Joy through strength

A couple of big American IPAs for you today. First up, Black Diamond Jagged Edge. It's quite innocently pale without a whole lot going on in the aroma department. All the action is in the flavour, with a big marmalade kick delivered up front and given extra momentum by a heavy 7.3% ABV body. It doesn't do much else though, and I might have got bored had I not been drinking it next to some spicy Singapore noodles, to which it stood up rather well. Still, I reckoned it didn't have enough to it to justify a standalone blog post, so I went looking for something else to fill out another paragraph.

The result was Odell IPA, one I'd heard good things about from bloggers and Twitterers near and far. It's similarly strong at 7% ABV and feels much lighter and better balanced. I'd be interested to compare it directly with Goose Island IPA as they both have the same sweet mandarin-and-biscuit aroma and foretaste, finishing gently but firmly bitter. I'd say this has a little more bite to it, the mandarins turning to jaffas just on the end, but it's still beautifully balanced.

I'd been a bit sceptical about the whole Odell thingy, having been unimpressed by St Lupulin. The rest of the range are now on my to-buy list.

All right, you got me

There's obviously something to this whole online viral marketing thingy. I'm more-or-less past the stage where I buy every new beer that becomes available in Dublin off licences. It's all the fault of the importers and retailers who are much better at their jobs than this blog requires them to be. Especially the guys at DrinkStore who take great pride in cramming tiny amounts of everything onto their shelves and into the "Tardis" stockroom. I'm in there fairly regularly, but I'm quite circumspect. If the price is over a tenner, I may not even buy the beer. Ordinarily, though, I'll take a bottle and give it the literal once over.

And then along came I Hardcore You, following a trail of panegyrical reviews from people who aren't generally known for their fawning fanboy antics. People like Zak Avery for instance, who was one of many to point out that one I Hardcore You is never enough. Look for a voice of dissent in the comments and you won't find it. Since a mere two cases of the beer had been delivered to DrinkStore, I took the unprecedented step of buying two bottles. Just in case I liked it and there was none left later.

Before the beer, the facts: it's a blend of BrewDog Hardcore IPA and Mikkeller's I Beat yoU. It's 9.5% ABV and dry-hopped several times. It should be a monster.

But, as everyone keeps saying, it's not. Slightly hazy, and a dark shade of amber, there's actually very little sign of all those dry hops in the aroma -- just a little wisp of grapefruit curling out of the glass. The head is short lived and it's quite full-bodied, yet sparkles enough to clean the palate as it goes.

Yes there's a hop burn, a jolt of acid on the first taste, but it's more than a one-dimensional hop-bomb. I got eucalyptus, vanilla and elderflower alongside the more normal pine and citrus. As to the much-vaunted drinkability, I'm not really seeing that. This is a sipper, and I enjoyed taking my time over it, watching the sun sink over west Dublin. I did not feel the immediate need to open the second bottle. In fact, I think I'll leave that one a while and see how the sharpness rounds out.

Not a monster, but still totally hardcore.

Looks aren't anything

The way Americans talk about breweries -- the physical beer-making bit -- can be quite jealousy-inducing. It seems to be generally taken for granted that breweries are visitable attractions, rather than merely functional workplaces. So, for this month's Session, Maine-based The Beer Babe has asked us to go along to one of our newest local breweries. Now, we're not short of new breweries in Ireland this year, I'm delighted to say. But you don't just roll up to an Irish craft brewery and expect the door to be open and the tasting bar set up. And you certainly don't expect it to be pretty.

Irish breweries look like this:

(White Gypsy)

or this:

(Galway Hooker)

or this:

(The Porterhouse)

You get the idea. None, as far as I'm aware, has ever won an architectural award. And it's only on special occasions or by prior arrangement that anyone other than the staff see the inside.

Fortunately for the timing of this Session, both of the newest breweries had such open days over the summer. Trouble hosted a delegation in July, and just a couple of weeks ago the Dungarvan Brewing Company (right) rolled up the shutters, fired up the barbecue, and invited some visitors in. They even threw in an historical walking tour of the town.

Production is running at full tilt at the moment, which is very encouraging. With the three main beers -- Helvick Gold, Copper Coast and Black Rock -- becoming increasingly well-established, especially locally, attention is turning towards specials and seasonals.

