Before the review I’m going to write out what is on the bottle… mostly because it’s awesome and to give a little background.
“In a rock ‘n roll collaboration, 2 of Europe’s most extreme, experimental brewers have combined forces, talents and ideas to produce this innovation ale.
Uniting inspitation, ingredients and people from around the world this beer was brewed and aged at BrewDog in Scotland.
This rebellious beer is partially aged in oak speyside whisky barrels and partially aged in stainless steel, combines an ale yeast and a champagne yeast and showcases a single hop variety.”
Yea, this beer sounds awesome. 2nd to beer on my list of preferred drinks is scotch, so this is going to be an awesome beer for sure. Let’s Do This!
The point breakdown for a beer is as follows!
Appearance (0-3)
Aroma (0-4)
Taste (0-10) [Hop/Malt Balance (4); After Taste (3); Mouth Feel (3)]
Overal Impression (1-3)
Appearance (2.5) – Just like the weather out in Syracuse on a regular basis this beer is partly cloudy. Dark Amber to Brown in color. Really what you would expect from a English Style Barleywine, aged in scotch barrels.
Aroma (3.5) – I can pick up all of the malt and the scotch in the nose of this beer. It truly blends together so well that the untrained taste buds may miss the scotch nose on it but it’s there. Possibly more standing out because of the amount of time the beer aged but it is definitely there.
Taste (7.5) [Hop/malt (2) After taste (2.5) Mouth feel (3)] – There is little to no hop character that stands out in this beer, making it overly malty in strictly that category. The balance really comes over the palate with the Scotch and the Malt flavor not so much the hops. Partial credit here but I can’t award full credit that’s for sure. The After taste lingers a little bit. It’s a beer that I truly enjoy so I like the aftertaste but if you weren’t a fan of this beer you probably wouldn’t finish, or need a water to help clean the palate. Mouth feel solid, it’s a full bodied beer with a great mouth feel; comes out very well balanced.
Overall Impression (3) – Loved this beer. I liked this beer so much after the first time I tried it I bought one from a tasting event from the left over stash after everyone was done sampling. I don’t remember if I got a good deal on it or not; but still it was worth it just to have this beer for the future. Honestly this is probably the beer that got me likely Barleywines in general. This is a very well balanced beer; with some scotch undertones and not too overbearing with hops or malts. The scotch really evens out the beer in my mind to not make this barleywine too malty and sweet.
I looked at some reviews online of this beer, many people seemed disappointed in this beer in general. I'd like to believe that the beer got a lot better with age, and I wasn't the only person who truly enjoyed this beer. You have my review; please by all means go and out and get one and let me know what you think. Get some craft beer and support a couple of great breweries from across the pond. Until next time Cheers!
Sorry about the weak photo... I'd take another one but the beer is... well gone.
In case you were wondering… beer came in a 11.2 fl oz bottle. Batch was 243 and the beer was bottled on 07/09/09.
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