The Beer Nut

The limit of creativity

2012-01-30T08:24:00.000Z

Brewdog didn't even bother putting one of their colourful diatribes on the label of Hops Kill: it's just an ad for their share ownership thingy. Label copy that tries to sell you something other than the beer behind it is a new one on me. I guess they reckon anyone who's going to buy this limited-edition imperial red ale has already made up their mind before getting close enough to the bottle to read it.

It's a viscous little number, pouring relatively flat at first and only gradually foaming up towards the end. I was expecting 5AM Saint with extra booziness, as it's 7.8% ABV, but that's not how it transpired. 5AM's aggressive Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin hopping is something I can only handle in small doses, producing a gradual cheese-and-cat-pee character that starts me regretting my pint about three quarters of the way through. Thankfully, Hops Kill doesn't have this.

Perhaps the dry-hopping is less intensive, or perhaps the additional alcohol lends it balance, but the hops here are pleasantly and unapologetically bitter at first, and only showing off their flavour towards the end where, yes the neighbourhood Tom has been marking his territory, but it's balanced with enough sweet sherbet and dry roast to clean up the worst excesses.

At the end of the bottle I'd have another. That doesn't happen with 5AM Saint.

Black Forest, looking pale

2012-01-26T08:05:00.000Z

The good folk at Ambrosius Trading, down Tipperary way, have recently acquired the distribution rights to the Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu range of beers and at the beginning of the year were kind enough to send me a sample selection of the range. Alpirsbach, for them as are interested, is in Baden-Württemberg: the south-western corner of Germany. A long way from Tipperary, you might say.

Anyhoo, I opened the Pils first. It's a very pale golden colour, pouring with a thick head that subsides quickly but leaves a finger of foam on top of the body. Though the aroma is quite bready, a strike of waxy vegetal bitterness greets the first sip. It's one of your no-messing-about hop-forward German pils, the sort I associate more with the north, from my admittedly limited experience. The texture is beautifully smooth, more like a Munich helles or even a märzen, the fizz kept well in check by its weightiness. It could pass for stronger than 4.9% ABV for sure. You need to wait for it to warm up before any malt comes through at all and it does so with a splash of golden syrup and honey. I guess it could get a bit sickly if left too long, but other than that we have a solid, workmanlike, better-than-average pilsner.

The kellerbier next, and Kloster Naturtrüb is exactly as the name suggests: densely cloudy. The orangey-yellow body topped by a big fluffy head makes it look for all the world like a weissbier. Definitely a lager, though. Like many of the bottled kellerbiers (surely such a thing shouldn't exist?) I've tried it lacks any real character. I get the impression that this is meant for rowdy session drinking in quantity and the taste doesn't really matter. It's clean, there's a nice unrefined rustic graininess, but other than that, very little flavour to speak of. At 5.4% ABV I'd want a bigger taste return on my liver's investment.

The blue-label Weizen follows next, described as "hefe hell" on the label, and is very hell indeed: a slightly sickly looking translucent yellow. It definitely lacks the full-on fruity esters of its Bavarian counterparts but at the same time there's a nice crispness to it, something I associate, again, more with northern weissbiers like Flensburger's. There's just enough of a light soft fruit vibe to satisfy this drinker's weissbier cravings, and it's certainly very chuggable without getting too filling as it goes. I'm starting to build an impression of Alpirsbacher as a fastidious yet unimaginative brewery. Let's see how they get on with a more full-on style.

A purple label, 7.3% ABV: hooray! I thought, with no good reason, a doppelbock! My face fell as the dark gold beer poured out, and I braced myself for some German trampwarmer. No sickliness or booze on the nose of Kloster Starkbier, however, just a subtle breadiness. The body is full, barely troubled by the fizz, and while there is that slightly sticky sweet booziness you often get in Strong Lager For The Less Discerning Gentleman, it's compensated for by some quite hefty up-front hopping, giving it a kind of candied fruit effect with added herbal complexities, only turning towards park bench/bus station territory towards the finish. I'm a little surprised by how much I liked this. Even as it warms up it remains an enjoyable honeyish sipper.

