Tasting Notes: BrewDog Atlantic IPA
Brewery: BrewDog
Location: Fraserburgh, Scotland
ABV: 8.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Brewdog
When BrewDog announced the completion of their Atlantic IPA project I was online and buying a bottle from them within moments. I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for a beer with a good back-story, and this beer has a back-story that's definitely more interesting than most (as well as some of the best artwork I've seen on a beer bottle label).
Inspired by a recipe in an 1856 brewer's handbook, the BrewDog boys wanted to get as close as possible to the original taste and character of an India Pale Ale. The key to the process would obviously be recreating the truly unique element of the beer's production: the sea voyage from England to India, via the South African Cape, that gave the beer time to mature and transmute from a strong, hoppy pale ale into a proper India Pale Ale.
I'm currently about half-way through Pete Brown's rather excellent new book Hops and Glory. In-between recounting the history of the original C18th and C19th IPA beers, the book regales us with tales of Pete's own attempt to re-create the unique style of a true IPA by transporting a cask of Burton pale ale all the way from the UK to India, by sea, by himself. At BrewDog they went for a different nautical option: they loaded the casks of freshly-brewed beer onto a North Atlantic trawler and sent them out to face the elements for two months before the brew was brought back to base and bottle conditioned (there's more on the creation of Atlantic IPA over on the BrewDog website).
The result? Interestingly, it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I've been led to understand - based on reading round the beer blogs and sampling a few of the IPA-style beers currently produced by a number of American and UK-based craft breweries, including BrewDog themselves - that a proper, authentic IPA needs to be two things: strong (in the >5.5% ABV sense) and extremely hoppy. After all, the whole point of an IPA was that it was packed with both alcochol and hops in order to help it survive the journey to India without going flat, right?
At 8% abv BrewDog Atlantic IPA certainly fulfils the strength criteria, although the alcohol content didn't dominate the flavour profile. The big surprise for me was that Atlantic IPA wasn't really all that much of a hop-monster. Or at least, not compared to the bottle of BrewDog Chaos Theory I had as a palate-cleanser before I sampled the Atlantic, or the likes of BrewDog's own Punk IPA or Hardcore IPA, or the excellent Thornbridge Jaipur or Halcyon, to name a few.
Instead, Atlantic IPA had a very rich, malty character with flavours of dried fruit and biscuit (Jo tried a sip and commented that it was rather like fruited malt loaf) and just a hint of sea-salt. There's a distinct dryness to the after-taste, but not so much in the way of out-and-out bitterness; the overall impression is one of a beer's that's certainly savoury, rather than sweet, but with a hop-profile that's much less pronounced than I was anticipating.
As it turns out that's probably quite correct: in the chapter of Hops and Glory that I've just read, Pete Brown mentions that you'd have to expect even an over-hopped beer's spiky bitterness to fade over time. In addition to the original sea voyage and bottle conditioning on BrewDog's premises, I'd kept my bottle in the cupboard for another three months before drinking it, which on reflection would rather explain the missing Big Hop flavours.
In conclusion, then: Atlantic IPA is a terrific, interesting, robust, flavourful beer. I thoroughly enjoyed my lone bottle (which was a bit of relief seeing as I'd spent a tenner for the privilege and a brief Twitter exchange with Hop Daemon's @PeteBrissenden revealed that he hadn't been so lucky on a couple of occasions) and I was happy to have bought in to the end result of a fantastic brewing story.
And of course I'm now desperate to find out what Pete Brown discovered when he got to crack open his cask at the end of Hops and Glory (N.B. I'm halfway through and am hoping to finish on the train back from London tomorrow, so I don't yet know how the experiment turned out... please, no spoilers!) If he ends up describing his beer as having a similar flavour profile to Atlantic IPA, then perhaps I'll need to revise my estimation of what constitutes an authentic India Pale Ale. There was a rather interesting discussion on the subject over at Mark Dredge's Pencil and Spoon blog recently. Well worth a read if you're at all interested in the IPA style and the ongoing discussion over the widespread use of the IPA appellation and what, if anything, constitutes a 'true' IPA these days.
BrewDog Atlantic IPA around the Beerblogosphere:
- Impy Malting waxed lyrically on the topic of malt and kelp.
- Barry M was reminded of "bitterest Seville orange marmalade on toast".
- Reluctant Scooper noted a "nose of oak, tobacco and dark orange" and a "caramel palate warmed by alcohol and not overtaken by the dry and dusty hops".
- Zythophile debunks BrewDog's marketing and concludes that Atlantic IPA was "an experiment that didn't quite come off".
Related posts:
When I spotted a bottle of this on the shelves of Beer Ritz I had to nab one. As it had just been put on the shelf, Zak hadn't even had the chance to put the price tag on. I knew it would be expensive but the ignorance made the purchase less painful. I let it sit in my cupboard for about 5 weeks, waiting for a special day...when it felt "Right" to indulge. As it happens I just had it one week day evening. Personally I really enjoyed it. I 'd had a bottle of Stone's Ruination a few days before and was feeling a bit worried about taking on such a potentially powerful IPA. I agree with everything you say, not the brutal Hop-Bomb I was expecting. A lovely rich malty beer with bags of flavor. I wish I could have sipped it for longer, but it was so darn drinkable.
I love top notch IPAs and the many styles in which they come. I've enjoyed some corkers over the last few weeks. Great Divide Titan IPA, Flying Dog's Snake Dog, Odell's IPA and Burton Bridge Empire Pale ale. All different but outstanding in their own individual ways.
[permalink for this comment]
You're absolutely right about it being far too drinkable, Rob (at one point I actually found myself trying to quaff it... damn silly thing to do with a beer that good!)
And thanks very much indeed for those recommendations - they're all going on the 'seek out to sample' list. I think I may need to plan an expedition to Beer Ritz myself before long. Although I'll need to make further inroads on the beer cupboard first. Just taken delivery of another 10 bottles of various BrewDogs (including a half-dozen Bashah) so we're probably looking at November before I have room for a re-stock...
[permalink for this comment]
I'm with Pete on this one (I did drink a bottle with him though...). I do want to try another bottle though as it might have just been a one-off bad experience, or maybe it's mellowed in a couple of months.
I do think it's one of the best looking bottles of beer I've seen in ages.
[permalink for this comment]
Well, that's the thing - I was expecting big, ascerbic hops, but the end result was very mellow indeed. Maybe it just passed a chemical tipping point or something? (I have no idea if that's the case, by the way, as I know next to nothing about the chemistry of beer and am just going by Pete Brown's Hops and Glory footnote)
But it's absolutely fantastic design work, yes. There are a few empty beer bottles I've saved for posterity just because I like the labels so much and the BrewDog Atlantic and Zephyr are two of them.
[permalink for this comment]