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HOP PROPAGANDA #38 THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM BREWDOG
HOP PROPAGANDA
#38THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM BREWDOG
ABOVE: ISSUE 37 OF HOP PROPAGANDA
ISSU
E 38
/ CO
NTEN
TS
FANTASTIC FOUR: BREWDOG 4
FANTASTIC FOUR: GUESTS 5
FROM THE HEART OF EAST ANGLIA… 6
…TO THE HEART OF EASTERN EUROPE 7
P IS FOR PEEL 8-9
#HOMEBREWDOG 10-11
PERFECT PAIRING: PARADOX ISLAY 12
TAKE FLIGHT 13
FOCUS ON: GREEN FLASH 14-15
THE GREAT BREWDOG BAKEOFF 16-17
BOTTLEBOX SOCIAL 18-19
BOTTLEBOX IS HERE! 20-21
THE UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF BEER AND FOOD PAIRING 22-25
NOW:NEXT 26
THE FIRST TIME… 27
DIY DOG AND ELVIS JUICE 28-29
HOW TO HOST A BEER TASTING… 30-32
THE LAST WORD 33
NEXT UP…HP 39 34
LIKE WHAT YOU READ, OR WHERE YOU ARE READING IT? HERE’S HOW TO LET US KNOW!
HOP PROPAGANDALET’S HEAR ITWELCOME TO THE
LATEST ISSUE OF HOP PROPAGANDA – THE
ONLINE AND PRINT MAGAZINE FROM BREWDOG! ONCE AGAIN WE THROW OPEN OUR PAGES (BOTH REAL AND VIRTUAL) TO THE LATEST CONTENT FROM OURSELVES AND SOME AMAZING CRAFT BREWERIES IN THE UK AND OVERSEAS.
This time around, we are devoting the lion's share to the wonders of pairing beer and food. We give the lowdown on the three rules to
follow to achieve perfect mealtime harmony, and explore just what it is about beer that makes it a far better choice than wine (even if you would expect us to say that).
Plus, we look at how we use citrus peel in brewing, explore the world of beer and whisky pairing and we give you a handy guide on how to host a beer tasting at home. Oh – and we have a recipe you won’t want to miss. Thanks for reading – whatever you are enjoying alongside your beer!
The BrewDog team.
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FOOD PAIRING: REUBEN SANDWICH
A BEER THAT’S… EVOCATIVE
FOOD PAIRING: TIRAMISU!
A BEER THAT’S… CONCUSSIVE
FOOD PAIRING: MEXICAN BEAN BURGER
A BEER THAT’S… PROGRESSIVE
FOOD PAIRING: CHAR SIU PORK
A BEER THAT’S… TRANSFORMATIVE
KINGPINREDRESSING THE BALANCE WITH OUR NEW TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LAGER
SCHWARZBIERBITTERSWEET AND INVITINGLY ROASTY GERMAN-STYLE DARK LAGER
AB:20TIRAMISU-INSPIRED BLEND OF COFFEE BARLEY WINE AND RUM-AGED IMPERIAL STOUT
NEFARIOUS TEN PINCHOCOLATE-RICH PORTER CELEBRATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BOWLING AND BEER
BLACK HAMMERJACK HAMMER BREWED WITH BLACK MALT; OUR SECOND HAMMER HEAD RELEASE
TAP 5 MEINE HOPFENWEISSEINTENSELY FLORAL HOPPED-UP WEISSBIER FROM THE MASTERS OF THE STYLE
PARADOX ISLAYTHE RETURN OF OUR WORLD-BEATINGLY-RESONANT BARREL-AGED SMOKY IMPERIAL
DIPA V3THIRD VERSION OF CLOUDWATER’S INCREDIBLE CITRUS AND STONE FRUIT-LAYERED IPA
4.7%
14.2% 8.0%
7.2% 8.2%
15.0% 9.0%
STYLE:IMPERIAL BARLEY WINE
STYLE:BLACK IPA
STYLE:WHEAT BEER
STYLE:IMPERIAL STOUT
STYLE:IMPERIAL PORTER
STYLE:DOUBLE IPA
IN A WORD: MILESTONE
FROM: MIKKELLER
FROM: SKA
IN A WORD:HOMEGROWN
IN A WORD:DARK CLONE
FROM:SCHNEIDER
FROM:CLOUDWATER
IN A WORD:BARITONE
IBU:20
IBU:20
IBU:200
IN A NUTSHELL: FLOWER POWER
IN A NUTSHELL: HOP SLAM
IN A NUTSHELL: DARK HORSE
IN A NUTSHELL: WRECKING BALL
IBU:100
FANTASTIC FOUR FANTASTIC FOUR
FOUR LATEST BREWDOG BEERS FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT A MEAL OF YOUR CHOICE…
BREWDOG GUESTSOUR LATEST GUEST BEER MENU IS NOW IN OUR NETWORK OF BARS – HEAD OVER TO THE FRIDGES AND TAKE A LOOK! HERE ARE FOUR
TO GET YOU STARTED, HOWEVER...
STYLE:GERMAN PILS
STYLE:SCHWARZBIER
5.5%
...TO THE HEART OF EASTERN EUROPE
BREWDOG WARSZAWA
FROM THE HEART OF EAST ANGLIA…
BREWDOG NORWICH
TO DISCOVER TWO OF OUR LATEST TEMPLES OF CRAFT BEER, YOU HAVE ONLY TO LOOK TO THE EAST.
DESPITE BEING HUNDREDS OF MILES APART, THEY SHARE CITIES WITH A GENUINE PASSION FOR BEER...
The people of East Anglia have a huge passion for beer – in a city that famously boasted a pub for every day of the year,
we are bringing everything back under one roof. Our latest UK Bar is serving 25 taps of the freshest craft beer in the city, including one very special tap uniquely changing every day – 365 craft beers in total. On this particular tap, no two days will be the same! It is the ultimate checklist.
