The cold that surrounded me as they hoisted me onto the trawler in the darkness of early morning, was a cold that stabbed at your head like shards of glass from a shattered beer bottle. It pierced its way through every crevice and permeated every pore of my skin as they tied me down to a mast and left me in order to attend to my soon-to-be shipmates. Fucking bastards that they were, they dropped one of them in that frigid North Atlantic ocean water and left him there to perish—no one bothered to pluck him out and spare him from an icy death. And then we were seven.

For two months they kept me bound there, as the trawler battled the wrath of the ocean that it dared to sail upon, beaten by storms and pummeled by 60-foot waves, surviving only because the beautiful songs of the killer whales were a source of lingering hope. There would be no surrender, oh no. Eight weeks later, I was no longer what I was when they first bound me to that pole—I was changed, reshaped, and yet somehow I was the better for it. The horror, the torture, the abuse, all served to make me the salty Scottish dog I am today.

IPAbottleI first tasted BrewDog on the recommendation of a store clerk who saw me staring at a bottle of Chaos Theory in the beer section. I was sucked in, I’ll readily admit, by the name because I’ve studied chaos theory. The clerk assured me it was worth the money, and even more worth the money was the smaller bottle of Paradox stout sitting next to it. “You’ll never want a Guinness again—I promise.” After eventually finishing both bottles, I was so enamored with both brews that I felt compelled to reach out to BrewDog to let them know just how much I admired their work, and that I planned on writing about their microbrewery. That email was met with warm-hearted thanks as well as, “please wait until we can send you a sample of our limited-release Atlantic IPA!” It’s the story of that glorious Atlantic IPA that you just read above—the first commercially available, genuine sea-aged IPA in over 200 years.

Atlantic IPA is not your average, hops-on-steroids IPA. It’s a wiry, dark, salty dog that only 2 months at sea can mold. It’s woody, spicy and earthy (I love those qualities in wine, so big surprise that I love this ale), and it’s got a bitter salty finish (not unlike peanut butter) that keeps you on your toes. It’s only available in limited quantities in the US and sells for $25.99 per 330ml bottle, which isn’t cheap by any means, but then it sure as hell isn’t your daddy’s Budweiser, is it?

IPAartBrewDog’s Chaos Theory, “a predictably random IPA,” is probably my favorite of the line. It’s a gorgeous dark amber brew that is, in fact, rather random. I’ve bought it 3 separate times and had 3 different experiences, each better than the next. The nose gave away the obvious IPA bitter, pithy orange notes but they were balanced out by a great sweet finish. Like many of their beers, it doesn’t give you much head, but then I’m sure a lot of you guys are used to that, aren’t you?

My second favorite brew is their Paradox stout, followed closely behind by their Tokyo stout. Paradox is a whisky cask-aged imperial stout that is easily the smoothest and most complex that has ever passed my lips. Cheap? No. Worth it? Hell yes. Its equally worthy brother, Tokyo, is a chocolaty treat that seems deceptively light for a stout that is ironically their strongest! It’s brewed with jasmine and cranberries added in the kettle, and then aged for 4 weeks on toasted vanilla French oak chips. The nose has incredible depth, with great hints of sassafras, and yet it’s not overly filling.

The rest of their line includes Punk IPA, Trashy Blonde, Zeitgeist, Hardcore IPA (which I’ve tried, and are all fantastic) as well as several others I’m still trying to get my hands on. While many of these aren’t readily available in US stores, they do have an online shop. I’ve been able to find a few of their brews at Stew Leonard’s and Gary’s Wine (both in NJ) not that it will help you much if you live in, oh say, Tampa. But it’s all about the hunt, ain’t it, folks? It is the fruit highest on the tree, furthest out of reach, that is often the one most worth plucking.