BOTTLEBOX. tasting notes OUR CURATED BOTTLE CLUB

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1 tasting notes OUR CURATED BOTTLE CLUB

2 THE BEERS INSIDE YOUR Hello once again from the internet! If you are reading this then you re a very lucky person indeed. A card-carrying BrewDog Equity Punk about to delve into their latest BottleBox release. Although you ve probably already opened it. Either way here s more detail on what s inside! First up, a returning hero. Yes, the new black is back in the shape of a one-off brew of Libertine Black Ale. That sits neatly alongside another recent arrival, the brand new 8.2% ABV Mexican Hot Chocolate Imperial Stout, Choco Libre. Next up, with a new batch of Hazy Jane canned and ready to roll we have included that for your enjoyment, and carry on with a throwback to summer in the form of our hop-forward saison Electric India. Because 330ml is never enough we have also included a 500ml tallboy of Punk IPA, and as the time of year is a festive one have also laid on our seasonal beers Santa Paws and Hoppy Christmas. Elsewhere, we turn to the darker side with Cocoa Psycho, the violent side with the return of Albino Squid Assassin, and the innovative side with not one but two Abstrakts AB:20 and AB:24. We hope you enjoy these beers as much as we enjoyed brewing them! James and Martin

3 LIBERTINE BLACK ALE CHOCO LIBRE LIBERTINE CHOCO LIBRE Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. As is #ReBrewDog our semi-occasional flip through the brewsheets of old to select a beer and give it another whirl around our brewhouse. July 2012 was quite the time as on the same day we launched a little trifecta of beers named Dead Pony Club, Jack Hammer and Libertine Black IPA. Single-hopped with Simcoe, Libertine was designed to balance our favourite hop with a blend of dark malts, giving a scenario that is very much the best of both worlds. As it remains, five years later. Loaded with the bitterness and resinous hop character of a West Coast IPA, Libertine also carries the roasty, bitter chocolate flavours of a stout. This Black IPA is perfectly balanced and infuses malt and hops in perfect harmony. Style: Black IPA ABV: 7.2% IBU: 70 Pair with: Blackened Chicken Burger Malts: Extra Pale, Cara, Crystal, Carafa Hops: Simcoe Yeast: Wyeast 1272 American Ale II Buckle up for this one. Our new arrival stepping into the ring is Choco Libre; a Mexican Hot Chocolate Imperial Stout. A showcase of the warming flavours of spiced hot chocolate from Central America, this is a rich, full-bodied winter comfort blanket brewed with seven different malts and five different added ingredients. One of the most complex stouts we have ever brewed (which is saying something) Choco Libre is colossal and comes ready to roll. Our tip? Don t fight make peace with it instead. The beer has huge aromas of milk chocolate, vanilla, fruity expresso and cinnamon rolls, with an undercurrent of dark malt roastiness. Rich, bold and full-bodied the beer descends into a mocha, chili-laced aftertaste that is truly welcoming. Style: Imperial Stout ABV: 8.2% IBU: 25 Pair with: Mole Beef Enchiladas Hops: Bramling X Malts: Pils, Munich, Crystal, Brown, Carafa, Chocolate Wheat, Flaked Oats Additions: Cocoa Nibs, Cinnamon, Chili, Coffee, Vanilla : : - 5 -

