By Rick August & Shelley Whitehead
A small village called Fraserburgh at the extreme corner of Scotland’s chilly North Sea coast is the unlikely home to BrewDog, a craft brewery that claims to make “Beer for Punks”. Within sight of the cold North Sea surf (and brave souls do surf in Fraserburgh), Brew Dog, which was founded by James Watt and Martin Dickie in 2006, occupies an unprepossessing building with no external signage in a small industrial park south of the old village.
The brewing plant seems to work at a breathless pace, with a modest-sized mash tun that brews 24 hours a day to feed an estimated output of 120,000 bottles per month. The product is sold in bottles by mail and in retail stores across the UK, and in specialty stores overseas. The company is selling some beer to bars at home and overseas in disposable kegs as well. The current beer lineup includes Trashy Blonde pale ale, 77 lager, 5 AM Saint amber ale, Punk IPA, Hardcore imperial IPA, Tokyo oak-aged stout and Paradox, a whisky-cask aged imperial stout.
Also on offer is one of BrewDog’s best known beers, Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which at 32% alcohol by volume has until recently claimed to be the world’s strongest beer. This claim that seems to have launched the equivalent of an alcoholic arms race with German brewer Schorschbräu, who countered with its 40% ABV Schorschbock. BrewDog in its turn created a 41% beer, pointedly named Sink The Bismarck!, while Schorschbräu is apparently returning the volley with a 43% ABV beer. The brewery has survived an industry group complaint about its ultra-strong products, and is taking a light-hearted approach to the alcoholic artillery duel – as the video at http://www.brewdog.com/sink_the_bismark.php would attest.
BrewDog’s ultra-high alcohol beers are made eisbock-style, by freezing beer in forklift-size square plastic containers for two weeks, then drawing off the unfrozen portion. In the case of Bismarck! this process is repeated four times, with kettle hopping, dry hopping and “freeze hopping”. We were fortunate to see a batch of Bismarck! in process and taste a running off the freezing vessel. It was very much like an Amarillo hops liqueur. Beer lovers outside the EU customs union will have a hard time finding BrewDog’s very strong beers as they are sold exclusively by mail through web orders – Tactical Nuclear Penguin for a hefty £33 per 330 ml bottle, and Sink the Bismarck! for an even heftier £40.
