Beer of the Week – Windswept Tornado

Every week throughout 2017 I’ll be running the rule over a Scottish beer that I believe deserves a little more love and a lot more credit. So it’s time for another recommendation of something to seek out and add to your drinking cupboard as soon as you possibly can. With around 150 breweries in Scotland at the moment there’s always something new and interesting to seek out – so sometimes the best beers can get lost in all the noise.

Noise is no bad thing of course, but in between the arrivals and the constant trying of new things sometimes you need to take a step back and revisit (or discover) a classic. And when it comes to hops, Citra has for the last few years been one of the must-haves in any brewers’ arsenal. So one of the most unheralded exponents of its use is without doubt a worthy addition to your beery schedule. I’m talking about the mighty Windswept Tornado.

40. Tornado (6.7%)
Windswept Brewing, Lossiemouth
Style: IPA
330ml bottle

Pick it up here:
At Windswept’s online shop (as individual 330ml bottles)

Tornado by name, and Tornado by nature (even though the beer is named after the aircraft not the weather phenomenon). It hits you with a big slug of oily, pithy citrus that also carries with it that US-payload of crystal malt. If you told me this was brewed in Colorado instead of Moray I would have believed you. There’s caramel, toffee and pine and the near-7% ABV comes through on the finish. All said, Tornado is one of the most underrated IPAs in the country, no question.

Beer of the Week Series:
1. Fyne Ales Highlander
2. Swannay Old Norway
3. Broughton Old Jock
4. Traquair House Ale
5. Tempest Easy Livin Pils
6. Cromarty Brewed Awakening
7. Fallen Chew Chew
8. Black Isle Hibernator
9. Isle of Skye Red
10. Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Engineer’s Reserve
11. Orkney Skull Splitter
12. Windswept Wolf
13. Kelburn Dark Moor
14. Alechemy 5ive Sisters
15. Loch Ness Light Ness
16. St Andrews Eighty Bob
17. Harviestoun The Ridge
18. Orkney Dark Island
19. Williams Bros Seven Giraffes
20. Cairngorm Black Gold
21. Strathaven Craigmill Mild
22. Black Isle Red Kite
23. Spey Valley Spey Stout
24. Top Out Schmankerl
25. Cross Borders Braw
26. Williams Bros Midnight Sun
27. BrewDog Kingpin
28. Fyne Ales Hurricane Jack
29. Deeside MacBeth
30. Drygate Ax Man Red Rye IPA
31. Swannay Orkney Session
32. Fallen Platform C
33. Black Isle Porter
34. Top Out Altbier
35. Black Metal Gates of Valhalla
36. Fierce Beer Cranachan Killer
37. Loch Lomond Southern Summit
38. Tempest Old Parochial
39. Williams Bros Profanity Stout