The joker in the pack is Kleiner Mönch, a dark gold number in a vaguely märzen style at 5.4% ABV. A touch of nettle on the nose, but nothing to be too concerned about, followed by a flavour shot through with more golden syrup plus fresh-baked bread. It's actually not dissimilar to the Starkbier above, but is much more approachable though lacking the bigger herbal hops. I have to wonder why it's in the small bottle instead of the other one.

Last of the set isn't branded as an Alpirsbacher but is from the same brewery as the others. Nagold is a few kilometres north-east of Alpirsbach, so Nagolder Urtyp nearly qualifies as a local beer. 5.2% ABV and producing a powerful nettley whiff as it pours. I get a whack of metallic saccharine up front on tasting, followed by a watery hollowness and, yes, those almost sour noble hop green weeds on the finish. I suspect that all the brewing prowess at Alpirsbacher goes into the brewery's own range, while the Nagolder is left up to the apprentice. Or possibly the cleaning lady.

Overall, I think the Alpirsbacher range has a lot going for it. I see it in the same segment of quality German lagers as Jever and the Rothaus set, a segment which is not exactly what I'd call overcrowded round these parts. Our local brewers could learn something about making lager from this lot.

Proper Charlie

2012-01-23T08:40:00.000Z

I don't know what the arbiters of beer style would class Gouden Carolus Ambrio as. It pours murky red-brown, like a dubbel, but at 8% ABV is more of a tripel strength. I get dark boozy sugars and sour tangy yeast on the nose, calling to mind Belgian confections like McChouffe and Delirium Nocturnum.

The flavour is quite muted for all that aroma. Raisins and figs are the loudest but it's not much more than a polite whisper, really. Dry fizz and water are more the hallmarks than malt, hops or yeast. It's a shame because the high alcohol provides a lovely base to propel some fantastic flavours, but they're just not there in this.

I've yet to find a beer from this brewer that tops Hopsinjoor.

Better butter, but bitter

2012-01-19T08:36:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I asked one of the people behind Tom Crean's Lager why they decided to put out that style of beer. The answer was that no-one else seemed to be doing it. And it's true: most of the independents don't do lager, and those that do are mainly the ones who own pubs in which to push it. Of course, you don't have to be a Pattinson-grade beer historian to notice the slew of failed independent Irish lager brands strewn across the not-too-distant past: Kinsale and Brew No. 1 being especially high profile examples, as these things go. Despite it occupying some 63% of Ireland's beer market, the absolute dominance of the Big Two and their pervasive marketing makes lager a tough sell.

Hot on the heels of Crean's into this deceptively healthy-looking market segment comes Carrig. The brand is owned by a couple of entrepreneurs and the beer itself is produced at the BrewEyed plant in Co. Offaly. I thought the BrewEyed lager was pretty decent the one time I tried it, so had reasonably high expectations for this when I trotted along to The Palace for a taste.

At first my expectations were met: cold from the tap the first sip revealed a beautifully clean and crisp lager which, though lacking any real hop flavour, packed an enjoyable lip-smacking bitterness. It unravelled quite quickly after that, however. Our old friend Mr Diacetyl came calling, and proceeded to shout loudly over the top of everyone else. The bitterness just manages to reassert itself and take the edge off the worst butteriness, but the diacetyl lingers and grows with each mouthful making a second pint an unappealing proposition.

In the battle of the new microbrewed lagers I would put this a little ahead of Crean's, but both are clear indications of the other main reason Irish micros don't do lager: it's a very difficult style to do well. A quality Irish pilsner, of the kind I thought Carrig was, would be very welcome and might just stand a better chance of making a name for itself in this closely fought corner.

Don't I know you from somewhere?

2012-01-16T08:39:00.000Z

It's the same story every time I'm in a Fuller's pub: I have whatever's on draught, but there's always a selection of those beautifully-shaped Fuller's bottles staring at me from the fridge. I've (almost) never resorted to buying one, however, partly because bottled beer is poor value in the pub and partly because I've heard they're not very good. Yes, Jack Frost, I mean you.

