BrewDog Launches Punk IPA

In April 2007, the newly founded Scottish brewery BrewDog produced the original version of Punk IPA. Created by James Watt and Martin Dickie as their interpretation of an American-style IPA, the beer combined an assertive bitterness with American and New Zealand hops. BrewDog’s archived recipe records the original beer at 6 percent alcohol by volume and 60 international bitterness units. Punk IPA became BrewDog’s flagship beer and the product most closely associated with the brewery’s rise. Its hop-forward character drew on the West Coast IPAs that Watt and Dickie had encountered in the United States but that remained relatively unfamiliar in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. BrewDog subsequently reformulated the beer, meaning that later versions sold under the Punk IPA name were not identical to the original 2007 recipe.