Brettanarchist

Hellall,

     the wonderful Vikkie bought me, amongst other delights, a large bottle of beer for my birthday. I was intending to share it with Davefromtshop when he came over on the day itself, and he did say he liked "Brett" beers because they weren't resultantly, if perhaps otherwise, sour, but in the end we didn't try it. I opened it whilst sat in the baking sunshine on Friday, leaving a small amount for Matty to try yesterday, and it was good enough to warrant a post.....

The beer in question was, as the title informs, Brettanarchist, and as the label suggests, it was a Triple IPA dry hopped with Citra, aged in a Foeder and fermented 100% in Brettanomyces. It was a mere 12% and I kept it in the fridge for over a week before opening. It was produced by the Overworks wing of BrewDog, and when I called Vikkie on Thursday to thank her once again for the presents, especially this, she advised that she had encountered different experiences of the Overworks output. As a fan of sour beers she had found one or two of them underwhelming, but I was happy to assure her that this did not disappoint. And myself and Matty had tried a couple of their sours - both Raspberry, earlier in the week, and had found them excellent.

Its worth pointing out that Brettanomyce is a type of yeast, non spore forming, in the family of saccharomycetaceae, also known as Brett and sometimes as Dekkera. I mean, that's what it says on the tinterweb at least.....

I first came across it in references to the previous excellence of a similarly strong London stout called Imperial Russian Stout by Courage. I know they re-brewed it in 2013 or 2014 but am fairly sure they, or indeed anybody else, haven't done since or for many years prior. When I first worked at Archer Road Beer Stop in  the 1990s,  bottles of the same at 10% or thereabouts were £1.25 each. Apart from buying a bottle of the rerelease, this time by the huge brewery which was Youngs, the last time I bought it was in a pub down a long single track lane in kent which had some fairly old bottles still for sale in the noughties.    

The thing I immediately liked about the Brettanarchist was its lack of sweetness despite its rather high strength. And the first taste showed a good amount of wonderful hops in the background, not necessarily the Citra but a mixture holding its own either way. Having only tried one bretted pale previously, possibly by Welbeck Abbey, I didn't think it worked as an additional flavour, but this was not the case. And sat outside in the 28 degrees of sunshine I have to say I found it worryingly easy to drink - and had been on squash for three hours prior so it wasn't thirst....

Interestingly the aroma had a lingering almost sherry or other fruited alcohol to it, which if anything made the strength of the hops a great feature. It smelled of fruity alcohol but tasted of a well balanced hoppiness and some fruit - was this perhaps because of the Foeder? The excellent Saint Mars of the Dessert here in sunny Sheffield have certainly produced beers using a Foeder (and also the excellent Koolships) which I have always found incredibly refreshing and easy drinking. Whichever of the many aspects of the brewing stood out, it made this overall a very pleasurable and easy drinking strong IPA.

Well done to the folk at BrewDog for allowing us to taste a truly fabulous brew - lets hope we see many more beers like this, as well as the excellent output from St Mars and the Funk Dungeon series from Abbeydale, in the very near future.

Cheers!

Wee Beefy