BrewDog Norwich can be found at 1 Queen Street, right in the centre of the city a couple of minutes’ walk from the iconic Norman Cathedral. Our bar is in an amazing location in a Grade II listed building, in which we have stripped away years of unsightly additions to reveal the original timber and brick features. GM Michelle and her crew of beer geeks are ready and waiting!
The bar also rocks a fully-stocked BottleDog on site, as well as a range of perfectly-paired food for those after everything from a simple snack to a full-on meal – including our now-legendary BrewDog melts (as well as wings, hopped-up fries and other tempting delights). We have wanted to find a home in the beer city of East Anglia for some time – and we really can’t wait to pay back our loyal BrewDog fans in its knowledgeable beer scene!
As the tenth country to receive our craft beer (and those of other curated guest breweries) – we are psyched to announce
that the double-digit milestone marks our first foray into the heartlands of Eastern Europe. We are taking centre stage in the capital of Poland. We have converted a former restaurant in the central Sródmiescie district, giving us a perfect (and easily travelled-to) location in the city of Warsaw.
Our new cathedral of craft is located at ul. Widok 8, 00-023, Warszawa, a hundred yards from the Centrum metro and tram stops at the Roman Dmowski roundabout. We are taking on Warsaw’s growing thirst with 18 taps pouring beers from ourselves, curated guest breweries and a number of Polish craft breweries (Artezan, Pracownia Piwa, Piwne Podziemie, Trzech Kumpli and Stu Mostów to name but a few).
BrewDog Warszawa has a full kitchen and will be serving a wide range of food from breakfasts to full meals, majoring in amazing food at any time of day. Standing a stone’s throw from the tallest building in the entire country – the Palace of Culture and Science – our latest European bar will similarly stand as a landmark in this absorbing and fascinating city.
1 QUEEN STREET, NORWICH NR2 4SG
WIDOK 8, 00-023 WARSZAWA, POLAND
@BREWDOGNORWICH @BREWDOGWARSZAWA
@BREWDOGNORWICH @BREWDOGWARSZAWA
BREWDOG NORWICH BREWDOG WARSZAWA
[email protected] [email protected]
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This being the Hop Propaganda food special, for this edition we turn
our alphabetical attention towards something that makes one of the biggest differences as a key ensemble ingredient in cooking. Citrus peel may not be something we choose to chew on that often, but what it lacks in snack food potential it more than makes up for with an ability to change the face of a dish entirely. A couple of strips added to Thai food, fish dishes and an array of desserts make all the difference.
But what about beer? And spirits?
Our brewing and distillation teams are no strangers to peelers and zesters, so how do we use this citrus-filled addition to its full potential? Well, to begin let’s address the fundamental difference that exists between the two processes, and how that then manifests itself in extracting flavour from the peel. And that all comes down to how much of the added ingredient you need. Let’s start with spirits – and our head of distillation, Steven Kersley.
p is for
PEEL“When you distil something you lose water and concentrate everything else. So the amount of flavour in your creation doesn’t change, it is merely exaggerated by leaving everything else behind. This concentration means that you need relatively little of the botanicals,” he says. Brewing, on the other hand, adds far more into the equation; water, hops, sugars, yeast, carbon dioxide all impact the flavour profile, so in a citrus beer you need more of the peel to have a similar effect.
So the impact of adding a little bit of citrus peel to a spirit is far more impactful that in brewing. Our distillation team go about this in one of two ways – maceration and vapour extraction. Steven explains all… “The first is the more straightforward; you add the peel into the liquid and let it steep [or ‘macerate’] from seconds to several days. The essential oils are absorbed by the liquid and when heated, the flavours transfer into the vapour and your final distillate.”
The second method is extraction. Stills have botanical baskets with perforated trays, so place some peel inside and as the hot vapour rises upwards into the condenser, it passes over your additions (much the
same way as in bamboo vegetable steamers). “The difference in flavours are noticeable,” says Steven. “Maceration delivers heavy, punchy citrus whereas extraction is far more delicate, giving a fresher, brighter spirit.”
So that’s how our Lone Wolf team use citrus peel – what about our brewteam?
As ever John Allen is the man in the know, and he fills us in on how citrus peel is used in our grapefruit IPA of the moment... “In Elvis Juice we use sweet and bitter orange peel as well as grapefruit peel, added to the mash. The lower temperature in the mash helps to extract the desired flavours from the peel without extracting too much of the pithy bitterness. This can be the main danger using peel especially in the boil so when choosing amounts to be added this [the overall bitterness level] should be considered.”
With India Pale Ales, the natural citrus from the US or southern hemisphere hops are the perfect payload to be accentuated by the real thing with some fruit peel. But you can (and we do) use this ingredient in other styles. The most classic of all are the Belgian-style saisons, where that pithy bitterness lifts the coriander or peppery spice. But you can also use peel in dark beers to give a subtle fruit character to baseline the roasty dark malts. Only, the citrus bitterness and the dark malt bitterness will need to be carefully balanced, to leave a harmonious beer.
As we saw with the distillation, peel can be added at a second stage of the brewing process too. Mashing in with the peel is reasonably synonymous with maceration – both approaches see your fruit skins soaking in the liquid, extracting flavours right from the off. The second brewhouse method is a little different to vapour extraction – but has the same overall goal. Here’s John again. “Steeping fruit peel during fermentation or maturation can be effective but due to the lower temperatures higher amounts may be necessary.”
