     Atlantic IPA (BrewDog Ltd.)
BrewDog's Atlantic IPA, this is a beer that could tell some stories. Atlantic IPA is an authentically brewed historic English IPA from a "210 year old recipe". Brewed using traditional ingredients to create as close to the original style as possible BrewDog could have called it a day with this one. However, since India Pale Ales spent some serious time in barrels aboard ships, BrewDog put this beer into wooden barrels and loaded them on to a fishing boat to spend two months at sea. The end result, an IPA true to its historic roots which includes the time at sea. Only 960 bottles made it to the US market, there may have been more if one of the barrels hadn't fallen into the ocean while being loaded (see video below). From the BrewDog site: "We religiously followed the 210 year old recipe and the beer has now fully fermented. It is a sturdy 8% ale loaded with classic English hops such as East Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross giving a ferocious 90 IBUs. The beer is already unlike any we have ever tasted. Most strong IPAs tend to focus on American high alpha hops, giving them very fresh citrus, pine and fruit favours. However our old school hop monster's robust malt base is contrasted with very spicy, herbal and earthy hop notes and an immense enduring bitterness. We can are qualified neither scientifically, nautically or spiritually to do anything more than speculate as to how the flavours will develop and what may be added during the 2 months in oak at sea." Here we go... Pour - Atlantic IPA pours a murky, slightly flat orangish amber color. The head is very slight and its looks fairly viscous in the glass with some streaks inside the glass. Aroma - Earthy hops, caramel, a bit of smokiness, some vanilla and a surprising hint of chocolate. Very interesting. Taste - Very much a sipping beer, especially since I've only got 5.5 ounces available to me. Lots of vanilla flavor along with some spicy hop bitterness. The sweetness from the malt does a great job of backing up the hop flavors. Its defintitely got the qualities of an English IPA however the barrel aging and time at sea do add some complexities. I'm trying hard to pick out any brininess but its tough. As it warms there is some hints of smoke and plenty of roasty/toasty flavors along with some sweet bread dough flavors. Overall - It was unique and enjoyable. Quite tasty stuff but the characters from the voyage at sea were not too distinguishable unfortunately. That being said I don't believe the people at BrewDog had any way of knowing what to expect from their experiment and I still give them lots of credit for what they did. Cheers! Would I buy more of it? Luckily this bottle was shared with me by my good friend Luke over at BlogAboutBeer. Cheers Luke! Otherwise, I don't think I'd be shelling out $26 which is what a bottle of this is/was going for retail.
Posted by Russ Labels: English IPAs, Wood-aged Beers, Beer Videos | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
