"Punk's not dead...

...it just smells like it is", as someone once said to me at a Subhumans gig.

The "new" Punk IPA from Brewdog has arrived in my local Sainsbury's so I had to give it a go.

I was delighted when I first discovered Punk IPA in the early days of Brewdog. Since Safeways had become Morrisons and ready access to Goose Island IPA had ended I'd seldom seen American style IPAs so it was good to see one made by a British brewery.

Having said that, I can see why Brewdog want to change the recipe. When I got round to trying a direct comparison of Goose Island and Punk it was like seeing a competition between Picasso and an enthusiastic kid with a spray can. Compared to the complexity of Goose Island the Punk seemed a very basic beer.

Now Brewdog are more experienced I was interested to see what they'd done in their major revamp of Punk.

It pours with a strong aroma that reminded me of mint. That's a new one on me for beer so I got quite excited. The beer is hazy, which is a little off putting, and the taste...well the taste is something else. Apparently the new version is less bitter than the old but the taste was so hoppy it was almost undrinkable. It's like someone has taken a load of American hops, put them in a liquidiser and sieved the liquid into a beer bottle.

That may well be to the taste of some of my fellow beer nerds but the flavour was so strong I didn't find it pleasant. I won't be bothering to try the canned version when that appears.