“The benefit to this is that the lower temper atures will help preserve some of the more volatile compounds that may otherwise be destroyed at the higher temperatures in the brewhouse.” So adding peel into the fermenter is a great way to capture the more delicate flavours and have them expressed in the final beer – in much the same way as vapour extraction does for gins and vodkas. So, yet again, there are deep-seated parallels in the worlds of brewing and distillation – and all to pull flavours out of a part of the fruit we normally throw away…
GREAT RINDS THINK ALIKE
These four beers all take a lift from the mighty citrus peel
SOUTHERN TIER 3 CITRUS PEEL OUT (8.5%)
ALL OF THE ABOVE
Imperial Wheat Ale with a blast of orange, tangerine AND grapefruit
NEW BELGIUM CITRADELIC (6.0%)
TANGERINE
A kaleidoscope of hoppiness backed by peel from this diminutive citrus fruit
MAGIC ROCK HIGH WIRE GRAPEFRUIT (5.5%)
GRAPEFRUIT
The addition of citrus adds another layer entirely to this fantastic pale ale
GREEN FLASH SAISON DIEGO (4.5%)
ORANGE
A hugely refreshing saison with orange, ginger and grains of paradise added
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The joys of brewing your own beer have created a generation of people for whom the process is every bit as exciting as the end result. Many
a BrewDog crew member began their interest in beer by starting off brewing their own at home – not least James and Martin themselves. Back in 2008 they entered beers created in Martin’s garage into a Tesco competition, and ended up taking the first, second, third and fourth prizes.
So we have decided to pay this forward, as we are partnering with Tesco to launch #HomeBrewDog – the ultimate competition for homebrewers.
Until the 16th September 2016 we are accepting entries from anyone who would like to create a beer at home they believe is worthy of BrewDog, and would like to follow in the footsteps of James and Martin. We have assembled a world-leading panel of industry experts to judge the beers, chaired by our co-founders alongside the legendary beer writer Pete Brown.
We’re accepting homebrewed entries from today until Friday 16th September, with three bottles of a single beer, secured and packed safely, dropped off per person at any of our UK BrewDog bars or posted to our brewery at #HomeBrewDog, Balmacassie Industrial Estate, Ellon, Aberdeenshire, AB41 8BX. Please note it is one entry per person, and we will only accept the same beer, not three different bottles! Please check out the full terms and conditions before entry at www.brewdog.com/homebrewdog
The winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to our Ellon HQ to re-brew their beer.
It will then be launched into our online shop and as an exclusive listing in Tesco’s online store.
Also the beer will be launched on draft across our network of UK bars.
Our champion can host a launch event at any UK BrewDog bar (and pick the beer list).
We will also send the victorious homebrewer a few bottles of their creation too!
But there is one other aspect of the prize, as well.
WE WILL OFFER THE HOMEBREWER WHO IMPRESSES OUR JUDGING PANEL THE MOST A JOB AT BREWDOG.
Homebrew CompetitionIf you’ve ever wanted to use your homebrew hobby to kick-start a career within the craft brewing industry – this is very much your chance. To recognise the skill and ability it will take to win #HomeBrewDog, we will offer the victor an opportunity to join our Ellon brewing crew. If you’ve got the talent, then we have the career waiting for you here at BrewDog. That trip to re-brew your beer could well become the first of many!
Check out www.brewdog.com/homebrewdog for all the details. There you’ll find the online form to print off and complete with the all-important brewsheet info for your entry and a brief overview of why your beer rocks. This is a once in a lifetime chance to show what you can do – and the job offer is entirely optional of course! If you do come out on top and would like to be a part of the BrewDog crew though, we will very much make it happen.
We love homebrewing, here at BrewDog. It’s the reason we released the recipes to all of our beers (and those we are going to brew in 2016) as DIY Dog, to encourage others to have a go at stamping their individuality on our creations. There are few other industries where those who wish to earn a livelihoods can hone their skills in advance, using equipment of different scale but entirely the same principle.
And so we are psyched to offer the chance for someone to do just that, and if they wish join our amazing brewteam by displaying the talent they have worked hard to develop. Homebrewing is deservedly the creative cornerstone of our entire industry. We can’t wait to see what beers you guys come up with for #HomeBrewDog!
You have until 16th September to let those imaginations run riot…
TO REFLECT THIS, OUR QUEST TO FIND THE NEXT LEVEL OF HOMEBREWING TALENT HAS TRULY LIFE-CHANGING PRIZES:-
i
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Perfect Pairing: Paradox Islay
Pairing one alcohol with another may have a stigma attached – but as with any other recommendation on these pages, the aim is to appreciate the interaction of flavours rather than the interaction of booze and your bloodstream. Selecting a single malt and a barrel-aged imperial stout is much more than a ‘shot and a beer, Dolores.’ *
Take our newly-released Paradox. At 15% abv it’s perfect chaser-material (fireside rather than beer garden), and for an unmissable chance to explore the genesis of its creation, try it alongside the world-beating whisky that inspired and formed its flavour – a single malt Islay whisky.
The peaty, smoky depth of the spirit is of course mirrored in the beer, thanks to the shared parallels of malt and cask. By following the whisky with the beer, you get a lengthening of the main flavours, the evocative roundness of the smokiness continues as a sweeter, more rounded flavour.
And if you have some smoked salmon to hand, all the better…
* Bonus points for getting that reference…
BEER AND FOOD GO TOGETHER BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK AT THE SAME TIME. BUT WHAT ABOUT BEER AND…WHISKY? HERE’S A MODERN UPDATE ON THE OLD HALF AND HALF
In a BrewDog bar and struggling to make up your mind as to what to have?
Any beer on draft can be enjoyed as part of a four-beer flight, served up in third-pint tasting glasses. Our bar crews are primed to dispense tips about what all of the beers are and how they might go together as part of a flight; so don’t feel bad for asking their advice!
But if you want a few flight pointers – here are three possible approaches to take!
READING THIS IN ONE OF OUR BARS? WHICH FOUR BEERS
FROM THE BOARD WOULD MAKE THE
BEST FLIGHT?
