Brew Dog Hardcore IPA

Another snowstorm here in bee-uutiful St Paul today, so everything on the agenda is cancelled. Now the kids' playdates are over, it's time to drink a beer.

Brew Dog: They are hardcore

I recently wrote a bit about Brew Dog and said something stupid to a friend about not being able to get it here. This friend reminded me that you can...for a price. It ain't cheap, but I thought I should give it a shot, so I picked up the Hardcore IPA, and I'll try to get some of the others soon.

4 hop cones???

The beer is listed as an "explicit imperial IPA", with 9.2% abv. There is an odd bit of marketing on the back for an IPA -- the lads at Brew Dog (sorry, that's "two humans and one canine companion") set out to impress with a listing of all of the stuff that went into the beer, including (they say) 2,204 grains of Maris Otter malt, 9.9 trillion yeast cells, and....4 hop cones.  Umm... do they mean four varieties?  Or does "hop cone" have a different meaning in the UK that I'm unaware of?

As for the beer itself, it's very fruity/malty in aroma, with background hops. It actually comes across in aroma more like what Americans tend to think of as "barley wine" rather than "IPA", though admittedly there's a blurry line between them sometimes. The malt side of the aroma is plum/prune/toffee, with a sort of dried apricot ester. The hops are like orange, apricot and pineapple more than the punch of grapefruit/pine that typically mark US versions. It's definitely more "IPA" in flavor, with a big bitter kick in the teeth right up front.  It's a big beer but it's nicely attenuated. It's a bit full in the mouth but it's dry enough to actually drink a bit of it. Malt stays in the background in the flavor though again its a fuller, richer malt profile than many of the US versions. Nice, though I'm not sure it will bump Maharaja out of my fridge.  (Wife adds "This is good.  Mmmm-mmm-mmmmm.")