The first of these made a brief appearance at the open day. The brewery has been working with a restaurant in the next town over to produce a special beer and curry menu. From what I've heard, the first few have been huge successes and are about to become a regular occasion at O'Brien Chop House in Lismore. While I'd be very surprised if there were any complaints about the fitness of Helvick Gold to match spicy food, Cormac has put together a Lime and Coriander Wit. It had only just gone into the bottle, so was perhaps a little green still, but it packed a big sharp citric punch -- tangy yet with a definite fruity softness, reminding me of lemon meringue pie. I doubt it will have any difficulty cutting through even the hottest curry on offer. I hope to find out first-hand some time.

I'm also really looking forward to more seasonals and specials from both of the new kids, and even more to the next brewery bringing craft beer to the Irish market. Inishmacsaint Brewing Company is due to have beers at the Belfast Beer & Cider Festival in November. Can't wait.

Danish paradox

Recent visits to Denmark have somewhat skewed my perceptions of the beer scene there. From the big festivals hosted on the Carlsberg grounds I've come away with the impression that the Danish beer market consists of 21st-century microbreweries (from literal backyard operations up to fairly large American-inspired craft brewing) and then nothing until you come to megalithic multinational Carlsberg. It had never really occurred to me that there would be something in between: large national independent breweries, smaller than Carlsberg but around for just as long. But they exist and, this being Denmark, they produce much more than six types of identical lager.

Vestfyen are perhaps best known for the Willemoes range, but they also make a stylishly-labelled Schwarzbier. It's an appropriate brownish-red shade, with the sort of alluring tan head you just do not see on enough lagers. On the nose there's a very clear indication of the muscovado molasses, laced with a nice herbal hop complexity. First impressions on tasting are smooth and dry, quite like an Irish stout, but with that warm chocolate and caramel character again -- the muscovado adjunct at work. The milk chocolate notes are accentuated by the full and silky texture, and finishes with a comforting warming buzz brought on by a quite hefty 6.5% ABV. In a German version of the same I might expect some unpleasant metallic or saccharine flavours, but there's none of that here. Good all the way through.

I can't say the same for Skælskør Original Stout, though. It's from another venerable brewery -- Harboe, dating back to 1883 -- and claims an Irish influence but I really can't see from where. It's 8% ABV, for one thing, and a very pale shade of ruby. Not much of an aroma comes from the short-lived head, but the foretaste offers a powerful blast of mocha -- a second of pleasure followed by an overpowering wave of chocolatey cough syrup, finishing on a galvanic metal twang. A bit of an assualt on the tastebuds, all-in-all, though the light texture keeps it drinkable while it's cool. The more it warms, however, the tougher it gets. While it's not an offensive beer, or possessed of any off-flavours per se, it is one I found myself fighting with rather than relaxing into -- definitely not what I'm after in a strong stout.

Looks like it's back to the Danish micros for me...

"Trust me, I'm a brewer"

We all, I'm sure, have our own little pre-conceived notions about beer, beer drinking and beer quality. There are brewing practices, ingredients, dispense methods that we will trust implicitly or decry the evils of, even if our views are not shared by everyone else. It's all part of the wonderful complexity and diversity of beer and beer culture. Statements beginning "Everybody knows..." are rare among the cultured zythophiles.

I can trace one of my beer scruples to the bottle of Pliny the Elder that Chris brought me a while back. The label stresses, multiple times in multiple ways, that it's a beer for drinking fresh and should in no circumstances be aged. Since the flavour profile is built around fresh hop flavours, that's understandable: it's something I've noticed in dry-hopped beers I've made myself, that after a couple of months the fresh and fruity hops zing starts to fade and, eventually, disappear leaving just the bitterness behind.

So I was a little conflicted when Hardknott Dave gave me a bottle of Infra Red. Like the Granite and Æther Blæc he also generously proffered, the label suggests that it's most likely to keep improving after the best-before is past. But unlike a barley wine or imperial stout, dry-hopped IPAs -- of which Infra Red is one -- depend on the delicate young hop oils to define themselves and give you the proper hop buzz you're after.

So what to do? This is my one bottle and I'm not likely to see another in the foreseeable future. Take the brewer's word for it or trust my instinct? The latter prevailed: Granite and Æther Blæc have been consigned to the darkest corner of the cellar; but Infra Red I drank.