Nevertheless, when another of them -- Fuller's Old Winter Ale -- popped up in my local offy I reckoned it was time to finally satisfy my curiosity about it. 5.3% ABV and mahogany-to-amber, so very much in the English old ale bracket so far. That's where the comparison ends, though. The aroma is slightly caramelly, but the taste is dominated by hop bitterness -- acrid at the start, turning tangy at the finish. Not good. Yes there's a bit of toffee malt but not nearly enough for the winter warmer it purports to be, instead offering a hollow and quite watery middle.

This stuff is a very long way from the smoothness I adore in English old ales of my previous acquaintance, and I'd take mainstream fare like Hobgoblin and Old Peculier well ahead of it. And in a Fuller's pub: back to the ESB, no question.

Reuben has similar thoughts here.

Own brands

2012-01-14T08:14:00.000Z

We come to the end of Swiss Week on this blog, you'll be glad to hear. And, in many ways, it's bottom-of-the-barrel time. I avoided the pissy local lagers sold in pubs so instead had to get my pissy local lager fix in the supermarket. Of the big Swiss supermarket chains, Coop had the best selection. But bored of all the Chimay, Schlenkerla and St Peter's I turned to some of the own brands to see how they fared.

In a land of expensive beer, finding Tell lager on offer at little over €4 for 15x33cl bottles wasn't to be passed up, on a how-bad-can-it-be? basis. And the name is cute in an appropriately Swiss way. So how bad can it be?

Well, since I didn't opt for the canned version, it's skunked, but only slightly. A decent amount of head, 4.8% ABV and no other off flavours. The worst I can say is it's a bit boring but I didn't pay for anything else and it did clearly say it was bière normale on the label. Refreshing, cleansing and just what's required after a day trudging around being fleeced by the rest of Switzerland.

And then there was Bio Spezial: a non-filtered 5.2% ABV lager. Skunked as well, it wafted pungently as soon as the cap came off, pouring an unattractive hazy pale yellow. Beneath the lightstruck aroma it's dull and watery with some nasty oxidised cardboard and lots of those noble hop nettle notes I dislike intensely. One to avoid and, at €1 a bottle, very poor value.

Another week and I'd probably have grabbed another 15-pack of Tell to see me through, but it was time to go home.

There is, it seems, plenty of good beer in Switzerland. But, as in a lot of countries, it makes you work for it.

Bier auf Deutsch

2012-01-13T08:33:00.000Z

We move east for this post, to the German-speaking end of Switzerland.

Monsteiner has been brewing organic beer near Davos since 2000. I picked up two of them in a Geneva supermarket with no idea what to expect. First up was Mungga, a 3.5% ABV blonde. Lots of grassy lagery hops in the aroma here. It's quite hazy, with big wholesome floaty bits to show you it hasn't been refined or otherwise adulterated in any way. And the sensation of an organic health tonic continues on drinking: lots of rich sweet malt up front, with a touch of brioche or breakfast cereal about it. Before it becomes too heavy, the hops jump in and rescue it.

It's a simple, old-fashioned, rough, ready and rustic. It would be done better justice by coming in a bigger bottle.

SteinBock, at 6.5% ABV, restores normality to the average strength of the range and features a goat wearing a rather unflattering sleeveless number on the label. It's rather clearer than the Mungga, though a darker amber colour. The off-white head dissipates very soon after pouring and the carbonation is present but unobtrusive.

And despite its Swissness it's a German bock to the core: a powerful grainy sweetness with notes of caramel and cheap chocolate. None of this is a good thing and I struggled to get to the end of the glass. In fairness I can't write it off as a flawed product, it's just not the sort of beer I like to drink and I really should have known this before opening it.

