The first BrewDog in our Sainsbury’s Beer Competition series is one that we’re relatively familiar with. So far we’ve only got around to reviewing Punk IPA and Dogma, but we have quite a few ‘Dogs ‘in stock’ and it’s about time we wrote something about them.

Hardcore IPA is one of those beers that has a little bit of the ‘wow’ factor (or the ‘woah’ factor depending on your taste buds).

It has a crazy, tropical Um Bongo aroma that’s sweet and exciting. It smells like sweet, e-number fuelled heaven trapped in a bottle.

Hardcore IPA by BrewDog

Fruit salad penny sweet smells give way to a bitter overload, hops completely dominating and filling your mouth. Aromatic beers usually mean bitterness, but the pineapple aroma makes you expect something with an exotic fruit taste.

Beers with an imperial tag usually come at a certain strength and richness. Hardcore has the strength but it’s hidden treasures are perhaps just a little too inaccessible.

If you can work through the IBU frenzy you will get some of that, but boy does that take some acclimatisation.

This is a big beer. Drink it too fast and it becomes medicinal, but sip it slowly and it’s a world of hops, passionfruit and titilating tongue tingles. Oh, and it’s strong as hell to boot, so don’t down one before bedtime.

Tremendously excited about a beer named after a band I’ve held on a pedestal for over 50% of my life, I jumped on the chance to grab a couple of these when I picked up a few beers for a Soccer Saturday marathon and catch up with mates from my uni days. Trying to conduct a beer review in front of Jeff Stelling and co is never easy, especially when it isn’t the easiest review to write.

How To Disappear Completely - it's very complicated

How To Disappear Completely is something else.  To say its heavy on the hops is an understatement! The aroma and the first sip are larger than life, a complete juxtaposition with the Radiohead song it’s named after. This is, as the bottle suggests, is imperially hopped.  That’s something I can be pretty keen on, but of course with beers super charged with hops, balance is inevitably lost. My first reaction is that for the piney-hoppy-dark-malt fest that this beer is right from the start, this isn’t alcoholically strong, begging the question where does this taste come from (or where does the alcohol go?!).

BrewDog’s beers are generally very drinkable, especially considering that they are usually above average strength, and How To Disappear Completely is deceptively light. And considering the immense bitterness this beer exudes, it is sort of drinkable…relatively speaking. But if I’m honest I just didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as Punk IPA or Chaos Theory.

It’s not a bad beer by any means, there’s a depth of flavour that I found quite overpowering and perhaps a bit OTT, something I find with Stone Ruination IPA – a beer of such character that it can barely get into it before it’s tripped me up and spat my back out. How To Disappear is similarly hopped, I’ve no doubt the ascerbic power of this beer will take you by surprise and the off-the-scale theoretical IBU count of 358 (or something) will have your taste buds screaming for mercy and jumping ship like lemmings.

It feels like a seasonal beer, something suitable for the autumn and winter, not one of the last hot and sunny days of summer, watching the football results with accumulator in hand. The flavours are astonishing – I’m sure that cocoa, cigars, grass, fruit and leaves all hit me at different points when I wasn’t stunned by the bitterness. The malt manages to make brief, fleeting appearances and adds a smoky, roasted flavour …but blink and it’ll disappear. The flavours of the beer do disappear and intertwine like the do in the same way, just in a much cruder way.

How To Disappear Completely by BrewDog

My friends Jimmy and Jay were not at all impressed, this being too far flung from the safe arms of Birri Moretti and Erdinger, about the fanciest they get. Their first reactions were knee jerk – this was just way, way too much to handle.

And I’d agree to a certain extent. For me I like the idea and I like it that a milder beer (ABV wise) can be amazingly complex. But How To Disappear Completely didn’t strike me as interestingly intricate, I found it difficult. For me its balance is lost and the hop/malt struggle within this beer isn’t a tug of war of the taste buds but more of an uncoordinated rabble that peters out leaving an uncomfortable aftertaste. The stormy brew doesn’t ebb and flow, the flavours crash and erode, leaving your senses a little worse for wear. That’s if you’re able to get through the bitterness and find those flavours!

Let’s put aside the hyperbole and verbose descriptions for a second. When it all boils down, How To Disappear is a beer I’ll try again. Maybe my taste buds will become attuned to it, maybe I’ll find something else in it,  but it’s not one I could drink regularly, and certainly not something I could convert friends to easily.  Like the song, which wasn’t my favourite on Kid A to start with, it really took a lot of effort to get under the skin of it, and I still don’t fully get it. But I love the song now, so maybe the beer is a grower?

