The mind of Tim at HopDog works in strange ways. Take the example of his latest beer – Redrum.
According to the bottle label it had its origins when someone offered him some old rum barrels. As any brewer would, he took them and decided to use them to age a beer. However, unlike most brewers he didn’t opt for a porter or stout, the beers that would immediately spring to mind when you’re thinking about ageing something in rum barrels.

Oh no, instead Tim decided to make a rum-barrel aged raspberry wheat beer, where the fermented beer is poured into the barrels and the raspberries chucked on top (or maybe they were chucked in first, I don’t know) and then he left the whole thing alone for two months. Where the hell did that idea come from?

The result is quite a surprise. Firstly, I was expecting a beer with more of a pinkish hue than you can see in the above photo. Secondly I was expecting to taste quite a sweet beer. Both of those expectations go to show that you shouldn’t make too many assumptions.

Because, like my idea of the colour, the taste was different too. Up front you can easily taste the rum before the sweet and tart flavours of the fruit come in and carry all the way through to the back palate. I have to say that I’m rather surprised at how well the mix of rum and raspberries works. I was expecting a bit of a mish-mash of flavours but that’s certainly not the case.

In fact it’s so good that I think its just beaten White Christmas for the title of My Favourite HopDog beer.