Hello my Name is Mette Marit
Brewery: Brew Dog
Type: Double/Imperial IPA
Alcohol: 8.2%
Country: Scotland
Lingonberry Double IPA! What is a lingon berry? It is that purple sauce stuff you get on the side of your meatballs in Ikea. At least that is the only place I know it from. I used to get it until they starting putting it in the weird ketchup pumper, now I just stick to my mandatory one glass of lingonberry soda. Ok so I digress. This is an Imperial IPA, brewed with those little berries, mountains of them from what the description says. Well I am excited to see if this IPA stacks up to the lingonberry soda at IKEA.
Pours a bright orange when held to light but it is very cloudy and opaque. There is no making out the words on the other side of my glass. Big cloudy slightly offwhite head takes over the remaining space in my glass not currently occupied by beer. Fades gently into a solid creamy ring around the top of the beer. A very sharp smell. Malt and a lot of grassy hops with a tingle of a very interesting bit of fruitiness, lingonberries I guess. I can detect all three of those in the smell, but none are incredibly distinct and tend to meld together into an indistinct smell of malty grass. The flavor is at first very close to any other very malt centric IPA. Very deep bready full taste. More sips bring out the citrus and grass from those citra and bramling cross hop additions, subtle in flavor but not in bitterness. Speaking of which this beer is pretty damn bitter, certainly a punch in the tongue I was not expecting from a berry beer. So what about those lingonberries? Well they come through a bit on the aftertaste, a fresh slightly tart type hint of fruit. Honestly though, I feel they are blown away by the aggressive maltiness and bittering hops. The mouthfeel is medium and a little odd. Booze sneaks in here and there, a little touch of heat and astringency just poking you in the side of the mouth every once and a sip. I had high hopes for this beer. I have had other beers brewed with berries, most notably To Øl's Baltic Frontier brewed with juniper berries, which I thought were outstanding. I just wish the lingonberries had been able to shine through a little more. It gets a seven for effort and at least I can taste the lingonberries a little. As a double IPA, this is not half bad, but I didn't buy it for the DIPA I bought it for the damn side of lingonberry sauce!