While browsing the shelves I was rather taken with the sparse nationalistic styling of Eidgenoss, an unfiltered amber lager from Falken, a large brewing concern in Schaffhausen. The flavour, however, is as straight-laced as the label. The Lucozade colouring leads on to a Lucozade flavour: sweet and with artificial fruit overtones. There's a bit of biscuit from the malt but that's your lot. Ask not what your nationalist beer can do for you, I guess.

Lausanne my favourite game

2012-01-12T08:17:00.000Z

I loved the little city of Lausanne, on the north shore of Lake Geneva. A haven of old-money genteelness it's like a clean version of Paris in miniature, built vertically into a mountain. Below the cathedral which towers above the town, but still a long way up from lake level, is Brasserie Du Château, a casual little brewpub which was quiet when we dropped in one afternoon for pizza and beers.

The range is quite impressive for such a small place: six regular beers and one seasonal. I went for their IPA first: it came from the cask but was exceedingly cold and a rather disturbing murky brown colour: the brewer could do with brushing up on the finer points of fining. And unfortunately there's a yeasty sourness in the flavour, but only slightly. Other than that it's very good: an assertive bitterness up front followed by peachy fruit flavours. Quite sessionable, all in all.

L-R: Rousse, Blonde, IPA

Most of the rest were nitrokegged. I reckon this took away a lot of the character in Rousse, a red-brown beer which offers a nice caramel and hops combo but is perhaps too smooth for its own good. I had expected Brune to be similar but it's more like a stout: dry with lots of roast plus a solid dose of chocolate. The fizzy Blonde was a relief after the nitro and packed lots of perfume and spice.

Skipping the Blanche and moving into the more esoteric end of the range, there's a permanent Ginger beer. It presents as headless and dark gold coloured and has very little beeriness about it. You could pass this off as Canada Dry quite easily. Its powers of refreshment can't be argued with, however. There was more ginger in the seasonal beer: Ginger and Green Tea, in fact. It wasn't particularly spicy though. Brown, light of body, tannic and refreshing say my notes.

Service was friendly, the food was excellent. Along with Brasserie Bavaria mentioned in the previous post, Brasserie Du Château is a must for the beer traveller in Lausanne.

Jurassic Marque

2012-01-11T08:11:00.000Z

Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes (BFM) from Jura is one of the breweries recommended by Swiss commenters on this blog (hi Laurent!) so I was very pleased to find some in Palais des Bières in Geneva. It's an odd little bar-cum-shop in the basement of a shopping centre selling mostly Belgian beers, with a handful of British and others. And all at outrageous prices: this pair cost me a bit over €6 each. They'd want to be tasty.

The first one I opened was La Meule: 6% ABV and proclaiming itself a bière de garde, one of those catch-all styles that can mean anything as long as its brown-ish and hazy. Which this is. The secret miracle ingredient is sage, for extra farmhouse rusticity, I suppose. The herb leaps out of the aroma combining with fruity citric smells as well. On tasting it's quite dry and rather funky: I detect the presence of brettanomyces in spades. After the initial shock there are some beautiful Jaffa orange notes and a touch of aftershave spice. It reminds me of something and I wave away the late sage flavour which isn't part of the recollection. Orval. It tastes a lot like Orval, only with sage in it. A horror to Orval purists I'm sure, but an undeniably interesting beer and one which I quite enjoyed.

The second one was La Cuivrée. This is a brighter red-amber shade next to its stablemate, topped with a fluffy ivory-coloured head. I get a zingy aroma of fresh hops but they're not so apparent on tasting. Instead its a highly attenuated beer: thin and with a touch of sourness masked somewhat by the fresh hops. You know what comes next: sour; fresh hops... it's an Iris clone. Well, maybe a bit. It's not quite as zingy as fresh Iris, nor as puckeringly sour, but if I was in an Iris-free zone and craving it, La Cuivrée would certainly help take the edge off.

And while we're up the Jura, another brewery from Laurent's comments: Trois Dames. I came across a few of their beers totally by chance in Bavaria Brasserie, a beer hall in Lausanne where I was expecting little other than draught Paulaner but found a fantastic selection of European beers, though not much local. We only stayed for the one so I made it Pacifique, a 5% ABV US-style pale ale.