HIT THE HEADLINERS
For anybody new to the joys of craft beer, or BrewDog in particular, a great place to start would be with a selection of our headlining beers. Flights give you a quartet of chances to get to know the strengths of a brewery, so ordering up a foursome of Punk IPA, Kingpin, 5AM Saint and Jet Black Heart – for example – is the ideal way to get to know why we go to work every morning.
GO VERTICAL
Alternatively, given beer comes in at a wide range of strengths you could pick a series to reflect this. Working upwards from the lowest ABV gives a chance to choose increasingly full-on options and discover how the flavours increase in turn. So a third-pint of session pale ale (such as Dead Pony Club) could be followed by an American pale ale, an IPA and finally a double IPA for the ultimate hop sequence!
DIAL IN A STYLE
Finally, flights can be used to compare and contrast four attempts at a similar style from different breweries. If your local BrewDog bar just happens to have four stouts or porters on offer, decamp to a quiet booth and pick a winner. How have the various producers fared? Who has aced the roastiness? Which is the most bitter? And most importantly of all – which do you like the best?
How you approach your four-pronged beery assault is totally up to you, of course. You can adopt one of the patterns above, or simply pick whichever four beers take your fancy. If there’s a tap takeover in the house, for example, flights give you four times the chance to try the beers on offer! They are the very best way to reflect the sheer diversity of craft beer that we serve up in our bars.
TAKE FLIGHTTAKE FLIGHT
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Making a west coast IPA in San Diego must be akin to producing sparkling
wine in the Champagne region or launching a home-cooked pasta business next to an Italian retirement community. You’d better get it right very quickly, or people will notice. Green Flash Brewing Company started life in 2002, so got the jump on many of the more recent arrivals to the Californian craft brewing scene, but as they approach their 15th anniversary it says something about their reputation that it is to their pioneering flagship people still flock in their droves.
And to paraphrase Victor Kiam, Green Flash like the beer so much they trademarked the style.
As the ultimate fans of West Coast IPA, the San Diego brewery filed a federal trademark registration for exactly that in 2011 – similar to their Californian colleagues Anchor and their protection of Steam Beer exactly twenty years earlier. Ringfencing a beer style in this manner is a bold move, and one that demands (to use a quintessentially American phrase) that if you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Anchor Steam has certainly become a benchmark in that manner – but so too has Green Flash West Coast IPA.
There are several reasons for this (their brewing experience certainly being one of them), but perhaps there are two key explanations for why Green Flash’s flagship has become so well thought of by the beer drinking public. The first of these revolves around their attitude towards brewing; a way of thinking that’s entirely simple and yet emphasises the only thing that really matters – “we remain steadfast in our commitment to a beer first philosophy.” Amen to that.
And the second explanation? Hops.
Green Flash were the first brewery to combine Simcoe with a blistering array of Pacific Northwest C-Hops, in the form
of Columbus, Centennial, Citra and that Californian classic; Cascade. The hop that made Sierra Nevada a household name has been paired with a series of hugely complementary bedfellows in Green Flash’s 8.1% Double IPA, and the resultant beer blends citrus, pine, tropical fruit with a woodsy note from the dry-hopping and a 95IBU level of bitterness.
It’s an industry standard IPA, simple as that – and in the most commonly-brewed style of them all. Since the founding of Green Flash, husband and wife team Mike and Lisa Hinkley and their brewers have become guardians of those three most important letters in American brewing. As a result, their line-up now boasts a series of hop-forward beers unrivalled by pretty much any other brewery. From the Belgian-hued Le Freak to the peel-enhanced Tangerine Soul Style, their India Pale Ales are front and centre of what Green Flash are about.
This of course is a product of their location as much as anything else. The spiritual homeland of IPA may stretch from Burton on Trent to London (and then onwards to the subcontinent),
but the modern domicile of the style has to be the Southwestern-most city in the USA. San Diego is pale and hoppy country, and the drinkers there know their Warrior from their Tomahawk from their Chinook. Maintaining a constant range of hopped-up craft beer is a must for any self-respecting SoCal brewery.
And yet very soon Green Flash will be that and something much more. As with many other west coast breweries who are making waves in the craft brewing industry, a second facility is in construction on the other side of the country – one that retains that coastal link they have made integral to their company. A 100HL brewhouse with tasting room and beer garden is currently being built in Virginia Beach, ready for opening next summer.
WEST COAST IPA (8.1%)
A world-beating double IPA brewed
with five classic Pacific hops
SOUL STYLE (6.5%)
No mere understudy to West Coast; an amazing IPA in its own right
LE FREAK (9.2%)
A hybrid Belgian Imperial IPA
converging the best of both worlds
DIA DE LOS SERRANOS
(8.8%)
Double stout brewed with coffee,
chocolate and Serrano chillies
IN A FLASH
Announced last year, this project to scale up production and get their beer into different markets capped a game-changing twelve months for Green Flash – not least of which was the departure of their veteran brewmaster Chuck Silva, who had been with the company for eleven years. During that time Chuck created both Le Freak and the momentous West Coast IPA, so his decision to found his own brewery 300 miles away has left some decidedly big shoes to fill.
And yet Green Flash have it all in hand. With a new brewmaster in place and their ‘beer first’ philosophy – not to mention their line-up of beers – they will continue to lead the lines in the most hop-loving state in the Union…
AND TO PARAPHRASE VICTOR KIAM, GREEN FLASH LIKE THE BEER SO MUCH THEY TRADEMARKED THE STYLE.
FOCUS ON:
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Recipe: AB:20 Caramel ShortbreadThe Great
BrewDog Bakeoff INGREDIENTS
For the shortbread: 125g Plain flour 40g Caster sugar 90g Unsalted butter
For the caramel: 1 x Bottle of AB:20 minus 1 generous sip 50g Unsalted butter 50g Light muscovado sugar 1 x 397g Can of condensed milk
TOPPING:
150g Milk chocolate
METHOD
Pre-heat the oven to 180'C/Gas mark 4. Lightly grease a 9 x 9inch cake tin or similar dimension tin.
