BrewDog Shepherd's Bush

M and I knew that if there was one bar we were going to visit on our London vacation, it would be one of the bars opened by BrewDog. We love their TV show as we find it both amusing and also very informative. They love beer and also love the science behind the beer. To me, it's like Alton Brown's old show Good Eats if it were 100% beer centric. When we found out there was one right down the street from our hotel, we knew we had to go.

I started out with one of their flagship Punk IPAs. It wasn't as hoppy as I had expected based on how much they talk about loving big, bold hoppy IPAs on the show, but it was very crisp and refreshing. I definitely see why this is their standard, and it got me excited to try more of their beers.

M started out with their Lizard Bride. This purple colored concoction was a marriage between their IPA and one of their red berry sours. The result was what might be M's favorite beer of all time. It had a nice tartness in which you could clearly taste the mix of different red berries, both sour and sweet.

For our second round I opted to go with their Hardcore IPA while M got another Lizard Bride. The Hardcore IPA is one of their Imperial IPAs, and it was everything I imagined it would be. This beer was chock full of big, bold hop notes, big, bright citrus notes, and a really nice back end sweet finish.

When we got our second beers, we figured that we might need some food to help soak them up, despite having just stuffed our faces at Sunday roast. We opted for their Tots with The Works since... why not?

The Works topped the tater tots with cheese, chili con carne, pickled jalapenos, and white onion. These were the perfect bar snack and were also really tasty. They were laid out basically like totchos with the tots on the bottom and smothered by the toppings. The only difference is that their tots were like mashed potatoes that were formed into cylinders and then fried. It was an interesting texture since the interiors were so soft and smooth compared to the crisp exterior. We thought the dish could have used more cheese, but it was nice to see shredded cheese instead of the cheese sauce that often comes with totchos. While these weren't earth-shattering or amazing, they were definitely tasty and perfect for pairing with our beers.