It took a while to pour as the foam had to be let subside in the too-small branded glass. A hazy orange beer is what eventually emerged under the head. There's a bubblegum mish-mash of fruity aromas, separating on tasting into soft fruit like lychees and nectarines. The sweetness becomes more apparent as it warms, bringing out sticky honey flavours that don't sit well with the busy fizz. This is one to drink cool. From a bigger glass.

It would have been nice to see some of these on draught, but I guess that's the absence of a pub culture for you. Places like Brasserie Bavaria are a welcome substitute. And there's always the €6 take-home bottle...

Predestined for greatness

2012-01-10T08:13:00.000Z

I'm all in favour of naming beers in honour of local historical celebrities, but must admit that John Calvin is an odd choice, even for Geneva-based beer company Les Frères Papinot. It shows what I know, however, as there's a detailed description of Big John's brief career as a brewer on the back of Calvinus Blanche, first in the helpfully-numbered sequence of eponymous beers. (Bov, the authority on Swiss beer, tells me these are all contract brewed in Appenzell by Locher.)

The long-necked swingtop emits barely a hiss as I open it, and what little head forms doesn't hang around long. The orange and spices are subtly present, and there's a slightly Germanic banana vibe coming from the yeast. It's not a particularly memorable version of the style but avoids being unpleasantly dry or sickly sweet, and not every artisan witbier can say that. There's enough sparkle for it to be refreshing, so it's an overall thumbs up from me.

A bigger pop and more foam from Calvinus Blonde Bio, and a remarkably clear beer for one that's unfiltered and packaged in a 33cl bottle. The lees stick firmly to the bottom after the last drop is poured. Like the Blanche, it's an approachable 5.2% ABV, though rather fuller of body and more designed for sipping than quick refreshment.

The flavour is complex and interesting, dominated by a dusty maltsack dryness overlaid with sweet honeyish perfume. I couldn't drink a lot of it, but it's still a very good, unsticky, take on Belgian-style blonde ale.

I never found number 3 in the sequence, but 4 is Calvinus Noire, featuring the good doctor tastefully blacked-up on the label. It's stronger than the others at 6% ABV, and beautifully viscous, pouring unfizzily an opaque oily black. There's a little bit of liquorice in the aroma and the taste is mostly about caramel and treacle, tempered by a coffee-like dryness and even a hint of hop bitterness in the finish. Wonderfully balanced, and a great after-dinner sipper.

Calvin may be an unlikely frontman for a beer brand, but it seems that his minions know their way around a mash tun. Who's up for some John Knox 80/-?

Geneva conventional

2012-01-09T08:14:00.000Z

I spent the Christmas and New Year holiday in Switzerland, visiting a friend who lives in Geneva. There was plenty of opportunity to sample the good, the bad and the mediocre of the local beers so you can expect a full week of guff on the subject.

As always, my first priority was the brewpubs and I'd been warned in advanced not to expect anything out of the ordinary. Local practice appears to dictate that every brewpub must produce a blonde, a blanche and an ambrée, and that variations outside this are rare.

And it was certainly the case at venue 1: Brasserie des Grottes, situated in, and named after, what passes for a bohemian quarter in straight-laced Geneva. From the barroom at the front it rambles back into a vast sequence of chambers including other bars, kitchens, service areas but as far as I could see: no brewery. There's even a big empty front window, the kind of place that pubs like this often use to display their shiny equipment. So, I have my suspicions about whether or not they're actually brewing on site.

The other thing that had me suspicious was, having heard their beers were undrinkable rubbish, finding them actually quite palateable. Grottes Blonde is approachable and dry like a lager rather than sticky and sweet the way continental blonde ales often are. Its strength in being clean and lagerlike is also its weakness: it gets boring very quickly.

Grottes Ambrée wasn't too exciting either. Sweet, with shedloads of caramel but that's it. The dark malts aren't overdone, but they don't offer any real depth or complexity either.