Put the AB:20 into a pan, slowly bring to the boil and allow to reduce until it resembles a thick syrup. Keep an eye on it as it becomes syrupy as it takes seconds to go from perfection to a burnt mess. Allow to cool slightly while making the shortbread.
To make the shortbread, mix the flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Knead the mixture together until it forms a dough, then press into the base of the prepared tin using the back of a metal spoon. Prick the shortbread lightly with a fork and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until firm to the touch and very lightly browned. Cool in the tin.
While the shortbread is cooling, slowly combine the tin of condensed milk into the beery syrup using a whisk. Then add the sugar and butter. Put on a gentle heat until the butter has melted then bring to a simmer stirring continuously, for about 5 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Pour over the shortbread and leave to cool.
For the topping, melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water, or carefully in the microwave. Pour over the cold caramel and leave to set. Cut into squares or bars.
Enjoy!
(Feel free to open a second bottle of AB:20 at this point)
IF A ‘GOOD BAKE’ IS REQUIRED TO EXCITE NOTORIOUS CAKE-FIENDS PAUL HOLLYWOOD AND CO WE CAN SAFELY SAY THEY HAVE NEVER TASTED SOMETHING QUITE LIKE THIS.
O ur amazing in-house expert baker Claire Phillips has taken to the
kitchen and created something that would blow Mary Berry’s socks off. They (and you) will likely have had caramel slices before – but never one featuring our rum-aged coffee and oatmeal milk barley wine AB:20. The result is so full of flavour, it has to be experienced. And here’s how you can do just that (Mel and Sue optional).
#TheGreatBrewDogBakeoff
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Oh yes! #bottlebox @brewdog
@NICKDONOVAN7
@DEFENDER903
@brewdog #bottlebox the 1st 18 delivered
today
@STUPETRIEWho needs food in the fridge anyway!
#Bottlebox @brewdog
@MRSLESLEYF
Thanks @brewdog - #bottlebox - it's the
boy's equivalent to buying shoes! I have one
very happy hubby
@ALANMOCHRIE
@brewdog Worth coming home to on a
Monday! What a selection this is #Bottlebox
#wheretostart
@LE_SLOTHLong hard day at work and I come home to my first #Bottlebox thanks @brewdog
@REPT0N
OMG, my @brewdog #BottleBox just arrived and it is all things EPIC. Cheers (*hic*)
@SALEY89
Absolutely epic first #bottlebox from @brewdog. Full of premium range beers for @EquityforPunks members. #craftbeer
BottleBox SocialSHARE YOUR PHOTOS WITH #BOTTLEBOX
HOP PROPAGANDA– 18 –
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Bott
leBo
x is
Her
e! HERE’S HOW TO SIGN UP FOR OUR EPIC SUBSCRIPTION BEER CLUB
Craft beer fans today are an inquisitive, yet discerning bunch – they certainly
know what’s going on when it comes to everyone’s favourite beverage. And to reciprocate, we love getting as much exciting, freshly-brewed beer as we possibly can out to those who want to discover the joys of craft beer. And in an effort to make that even easier – we have launched our curated sign-up beer club. BottleBox is here!
Curated beer clubs have two major foundations – upon which they stand or fall. One is the quality and freshness of the beers. BottleBox is exclusive, so we can keep the standard of the beers as high as you would expect; our own are just off the packaging line at our Ellon brewhouse, and we can go direct to the guest brewers to get the most exciting, recently-released beers as possible.
The second foundation is the ease of operation, which we have utterly covered. You can join, leave, pause or update your subscription at any time, simply by visiting the website at www.brewdog.com/bottlebox. Plus if you sign up and pay for 12 boxes in advance, you will get them for the price of 11. And on top of that, BottleBox delivery is at no extra charge to all UK addresses (here’s looking at you, Highlands & Islands and Northern Ireland)!
So check out the options overleaf and head to the BottleBox website to pick a case, then sit back and it will arrive to your address of choice! Equity Punks – we have a special
exclusive shareholder-only set of BottleBox options with exclusive beers, exclusive merchandise and guest beers that are amazing – just log in to your Equity Punk account and follow the links!
If you never want to miss a BrewDog beer launch again, or have a hankering to discover more about the joys of British and global craft beer, all delivered to your door – then our new curated subscription beer service BottleBox is for you!
Quick and easy – no hassle beer delivered every month
Pay for the year up-front and receive 12 months for the price of 11
From just £23 a month INCLUDING UK delivery!
You’ll never miss a major BrewDog Beer Launch again
Receive exclusive not-available-to-buy BrewDog merchandise
Complete flexibility – skip, pause or cancel your subscription at any time
Try different BrewDog beer styles as chosen by our crew
WHY BOTTLEBOX?
GENERAL PUBLIC CASES
Again, prices are inclusive of delivery to your UK address of choice. All instalment payments will be taken via recurring payments and both the Equity Punk and Public BottleBoxes are also
available to our craft beer loving fans around the world (with standard shipping surcharges). Plus you can sign up for as many of the options as you like!
FD
8 BrewDog beers. Delivered monthly.
£23 per month.
E
12 BrewDog beers. Delivered monthly.
£30 per month.
EQUITY PUNK-ONLY CASES
All prices include UK-wide delivery (and also the 20% shareholder discount).
6 BrewDog & 6 guest beers. Delivered bimonthly.
£40 every two months.
CA
12 BrewDog beers. Delivered monthly.
£35 per month.
B
12 BrewDog beers. Delivered bimonthly.
£35 every two months.
18 BrewDog beers. Delivered monthly.
£37 per month.
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The Unstoppable Rise of...
