If you're born before the 2000s you might have seen one of the weirdest most genre-defying cartoons around called "Courage the Cowardly Dog". The series follows a timid dog ironically named "Courage", who lives with an elderly couple in a farmhouse in the middle of "Nowhere". In every episode, the trio is visited by bizarre phenomena or paranormal activity.

What set Courage The Cowardly Dog apart from many other horror genre cartoons (e.g. Scooby-Doo) was that it did not carefully toe any line between comedy and horror. It was straight up scary. It was a horror series specifically designed to scare children. There was only one speed in its gear box and it's always engaged at "Traumatise".

 Whatever this was, it shouldn't be on a children's cartoon.

As a child, that show scared the living daylights out of me. Revisiting it in my adulthood, I realise these cartoons were really made to entertain adults. How much fun the animators must have had as they thought to themselves about the millions of children they must made wet their beds in the early 2000s? Their oblivious parents completely clueless about the content Cartoon Network was serving up to their children. Even Satan would admit that this was very well played. 

Anyway, we revisit "Courage" in the form of the Courage Double IPA from Singaporean craft brewery, Brewlander. We have introduced you to its passionate founder John Wei and his road to acclaim from his humble homebrew operation our review of Brewlander's Mango Fever, so we won't reinvent the wheel here. It suffices to say that this is a craft brewery we should be watching.

Now, we know that an IPA is a style of beer with a generous addition of  hops (which was added by British seafarers in the 18th century to preserve their beer better).

A "Double IPA" on the other hand was developed much more recently in 1994 by brewers in the American West Coast – an amped-up IPA that features even more hops and malt than a typical IPA. More hops definitely promotes more bitterness and grassy floral notes. Extra malt also creates more distinct toasted, bready notes, and more sugar that is converted to a stronger brew.

The Courage Double IPA features a generous mix of different hop varieties – Columbus, Simcoe, Chinook, Ekuanot and Centennial hops in abundance, which creates "an insanely bright, hoppy craft beer further supported by a firm bitterness." According to Brewlander, this is the strongest of their IPAs that come in at 8.2% ABV. "Go easy, you have been warned!" says the label.

Colour: Deep orange marmalade.

Nose: This is bold, rich and malty.

The bouquet opens with a fresh, multilayered hoppiness. Beginning with notes of white tulips, jasmine, elderflowers, quickly turning towards a grassier tone: rosemary, dill and fresh cut golf course in the morning.

At the same time we have a decadent wave of rich, buttery, honey-soaked pancakes upping the ante, developing into deeper notes of toasted oats, sugared granola and roasted almonds. Some mild citrusy notes of mandarin oranges and bitter grapefruit rinds.

There's a tinge of muskiness, a bit of savouriness conveyed by an yeasty-baguette note.

Palate: Medium-heavy bodied texture, rich with a decadent honeyed thickness.

This opens with a fresh and intense tropical tanginess accompanied by a really malt-forward profile. There's the fizzy, tangy intensity of Orange Fanta, grapefruit, passion fruits, startfruit with puffed barley cereal and McVities' Digestive biscuits – all at once.

As rich maltiness and tanginess subsidies, the front palate is left with milder honeyed notes, while a fresh and herbaceous bitter hoppiness begins to creep up and emanate from the back of the throat (fancy people prefer calling this retronasal olfaction). 

Hoppiness and grassiness continues to grow and grow without abatement. We get grapefruit rinds, perilla leaves (the sort eaten with Korean barbecue meats), basil and parsley. 

The finish is a very long, lingering fragrant hoppy bitterness of juniper. Almost felt like I was showering with an Aēsop shampoo and got little bit of soap in my mouth. 

My thoughts

This is really fragrant, robust and full of depth. Not a lot of Courage is required to convince my mom to try this – the floral fragrance on the nose is just really inviting and could be smelt from outside the room.

But boy, did I underestimate how strong this is! Just a can of this left me a little woozy.

This is right up my alley as a lover of cask strength whiskies and high ester rums. I'm always drawn to the booziest, thickest, heaviest stuff. That said, this is by no means "balanced" as stated on its official tasting notes. The hops really pack a punch and this has a pretty long aftertaste of bitterness. But that's really one of the the reasons we love craft beers, isn't it? It has character. 

@CharsiuCharlie