If I had to choose, if I could have only this beer or the song of the same name, then I’d have to take the song every time.

But being an optimist, I’d definitely take the song and the beer if that was an option, even if I’m never able to quite enjoy it or get it.

This years Sainsbury’s Beer Competition has an unmistakable Scottish feel to it. The Tartan army has no less than 7 entrants in the list of 15 finalists, and the verve and enthusiasm from the two breweries in question is unquestionable.

First up we have BrewDog with three entrants, Hardcore IPA, Dogma and Chaos Theory. Never ones to err on the side of blandness their ales are heavily hopped and infused with such delicacies as poppy seeds and honey.

Williams Brothers Brewing Company are also keen on supplemented good ol’ hops, barley and malt with locally sourced ingredients, with their beers featuring heather infusions, gooseberries and tayberries amongst other plant and fruitlife.

Williams Brothers dominate the Sainsbury's beer competition with 4 entries making the final 15 beers

The second of Williams beers to be reviewed (the first was Birds & Bees) in this series is their IPA. India Pale Ale is usually regarded as a traditional ale, one from a empirical time long gone and remembered only in statues and grand dockside buildings.

But for Williams Brothers IPA’s are most definitely a modern concept, that is compared to the heather beer for instance, which has been brewed in Scotland for 2,000 years (according to the Sainsbury’s fact sheet).

So with experience making beers that have paryicularly strong heritage how does this IPA fair?

Well, it’s a fine example of British India Pale Ale style.

The golden liquid has a hoppy aroma which precedes a similarly hoppy taste. You can tell this comes from this side of the Atlantic because of the malty finish which balances the whole beer of. This doesn’t dry your mouth out, it’s crisp and bittersweet, which a character that is lost in many of the US hop monster IPAs.

Williams Bros have made an IPA that is rooted in tradition but is a competitor to the likes of White Shield and Meantime. It might not have your taste buds partying like Hop Devil or hit your senses like Halcyon, but this is an IPA you could drink a couple of in an evening and thoroughly enjoy.

The beauty of Twitter, indeed the internet in general, is the connections that it enables you to make. The same wonder also its most concerning feature, when it is used for negative purposes.

The beauty of the Twittersphere, indeed the internet in general, is the connections that it enables you to make. The same wonder also its most concerning feature, when it is used for negative purposes.

For marketers, digital technologies allows you to open dialogue with niche audiences that are difficult and ultimately expensive to reach, and to tap into the power of the long tail, those customers, stakeholders or peers that would likewise be more difficult to communicate with and might only make a small proportion of your overall returns. These people are opened up to cost effective communications by the internet and, especially in times where pennies are tight, can be vital to improving your bottom line.

Unpronounceable IPA - something different and well worth grabbing a bottle or two off

Through the world wide web, and in particular Twitter, the world of beer has joined together, making connections that were previously much more diluted suddenly very direct and personal. Beer writers, breweries, ale lovers and just other interested folk are able to communicate together in immediacy, in earnest and inexpensively. 6 months ago I would not have expected myself to be sat on the 51A into Leeds (which I am right now), typing on a mini laptop and posting my thoughts to a potential global audience. Ok, so globals pushing it in reality, but the  potential is there. Get this page in  the right place and these words  could be read by millions.

It’s the great connected world of Twitter that led me to the beer in question. Crownbrewerstu, aka Stuart Ross from the Hillsborough Hotel in Sheffield is Head Brewer at the ajoining Crown Brewery. By adjoining I mean operating from the same plot as the hotel, using the out buildings and cellar of this Victorian hotel to brew exciting and bold beers.

Stuart is a Twitfriend or whatever portmanteau that relationship now has, and through his conversations with me and other twitterati I found out about his concoctions. This, the very pronouncably named Unpronounceable IPA was the first that I managed to pick up (from Beer Ritz of course). And so the internet comes good again.

And the beer. A resiny, medicinal aroma, hops aplenty and lupulin galore. The slightly medicinal flavour might be a bit aniseedy, and followed by a bitterness that I really like but is not completely balanced. It’s sweet (and sweeter the longer it sits in your glass), maturing from tree bark hops to trifle infused glory at the end.

