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Open It!, the great beer-stash-raid, happened two weeks ago. Things have been a bitbusy so I’m only just catching up now...


ForOpen It! I went out into my garage, rummaged through boxes, um’d and ah’d, pickedout bottles then put them back again and then picked out some more, finallysettling on two beers: BrewDog AB:01 and Courage Imperial Russian Stout.




BrewDog AB:01 is a quad made with Westvleteren yeast and infused with vanilla bean. I drank it ages ago in a blind tasting with other similar beers and it was easy to pick out of the line-up.That was over a year ago and it’s changed alot since. If you were going to recreate this in food-form it’d be bananabread topped with figs and drizzled in a rum, pepper and vanilla syrup, whichsounds totally delicious, right? There’s some boozy warmth, a very peppery, drybitterness, some cocoa and vanilla, plus loads of mushy banana. I drank itreally quickly trying to work out whether I loved it or not and usuallyspeed-drinking is a good sign. Occasionally time warps things in weird ways andthis is one of them and I loved it.




Courage Imperial Russian Stout is a recreation by Wells and Youngs of the beer lastbrewed in 1982. This one was made in May 2011 and released in September 2011,with the whole batch shipped to America except for a few sample gift packs. Itlooks great – really dark brown with a thick foamy head – and smells great, too,with dark chocolate first then pungent, grassy hops. It’s loaded with flavourbut remains light bodied, there’s liquorice, a big bitterness and a flavourwhich lines the inside of your mouth with hops and chocolate malt. It’s reallygood. I had it with a dark chocolate tart and that was a massive FABPOW!


Thegreat news is I’ve still got another bottle of each stashed away for a futureOpen It and next time I hope to do things properly just like to drinkers of Leeds did by throwing a massive Open It! party in a few pubs.





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