Brewdoggin' it, Paradox style!

Using the advice given by some of you that read this blog, Miyuki and I went to Tanakaya near Meijiro station when we were in Tokyo. Tanakaya is amazing. If you live in Tokyo and know of this liquor store, there is no excuse to go anywhere else. Tanakaya has everything that matters at the best prices in Tokyo. Seriously.

While there, I got three bottles of Brewdog's Paradox, their Storm IPA, and Punk IPA. When DH interviewed Brewdog's James Watt a bit ago, James, referring to Japan, said, "So far we only have Paradox in the market..." If that is true James, how did I buy Punk and Storm then? I sent you an email so you could clear this Paradox up for me. Ha.

I found the beer shelves in Tanakaya and started the visual search for Paradox.. only to find six or seven different bottles. I didn't know this beforehand, but Brewdog labels the Paradox according to what type of scotch barrel it rested in. This is pure product and marketing genius. There I was, expecting to purchase one bottle of Paradox for 1120 yen, but I buy three for three times that price! Yes, Paradox is expensive but I am a sucker for beers in uncharted territories. With beer on one side and scotch on the other, Paradox has a got a leg in each pasture, scootin' its butt down the fence.

The first Brewdog went down deliciously a few hundred feet from Tanakaya, in front of the station. It was the Paradox Speyside aged in a 1987 Macallan Sherry cask. This beer was everything a great 10% imperial stout should be, but with a rich dark fruitiness that hovered around the fringes. With the scotch barrel aging, I was expecting a strong alcohol feeling in my nose, but it never came. This beer was big enough that it soaked up the barrel and added it to the flavor rather than dumping it on top.

The dumping-on-top seperate flavor taste is the biggest problem I find with barrel aged beers nowadays. BBC Brewing is Louisville, KY makes the Jefferson County Bourbon Barrel Reserve Stout, and I don't drink it for this reason. If I want seperate flavors I'll drop shot some Blanton's into a Tokyo Black!

At the Real Ale Festival, I drank some Paradox Isle of Arron and it was delicious but surprisingly different. There was definitely more scotch in the nose and the dark fruitiness was not there. I have a bottle of the Arron that is going to DH to drink. The third bottle I have is the Paradox 1966 Dundass Cask. I don't know much scotch lingo, but the year 1966 excites me. It makes this beer sound cool. And I can't wait to drink it. I'll let you know how it goes.