...beer and Food Pairing
Look closely, and within every issue of Hop
Propaganda you'll find that quote on the right headlining the feature entitled ‘Perfect Pairing’. It is not just a call to arms, or a pithy soundbite. It is the summation of a movement that is gaining traction with each passing month – the idea that when seeking something to go with your meal, you unthinkingly reach for the corkscrew. Yet there is an alternative to this automatic, ingrained belief that only wine can deliver the necessary subtlety and classiness to act as a foil for whatever’s on your plate (or bowl, board or slate).
It’s time for beer to sit at the top table.
The irony is that we have always known beer and food go well together – you have
only to cast your mind to images of medieval feasts on television, modern-day summer barbecues or the ‘pie and a pint’ stereotype. All feature beer as a matter of course; it’s as if the idea that beer is allowed in at mealtimes has been whitewashed – or winewashed – from public consciousness. And yet the second irony is the one thing we all remember about wine and food pairing: ‘red with meat, white with fish’. How dumbed down is this, for the complex, upmarket grape?
As beer expert Randy Mosher says, there is no ‘red wine with meat’ equivalent in the beer world. The simple truth is that beer has much more going for it with so many variables in play. Different hops, malt grains, yeast strains, added ingredients, serving methods and alcohol
by volume levels all play a factor when selecting a beer to go with your food. But, above all else, it is the choice you make when scanning the beer shelf right at the beginning of the process that is the most vital – what style of beer should I drink tonight?
From bready German pilsners to tub-thumping Double IPA’s, Belgian fruit beers to deeply roasty imperial stouts – the sheer
variety of different beer out there knocks the competition into touch. But this also makes the mealtime decision that much trickier of course – more choice leading to the greater potential for confusion. Fortunately help is at hand! There are three simple rules to follow to find a perfect pairing – each designed to balance your food and drink as carefully as that pile of washing up in the sink…
So far, so common sense. The potential issue is that as the first of those examples illustrates, when it comes to beer that list of multiple variables comes into play. ‘Intensity’ doesn’t just equate to ‘ABV’. It also includes everything else as well – how roasty a beer is from the malt bill, whether any other ingredients have been let loose, how bitter the hopload is etc. The second issue is that unfortunately there’s no such thing as a Stilton party. Although there definitely should be.
This latent complexity also applies to the food that you are going to
eat. A lightly poached piece of fish is going to demand a more delicate beer pairing than a dry-rubbed, twenty-hour slow roasted rack of ribs. And anything that involves a sauce is then going to add an entirely new dimension into
BEER AND FOOD GO TOGETHER BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK AT THE SAME TIME. WINE LIKES TO CLAIM THE HIGH GROUND, BUT BEER HAS SUCH A WEIGHT OF VARIETY BEHIND IT.
1. INTENSITYThe first of these rules is the easiest to follow, but has a more complicated reasoning behind it. If you know what food there is waiting for you at home, obey the laws of common sense and select a beer that is of the same intensity. So if you’re going to enjoy a subtle, refined dish it is best not to come away with a mighty high-alcohol barrel-aged imperial beer – or that’s all you’ll taste throughout the meal. Likewise, there’s no point bringing a crisp floral lager to a Stilton party.
the equation. From zingy salad dressings to nuclear-level vindaloo – the addition of gravies, jus, foams and anything else chef can dream up are intended to change the flavour of the dish, so your choice of beer will have to change accordingly!
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2. FLAVOURFollowing on from that, there’s a second intuitive rule to follow – if a meal and a beer possess a similar flavour (or even share an exact ingredient), then chances are they will pair off very nicely indeed. The best example of this we can mention is also the most specific we can think of – our latest Abstrakt AB:20 is inspired by the classic Italian dessert tiramisu; brewed with coffee, oats and milk before being aged in rum casks it shares all of the flavour peaks and would therefore go brilliantly with the sweet, moreish dish it was designed to emulate.
Matching flavours to great effect needn’t be this precise, of course. If you are preparing a meal containing (for example) cherries, then a Belgian Kriek would fit the bill nicely. And even if the two have no identifiable ingredients in common, the techniques employed by brewer and/or chef can result in complementary flavour profiles to aid the pairing. That aforementioned tantalising rack of
HERE ARE SOME AMAZING PAIRINGS FOR A FEW OF OUR CRAFT BEERS.
JUST ADD KNIFE, FORK AND
BOTTLE OPENERPUNK IPA
Vietnamese pho – seared tuna – caramel apple tart – vegetable
samosas
5AM SAINT
Sticky ribs – cheeseburger – Cajun prawns – crème brûlée
ribs would be a great match with a beer featuring caramel malt flavours (like a German doppelbock) or a dry and roasty schwarzbier.
3. CONTRASTFinally, the third thing to bear in mind when selecting a beer to go with your dinner (or lunch, or breakfast) is to work with – or against – the contrasting components of both. So this rule moves beyond matching the broad intensity of each or any individual flavours they have in common and instead looks for high-level characteristics like
richness, fattiness or spicy heat. These can then either be balanced to great effect, or offset to lift or calm as required and similarly result in a satisfying beer and food experience.
To explain that in a bit more detail, let’s look at spicy heat. It is balanced by sweetness and malt in a beer but actually emphasised by hop bitterness. So that nuclear vindaloo will be kept in check by a Belgian Dubbel but allowed to run roughshod over your palate with a bitter hoppy IPA. Yes – IPA actually makes curry hotter. If that sounds surprising (not to mention painful), then up the malt levels in
your hop bomb to compensate for the heat; i.e. break out the US Double IPA (or better still, a barley wine) instead!
This is an example of using these high-level interactions to cut through a potentially dominant part of your meal. Just as malty beer reduces chilli heat, highly carbonated beers help with rich or fatty foods. Our cherry-based dish being cooked up would certainly be complemented by a Kriek – but try a deeply roasty imperial stout to counterpoint the sharp cherry fruit instead. And whereas hops emphasise heat, they reduce sweetness – as in the classic (if
THE BOTTOM LINE HERE IS THAT IF YOU CAN MATCH
THE INTENSITY, FLAVOURS AND CONTRASTS OF YOUR MEAL WITH A BEER THEN YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG.
seldom tried) pairing of India Pale Ale and carrot cake. No, really.