4 HAZY JANE ELECTRIC INDIA HAZY JANE ELECTRIC INDIA Hazy Jane is a beer we worked on for months, with small-batch trials and taste panel meetings coming together in a single release. New England IPAs are unquestionably the style of 2017 so in putting this beer together, we put in the hours. With the same ABV as Jack Hammer but less than a third the bitterness, this beer is about the interplay of the high-level aromas and flavours from some of our favourite US hops. Served unfiltered and canned fresh, it is our take on the hottest style of the moment. New England IPA has to tick several boxes. It requires a low background bitterness and intense juicy fruit character. Pineapple, stonefruit, mango, light resin and hints of lime peel Hazy Jane is full-bodied and smooth, enhancing those soft ripe fruit flavours. Style: New England IPA ABV: 7.2% IBU: 30 Pair with: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Hops: Amarillo, Chinook, Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe Malts: Pale, Oats, Wheat Shelf-Life: 30 days! This beer is our attempt to embrace the perfect hybrid a meeting of two equally formative brewing worlds. Electric India embraces the spicy notes of a Belgian saison and combines them with the punchy new world hops of an American IPA. Originally created by our legion of shareholders at an Equity Punk brewday in 2013 (a group ever with their fingers on the pulse), the key to this balancing act is the deployment of the hopload late in the kettle and then into the whirlpool as well. This balance gives the spicy, fruity edge of the European style and the orange and grapefruit citrus of the US favourite. With the addition of crushed peppercorns and honey, the beer ends with a lift of peppery spice that truly complements the fruity elements evident in each of these twinned styles. Style: Saison ABV: 5.2% IBU: 40 Pair with: Pad Thai Hops: Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin, Enigma Malts: Extra Pale, Munich, Wheat Extras: Honey, Peppercorns, Coriander Seeds : : - 7 -

5 PUNK IPA The beer that started a revolution. Our flagship India Pale Ale was the direct result of James and Martin brewing beer they wanted to drink, based on the influences of the burgeoning American craft beer scene. The resultant trans-atlantic IPA is fresh, full-forward and pays due homage to the India Pale Ales of yesteryear. With explosions of fruity hops at every stage, it is truly a beer to rally behind something we have done since the day BrewDog was formed, ten years ago in PUNK IPA With tropical fruits and light caramel on the nose, the palate soon becomes assertive and resinous with the New Zealand hops balanced by the biscuit malt. The finish is aggressive, dry and resinous, with the hops emerging over warming alcohol. This postmodern twist of huge levels of dry-hopping give that characteristic explosion of tropical fruit flavour from start to finish. : -8- Style: IPA ABV: 5.6% IBU: 35 Pair with: Chicken Tikka Colour: Light Gold Hops: Simcoe, Chinook, Ahtanum, Cascade, Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo Malts: Extra Pale, Cara SANTA PAWS With Santa Paws we solved a festive dilemma. The desire for a quintessential fireside warmer strikes all of us; but usually these are one-shot beers enjoyed at the end of the evening. We worked up a beer with phenomenal backbone and pared it down to under 5% ABV the perfect answer for all those people who want something dark, roasty and warming but would then like another, followed by another. Brewed for a time of year when overindulgence reigns, Santa Paws is proof that less is sometimes more. SANTA PAWS This beer is a celebration of malt, at sessionstrength. A Baby Scotch with a depth of flavour from toast crust to deep coffee; the spicy hop notes lend balance but this beer is a who s who of malt character. SANTA PAWS CHRISTMAS SCOTCH ALE 4.5% Country: Scotland Style: Scotch Ale ABV: 4.5% Pair with: Mushroom Wellington Hops: First Gold, Mount Hood, Willamette Malts: Extra Pale, Munich, Dark Crystal, Amber, Brown, Carafa, Smoked, Flaked Oats : -9-

