Beavertown, Lord Smog Almighty

Quite a bit of hype that surrounded this release! First there were the Draft House tasting sessions, then the online campaign, the bottle numbering (heavy water only), the delayed release, the distribution hold-ups....then there was the small matter of the price (varying from £12 through to £20). Compared to £6 for a BA Kernel (Glen Spey or Glen Garioch at 10.3%ish), Bristol Beer Factory BA at £5ish or the Magic Rock Bearded Lady at £11.50 for a 660ml bottle. It'd better be amazing I thought.

Served at cold room temperature (10ºC ish?). Soy and baked beans (with berries creeping in on the edge) on the snout, minimal carbonation - about right. Whisky (sweet, slightly solvent) crept in on the nose after the first few sips, then the whisky started to dominate the aftertaste (Braes of Glenlivet are not to be confused with Glenlivet apparently. Some good background on the distillery and tasting notes on some of their vintages can be found here).

The main body of this beer taste was sweet: a little liquorice and a tiny amount of vanilla. Not much coffee, which surprised. Warming booze. Burnt bitterness lasted a medium length after each sip, mingling to a greater or lesser extent with the whisky each time. The best element for me was the tar parenthesis™ that seemed to provide the background for all the other elements - the signature Smog Rocket t-gel flavour, but ramped up for the Imperial. Gentle gum sting and the coal smoke smell, which had been missing thus far, finally made an appearance at the end. A multi-dimensional beer I suppose, each sip was more or less different, which kept things interesting. Fortunately the sweet segments didn't dominate and the smoggy bits I was particularly looking for were there.

Definitely a beer worthy of anyone's time, but not really a £12.50 beer to my mind. (Thanks Manish for keeping the price down on this one - you were one of the more competitively priced sellers of this beer out there.)