The bottom line here is that if you can match the intensity, flavours and contrasts of your meal with a beer then you won’t go far wrong. Whatever beer you select, as long as
it’s one you enjoy it will help you learn and come to future tables with great pairings. After all, to discover them requires nothing more than the hardship of eating amazing food and drinking world-class beer. Well, and maybe the odd bit of washing up…
TOKYO*
White chocolate ganache – smoked duck – goulash –
blue cheese
DOG E
Black Forest Gateaux – meatloaf – brownies
– Camembert
NANNY STATE
Vegetable tagine – seafood chowder
– bratwurst – sweet potato curry
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Those of us who turn up to one every morning may take it for granted, but visiting a brewery can be pretty damned exciting. Step over the threshold and you are met with a calm but focused level of activity amidst a multitude of pipes and valves, with steaming caldrons emitting hop aromas in every corner.
It’s impossible not to channel that small child in Wonkaland mentality, particularly if it’s bottling or canning day and the beers are whirring in front of your eyes, all clattering temptation, slightly out of reach. Whether a small nanobrewery or one with tanks you can see from space, once you get inside and begin to explore there will be something for everyone.
And that’s even before you get to the tasting room.
Few other industries combine the chance to see where everything takes place with an immediate opportunity to then sample their wares yards from where it was made. Plus, the amount of walking involved coupled with the warm brewhouse atmosphere certainly works up a thirst. And chances are you had to travel quite a way to actually visit the brewery in the first place…
So do you remember the first brewery you ever visited? The chance to see behind the curtain of your favourite beermaker, and ask questions? And more importantly, did you get round without tripping over anything?
THE FIRST TIME...The First Time is our series revolving around the many moments that drinking beer can lead to. What was your first brewery you visited? Tell us your stories via email or Twitter below. For Issue 39, we’ll be featuring the unfortunate question: What was the first beer you knocked over?
HOPPROPAGANDA
TIME FOR ANOTHER LOOK AT TWO BEERS WITH DIFFERENT FUTURES. TAKE THIS FANTASTIC OPTION FOR ENJOYING RIGHT AWAY, AND THE OTHER FOR CAREFUL AGEING TO DEVELOP IN FLAVOUR. BUT IT IS THE IMPERIAL STOUT THAT SHOULD BE ENJOYED FIRST… *PLOT TWIST*
NOW:NEXT
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DRINK THIS NOW:
VICTORY STORM KING STOUT (9.1%)Big, bold and unapologetic, this masterful beer could indeed be put somewhere quiet to be appreciated later. But that would deprive you of the thundering hoppiness imparted into Victory’s imperial stout – which resembles an imperial Black IPA more than anything else.
With whole-flower US hops in evidence at the same time as the layers of inky darkness, Storm King is a stone-cold classic deserving immediate attention with everything as the brewery intended. As Victory say themselves ‘Storm King will assault your senses and then soothe your soul’. And why delay that?
DRINK THIS NEXT:
VICTORY HELIOS ALE (7.5%)Alternatively, whilst you are battling the Storm
King, postpone your bout with the Sun God. Helios is a Belgian Farmhouse ale with a peppery citrus bite
commonly-found in the style – and is also a beer that you could uncap and enjoy at any time.
However, as Helios is bottle-conditioned it will continue to mature beautifully, mellowing and having the peppery spikes
replaced with a honeyed sweetness. Saisons are seldom aged – they were developed with immediacy in mind – but they are
fantastic candidates for doing so (if you can avoid the temptation).
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DIY DOGMartin and I (James) started home-brewing back in 2005. We could not find any beers we wanted to drink in the UK, so decided the best thing to do was to brew our own. Armed with some very old Cascade hops and a desire to recreate Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, our brewing adventure started.
In 2007, we got a bank loan, bought some second hand equipment and turned our home-brewing hobby into our job as BrewDog officially came howling into the world. Our original brewery in Fraserburgh was basically just a giant home-brewing set up with plastic water tanks and completely manual controls.
Many of the classic BrewDog beers were developed during our home-brewing days, and we still use a 50L system to develop new beers and new recipes here at BrewDog. Home-brewing is very much ingrained in our DNA at BrewDog as so many of the world’s great craft breweries can trace their origins back to home-brewing.
We have always loved the sharing of knowledge, expertise and passion in the craft beer community and we wanted to take that spirit of collaboration to the next level. So with that in mind, we recently launched DIY Dog – our project to give it all back.
With DIY Dog we wanted to do something that has never been done before as well as paying tribute to our home-brewing roots. We wanted to take all of our recipes, every single last one, and give them all away for free, to the amazing global home-brewing community.
To get hold of the keys to our kingdom, just go to https://www.brewdog.com/diydog and enter
your email address – and that’s it. Every single BrewDog recipe, ever will be yours. Copy them, tear them to pieces, bastardise them, adapt them, but most of all, enjoy them. They are well travelled but with plenty of miles still left on the clock. Just remember to share your brews, and share your results. Sharing is caring.
A near decade-long anthology of BrewDog recipes, scaled down to make it easier to follow for those wanting to have a go at home. DIY Dog is only available in digital format but we have decided to re-print one selected recipe in each edition of Hop Propaganda – and for this food-based edition, we are giving you a chance to discover that P is indeed for Peel with a chance to have a go at recreating Elvis Juice…
WE HAVE ALWAYS LOVED THE SHARING
OF KNOWLEDGE, EXPERTISE AND PASSION IN THE CRAFT BEER COMMUNITY AND WE WANTED TO TAKE THAT SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
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GLASSES? CHECK. BOTTLE OPENER? CHECK.