6 HOPPY CHRISTMAS COCOA PSYCHO HOPPY CHRISTMAS COCOA PSYCHO With Santa Paws on (or hopefully in) one hand, we also twinned it with the diametric opposite for our second festive beer. Or maybe if not opposite, one to accompany. Hoppy Christmas is a single hop American IPA and is as far away from cosy and comforting as you can get. A no-holdsbarred salvo of resinous hopload, it is everything a festive release should be and that s release as in escape. Think back to the highs of summer and enjoy! Tastewise, this eulogy to the festive hop is a flurry of citrus pithy orange and zesty grapefruit, but with deeper layers of more fragrant tropical notes. They say everyone should get at least one Christmas wish and Simcoe is ours. Country: Scotland Style: IPA ABV: 7.2% Pair with: Turkey breast (or chicken breast) salad IBU: 70 Hops: Simcoe Cocoa Psycho is one of the most asked-for beers in our inventory, and we know exactly why. It is pure liquid indulgence the balance of the six different malts and added chocolate and coffee gives this beer a body like no other. This is very much a nod to the history of high-strength stouts that found their fame in the courts and palaces of the Tsars of the East. A style steeped in history, Cocoa Psycho is our nod to the passage of time and the permanence of brewing within it. A rich, opulent ink-black stout, on pouring the beer greets you with an evocative aroma of molasses, dark chocolate and roasted coffee beans. The palate features a steadily rising swell of bitter chocolate, vanilla, mocha and a touch of sweet woodsmoke. Style: Russian Imperial Stout ABV: 10% IBU: 85 Pair with: Plum Pudding Malts: Extra Pale, Wheat, Dark Crystal, Smoked, Black, Roasted Barley Hops: Cascade Extras: Coffee Beans, Cacao Nibs : :

7 ALBINO SQUID ASSASSIN ABSTRAKT AB:20 ALBINO SQUID ASSASSIN AB:20 The multi-armed monster from the deep returns. Albino Squid Assassin was first brewed in 2015 and emerges from the deep once more as a single #ReBrewDog run. A Red Rye IPA, this ten-armed terror bristles with layers of flavour from a fusillade of kettle and dry hopping. Rye can be a tricky ingredient for brewers to use, but ASA revels in its peppery detonations, and with Citra and Chinook added at every hopping stage the hit of resin and citrus act as a perfect foil for the rye, and everything else in the beer s armoury. The zesty pithiness of the hops square off against other munitions deployed; the caramel, cinder toffee and roastiness from the malt bill and the peppery detonation of rye result in a beer with many facets. Style: Red Rye IPA ABV: 7.4% IBU: 70 Colour: Dark Amber Pair With: Pulled Pork Malts: Pale, Crystal, Dark Crystal, Carafa, Rye Hops: Magnum, Chinook, Citra One of the intentions of our boundary-pushing Abstrakt series is creating beers to age. Hopefully many of you buy multiple bottles to squirrel away, as the results can be amazing. Take AB:20. Released in April 2016, our take on Tiramisu has aged incredibly. So much so, we re including it in this BottleBox. As a showcase of flavours at their best, this blend of an epic English barley wine brewed with coffee, oats and milk, and a twistedly complex rum cask-aged imperial stout is right on the money. With a deep and alluring nose of molasses, brandy and a spicy hit from the rum cask, the beer follows into a palate rich with decadent flavours of coffee bean, chocolate, vanilla and alcohol. Full bodied and chewy with notes of caramel and biscuit, this beer gains complexity as it warms in the glass. Style: Imperial Stout/ Barley Wine ABV: 14.2% IBU: 30 Pair With: Tiramisu! Malts: Cara, Crystal, Pale, Flaked Oats Hops: Magnum Extras: Milk Sugars, Coffee, Oats : :

8 ABSTRAKT AB:24 AB:24 Our latest Abstrakt release pays homage to the wooden ships that traversed the Baltic to trade with the Imperial Russian court. To stave off the harshness of winter these ships would carry strong, dark beer, coffee and other warming items so our twentyfourth Abstrakt release is a cold-fermented Baltic Porter enriched by coldbrew coffee and dark muscovado sugar. This is a bracing beer set square in the face of the wildest weather imaginable, and as such an ideal for when the curtains are closed and the fire is dwindling into embers. AB:24 is a huge, mochaforward beer laded with the aromas of freshlybrewed coffee, toasty caramel, red berry fruit and a bitter chocolate undercurrent. Decanted into your finest glassware, it is designed to be rich, warming and fullflavoured, with an almost brandy-like backbone from the muscovado and double-digit ABV. Style: Imperial Stout/ Barley Wine ABV: 14.2% IBU: 30 Pair With: Tiramisu! Malts: Cara, Crystal, Pale, Flaked Oats Hops: Magnum Extras: Milk Sugars, Coffee, Oats : :

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