BrewDog Paradox Islay (Batch 001)

Formerly brewed at BrewDog
Style: Imperial Stout
Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Bottle at Chris_o’s. Dark. Sweet, strongly flavoured of peat, quite medicinal, a little salty.

Cask, Leicester Fest 08. Black with a beige head. Aromas are earthy roast coffee with spices and lots of alcohol. Flavours are rich strong bitter coffee with liquorice and medicinal notes. Bitter on the finish. Good but not quite as good as I expected.

Bottled sample via and shared with oakbluff. Brownish black in colour with low carbonation. Huge aromas of peat, iodine, and sea air with backing notes of mint, dried fruit, and a hint of roast. More over-the-top barrel elements in the mouth with lots of wood, smoke, and spirit, with the caramel and roasted malts creeping in on the back end. Only medium bodied. Quite unusual, as there’s so much Islay scotch influence that it’s hard to draw the line between the beer and whiskey.

Bottle. Body-still cola body. Nose-light bourbon, wheaty, malty, grassy, flat hops. Taste-BBQ meat, bacon, smoke, tastes like Woody’s Smokehouse in Centerville, Texas, sausage. I have never had a beer with this much smoked meat flavor, salt, watered down scotch, smoked rye, just a touch of metal. The ,eat/smoke is done very well. A very well made enjoyable beer. Almost perfectly done, even though my score may not reflect that.

Pours black with some white head, there is much dot lace later. Aroma is crate woody, with some roast and whiskey. Taste is woody first, chocolate and whiskey secondary. Yeast and coffee and chocolate add some thickening. Good though overrated, I could get a bomber of a great RIS from the USA or Canada at the same price. Still, enjoyable. As with their other barrelled, its an old wood aftertaste; at the ready to remove splinters. Boutip trade seven.

Bottle. Clear red brown colorued with an off white ehad. Sweet aroma of liquorice, smoke and whisky. Roasted and smoked flavoru of liquorice, wood and hops. Hoppy and smoky finish.

Bottle (330ml) shared with HogTownHarry, tupalev & GregClow -- courtesy of HogTownHarry. Pours a very dark brown, almost black, with a spare diminishing off-white head. Very nice aroma, lots of smoke but also sweet along with chocolate, roasted caramel malt and dark fruit. Flavour: Now that’s different! Nice to have a barrel-aged beer that’s not all vanilla or bourbon. Lots and lots of smoke along with peat, roasted malt and alcohol. Oily mouthfeel, medium bodied. Interesting and different -- I wouldn’t drink this regularly but I quite like it.

Bottled, $10.50 (ouch). Wow, this is unreal. Smells like the richest, stinkiest, briniest scotch you’ve ever encountered. There really isn’t much beer left here... I think I’d rather just drink scotch. However, it is still pretty interesting. Aroma is salt, brine, seaweed, some smoke. Flavor is all Islay scotch, except at the very beginning and very ends... up front there is a touch of thick, stoutiness, and in the back there is a dry, chalky, clean finish, though that is also covered by some slick, moldy rocks and brine.

The intensity from the scotch barrel makes this incredibly difficult to drink. Though I like much of the flavors here, they are too intense, and don’t blend well with the beer at all, unlike the batch 003/Glen Grant cask, which I found to be extremely balanced and wonderful. I would like to try more Islay cask examples, however, at $10.50 a bottle, I doubt that will be happening any time soon.