NEW ENGLAND IPA V2

About six months ago we played host to Paul Jones and the team from Cloudwater up at BrewDog HQ for a collaborative brewday. It was fantastic to welcome the guys from Manchester to Scotland – we love what they do and there can be few craft beer fans in the UK who aren’t familiar with their amazing work. In fact, we had such a blast that we asked them if they had time to return north and do the whole thing again. And it turned out they did.

So we re-brewed our New England IPA for a second time. And it launches today.

BrewDog vs Cloudwater New England IPA V2

You can buy New England IPA V2 online here

We know our way around a hop store, and Cloudwater certainly do with their unmissable DIPA series and single-hopped session beers. So when Paul and the team first came up to Ellon we had to push the deliberations towards that part of the brewing spectrum. And the result we came up with was to work on the style of the moment – a New England IPA, as pioneered by the craft breweries of Vermont and the upper North-Eastern United States.

These beers are known for two things – firstly, their characteristic haze that leaves them often opaque in the glass, and secondly their hop-led flavours. New England IPAs are subtle, balanced and fruity and yet they major in stone fruit and berry elements, as opposed to tongue-lashing citrus bitterness and sap-like resins of their West Coast IPA cousins. If there ever was a gateway IPA with which to introduce people to the wonders of craft beer’s leading style, this is it.

We were so psyched to welcome Paul and the team from Cloudwater back to Ellon that when thoughts turned to the second batch of our collaboration, we decided to push the boat out. For this iteration we have ramped up the malt bill to give an ABV of 8.5% so that the body of the beer really comes through, and to give that pre-requisite balance we have added a third hop to the dry-hop schedule. Alongside Citra and Mosaic we deployed Mandarina Bavaria to give a pithy tangerine element to the aroma.

The Vermont yeast and oats leave the beer with that trademark smooth mouthfeel as required by the style, and although the ABV has increased we have retained the bitterness at around 30 IBU to leave that baseline exactly where it should be. There are hints of spice in there too, and the Mosaic provides a slightly tropical edge (we used Mosaic in the whirlpool to carry this through to the final beer). But, above all, this beer is about the stone fruit flavours.

BrewDog vs Cloudwater New England IPA V2 is live now in our online store and will be launching on draft from the taps of our UK bars from 6pm tonight (Thursday, 6th July). As ever if you’ve been lucky enough to taste it so far, leave us your tasting notes in the comments below! And if there are any other breweries you’d love to see us hook up with, who would they be and why? You never know what might happen…