BrewDog Paradox Macallan (Batch 011)

Brewed by BrewDog
Style: Imperial Stout
Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Medium brown pour with off white head and lace. Burnt coffee, medium chocolate, and abv on the nose. Abv, chocoffee with a very good finishing bitter. Medium bodied with good carbonation. A very nice beer.

Pours deep clear garnet with infra red edges and tan head. The aroma is milder than what I was expecting with muted peat, some earthiness and faint roasted malts followed by even fainter burnt malts. The taste is full and indeed tasty with notes of peat and earthiness followed by some sweeter notes that are hinting toward the base beer. I get an undercurrent of roasted malts, some chocolate malts and smooth sweetness. Midway and to the finish some of the roasty rich malt notes and some chocolate struggle a little harder to be heard over the barrel flavors. It ends with lingering peat and mild earthy notes.

0.33 l bottle from Alko (as Paradox Speyside batch 011). Dark reddish brown color. Rich whisky and roasted malt aroma with chocolate, oak and vanilla. Firm roasty, bitter, whiskeyish and oaky flavor with vanilla, licorice and chocolate. Smooth palate with soft carbonation. Fairly light body for 10 % ABV beer, I like it this way. First sips taste very balanced and well integrated but after a while whisky gets too dominant. Very enjoyable though.

Aroma is grainy, oaky, roastiness, alcohol, tart sourness, which I would attribute to the sherry, rich oxidation and hops, and finally, chocolate. Aroma is very rich and dense. Pours with a thin wateriness with no head excepting a few white bubbles. Taste is initially barleywine-esque, which is not surprising considering the sherry. Oak, sherry, touches of roasted grain, chocolate, citrus hops. This brew is well integrated, if a touch too much direct sherry and carbonation. The sherry is somewhat sharper than I’d like, and the oak is present but not dominant. This is a very nice beer.

Bottle thanks to bu11zeye. Smell is vanilla, smoke, dried fruit, whiskey. Pretty decent. Look is dark brown and clear with not very much head. Taste is malts, smoke, dried fruits, whiskey, malts, pretty good flavor.

Courtesy growler. Like all the other Paradox beers, this one pours a dark but translucent mahogany brown color with a tiny, bubbly edge. Virtually no lacing marks the glass. The aroma shows big notes of dark chocolate, slight saltiness, charred oak, and a surprising dose of dark, vinous fruits, which I assume to be coming from the sherry. Flavors back up this claim, as the chocolate is indeed accompanied by a prominent salty smokiness and a lurking background note of indiscernible dark fruits (perhaps even some cherries). The low carbonation works well here, and the smooth, velvety mouthfeel is more substantial than other Paradox’s, as I recall. I found this to be very unique, and one of the better beers within the series.

Tap at blind tiger. Poured a blackish brown. Nose was way smokey. This gets better as it warms when all of the flavors pop out. Smokey and Peety with deep oak flavors. This is not for the faint of heart. Deep charcoal notes. It’s the type of beer you either love or hate. I loved it

Thanks to Cheeseman, I think. Flavor is full of whiskey, but it really is a little more subdued than I thought it would be, especially comparing to others in this series.