poles of bitterness and tartness. However, overall it is a solid IPA and solidly delivers on the stone fruit conceit.
Time, though admittedly only a few weeks, definitely helped this. Yes hopped beers can be great fresh,and you don’t want to leave them too long – but sometimes they can do with just a few weeks after canning so they can mellow and balance everything going on inside. It is solid ( I say that a lot don’t I? I need a new word…) and does the idea well. Not a world shaker, but aye, I’d recommend giving it a go.
Background: The next of Brewdogs limited run can range of this year – they seem to be getting pretty neat can art these days, of which this one is no exception. Grabbed direct from Brewdog’s online store, this is a Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe hopped IPA, with added peach and apricot into the mix. I’d tried this a couple of times before doing the notes. On the day of the notes my hay fever was playing up slightly – however I felt the notes were still good and matched my experience of the past few times within expected variance – so I still decided to put them up. This was drunk while listening to Ulver – War Of The Roses. Ulver is awesome background beer drinking music, in all their wide range of experimenting.
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