Name: BrewDog Goldings

Style: Single Hop IPA (India Pale Ale)

Country: Scotland

ABV: 6.7%

Beer description: This beer is part of BrewDog’s IPA is Dead series which showcases four different single hops IPA’s from four different continents.  In this case, the hop, Goldings, is from the United Kingdom.  Single hopped beers are a great way to show off a hop but can often be difficult. Some hops are great for aroma, others for taste or bittering.  While there are hops out there that are considered versatile, and single hopped beer doesn’t allow for any flavour interaction and the hops don’t have any buddies to lean on!

As with the others in the series, the Goldings is built on the same malt back bone, and there’s lots of malt!  The biscuit in the malt comes out in the aroma for this rendition.  This is combined with a bit of lavender from the hops that gives it an all around British feeling.  There’s a roasted fruitiness to the aroma; this feels like it’s coming from bother the malt and the hops.  There’s a certain spiciness about the aroma as well; more like herbs than “spice”, but what may be called a spice in general if you were putting it on food.

The body of the beer is pretty well balanced, and that’s coming from the hops.  While the Dana version of this beer came out too thick, mainly because the hops just weren’t big enough to battle the malt, the body is thinned out somewhat by the Goldings in this variety, evening out the body.

The herbs continue to play out in the taste, followed by citrus, and then the tell tale bitterness.  While not quite as bitter as the Waimea, it seems the the Goldings has managed to beat the malt into submission on this brew.  The body is still there from the malt (it’s not a watery beer by any means), but there’s not a lot of malt in the flavour.  It’s a very refreshing beer.

It’s interesting how it’s a fairly malt driven aroma, but more hop driven in the taste.  This, once again, is a symptom of the single hop.  It hasn’t done much to go up against the malt in the aroma, but in the taste and body, it’s all you’re getting.  It’s not over the top on the hops by any means, but it’s managed to push the malt to the side.  With all that, there’s a little bit of sweetness in the middle that keeps it interesting.

This was a pretty good selection for a single hop, even though there’s aspects lacking in certain areas of the beer.  The IPA is Dead series is more about keeping the malt and the IBU’s consistent and seeing what happens with the hops rather than trying to make a single hopped beer for that hop.  So for good or bad, that’s what it is. Goldings works for this combination.

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And for those not in the know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. Find out why it’s called IPA.