New punk IPA recipe?

[barry44]

I was in brewdog Glasgow earlier on and had a pint of punk.

I got a glass with the new branding and was surprised to see the addition of Amarillo and Cascade to the hops list.



I think I recall Amarillo being used in an early version of punk but I am sure it has been pretty set for quite a while now.

[jaroporter]

gaaaah stop messing with it! really hope they're not moving it in line with most american ipas when what made it great was it's uniqueness. would be ironic, no? how did it taste? i still mourn the original six percent abv recipe..

[barry44]

To be fair, it did taste alright. My mate reckoned he could taste Amarillo though.

[seymour]

I'm not an expert on BrewDog, but like you said, I thought the hop bill was typically: Simcoe, Ahtanum, Chinook, Nelson Sauvin. It previously contained Crystal, Motoeka as well, but I hadn't heard of Amarillo in the list.

In reality, though, Punk IPA is a fast-selling beer requiring mass quanitites of highly sought after New World hops. I'm sure BrewDog must tweak their hops a lot based on availability in order to keep up with production demands. It seems impossible they could have firm long-term contracts for so many special hops varieties, again, especially since the beer is probably selling a lot more than back when they might've signed such contracts...

[jaroporter]

fair point bout the hop supply there. if that's the case then hopefully they can adjust the hops while keeping it's flavour. the first major remake of punk ipa took a fair bit out of the brew i thought..

[seymour]

fair point bout the hop supply there. if that's the case then hopefully they can adjust the hops while keeping it's flavour. the first major remake of punk ipa took a fair bit out of the brew i thought..

That's unfortunate. The same problems haunt many US craft brewers, and is a partial explanation for the trend toward commercial hop blends like Falconer's Flight, Zythos, Seven C's, etc. Brewers surrender the tricky blending to the hop suppliers who know the most about each years' harvests, chemical analysis, etc. Theoretically, with accurate scientific data, it's possible to blend multiple hop varieties to simulate the desirable flavour compound ratios of a rarer single variety, if you see what I mean. Even though harvest yields and chemical analysis change every year, the suppliers have gotten pretty good at tweaking those ratios for consistency. Of course the results aren't exactly the same as distinctive Galaxy, or Citra, or whatever the trendiest "it hop" happens to be, but at least consistent and consistently available (because they might be comprised of higher yielding but less trendy varieties like Columbus, Nugget, Crystal, Cluster, etc.)

The UK hop growers guild(s) would be wise to start marketing their own similar concepts. Can't you see it? Classic English Hop Medley, English Orange Marmalade blend, Earthy English blend, etc...

[Clibit]

Yeah, good idea. The Germans are doing it. TnT yes?

[seymour]

Yeah, good idea. The Germans are doing it. TnT yes?

Exactly. That Barth Haas Group produces TnT and Fantasia blends. I'm not sure if the actual hops in the blends are all German bred, though. I'm inclined to think no.

[YeastFace Brew Co.]

I'm sure BrewDog's recipes have been fairly fluid in the hop department, depending on what was available in a certain harvest.

[oakerspocus]

We need NobbyIPA on this thread....

[NobbyIPA]

just done a side by side tasting again on punk old bottle v punk new bottle
very different look taste and feel


you can see for your selves the head difference and head staying power of the new on the right

well the label what do you all think
looks a bit posh to me?

the beers look


much more head mouth feel to the new right glass

more herb pine flavour old style left

more fruit new style bottle

i reckon that the new brew has maybe more carapils or similar init to get better head
and maybe the hops are of new harvest

what do you all think?

i emailed Stewart (head brewer brew dog) about this weeks ago
still no reply
so they change the recipe all the time by the looks?
both tested with the same style wet glass at 12c
the original was

chinook was the bittering hops
anthunum
vics secret
nelson sauvin
simcoe

in my take on it i used simcoe to bitter and omitted the chinook altogether

so looks like they have run out of vics secret and replaced that with Amarillo and cascade

strange seen as vics secret pellet 2014 crop is in the uk i have over 200gram of it
so they cannot of changed it because they cannot get hold of the hops
it must be that they want to change the recipe occasionally

[Matt12398]

Finally might be drinkable then rather than hop piss. Might give it another go.

[Jambo]

Has anyone paid a visit to the tap room at the brewery in Ellon yet? I was there a few weeks ago, pretty cool, and there's a shop in there where you can pick up their more obscure brews.

[daf]

Finally might be drinkable then rather than hop piss. Might give it another go.

I'm afraid you won't like it even more now. Simcoe is a very strong hop, maybe stick to Foster's?

[Mcbrewer]

I was in the tap room about 3 weeks ago jambo and it is a pretty cool set up there.I popped in on the way back from Peterhead and as I was driving never got to have a beer.I still managed to spend £30 though ,I got the Russian doll pack and a couple of other bottles and a couple of beer glasses.

I'm going to get the bus out one weekend soon and get a tour of the brewery and drink the freshest brewdog beer you can get