Tasting Notes: Brewdog: Hardcore NZ

Brewdog: Hardcore NZ (Scotland IIPA: 9.2% ABV)

Visual: Clear reddened amber with a caramel tinted cream bubbled head.

Nose: Grapefruit. Tart. Gooseberry. Good malt shown. Caramel and tangerine.

Body: Malty. Toffee. Elderberry and gooseberry. Weird cherry like touches. Sherbet tingle. Solidly bitter. Passion fruit.

Finish: Gooseberry. Moderate bitterness and hop character. The hops grow over time to tingling nettle like levels. Dry biscuit.

Conclusion: Take your old favourite Hardcore IPA, then make it fresh and tart with an NZ hop kick. How can this not work out well?

It has evident grapefruit notes as you would expect from NZ, which provides a lot of the fresh and tingling elements. As always with Hardcore the malt and bitter back brace well against each other to create a heavy hop but sweet experience.

Will noted on drinking that it is beer that benefits massively from holding and swirling in your mouth for a while. Not one to swallow too soon. He also describes this element as “Blodge” because he is mad.

I always feel that while the Hardcore IPA is a more flavoursome beer than punk IPA, I prefer punk IPA as it is a beer I can enjoy in more occasions. This has a similar arrangement between itself and Hardcore IPA. It has much more flavour and has a wonderful tart to bitter balance. However it is a beer for select occasions, as a more challenging, expressive and punchy beer it is impressive, but definitely not an any time beer.

So a beer that is a wake up call of butter fruity freshness and flavour. Very impressive

Background: Found at Brewdog Camden, this keg only release takes the Hardcore IPA and uses purely NZ hops for it. This was the first drink of what turned out to be an epic all day drinking session. Which was nice. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers.