Skip to main content

Advent Calendar Window 10 - Paradox Christmas 2012

I still love BrewDog. I do. I know I shouldn't and there are so many opinions I'm supposed to support - I already wrote about all the reasons you hate BrewDog here - but I don't. There's lots to disagree with and lots to discuss, but at least they have you talking. Tomorrow I'm off to a Christmas dinner at BrewDog Manchester and I'm very much looking forward to it. I was so pleased and fortunate to get the chance to drink this Christmas beer before Wednesday (it's the luck of the calendar) in preparation for that event. This is a beer I've held onto since January, after spotting it on the Beers of Europe website. An Imperial Stout aged in Rum casks sounds perfect for the season. Yes, it comes in a presentation box and no I don't care if this makes the cynics sick because I love my stupid, little pointless box unashamedly.
 
I wish not to give any backstory on BrewDog's Paradox series, aside from my own. I've enjoyed the ones that I've tried thusfar - Smokehead, Arran and Grain - and Paradox Smokehead was obviously an ideal for me. But with their anti-Christmas thesis I'm not really sure what to expect here. The bottle label warns you to suggest a paradox to the commercialisation that Christmas is. That's fine, and almost expected from a company who have defined themselves on defying the norm, but you're preaching to a man who soaks up Christmas like a trainee Lapland elf. You have to impress me with Cheer.
 
"Why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone.
Not anyone, in fact, but me!
Why I can make a Christmas tree!"
 
BrewDog Paradox Christmas 2012 15% pours very thin with low carbonation - the sign of a beer that is ageing well. A sign of a beer that is brewed well. To say that this beer is supposedly the paradox to Christmas, the first wave of scents hits like a warm Mince Pie; mincemeat, brandy and cloves in abundance. It then settles to give you the paradoxical familiarity of all BrewDogs huge Imperial Stouts. It's high cocoa dark chocolate, freshly ground smoky coffee beans and then... whiskey. Not rum, but whiskey. Oak Barrels. Peat bonfires. Tannins. Dignified honey. This is all before the taste. But then, this is the taste too. The richest of dark fruits soaked in barrels of finely aged scotch, melted dark chocolate, solidified and dipped into your morning espresso. The alcohol never lets you forget it's there but the taste is purest Christmas divinity that leaves you drinking a healthy Christmas toast, like a Yuletide morning Buck's Fizz. It may have poured thin, but there's enough body in this to make the loneliest feel whole this season. I adore this beer. It is, for all those that are still cynics, very, very good brewing. This may be Christmas as wished by Jack Skellington, but hey, all he wanted to do was celebrate Christmas too, despite his reputation. Maybe the BrewDog does too.
 
Purchased at Beers of Europe, January 2013
 
Eaten alongside a chocolate stocking and a chocolate angel, for when that first angel came to bring the Good News of a pregnant lady, everybody immediately thought of the outfit she was wearing the night of conception.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have a bottle of this one left in the cupboard from last year that I'm saving to go with the Xmas pud in a couple of weeks. Glad to hear it's held up well :)
10 December 2013 at 23:48
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE STATE OF CASK part 2: The Cask Consumers

In what has become one of the most written about subjects amongst beer communicators for a long while I am going to follow on with my own thoughts about cask beer. Yet these ideas are formulated from potential posts I've been writing the odd paragraph about for around 18 months but never managed to construct into something relevant.  I have much to say on the subject; so much so that rather than making this into one enormous read I've split it into three sections regarding the current trends and effects on cask beer as I see it.  Today I look at the problem with consumer's and the immunity of one Timothy Taylor's Landlord. Part 1 can be read here . On the first Saturday morning of June 2016 I travelled to Stockport Beer Festival with my Aunt Marie and Uncle David; famously more traditional beer drinkers. They enjoy a day out in Stockport as, coming from Dewsbury way, they don’t actually see much beer from my side of the Pennines, incl...
16 comments
Read more

BEER INDUSTRY PERSONNEL - COME TO DADDY!

Around 7 months ago I started dating a pub manager. It was inevitable in many ways. Amongst the perks that come with being involved with somebody on the other side of the bar, came the dread of how to react in future to the interactions involved in bar work.    It isn’t a situation I’ve been in before so it has required adjustment. I’ve never had a partner pull up a chair in the office and stare at me through part of the working day whilst occasionally ordering goods from me. So you don’t want to interfere in your partner’s work whilst still getting to enjoy the pub.   You don’t want to suddenly take up a spot on the bar where you make gooey eyes at each other with every pull on a hand pump. You don’t want to be one of those possessive teenagers, watching like a bar hawk and scowling at any intimidatingly handsome pair of arms that makes your other half roar with laughter. You want to separate their work from your social life and allow everything to sti...
11 comments
Read more

National Winter Ales Festival 2013 - A Reasonable Farewell

Perhaps if this had been three years ago I would really have lamented the loss of the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester . Not only has it long been held in my home city, but it was also my first ever beer festival, signifying a special place in my heart. That first visit was in 2006 and the event was then held in a co–operative building near Victoria station. At the time, my young ale loving mind was rather gobsmacked by the wondrous multi roomed, multi floored experience as barrels and casks of the good stuff stood waiting for me to try at no more than 90p for a generous half pint. Breweries and beer styles I had never heard of were present. It was also where I had my first taste of rauchbier, an encounter I have never regretted. I paid £3 to enter that day as a non CAMRA member. The organisations members that did travel with me on the occasion entered the festival for free (so they say, I’m inclined to believe they paid at least £1.) “They’re not a money making ...
20 comments
Read more