UPCOMING BREWS – THE LATEST FROM HQ

Back at the start of the month when James and Martin kicked off our eighth annual Punk AGM it heralded a day when our assembled Equity Punks sampled over seventy different beers at the AECC in Aberdeen. The business talk revealed some of the new brews that would follow on from those enjoyed by our shareholders at the AGM, so we figured it was time to dial in the details a little for you all and take a glance into the future.

So here is the lowdown on what you can look forward to over the next few months!

Hops Kill ?

Back in 2011 we developed an imperial red ale that was a powerhouse of Pacific hops, dual-wielding Chinook and Centennial at full-throttle for an intense piney, resinous dose of American glory. Well, as it’s our tenth anniversary year, in the spirit of #ReBrewDog we have brought it back. Hops Kill ? will be hitting our BrewDog bars as a draft-only exclusive very soon. At 7.6% it carries massive resin flavours, pithy orange and lemon sherbet and is a fusillade of fresh pine from two heavyweights of the hop world. Look out for this one!

Blitz

As the BrewDog Overworks takes shape we are going to be putting the Pilot Kit in DogTap to work on our ever-changing line-up of Blitz Berliner Weisse. Also served in our bars as draft-only releases these beers are tart, puckering small-batch sours. Taking a look down the flipchart we have the return of three that proved hugely popular in their previous incarnations – Strawberry Blitz, Raspberry Blitz and the enormously aromatic Gin Blitz.

Pump Action Poet

Our next canned release is due to hit the shelves and online shop towards the end of May and it is, as ever, cloaked in a piece of amazing artwork. Pump Action Poet is a stone fruit IPA hopped with Amarillo and Simcoe and then dry-hopped with those two plus a healthy dose of Citra. We have taken the fruit-based flavours to the max by also adding peaches and apricots and then dressed the beer in can artwork (canwork?) by the amazing Tracie Ching.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

Turning to the dark side we have our latest adventures in extreme beermaking set to hit the shelves soon – our tenth anniversary is also the perfect time for another outing for Tactical Nuclear Penguin. The one-time strongest beer in the world is currently cold-concentrating and will then be packaged in 110ml glass bottles before being released. We are monitoring this batch closely (there's never a shortage of volunteers) and we hope to have it ready next month.

Abstrakt AB:22

Another dark release currently maturing in barrels is AB:22. Originally we had mooted the idea of a chai-spiced beer but when we discovered some Speyside casks it changed our thinking around in another – equally amazing – direction. So the twenty-second Abstrakt will be a 12.5% Speyside-aged coffee and chocolate imperial stout. If you’ve ever drunk a bottle of Cocoa Psycho and wondered what a touch of deep, smoky flavour would do to it – you don’t have long to wait to find out…

Vermont IPA

One of the styles of the moment, we are huge fans of the juicy, low-bitterness India Pale Ales that arrived from New England over the last year or so. In fact, we have brewed three different trial batches on our pilot kit and are currently working on a fourth – look out for it, as by June we will have worked it up into a new small-batch canned Vermont IPA (to be named very shortly). Sure to be a liquid soundtrack to your summer, this is one to very much keep an eye on.

Electric India

Speaking of that all-too-fleeting season, summer brings with it the perfect beer with which to console yourself when the sun disappears unexpectedly (or remains high in the sky) – the third of our four seasonal brews for the year. Electric India is a vibrant hoppy saison brewed with peppercorns, honey and coriander seed and hopped with Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin and Mandarina Bavaria. The result? A spicy, piney beer with passionfruit and hints of clove and pepper – and one making the switch to cans and 660ml bombers.

BrewDog vs Cloudwater V2.0

It proved to be hugely popular, so we are rocking the brewkit once again with Manchester’s finest. Paul and the team from Cloudwater are pencilled in for another collaboration in Ellon in the next couple of months to work on a second batch of our collaborative New England IPA together. Set for the heights of July this beer will be just as fruity, juicy and hugely moreish as the first version, so that liquid soundtrack looks to be getting longer…

East Coast Crush

Our Pilot Kit releases are experiments that often lead into entirely new directions. The aforementioned Vermont IPA trials also uncovered a potential new avenue at a lower ABV. We are developing an East Coast Pale Ale fermented with Vermont yeast and dry-hopped with four different hops to be hugely juicy and full-bodied. We will then be serving this via our LIVE beer format in our bars to highlight the flavours and mouthfeel that makes this style truly spectacular.

This list isn’t exhaustive of course – more beers will also follow between now and the summer – but as ever let us know in the comments which of these are the ones that will be first into your glassware. And if there are any other styles of beer you’d like to see us throw our hands at, you know what to do!