BrewDog is a maverick Scottish brewery famous for publicity stunts. They have brewed 40% ABV beers, sold bottles inside stuffed rodents, given press conferences wearing penguin suits, danced naked on YouTube in an ice cream factory, complained about themselves to the advertising standards authority, and have been condemned by Scottish MPs more than any other brewery in history.
They have also never been great fans of lager. One of their most (in)famous clips showed a BrewDog founder systematically smashing bottles and cans of mainstream lager into a wall with a golf club. Even BrewDog said “don’t try this at home.”
Now, they believe they are going one better with the launch of “one of our most ambitious beers to date. It’s not a barrel aged wonder with complex, strange and rare ingredients. It’s not a beer brewed off the coast of North-East Scotland. It’s not packaged in an animal’s carcass. This. Is. Lager. No additives. No big expensive billboard campaign. No added colours. No fakery. Just. Lager.”
BrewDog say their “intent is to redefine a beer style that has for so long been defined by shallow, listless beers undeserving of the name. This. Is. Lager. is brewed with 100% malt and ten times the hops of most industrial lagers. It is aged for five weeks before bottling like a real lager should be, and fermented with a genuine German lager yeast. Its mission is to put the heart and soul back into a beer style that has been bastardised the world over.”
Such was their confidence that they offered a glass of This.Is.Lager free for a whole day at all of their pubs. Unfortunately, that day was 3 September and all the BrewDog pubs are in the UK. Still, BrewDog beers make it to New Zealand in surprisingly large numbers thanks to a strong distribution network so there may still a chance to test their bold claims.
For more information see – http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/this-is-lager
