Thursday was International Stout Day. Not being one to miss out on such an important tradition, I thought I’d delve into my stash and dig out something special. So I went for Fierce Beer Co x BrewDog Aberdeen Very Big Moose. This beer holds particularly good memories for me, as in a previous life I worked for Brewdog, and had an awesome day out at the Fierce brewery creating this beer with those lovely people. I say I brewed it, but in reality I just did what the two Daves told me to do, and took some not completely deserved credit for the end result! Nevertheless, it was a great experience and a fantastic beer. It was brewed as part of Brewdog’s Collabfest 2017 and went on to become the winning beer that year, out of a whopping 34 entrants. So yeah, bit proud. The beer itself is a lush, chocolatey Imperial stout. Very rich with a bit of sweetness balanced out with the addition of a small amount of cinnamon. And it still tastes great two years later. There has been a couple of later incarnations of VBM, notably the BA version, a mocha version and also one with the addition of the controversial Tonka beans. Cheers!
Craft Beer Dad 
Very Big Moose holds very good memories for me too. I loved the original Very Big Moose! I found out about it during Collabfest and I fell in love with it. I had recently moved to Scotland and discovered one of the best Imperial Stouts I had ever tried and started following Fierce after that too. I even have the VBM t-shirt from Fierce 🙂
I still have a bottle of the Brewdog recipe in the fridge, saving it for a “special occasion”. The newer versions by Fierce have lactose in them, so I don’t drink them. But I met the Daves at the Fierce Edinburgh bar and tall Dave told me they were trying to stop using lactose so more people could drink their beers. Hopefully we’ll see Fierce VBM without lactose one day.
The original Brewdog recipe (with no lactose) was also on tap at Brewdog Lothian Road last week and it still tastes great. I was tempted to buy a growler of it, but I behaved 😆
Anyway, great to read about it someone else’s love for Very Big Moose!
Cheers!
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