Pick of the bunch was Grottes Blanche. It's jam-packed with loads of spicy coriander, which is just the way I like it. No off flavours again, and the bonus of something to hold my interest.

It's this bland absence of flaws or character in any of these beers which, in combination with the invisible brewkit, have my alarm bells ringing. I find it hard to believe that a small scale brewer with this level of technical expertise would make such one-dimensional recipes. But then, the brewer is probably Swiss. I'm not a racist but...

Across the river and nestling quietly among the high-end designer shops and blingtacular watchmakers is Brasserie du Molard. It was an English theme pub in a recent life and still has lots of the knick-knacks that come with that playset. They're definitely turning out their own here, and the character shows through.

There's a slight haze to Molard Blonde. I thought it was going to prove difficult to finish, from its big perfumey aroma and massively thick mouth-coating texture. But the hops come to the rescue, dialling in oodles of bittersweet orange and lemon notes. Such thirst-quenching power is unusual in such a heavy beer and I really appreciated it.

Molard Blanche is another spicy one. It's quite similar to Grottes's, in fact, though heavy, like the blonde. I wonder have they a problem with their mashing regime, to be turning out such big-bodied beers? If so, I hope they don't go fixing it.

And lastly, Molard Ambrée. Proof that they're human, this was quite badly oxidised: the musty backdrop not doing anything to complement what seemed to be a very sweet amber beer.

We retrace our steps up towards the station for the last of the central city's three brewpubs: a branch of the Les Brasseurs chain found all over Francophone Switzerland. There was a blonde, a blanche and an ambrée *yawn* but there were seasonals! Hooray!

L'Agave et Citron Vert? You mean you've microbrewed a Desperados clone? Seriously? I'll have one of those please. It's far from Desperados, however, I'm sorry to say. While there's not much trace of the underlying beer there's lots of lime and some tasty spices which are not at all what I'd associate with the agave. The main thing is it's very drinkable and refreshing and not alcopoppy at all.

And they had a Bière de Noël on too. If there was an attempt to give this some festive seasonings they didn't really take, with just a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon in the background. Mostly it's quite a plain murky brown beer with some dry roast elements and a bit of caramel banana in the aroma. Not particularly warming, as it goes, but passable.

Passable is about the best summation I can give of Geneva's brewpub beers generally. But there's plenty more beer produced in the vicinity...

The Nut house rules

2012-01-06T08:59:00.000Z

Tough topic from Mario on this month's Session: "Not Beer". Tough not because I don't drink other things -- like any normal human I have a wine rack in my kitchen plus a cupboard full of whiskey, gin, port, absinthe and assorted dubious liqueurs mostly acquired at airports. And it all gets consumed. No, it's a tough topic because, goddamn it, this is a beer blog. I write about about beer. However, there is one other long drink I've managed to make room for in a handful previous posts: cider.

There is something of an Irish cider revival going on at the moment. Here in Dublin, Double LL is getting into more and more outlets. Stonewell hit the Munster market in a big way last year, while up north Toby's and Tempted? are gaining a following on the festival circuit, joining the more established Mac's. And then I found this in Redmond's: Longueville House cider, from Cork.

I've encountered their produce before, in the form of a tasty apple brandy called Eden (see, I told you I drink other things), but this was the first time I'd seen their cider. It's leaning towards the sweet side, though obviously nowhere near as sweet as the high-fructose corn-syrup abomination that mostly passes as Irish "cider". There's a proper bite to it, and a beautiful autumnal ripe apple flavour.

I'll always be a beer drinker first and foremost, but it's wonderful to see our other artisan drinks producers getting out there. Isn't it time the small-scale cider-makers got a tax break like their brewing counterparts?

Gods of beer, why do ye mock me?

2012-01-04T08:35:00.000Z

Just as I start to complain about the declining range of American beers on sale here, this one shows up: the iconic Pabst Blue Ribbon, beloved of insufferable hipsters from coast to coast. It gets referenced so much in American media I've found it impossible not to be a bit curious about it. I have Geoff in the Bull & Castle to thank for scratching that particular itch.

