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.

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

Excluding the ‘real’ IPAs of the 19th Century, the style was somewhat lost (and found again in Halcyon, White Shield and a few other notable UK examples), and Punk IPA is another great, if slightly less traditional (or should I say ‘post-modern’!) addition from an innovative Scottish brewery.

That said Punk IPA isn’t as innovative as some of BrewDog’s recent brews (although that probably says more about how fantastic their recent beers have been) but it is damn good.

A floral aroma starts what is actually quite a bitter, spicy beer when you first taste it. There is an abundance of fruit in here further down the glass and something that I wouldn’t expect in the average IPA (I’m told it’s caramel but my taste buds can’t quite pick that up!).

Punk is uncompromising and in that sense, it is very distinctive in supermarket shelves here (perhaps so as much when sat next to Stone or Dogfish bottles though?). It is hoppy with a malty aftertaste – just the way I like an IPA – that grows, nay, develops as you drink it. It’s difficult to drink Punk slowly, but you should, because if you do the taste builds up like sedimentary rocks (ok, not quite as slow!) into a layered and complex aftertaste – where those spices, fruit and bitterness really come to life when topped up with a fresh gulp on top.

BrewDog’s Punk IPA is a great beer that you could drink a few off on a Saturday night. Not a merchant ship in sight on the bottle, but at 6% it does hark back in some ways to a time gone by. It’s highly drinkable, with US influences but firmly rooted in UK tradition.