A typical India Pale Ale? No, one based on more modern, experimental IPAs I’d say. Worth a drink? Without question.

This is the sort of beer that the world needs more of. It’s raw, it doesn’t have the refined elegance or balance of world class beers, but this should be celebrated for turning up in a different suit, being something out of the ordinary and being something new and unadulterated-ly unique.

Served in a smaller bottle than it’s bigger cousin Halcyon, Thornbridge Brewery’s Jaipur India Pale Ale is a beer not to be missed.

Weighing in at 5.9% it’s a mid strength IPA, served in a 33cl bottle and priced at a wallet pleasing £1.69 (at our local beer shop that is) you get a punchy little number that’s incredible value for money.

Jaipur IPA by Thornbridge Brewery: a hoppy delight

Thornbridge Brewery have a reputation for crafting fine beers, Halcyon and Bracia Stout standing out, and Jaipur is a cracking part of their line up.

Resiny in aroma, with grass and herbs wisping out, this bottle smells like a druid’s kitchen (I imagine!). Fruit peel, leaves, herbs all mingle and simmer on the nose. Swill this around in your glass, waft it in front of your face and take a deep gulp. Hops envelop you and develop all around your mouth, a swirling earthy potion. This beer is a natural, plant tasting remedy for your thirst.

Maybe it’s because I’m hungry and I just played five-a-side (following a very frustrating trip to Tesco) but all 5.9% of this goes straight to my head. It’s spellbinding.

Despite the hoppiness this isn’t offset by excessive bitterness. It’d be hard to call this balanced, but it is magical.

So the haunting question is, given the choice between this and Halcyon, what would I pick?

I’ll leave that up to you…

Halcyon IPA

This is an IPA that I’d been eyeing up in my cupboard for a few weeks before I sat down with, and boy, did it not disappoint!

Halcyon IPA by Thornbridge has a hugely hoppy aroma – a grassy rather than floral scent that tingles your tongue on the first sip. It’s initial taste is full of spices and contrasting flavours, and that’s only the beginning! Texture and colour wise it looks uniformly opaque (although I poured it pretty quickly),  but even this doesn’t reflect it’s deep and multifarious taste.

Halcyon - the best IPA in the UK?

This is a glorious IPA, remaining refreshing whilst being charismatically strong. It’s strength lingers throughout, becoming more complex with each gulp.

Let’s use Goose Island IPA as a benchmark of floral, tasty, downright excellent IPAs. Put simply, Halcyon is stronger, deeper and brings more to the table. Let’s not downgrade Goose Island, it’s in my Top Ten Beers Of All Time, but I can have a few Goose Island on a night out (my last night out in Leeds passing through Reform Bar proves that) but I might struggle to drink more than one Halcyon in a bar.

For a hoppy night in however, I don’t think you could do any better than this, another hop affair from Thornbridge. I actually took a break from drinking Halcyon to sample a Sam Smith’s Strawberry beer that Sarah was drinking (fruity beers so far are all she can stomach!) and coming back to Halcyon after it was an absolute joy. The explosion of taste in my mouth seemed twice as powerful and twice as enjoyable as before.

To sum it up, Halcyon is bloomin’ brilliant, and, like Radiohead this weekend at Leeds, I’m glad it’s something I had to wait a few years for despite the glowing and unrelenting reviews that tempted me so often.

I can honestly say this is a beer that isn’t caught up in hyperbole nor ballyhoo (yes I used a thesaurus for that one!)…it really is a very, very, very good beer.

Punk IPA by BrewDog

Punk IPA was the first BrewDog beer I ever came across, on the supermarket shelves of Tesco, Lincoln whilst Sarah was living there earlier this year.

I’ve had it a few times but never written anything, and it’s not far off being in that category of beers that are the hardest to review – those you’ve had many times before.

The first thing that struck me on the first taste back one Friday in Lincoln, and again yesterday when I picked it out specifically for review from my all new beer cupboard, was it’s North American influences. Having mulled over US reviews of Punk IPA, many people comment how English it is, so I guess they might get quite a shock if they picked up a pint of Greene King on tap! The revival of IPA by craft breweries in the States has led to some notable IPA interest in the UK, and in Punk IPA there’s a clear swing towards the US style of IPA , one much more floral and aromatic than those of it’s homeland.