From the screwtop bottle it pours a wan yellow-gold, the meagre head subsiding quickly to an uneven skim. It tastes slightly cidery, and not in a good way. Light on fizz, but that just adds to the wateriness.

Yes, it's drinkable. And I might even go as far as to hazard it's refreshing. But it's not something I'd drink by choice. Now let us never speak of it again.

Ring in the new

2012-01-02T08:13:00.000Z

Happy new year! I'm kicking off 2012 with the latest bottled offering from Franciscan Well: a re-creation of their old winter seasonal Bell Ringer, one which has been out of circulation for nearly a decade now. Once again we're dealing with a tower of a one-litre bottle, for extra festiveness.

The pour is impressive: a thick and creamy layer of foam over a dark red-amber body. The aroma is lightly laced with ripe summer fruits: strawberries and raspberries. A bitterness gets added to this on tasting, but only a little. Part of me is relieved it's not overly sharp or cloyingly sweet, but a different part of me wishes there was more going on. We're not a million miles away from Irish red here, albeit of the better sort, with a bit more welly in the alcohol department (6.5% ABV) and a bigger wallop from the generous bittering hops.

Like its predecessor in the Franciscan Well bottled series, Shandon Century, I could happily have a pint of this. Hopefully its return will be on a bit more of a permanent basis.

Thorn on my side

2011-12-29T08:36:00.000Z

Inevitable, really. Only a year ago I passive-aggressively ask the trade where the Thornbridge stuff is, and now there's more of it coming in than I can keep up with. So, this is a clearance of some stuff that's been sitting in my fridge for too long, plus some more recent acquisitions, all from the über-classy Derbyshire brewery.

I didn't get Kölsch until I went to Cologne. From the bottle and keg it had always just tasted like a dry pilsner to me, and a very plain one at that. What's the fuss about? That changed when I got to drink it closer to the source. The smoothness offered by the version served from wooden barrels in the better Cologne pubs adds a vital dimension to the Kölsch experience you just don't get any other way. So I was intrigued and more than a little suspicious when I got hold of Thornbridge's bottled take on the style. Would bottle-conditioning make that all-important difference?

Tzara pours a clear limpid gold. I was careful to avoid any sediment, but really there was very little to be found. The mittelfrüh hops are very apparent in the aroma: the heady fermented grassiness of warm silage. The flavour is sweeter, though, making the most of the carapils malt to balance the green flavours with a bit of residual sweetness. And most importantly of all, the carbonation is light. Not cask-smooth, but far from being pale yellow burp-water. I think they've done a good job here, and are showing the joy of Kölsch much better than, say, bottled Früh does.

Raven, Thornbridge's black IPA, doesn't mess about. From the opaque black-brown body comes a bolt of pithy aroma preparing the way for intense bitterness on tasting. Dominating the proceedings is flinty Nelson Sauvin in its dry, less fruity, incarnation. I get a lot of the harshness I associate with Sorachi Ace in large quantities but none of the fruity peachy fun that I feel the Centennial ought to be supplying.

The wife really enjoyed it, and got a good roasted dark ale flavour from it. I couldn't detect that under the citric punch: it's another one of those black IPAs I would swear is pale when drinking with my eyes closed. There's no doubt Raven is complex and interesting, but I just feel a bit abused by it. Too much of a workout for my weak and feeble palate.

Next up, Versa, the puntastic weissbier. It comes out a lovely, almost red, shade of gold and only slightly hazy given the style. At 5% ABV it's on the weak side, and offers very little other than wateriness on the nose. What it loses in welly, however, it gains in drinkability. No overpowering banana esters or other heavy flavours. Instead it's mildly zesty with an easy-going sherbet effervesence rather than full-on fizz.

I'm sure it's a perfect summer refresher but I've no objection to it in the depths of winter either.

