The murky world of BrewDog

My excuse? BrewDog Cork is right opposite my employer's Cork office, and most of Cork's good beer pubs, including nearby Impala, don't open until evening. With twenty spare minutes at lunchtime it was the only practical option, and I was hoping I might find something on tap from Original 7. Alas, BrewDog's own beers were as good as it got.

So I ended up with Hazy Jane Guava, a fruited version of their flagship hazy IPA. The beer side didn't stand much of a chance against the concentrate and the result is pure breakfast juice as the opening flavour. That's not unpleasant, especially since it's set on a fun and fluffy body, but it's by no means a grown-up beer experience. It's mostly very refreshing, though has a little bit of a hot aftereffect, odd as it's only 5% ABV. This is decent overall, if somewhat gimmicky and artificial. Drink in smaller measures than a pint, and cold.

I didn't think that warranted a blog post all of its own so I picked up something related to round things out. This is Triple Hazy, I guess similar in recipe to Hazy Jane but boosted in strength to 9.5% ABV. It looks quite an innocent cloudy orange colour. It smells hot, and with a concentrated orange-cordial sweetness. Any perception that this might be an easy drinker is banished with one sniff. The burn is real on tasting -- fruit arrives first but gets immediately scorched off the tongue by the alcohol. Again, it's not an unpleasant sensation, but it's a striking one. The flavour itself is a bit basic. One might reasonably expect the booze to act as a flavour carrier for the hops but it doesn't really: the sweet orangey syrup thing is pretty much all you get. This is fine but doesn't have much going on, so it's for when you want an awesome mind-blowing powerhouse of a beer, but not one that's especially challenging.

I usually enjoy BrewDog beers more than I enjoyed either of these. That's what I get for going hazy, I suppose.