Perfecting Chaos

There are two beer styles, for want of a better term, that spring to mind when someone mentions BrewDog to me - India Pale Ale and Stout. As regular readers will know, stout has long been my favourite type of beer, but IPA is something that I have come to appreciate largely in the last year or so, since I tried Punk IPA back in October.

Like the Zeitgeist from Friday's post, Chaos Theory was one of the prototype beers BrewDog produced in the autumn of last year, and from my posting at the time, it was clearly the one I enjoyed most, noting that the:

first thing that struck me though was that this one was much darker, more of a dark amber bordering on red, although again there was a rather minimal head. As would be expected from an IPA, the nose was full of citrus, in fact it was very pungent, with a mix of Seville orange marmalade and bittersweet pink grapefruit. The contrast between bitter and sweet was to be a constant theme in the beer, the first taste being very bitter, and something of a shock if the truth be told, but subsequently it mellows out to reveal its jellied undertones. As you would expect from this style it is very hoppy and the aftertaste reminded me of drinking an excellent single malt with a nice warming afterglow. The final few mouthfuls were syrupy sweet in a way that reinforced the jelly, an excellent beer overall.

The production version was very similar to the prototype, although I got the feeling that the sweet, almost jelly like, syrupiness had been toned down a little - which made it even more drinkable. The lessening in the sweetness then served to highlight the tangy bitterness, which I really enjoyed as it made for a long finish. Interestingly, the new balance of the beer makes it smoother, and that coupled with the full body just makes this an absolute delight to drink.

Certainly the guys at BrewDog have fine tuned the prototype and created something which is packed with flavour and so drinkable that it is easy to forget the ABV is 7.1%, a really enjoyable beer, if you see it in the shops, stop yourself and buy one.

Also reviewing Chaos Theory today is Adeptus over at The Bitten Bullet, pop on over and enjoy!