As my week of reviews continue, I turn to an item I did not really expect to write about. Last summer when I was in Edinburgh on a lark I picked up a small 60-ml bottle of something called Watt Dickie at the BrewDog pub in the old city.  It only cost a couple of pounds and so I decided, why not?

Watt Dickie is, as you may suspect, one in the line of freeze distilled uber-alcohol beer that BrewDog makes. Now, I am not really a fan of these beer, finding both Tactical Nuclear Penguin and Sink the Bismarck to be mostly undrinkable rot. They are harsh, hot and concentrated and so not particularly my thing. So why in heaven’s name would I try another one? Maybe it was the influence of the IPA Is Dead Cascade I was sipping.

At any rate, Watt Dickie clocks in at 35% and, I am told, started life as an assertive IPA before undergoing the freeze treatment. I decided to crack it open a few weeks ago to see just what I have carted across the ocean.

I like the look of it,  dark amber with surprising clarity. Looks like a rich scotch. the aroma surprises me. It is smooth, offering a warming alcohol overtop some deep caramel. The first sip finds a thick, full-bodied flavour. Caramel and toffee rise first but then the whole thing gets complicated. I get rich fruits, sherry, licorice, treacle and dark sugar. I find the back end starts to sharpen a bit with a kind of hop bitterness/alcohol burn hybrid. The linger is all hot alcohol, not the most pleasant ending.

Most of the hop character has faded away, due both to time and the distillation. However I do detect some bitterness which balances off, somewhat, the insanity of the malt sweetness. As I took the last couple of sips I started to warm to it a bit. By the end I had come to the conclusion that it was much better than Tactical or Bismarck. Smoother with fewer harsh edges to it.

Would I try it again? Likely not. It is still too much of too much. The alcohol is too hot and the beer is syrupy and thick. But my theory why this one went down better is a combination of time and hops. The bottle has been sitting in my cellar for 10 months (on top of however long since being brewed), giving some of the harder corners time to round out a bit. I also think the big bitterness of the original beer helps create a bit more underlying balance. While the hops are mostly gone, their traces can still be found.

I don’t regret dropping a couple of pounds on it by any stretch. Not that it has me contemplating a return engagement with Tactical, however.