A couple of weeks ago I was invited to attend a preview of a new burger, something which occurs reasonably frequently to us here on the TB team. This one, however, was a little different … I was told I couldn’t order this burger without ID.
The BrewBurger is the creation of two awesome (and slightly quirky) brands, BrewDog and Honest Burgers. The two have joined forces to engineer a British burger infused with craft beer. The dish contains enough craft beer that customers will be required to show identification to order.
The burger starts as a 150g aged beef patty, which is a satisfying meaty feast. This is topped with strong but sweet Comté cheese (also known as Gruyère de Comté) and bacon. The bacon is candied using BrewDog’s 5AM Saint amber ale and sounded like the kind of food I want a vat of, unfortunately though, the taste of the bacon is lost among the many other flavours. This doesn’t by any means ruin the burger, it’s just something to keep in mind when you indulge. The next layer of alcohol comes from the onions, which are fried in a mix of beef dripping and BrewDog’s Punk IPA, creating a sweet but subtle tone. Finally, a BBQ reduction, containing the booziest element, BrewDog’s Paradox Stout is smothered on top.
To complete the experience the BrewBurger is served up with a bottle of Bourbon Baby craft beer and fries. The package will be available at all Honest Burgers restaurants until 2nd April 2014.
Overall the BrewBurger experience is great. The combination of the great atmosphere at Honest Burgers, mixed with the taste journey you experience with all of the elements of this dish. The burger was beautifully meaty and rich, with bags of flavour, despite the lack of bacon shining through. I’m not the biggest fan of ales or stouts, but the flavours in the burger work really well. If you’ve had any of the existing alcohol-based sauces, like JD BBQ sauce, it is like that, only with an awesome home-made sauce instead of something manufactured. The Bourbon Baby beer is very dark and very strong and definitely not something I could drink normally, but it’s great to have as part of the package, as it goes down far better with the burger and for real beer-lovers it would be a nice treat anyway.
All in all BrewDog and Honest Burgers make a good pair and it is well worth stopping by to try this out before the month end.
For more information on the BrewBurger and where you can find them, visit www.BrewDog.com or www.HonestBurgers.co.uk.
