Beer Blog & Beer Reviews

Continuing our quest to conquer the box of BrewDog’s finest, we have for our perusal a bottle of Dogma. At 7.8% it’s a strong one, with some unique ingredients bringing a wide palate of smells and tastes. BrewDog themselves describe it as “A conspiracy of transcontinental ingredients infused with some devastatingly BrewDog imaginative thinking.” Excellent.

BrewDog Dogma

Upon opening and having a hearty sniff, the main impression is a back of the nose smell which is sugary and has that warm quality that a good, malty ale always has. There’s plenty of hints of the main ingredients of kola nut, poppy seed and heather honey, and one can almost smell the effort put in to the brew. The aroma is pleasant rather than overpowering, and the clean purity of the scent and colour of the poured item encourages you to take a sip.

The smell doesn’t carry over to the taste, like so many ales which can seem to spend more time in the nose than in the mouth. Those kolas and poppies bring natural, leafy tones to the taste, and the other main ingredient of guarana gives an added pep to the already strong cola-style experience. Because the smell is not overpowering when drinking, this ale is a wonderful thing to quaff, leaving your mouth clean and refreshed after every mouthful. There is a definite thickness to the taste, which comes from the strength of the brew, but the flavours are so good that you don’t notice any unpleasant, back-of-the-mouth style antics normally associated with highly alcoholic beverages.

During our exploits with the BrewDog ales, everyone has had an opinion on each brew. I personally - being a fan of heavier beers - loved Paradox Smokehead, while the other chaps were more appreciative of the hoppier pales such as Trashy Blonde and Punk IPA. This was the beer we most agreed on, being variously described as “awesome” and “the best beer we’ve had all evening”. If Trashy Blonde is the ultimate session pale ale, Dogma is the ultimate strong ale in BrewDog’s arsenal.

BrewDog Trashy Blonde is one of the very few beers from the Scottish micro brewers I’ve seen on a pump in a pub. It has the cool name and great reputation needed to get noticed in a crowd out there in the increasing number of pubs offering real ale and beer.

As usual the labels on the beer exude the mind set of non-conformity that BrewDog have become synonymous with. Bright purple and chaotic lettering make the brand stand out in a sea of traditional hand pump shields and bottle shelves.

BrewDog Trashy Blonde

When you open and smell the super clear yellow beer the moderate effervescence brings fantastic, sweet, hoppy and lemon smells right to you. The smell alone is enough to make you salivate and jump to the conclusion that Trashy Blonde is going to be an awesome beer. It won’t take you long to have a mouthful of this brew.

Light, malty, fruity, fresh, medium body. All of these words can be used to accurately describe this beer. Despite the name, Trashy Blonde has very clean taste. To me it has two flavors, the first being malt, the second being plenty of bittering and aroma hops. The clean, clear flavors are both very nice and provide all you could want from a beer.

This is a session beer, as in I can happily sip this over a table with a meal, or I could equally tip huge mouthfuls down my throat and easily drink a lot in one go. This is one of the few beers so far that I would go and buy a case of twenty four bottles of and enjoy every last one. Maybe the real trashy blonde comes after the 24 bottles?

Whereas Paradox Smokehead is an interesting but ultimately unforgiving beer, Trashy Blonde will appeal to almost anyone with taste buds.

If you are looking for a beer to buy in for a party (and you have some taste) then this is definatly the way to go. It’s more expensive than twenty four cans of mass produced lager or bitter, but that’s not what BrewDog is about and it’s not what beer should be about either. Buy something good, made with skill and without compromise. Buy Trashy Blonde.

Thanks to BrewDog for supplying this wildly different beer for review. I posted a mini review about this beer on Twitter the moment I tried it as I was so intrigued by it.

The Paradox Smokehead bottle has another of BrewDogs eye catching labels printed in gold on jet black, making it look ‘up market’, and a distressed font letting you know they are making every effort not to conform to the beer/ale stereotype. This is a craft brewed imperial stout aged in whiskey barrels at 10% ABV.

Brew Dog: Paradox Smokehead

I’m drinking Paradox Smokehead in my sunny back garden during a BBQ with some freinds; they all tried some and chipped in. The bottle does however suggest that we might not like it, and that that’s OK with them.

Opening the bottle and giving it a sniff immediately says this is going to be interesting, strong and different. The smell is like pure single malt whiskey! There is a creamy mellowness to the nose which makes Paradox smell a little less like pure whiskey, but damned close. The lack of the ‘wet eyes’ syndrome I usually get when putting my nose over some whiskey is encouraging. Maybe I won’t die after all.

Nothing left to do but to taste the beer, put all pre-conceptions out of my mind and try to expect the unexpected.

The first flavor to come through the pallet is a really full bodied, slightly bitter stout with the burnt malt flavor expected from anything which is this black. It’s a slightly creamy stout flavor which is immediately and brutally replaced with the flavor of the whiskey. Not a cheaper, blend whiskey like Grants or Bells, but the closest whiskey I know the flavour of is probably Bowmore Single Malt, it’s very peaty and earthy. This beer from this point now tastes like a full shot of Bowmore has been tipped into it. The whiskey strangely brings out some of the bitterness from the stout too and a subtle toffee flavor at the back of the mouth.

After tasting this beer you’re left with an alcoholic taste on your breath. Great if you like decent whiskey, not so good if you don’t.

For me the two flavors in this beer are nice, but Paradox Smokehead is a lot like a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s brash and offensive, it’s violent and not everyone will like it. But it is without a doubt excellent and it is ‘beer as an art’ I think, the very definition of a crafted beer.

In summary its a bit of a bi-polar beer. I would love to have the stout and whiskey in seperate glasses then maybe I could taste more of the creamy, burnt, toffee stout and then chase it down with a quality warming peaty whiskey.

Q: Should you try it?
A: Yes.

Q: Will you like it?
A: You can only know if you try it.

I’ve been wanting to try the beers produced by Martin and James at BrewDog Beer for a while now. I have just acquired some now and I will be trying them ASAP, hopefully they will be something which stands out in a crowd.

BrewDog logo

I’m not one to be taken in by gimmicky marketing ploys, which is just fine because the punk appeal of this beer isn’t in the fantastic branding, it’s in the message the branding puts across.

The modern twists these guys put on classic ale’s is apparently BrewDog’s secret weapon. BrewDog’s beer come recommended by people all over the web, so watch this space for beer reviews with a twist coming soon… very soon.