Beer Review: BrewDog Rip Tide

BrewDog, out of Scotland, has been discussed a lot lately due to their battle for the title of the highest ABV beer in the world. It started with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which clocked in at 32% ABV. They achieved this high ABV by repeating a freezing process; see the video below for more on this beer.

Then, to the dismay of BrewDog, a German brewery reclaimed the title with a 40% beer. BrewDog pulled out their big guns, made a quadruple IPA that was frozen 4 times for an unbelievable 41% ABV beer called "Sink the Bismarck." Video for this beer is also below.

As you can imagine, these beers are somewhat hard to come by and pretty pricey too. I could have a Sink the Bismarck shipped from the brewery for about $100 US; I'm not that curious...unless anyone wants to donate money to me.

Anyway, as I said, BrewDog has been in the beer news a lot lately for their reclaimed title and yet I had never tried any of their beer. Well, I just got my hands on some of their more subdued offerings (atleast in comparison), one of which I just tried over the weekend: Rip Tide, an imperial stout, or as named on the bottle, a "twisted merciless stout." Speaking of the bottle, the label includes a poem about the ominous nature of the beer and instructs you to enjoy it "with an air of aristocratic nonchalance." With such a fun-loving hardcore image (which I'm sure you can pick up on from the videos below), I was expecting something intense at 8% ABV.

I wasn't blown away by this beer, but that's definitely not to say it wasn't good. What I mean by that is I didn't detect anything out of the norm from this beer as an imperial stout. It had that dark color, roasty smell and strong taste reminiscent of chocolate and coffee. The good thing about this beer is it didn't have a strong alcohol taste like a lot of imperial beers do. It was smooth for an 8% beer and I could probably drink a few of these in a night.

Stay tuned for a couple more reviews for the other BrewDog beers I picked up. Enjoy the videos...

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.

Sink the Bismarck! from BrewDog on Vimeo.