Punk IPA by Brewdog - transatlantic India Pale Ale

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Another of my purchases from M&S Simply Food, this beer is branded as Bottled Conditioned IPA, created for M&S by St Austell Brewery.

Opened very soon after I’d tried Marks & Spencer’s India Pale Ale, this IPA showed a real floral character that the M&S ale missed.

The bottle says this is brewed with Cornish Spring Water, and there is a refreshing, natural edge that the earlier M&S beer didn’t have (instead that tasted medicinal and unnatural).

The hops are dominant, but light and very different to the malty finish. It’s a beer of some contrast, you can taste the American hops (Cascade, Chinook and Williamette) that rush forward as you sip it and that precede the finish – there’s almost a pause before the barley comes out to play. The finish lingers enough to appreciate it, but not excessively as the M&S IPA. Interestingly this is a beer of strong floral taste initially and very citrusy aromas, and I believe the Williamette hop is primarily used for aromatic purposes.

Cornish IPA by St Austell - stocked by M&S

And that’s the difference between St Austell’s IPA and M&S’s own bottle (although I guess someone else makes that too?!), there’s a real character and depth to it that is provided by the hops, and in this beer they serve their purpose well – they are the decoration, the headliner, the bit you remember.

I enjoyed the Cornish IPA and it’s clearly defined, almost split personality. It tastes of flowers and smells of lemons with light malt tones (it’s different to the St Peter’s version which has similar characteristics though). It doesn’t quite match White Shield, but it is refreshing and enjoyable.

On the off chance that St Austell also brew the M&S branded IPA, the brewery have chosen the correct way to market these ales, the Cornish IPA suits its moniker, whilst the M&S branding reflects is less adventurous, more traditionally (but not historically accurate) IPA style and I’ll certainly nip in for another of these after a taxing trip to Ikea!

A nice new addition to the Ikea retail park neat Birstall (Jnc 27, M62) is a shiny modern M&S Simply Food. And it’s a good one, with a fabulously smelling bakery counter (it’s more of a patisserie really) and a posh home area.

But the most impressive part came as I rounded the wine aisle to a plinth of bottled ale, including 3 British IPA, Italian lager and regionally brewed British ales (the British ale include Sussex and Yorkshire biter, and despite the same branding they are brewed in the country they take their name from).

I only picked up three, but seen as the girl on the till offered me a wine carrier, I thought it best to run back for three more to fill it up (equal weight distribution and all that!).

So I plumped for an organic cider (naturally), a couple of IPAs, the lager and the two aforementioned regional bitters.

The IPA poured a deep gold, with a typically reserved head that disappeared very quickly. The first gulp brought a pleasing hoppiness, but unfortunately I couldn’t say much more than that. Halfway through rather than florally hops I was worrying about the malty aftertaste that was a little too medicinal to be really enjoyable.

Scent wise there wasn’t a lot that I liked and I was left disappointed. I drank this with a chilli, so perhaps that made a difference, but would have expected an IPA to have it down better than this.

Sorry M&S, I must applaud you for the intention and stocking a great range (keep it up!) but this IPA just isn’t my cup of tea.

I’ll give another chance in the future, but on this performance I’m off for a North America hop monster to satisfy my needs!

Goose Island IPA - a fine example of a North America IPA

Hoppy, vibrant, refreshing and tangy to finish, Goose Island is a mighty fine American IPA. The Chicago brewers bottled ales are a staple of many of the best bars in the UK, with both the IPA and Honker’s Ale permanent fixtures at our work’s regular, The Cross Keys in Leeds.

American IPAs differ from their UK counterparts. I don’t think it’s all down to the fact I enjoy them quite a bit colder than I’d usually sample a traditional ale, but they seem to share a vivacious style that UK IPAs often don’t muster.

Does this mean they aren’t traditional India Pale Ales in that case?

In fact they may be more so, as an abundance of hops is one of the core features of a traditional India Pale Ales (the hops and strength acting as a preservative to keep the beer in good shape throughout  the long voyage to India in the 19th Century) and many North America versions are far hoppier than British counterparts which have lost their hop-filled roots somewhat (with notable exceptions of course!)

Goose Island shares that hoppy optimism, leaving a satisfying malt feeling in your mouth that inevitably urges you to take another gulp. There’s fruit in there amongst the hops and malt, adding complexity. It is a balanced IPA, very enjoyable to drink and moreish to boot.