It's a big ol' bugger, easy to pour slowly, leaving the sediment behind and giving a lovely clear dark amber body topped by a healthy layer of froth which lasts all the way to the end. And I could smell the dry hops at arm's length. On first sip the heavy body fools you into thinking this is going to be a malt-driven beer, but instead of a toffee follow-up there's a smack of those fresh and zingy grapefruit hop flavours. It's very brief, though, and the aftertaste is altogether more firmly bitter in a way I'd associate with English hops more than American. It lasts for ages too, thanks to the tongue-coating texture, and doesn't turn harsh as it fades. Maybe a teensy bit metallic, but I think that's just something to which I'm especially sensitive.

Did I make the right decision? Yes, I think so. This beer is definitely robust enough to survive a long time in storage, and it will undoubtedly change radically during this. But that brief flash of fresh hops will vanish and I wouldn't be at all sure it'll be replaced by anything as tasty.

My recommendation on Infra Red is drink 'em if you got 'em. Anyone who likes their beer big and bitter should be all over this. Trust me on that.

Kippers and Canucks

It has been interesting times up at the Bull & Castle lately. As the supply of Goods Store IPA wanes, we've had the first pints of its replacement -- O'Hara's IPA -- making its cask debut. I've made my peace with the bottled version of this now, having found the keg just too severely bitter to enjoy. On cask, however, those head-kicking US hops are back in palate-burning force. Drinking this monster is like mainlining marmalade (the sort with the bits in). I reckon it takes a second pint to appreciate it properly, but I've not yet built up the courage to try.

For a couple of days last week, one alternative for the hopped-out tippler was Sierra Nevada's Unrivaled, a one-off smoked ale with added rye. I loved the smell of it: that sherbety balance of fruity hops and sweet malt that you get in the most delicious medium-strength pale and amber ales from the US. Surprisingly it doesn't taste like this at all. The foretaste is quite harsh and rather kippery: the smokiness made extra sharp by the grassy rye. This doesn't last long, though, fading quickly to let the lightly citric hops make a more mellow finish. An odd beer, but one I kept coming back to, for the aroma more than anything.

Last Thursday's meeting of Irish Craft Brewer in the pub featured some canned beers left to us by ex-pat member Garthicus, now stationed in Toronto. First open was the Creemore Springs Kellerbier, a cloudy orange affair. It tastes, as I believe Mark observed, like kit beer gone wrong. Even though it was only slightly past the best-before there was a marked stale and musty vibe to it, with very little sign of the quality lager it purports to be.

We fared better with Denison's Weissbier: properly cloudy, though remarkably pale. It lacked the big soft fluffy body and full-on bananas of good weissbier, but substituted with lightness and drinkability, plus a strangely pleasant acetone/pear sort of flavour. I could drink this happily, though was aware that it probably contains chemicals which, if ingested in sufficient quantity, are likely to make one's head feel like it's full of hyperactive racoons the next day. But half a litre between eight or nine of us did no harm at all.

The last can divided the table. The balance of opinion held that Hockley Dark is foul muck, another poorly constructed beer, oxidised and overly sweet. Me, I've had worse, as has Brian. It's thick and caramelly, and quite bitter with it. I've tasted homebrew, and the odd bottle of Whitewater's Belfast Ale, that have been along similar lines. It won't win too many awards (though the can claims at least one), but it's perfectly palatable to me.

Still, after the commercial stuff it was nice to get stuck into the homebrew next. It always is.

The beer from nowhere

I had it in my head that all food and drink sold in the EU had to have a statement of origin on it somewhere, even if it's nothing more useful than "Produce of the EU". As far as I can tell on looking, however, it only applies "where failure to give such particulars might mislead the consumer to a material degree as to the true origin or provenance of the foodstuff" (Directive 2000/13/EC). So I guess we can assume from the name that Nobelaner is from Germany. Yet of the undoubtedly fine Teutonic city of Nobelan I can find no trace at all. Perhaps it only appears once every century and dumps a truckful of lager before vanishing again.

I picked this up dirt-cheap in Lidl to give it a residency as my curry lager. Absolutely no markings on bottle or sleeve say anything about where it's from, only that it's made for Lidl UK & Ireland.

It could be from anywhere really, as the beer tastes of almost nothing. Concentrate hard when you sniff and there's a ghost of hops, but nothing past it. It tastes like fizzy water, even before the vindaloo gets near it. Back to the Flensburger Weizen for me, I think. That comes from Flensburg. It's in Germany, though only just.