Brewery: BrewDog
Location: Fraserburgh, Scotland
ABV: 12.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: BrewDog.com

A few weeks ago I placed an order via the BrewDog website for a bottle of their ultra-limited edition (only 100 bottles made available for sale at £25 each) Zephyr ale, along with a few bottles of BrewDog / Mikkeller Devine Rebel and BrewDog How to Disappear Completely (tasting notes for that one will be posted before too long).

Initially brewed as a 9% ABV IPA (by a brewery that knows a thing or two about brewing an IPA), BrewDog Zephyr was subsequently decanted into 1965 Invergordon whisky casks packed full of strawberries and then left to mature for exactly 600 days. The end result: a 12.5% ABV “strawberry infused Belgian inspired wood aged ale” that tastes like nothing else I’ve tried to-date…

But how to describe BrewDog Zephyr? Mark Dredge and Ms Impy Malting have both resorted to rapturous prose-poetry and the reviews at ratebeer have been similarly full of (slightly more prosaic) praise. And I for one am happy to add my own small paean to the growing cacophony: this is a truly fantastic beer.

The bottle opened with an appropriate champagne-pop, releasing a thick, strawberry infused aroma. The pour was lively, the beer’s effervescence contributing to a frothy, if short-lived, head and an ongoing pleasant fizziness. First taste: an intense explosion of mixed flavours that was clearly going to take some time to sort out, and a fructose sweetness that was distinct but not overly sugary. A bit hit of alcohol, but nothing too harsh or over-powering. Interesting. Very interesting.

After a couple more sips (I certainly wasn’t going to gulp this one) I began to pick out a few of those flavours: I kept looking for strawberries – knowing full well that those casks had been packed with them – but that particular note was elusive. Instead, I was getting unripe peaches and apricots, maybe even a slice of mango? A hint of the advertised coconut, wrapped up in shortbread. And of course, the whisky was there too. Speaking of which, I’d be very interested indeed to try a drop of the 1965 Invergordon, if only to help me with a theory I’ve got…

Because after a while I began to realise – and this was confirmed for me by the lovely Jo – that BrewDog Zephyr is actually really rather salty. Not something you often encounter in a beer – particularly in a Belgian-style of this strength, I’d imagine (having only experienced a few of those) but the saltiness was definitely there. And eventually, I think I worked out why: the Invergordon distillery was (in 1965 at least and still is if it’s still a going concern) situated on the coast, as this multimap reference, provided by the distillery profile page at scotchwhisky.net illustrates.

I went through a bit of a malt whisky phase before I came back to real ale, and one thing I learnt is that during maturation, a whisky will take on not only the characteristics of the ingredients and methods used in its distillation and the cask it’s matured in (hence the port wood / madeira wood etc. finishes you see on the shelves), but its character can also take in elements from the surrounding environment. Which is why a whisky like Old Pulteney tastes – quite distinctly – of the North Sea. And as Old Pulteney was the whisky that was most strongly brought to mind when I tasted BrewDog Zephyr, I would guess that a 1965 Invergordon whisky, distilled and matured on the coast, would have a similar sea-salt character and that the saltiness would have lingered in the casks long after the whisky was decanted, transferring in turn to the Zephyr.

Not – I hasten to add – that this in any way spoiled the flavour; quite the opposite in fact: salt is an obvious flavour enhancer and I’m sure Zephyr’s many fruit notes were only enhanced by its inclusion in the mix. And as I progressed through the 750ml (slowly, savouring every mouthful as I went) those fruit flavours merged and mingled with the alcohol and caramel-sweetness and saltiness and hop-bitterness – which was there, although it took a long time to come through and was never quite as prevalent as it is in BrewDog’s other IPA brews – to result in a drink experience that was, frankly, quite amazing.

All in all, I’m absolutely delighted that I splashed out £25 for a single bottle of a beer this rare and remarkable and I’d definitely do so again if the opportunity arose. In fact, if I remember rightly, BrewDog have an Atlantic IPA in the works – matured on-board a working trawler vessel in order to approximate the original sea-going life-cycle of the first India Pale Ales – and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for a purchase of that one, even at a similar price-point. I’ve said before that I’m a sucker for a beer with a good story behind it and at the moment, BrewDog seem to be producing a series of literary masterpieces. Long may they continue to create!

Brewery: Huyghe
Location: Melle, Belgium
ABV: 4.2%
Version: Bottled (250ml)
Source: Courtesy of BeerMerchants.com

I must admit that I approached Fruli with no small sense of trepidation and a fair dollop of reluctance, on the grounds that I’m pretty much convinced – based on a couple of earlier encounters that didn’t go well – that Fruit Beer just isn’t my cup of tea. So, could Fruli be the one to make me change my mind..?

Brewed by Belgian craft-brewery Huyghe, Fruli is part of a stable of flavoured beers that includes the Floris range, as well as Mongozo, a banana-flavoured beer that formed the basis for one of those aforementioned earlier encounters: it was absolutely awful. Worth noting though, that Huyghe also brew the Delirium twins – Tremens and Nocturne (more on that second one in a later Tasting Notes post) as well, so they claw some points back in my book for those two.

So, to the moment of truth: was Fruly strawberry beer going to be a sipper or a spitter? Would I savour it or sink it?

Cracking open the bottle released a powerful whiff of strawberry mikshake concentrate (you remember that Nesquik stuff from when you were a kid?) that filled the room in seconds (startling the cat and causing the missus to pull her “WTF is that?” face… not the best start). It poured with lots of fizz, resulting in a frothy head atop an opaque reddish-brown-verging-on-pink body.

Girding my loins and bracing my palate, I lifted the glass… and was pleasantly surprised to find that, once released from the confines of the bottle, the aroma settles down to something much more akin to that of proper, fresh strawberries. And then there was a second surprise in store: it actually tasted okay.

I mean, it wasn’t delicious and I don’t think I’d want to drink it on a regular basis, but yeah, it was okay. And once I’d performed some minor mental gymnastics and started thinking of it as some sort of strawberry cider, (or strawperry?) then I found I could actually finish the glass. I might have had trouble if there had been much more than 250ml to get through, I have to admit. But as a novelty act, a change from the usual, something a little different? Not too bad.

So, there you go. I’m still not even halfway converted to the Cult of Fruit Beer, but I will concede that maybe there’s something more to some of them than just sugar syrup (although Mongozo remains very firmly in the ‘do not touch, with or without bargepole’ category – sorry, Huyghe).

Thanks once again to Phil at www.beermerchants.com for sending this one along for me to sample.