What have Brewdog ever stood for

I saw some tweet, from a friend, which said ‘what did Brewdog ever stand for’, in light of some legal stuff (which you can read elsewhere), and I thought of the piece I included in a book that Roger Protz and I wrote for CAMRA in 2015, and which we both suggested/demanded should include BrewDog. I wrote it and Roger was happy with it and in light of all the stuff about punks not being punks (I was a punk and dropped it like a hot coal when everyone and their mother became one — it was not about mohicans but more about an attitude, I learnt more about situationism and structuralism through punk than anything else and never passed into the fancy dress stage, which owed more to 19th century dandyism than anything else), here it is before it was edited. Despite the dreadful Raspberry Smoothie IPA and knocking over the furniture in the PR showroom of self-righteousness I still think they do a good job (as do Adnams, Fullers, Hook Norton, Camden etc etc etc). 

BrewDog’s brewery is a cavernous, cathedral-like brewing hall with its steel ribs reaching out and holding up the sky; it’s a lively animated space on brewing day as rock music plays and brewers mull about, clambering up steel ladders to check brewing vessels and ducking beneath metal pipes through which beer flows. Outside sit the fermenting vessels, silvery, towering cylinders that receive more hops as the beer sleeps, through something called a hop cannon. This feels like a brewery committed to the future.

However, there’s one thing missing. BrewDog don’t make cask beer, they stopped making it in 2011. They did make some very good cask beers such as 5AM Saint, Paradox and, yes, even Punk IPA, but that was then this is now. Their beers are either in bottle or what is called, for want of a better word, craft keg. Go to any of the brewery’s bars in Bristol, Sheffield and across London and you won’t find a hand pull (but you will find friendly bar staff who are exceptionally knowledgeable about beer, but it won’t be cask). The brewery has also a fractious relationship with CAMRA, to say the least. 

Yet, BrewDog cannot be ignored. Their craft keg might not be cask but it’s neither the tinny-tasting, strained keg of the past, which had as much a relationship with flavour as processed cheese has with the Slow Food movement. BrewDog is also seen by many drinkers as one of the most significant and — yes — exciting developments in the world of beer for many years, and that would probably include a fair amount of CAMRA members.

Important? For a start, without them we probably wouldn’t have had the likes of Magic Rock (whose High Wire could be seen as a tribute to Punk IPA), The Kernel and Wild Beer. For better or worse they have been an inspiration. BrewDog has brought many young men and women to beer and, in a similar way the Sex Pistols broke out of the punk ghetto, they have also transcended the beer bubble. They have been heard of by people who rarely drink beer, a recognition factor many breweries would love. Your mum has probably heard of them.

Even though it’s not cask, BrewDog brew some good beers. A bottle of Punk IPA has a pungent and arousing nose of ripe peach and apricot skin; lychee, papaya and mango trips off the tongue, while there’s a gentle touch on the elbow of white pepper in the dry and grainy finish. Meanwhile Jack Hammer is a big beast of a strong IPA with its bitter finish clanging away like an alarm bell and the even stronger (9.2%) Hardcore IPA has an intense swagger of grapefruit, blue cheese and pine cones on the nose while in the mouth it is fulsome with a concentration of sweet grapefruit alongside a resiny hoppiness — this is a beer able to hold its head high against anything the likes of Stone can produce.

Yes they can be wearisome. There have been the controversies: by and by the world of beer is a relatively cordial one but some of BrewDog’s comments on the nature of British brewing not only upturned the apple cart but starting throwing the fruit about. This is something that James Watt acknowledged when I met him up the north of Scotland, where the brewery have their home, early on in 2014: ‘there are things we wouldn’t do now.’

That was then, this is now and who knows, there might be things they will do in the future: such as brewing cask, because if you cast your mind back several years they brewed some excellent cask beer.

It’s tasting night at Tierney-Jones Towers

Beerwriters Guild AGM last week. Andrew Howitt is a member who lives in Brazil part of the year and wrote about some of the country’s craft beers in 1001 Beers. He emails and says do you want me to bring some beers? Yes please as both Brazil and Argentina seem to have a small but growing group of craft brewers. And so at the end of the meeting, he gets his bag out and produces a selection of goodies. Zak Avery and the Guild’s chairman Tim Hampson buzz about but I manage to get Baden Baden’s Stout Dark Ale, Colorado’s Imperial Stout plus Lust from Eisenbahn (a sort of Deus type beer). Back home at the weekend, desperate for something different I try the Imperial Stout. It’s dark in the glass, midnight at the end of the old moon; bubblegum, sweet apple, toffee and a feather-light dance of raspberry on the nose. Tasted: a rich and bittersweet confection, milk stoutish with more of an oomph than you would expect with something like Mackeson (it is 10.5% after all), creamy, good bitterness kicking in towards the end of the palate with a delicious soothing succulent finish. I found it oversweet at first, but then my palate got in line and rock and rolled with the whole ensemble, I was mightly impressed (tropical imperial stout anyone…). The next night it’s the turn of the Baden Baden Stout: smoke, soot, toffee, burnt raisins, rolled around a creamy texture with a dry, bittersweet finish. This was only 6.5% but went down with the smoothness of a drop of Crème de Cacao. The Lust sits on a shelf in the cellar, next to a five year old bottle of Deus. I await a bottle of Malheur Brut and will then institute a tasting. And while I’m on the tasting game, I also had a bottle of BrewDog’s Prototype kindly sent to me, which I also drank at the weekend. This apparently is Hardcore IPA with raspberries and aged in an Islay whisky barrel. That’s the technical stuff over with and here’s the sensory stuff. Colour is a dark blush, pretty lovely. Raspberries, iodine, aftershave and tcp on the nose (ouch!), while the palate is an intriguing mixture of luscious raspberries, then harsh iodine, soft raspberry again and then a hard rasping bitterness from the hops. Raspberry, iodine whisky and hop bitterness — I’m not sure it worked but by god it makes for an interesting beer. The raspberries give an appealing tart sourness while their sweet fruitiness helped to temper what could be a very fiery finish. There’s also a woodiness in the finish that makes me think I could be chewing raspberry canes (rather than lolloping on a Mivvi). But then I also think raspberry jam with whisky and hops in it. A work in progress, but then that’s why it’s called Prototype. Would a secondary fermentation with Brett make it even more interesting?

Never mind the bollocks…

Two bottles of Punk IPA tonight. Superb. More balance than a weighing scales made in a weighing scales factory; flavour is spicy hop notes balanced by tropical fruit, fantastic. Without going on about it, I do wonder if brewing beer is what BrewDog is best at and the rest is just flotsam and jetsam.