Brewing up a storm with BrewDog
Posted: 19 March '10 by Niall
Brewdog Brewery
You mightn’t be familiar with the name BrewDog Brewery but you’ve probably have heard about a couple of their beers in the news. “Tactical Nuclear Penguin” is probably the most memorably-named, a 32% ABV. stout that’s designed to be drunk in whiskey-sized measures. Brewdog have the distinction of making the world’s strongest beer – “Sink the Bismarck!” – an India Pale Ale that has a whopping 41% ABV, reclaiming the title in February 2010 after a German brewery tried to take the record from BrewDog.
There’s a bit of a marketing war raging at the minute – the Schorschbrau brewery trumped BrewDog’s “Tactical Nuclear Penguin” with a 40% ABV beer, only to be beaten by “Sink the Bismarck!”. There has been some talk recently of a retaliatory strike with a 45% ABV beer being developed by the German outfit.
It can feel like we’re isolated from such goings-on in the outside world here in Northern Ireland, so we thought we’d investigate further and find out more about the title-holders. We spoke to James Watt, co-founder of the micro-brewery, and discovered that BrewDog is about a lot more than just strong beer and clever marketing..
- Niall: Who are “BrewDog” and how did you start?
- James: Martin and I were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominate the UK market. We decided the best way to fix this was to brew our own beers – in April 2007 BrewDog was born. We were only 24 at the time, we leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore beers. We’re all about making cool, contemporary and progressive beers which showcase some of the world’s classic beer styles – but with an innovative twist and customary BrewDog bite. Despite being less than 3 years old, our brewery is the largest independent brewery in Scotland.
- Niall: Your site talks about “high quality beers” – but surely beer is beer?
- James: Is chocolate just chocolate too then? We want to change people’s perceptions about beer and make as many people as passionate about great craft beer as possible. The lagers which dominate the UK market are bland, tasteless and apathetic. They are pumped full of all types of horrible things, adjunts, head retention chemicals, cheap substitutes and pasteurized into oblivion. We don’t do any of that. Our beers are hand-crafted in small batches using only the finest fresh natural ingredients – malt, water, hops, yeast and nothing else – and are loaded with flavour and bite as opposed to mainstream beers which are merely fizzy water!
- Niall: Do you find that most people are open to new tastes in beer?
- James: It depends, most are closed at the moment. They are seduced by the multi-national brewers huge advertising budget and can’t help but be sucked down the rabbit hole. We are on a mission to open as many peoples eyes as possible.
- Niall: Where can our readers find your beers? Are they available in pubs?
- James: The best place to buy our beers is our online shop at www.brewdog.com/shop.php. You can also buy our beers in tesco, sainsburys and oddbins.
- Niall: Of all the beer you make, what is your favourite, and why?
- James: That’s like asking if someone has a favourite child. I love all our beers and my favourite depends on the occasion: Our 6% “Punk IPA” is my favourite with a chorizio and spicy pepper pizza; “Trashy Blonde” is a great thirst quencher on a hot summers day (not that we get many in the north of Scotland!); “Hardcore IPA”, our US west coast style double IPA is great when I have a craving for hops; and “Paradox”, our whisky cask aged stout is an awesome accompaniment to chocolate after dinner.
- Niall: What is your strongest beer? Is it still drinkable? Why make it so strong?
- James: With “Sink!” the idea which fascinated us was to make an IPA which was as strong as a whisky. It was not as much about posting a high number, rather than taking beer to a whole new level and challenging people’s perceptions about what beer is and how it can be enjoyed. We love pushing the envelope and taking innovation in beer to places where it has never before beer, Sink! And TNP are great examples of that. With Sink we wanted to take IPA, which is our favourite beer style, and amplify the hell out of it. Sink the Bismarck is a quadruple IPA that contains four times the hops, four times the bitterness and frozen four times to create at a staggering 41% ABV. This is the most evocative style of the craft beer resistance with the volume cranked off the scale. Kettle hopped, dry hopped then freeze hopped for a deep fruit, resinous and spicy aroma. A full out attack on your taste-buds ensues as the incredibly smooth liquid delivers a crescendo of malt, sweet honey, hop oils and a torpedo of hop bitterness which lasts and lasts.
- Niall: How did you come up with the name “Tactical Nuclear Penguin”? What is it?
- James: We just wanted an excuse to put Bracken in a penguin suit…
- Niall: I’ve read about how important “Bracken” is your your business.. Who or what is Bracken?
- James: Bracken is my three year old chocolate lab. He recently appeared on Mastermind and progressed to the semi final with his specialist subject of ‘The origins of Constitutional Democratic Government: Europe 1846-1912′. Unfortunately he missed the semi-final because he was busy chasing a stick. He is our guard dog, head-taster, accountant and general buddy! Be sure to say hi if you see him – he is very friendly!
- Niall: What’s the future for BrewDog? Any big announcements/plans for 2010?
- James: We are currently working on renovating our first ever BrewDog Bar in Aberdeen, we are also working on building our new brewery just outside Aberdeen. We’re always up to some crazy things with beer too and are prone to causing the occasional bit of controversy.. watch this space!
Niall: Thanks James!
Kelly and I will be tasting and reviewing some BrewDog beers shortly – make sure you check back to see what we thought.
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 4Image 5
Contact BrewDog Brewery
BrewDog Ltd.
Unit 1, Kessock Workshops,
Fraserburgh,
AB43 8UE
T: +44 (0) 1346 519 009
W: www.brewdog.com
Blog: www.brewdog.com/blog.php
You can also find Brewdog Brewery on Google Maps.
Chilli and Chocolate members:
BrewDog Brewery have very kindly given us a mixed case of their beers for some of our members to try. Visit the Members’ Section for more details.
Tags: beer, micro-brewery
Categories: Chilli and Chocolate Talk To.. > Local Food Heroes
