LIVE BEER…WHERE NEXT?

Even though our most recent LIVE Beer release, East Coast Crush, is pouring in our UK BrewDog Bars at the moment, we are busy thinking where we could take our real ale for modernists next. The game-changing draft system – dialled in by our team of wizards at our Ellon HQ – removes all of the temperamental downsides of cask beer, focusing purely on the quality of the beer itself.

So what direction could we take LIVE Beer in next time around?

For those unfamiliar, LIVE Beer conditions inside the keg using live yeast. Lightly centrifuged to remove hop debris, the beer is packaged and allowed to continue fermentation as the yeast works its magic. With no extraneous carbon dioxide added it is then served on draft at 9.5°C through a sparkler – and to date we have served up LIVE Dead Pony Club, LIVE 5AM Saint and most recently our Vermont-style Pale Ale, LIVE East Coast Crush. So how about these four potential next steps?

LIVE Kingpin

Our 21st Century pilsner is always enormously popular in our bars but one possible way in which we could switch it up would be to give it the LIVE treatment. It would significantly extend the maturation time as the kegs sit in our cold-store at our Ellon brewhouse for longer, but the result would be something to sample indeed – an unfiltered version of our lager pouring alongside the original. Sound good?

LIVE Jet Black Heart

Of all BrewDog Headliners, our deeply roasty stout already has the widest variation of serves. Fans of our oatmeal milk stout can sample it on keg, bottle, Nitro and – once the canning line arrives in Columbus – Nitro Cans. Adding LIVE to the pantheon would give an even deeper character to the baseline of roasted and dark malts, and the flaked oats would yield more of their decadence when unleashed at the relatively less cool LIVE Beer pouring temperature.

LIVE Jack Hammer

Ever tried a cask double IPA? Some work, but many are overly sweet from the malt bill to the point of being cloying. Serving DIPA on keg provides benevolent carbonation to lift the flavours and give a balance of character, keeping the body and high ABV in check. But then, maybe if served as a LIVE Beer, the body and fullness of our ruthless India Pale Ale would be allowed to rampage as fully as we dared, with the prickle of natural carbonation a fantastic ally.

LIVE Cocoa Psycho

Well, we might not serve this one in pints but when you think about everything that makes real ale amazing you have to tick off things like body, natural carbonation, cellar temperature and the long-lasting head. Surely our Russian Imperial Stout would be nothing short of staggering with all of these factors applied to it? With the vanilla pods, cacao, coffee beans and toasted oak chips – there are so many flavours to be released, LIVE Cocoa Psycho would be the stuff of legend.

LIVE Beer combines all that is amazing about our favourite beverage – the consistency and quality of kegged beer and the depth of flavour, history and tradition of cask ale. The four examples above are purely hypothetical – for now – but if any take your fancy, let us know in the comments below. And if you have other BrewDog beers with which to add the prefix ‘LIVE…’ let us know! You never know what might happen…