On the face of it, hosting a beer tasting is a simple matter – as long as you have more than one beer, more than one person, and pour yourself slightly larger measures than anybody else you are pretty much good to go. But to run an event that gets all your friends enthused about the myriad different options present in the world of beer and opens eyes as well as bottle caps, there are a few things that you can do to elevate your beer tasting into an ‘Event’.
Whether your tasting style is a relaxed affair with the TV blaring in the background and dogs sprinting laps of the kitchen, or a more scientific approach with no talking and twenty-point evaluation sheets, following a few basic principles can make all the difference. For one thing, your guests will reach for their coats that much the wiser, ensuring that the hard work of the brewers has fully come across to those who are curious as to how nine different kinds of raspberry imperial stout can differ.
And that’s not being flippant, either – as the first principle states, your selection of beers can be as confined and specific as you like. With a theme in place, it really is up to you. From the entire panoply of styles the globe has to offer to a few examples of the exact same one, how you approach the tasting can lead to some fascinating flavour changes. If your attendees have enough water, snacks, pencils and numbers for local taxi companies you are halfway there already.
So find your sturdiest kitchen table (or compile one from the wooden pallets your beer order arrived on) and dig out the wipe-clean tablecloth. If you follow the six principles overleaf then you won’t go too far wrong – unless the extravagantly packaged Belgian quad takes out your 65” UHD TV with an unfortunate ‘point and shoot’ cork accident. Remember most household insurers won’t pay out for over-carbonation…
PERFECT SERVE
Whether the TV is on in the background or not, you need to have the beer at the ideal condition when it’s go time. There’s no other reason people came round, after all. So check the preferred temperature for the styles you have and take the bottles or cans out of the fridge with plenty of time to spare. This lets their flavours shed the cloak of anonymity beers tend to pick up in the refrigerator (if in doubt, serve at a cool 10-12°C).
You’ll need small tasting glasses for the pours you’ll be delivering. In order not to overload everyone, a rule of thumb to follow is ‘3 from 330ml’ in terms of pouring amounts. And this is generous – if you are hosting a barley wine evening, dial it back a bit even from that. Also be mindful of bottle-conditioned beers when dishing out the samples! Although, sampling without and then with the yeast is a fascinating exercise in how this little micro-organism alters beer flavour.
GET REFRESHED
A beer tasting should be an enjoyable marathon, not a sprint marred by people running outside of their lanes. So make sure all attendees have unlimited access to water with which to rehydrate, cleanse their palates and clean their glassware in between rounds. Unless you have a truly colossal beer glass collection, rinsing from beer to beer is the best way to avoid flavour cross-contamination.
Also a great thing to have on hand are things for your guests to chew on. At a bare minimum, plain crackers to act as reset (they are much nicer than slices of white bread, which also have the same effect). But other snacks will be welcomed, and some high-quality cheese is a great boost to bring out when people are flagging and the imperial stouts have appeared. Plus it acts as another indication of how one set of flavours influence another.
GO VERTICAL
What initially seems like common sense – going from weakest to strongest in your beer lineup over the course of the evening – actually has many different options, on closer inspection. Aside from ensuring that people haven’t knocked back the double IPA’s before the One Show credits have rolled, moving up through the alcohol levels gives the palates of your guests time to attune to the beerload over the course of the evening.
But that’s a simple way of looking at it – these days there are plenty of session-strength beers that pack a walloping flavour, whether through the bitterness levels, addition of chillies or whatever. So when the time comes to arrange the tasting bottles, take everything into account and come up with an order of play that gives every beer a chance to shine and doesn’t have one dominate the entire evening.
TICK THE BOX WHEN COMPLETED. IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT.Ho
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THE LAST WORDTAKEN A BEER PIC GOOD ENOUGH TO FEATURE IN THE PAGES OF HOP PROPAGANDA? EMAIL A HIGH-RES COPY TO [email protected] AND FIND OUT!
CHEERS TO 60 YEARS BY MARTIN CLIFTON
LOOK FOR MISTAKES
Even with the best will in the world, brewers sometimes get things wrong (or they go wrong when the beer has left their hands). Off-flavours often raise their ugly, unwanted heads when several beers of similar type are tasted in quick succession, so for added beer tasting evening points make a few notes on some of the more readily encountered, just in case you get that tell-tale whiff of popcorn, green apples or vinegar.
And for even more points, kits of pre-mixed capsules containing said off-flavours can be purchased online (they are what we use to train our taste panels and would-be Cicerones). Hosting a special off-flavour tasting evening might not mean a series of tasty beverages, but it’s utterly fascinating to build an olfactory library of faults that will help in your tastings of the future (and also very much so if you are a homebrewer).
MAKE A NOTE
At this point, the discussion during and after the beer tasting can go in many different directions (a number that will increase in proportion to the number of beers sampled). But there’s little point in just knocking the beers back in silence, so why not take the opportunity to chat about how the flavours and aromas are coming through from each beer tasted, and whether one has been enjoyed more than the other?
People love to quantify things, so give them a pencil and an easy (or heinously complicated) scoring sheet and let them have at it. It’s not simply to justify your awesomeness at choosing beers, but will give them a chance to work out what styles they like if they aren’t so sure, and also record for their own posterity any beers they fall in love with over the course of the evening.
HOST A BLIND TASTING
This is really the ultimate in beer tasting, and one that will brilliantly summarise what you and your tasting buddies have deciphered from the numerous beer tastings that took place previously. What you see obviously has a big bearing on what you taste and enjoy, so with that removed from the equation, your other senses will have to step up (and take it from us – they really do).
So find a willing volunteer to uncap, pour and distribute the beers unseen in unmarked glasses, and have at it. Even blindfold yourselves so the colour of the beer doesn’t even come into play. What can you smell? Can you pick the individual hops? Is there a style that you lean towards for each beer? Why not write down what type of beer you think it might be, or even what specific beer? (remove your blindfold first, if you value your tablecloth)…
10/10
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