For the proper chilly evening sipper I've reserved a bottle of Bracia, Thornbridge's super-limited strong dark ale brewed from a whole host of malts, including brown and peated; a plethora of hops including Sorachi Ace and Pioneer; and with a bonus addition of Italian chestnut honey. It's a beer to take very seriously indeed.

It pours slowly and unctuously, lazily forming a dark tan head. The aroma is odd: lots of roast, but the dryness is sweetened by a floral character which I'm guessing comes from the honey.

It tastes weird. Intense perfume pervades the whole thing and makes it hard to get at the beeriness beneath. I can just about detect the peat, and the roast barley is present on the finish. There's possibly a bit of chocolate buried in there too, but overall it's quite difficult to take. Still, I suppose when it's €10 for half a litre you don't want to be charging through it. I'm not at all sure I'd buy another bottle, and the price is only part of the reason.

And that concludes the beer reviews for 2011. All that remains for this the last post of the year is the handing out of...
The Golden Pint Awards 2011

Looking back on the 2010 awards (2009 is here), I think I can safely say I achieved my ambition for 2011: to travel. 12 countries and 4 of them new to me is a personal best. And the beer scene in Ireland has moved on quite a ways in the past year. I'm excited at the thought of similar progress over the next 12 months. Anyway, here's how it's all panned out:

Best Irish Draught Beer: Metalman Windjammer
A brewery that was no more than a logo this time last year stormed out of the blocks with a kickass flagship ale and this stunning summer seasonal. All kiwi hops made it a pineapple and mango flavour grenade. I'm limiting the award to the cask version, however. It all fell a bit flat when filtered and kegged. Caskless Irish pubs: start your engines.

Best Irish Bottled or Canned Beer: Knockmealdown Porter
Lots of Irish beers made an appearance in bottles this year, including old favourites such as Trouble Dark Arts and Galway Hooker. I give the prize to another brand new brewery for 2011, however: Eight Degrees and their hefty-yet-drinkable porter Knomealdown, though Franciscan Well's Shandon Century was a close second.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Wild Esra on Cherries
Even at a festival where imperial stouts, barrel-aged rarities, sour one-offs and weird fruit beers abounded this one from De Molen had enough character to stop me and make me pay attention. It's the whole picture. The world of beer geekery in a single glass.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Great Divide Smoked Baltic Porter
They say Great Divide ain't gonna be exporting no more. I'm willing to donate one of the last bottles of this in the country to a local brewery for cloning purposes.

Best Overall Beer: Wild Esra on Cherries
No question. It's not a drink-all-year sessioner. It's an unforgiveably room-dividing one-off of the sort that shouldn't get awards from people who aren't insufferable rarity-chasing spoogebeerians. But it's just too damned tasty not to take the prize.

Best Pumpclip or Label: De La Senne Equinox
The wife spent a fair few days in Brussels on business this year, which meant a Belgian beer bonanza for me. Ordering by remote control can be a dangerous game but I've never had a problem in saying "Just anything by De La Senne. You'll know them by the labels." From a brewery with a wonderful eye for design, brooding Equinox is one of my favourites.

Best Irish Brewery: Metalman
You want to know what I think is missing from Irish beer? Bravery. With just a few exceptions, mostly from the established companies, we're still stuck in the Stout-Lager-Red Ale Beermuda Triangle of traditional Irish styles, only now we have a hoppy-but-sessionable pale ale thrown in too. Metalman, while sticking to a solidly reliable pale ale to make a name for themselves, haven't been afraid to play around with other ideas for the limited editions. So we had the antipodean-hopped not-quite-amber ale mentioned above for one, and second up was a peppered witbier made with saison yeast: Alternator. Beer is all about diversity and Metalman get this gong for giving us that from the very start.

More of this sort of thing, please, Gráinne and Tim.

Best Overseas Brewery: 1516
Back to the very top of the year for this one, and one of the highlights of my trip to Vienna. Breaking the lagerland mould with hoppy pale ales and plenty more besides. Bravery and diversity once again.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Bowe's Lounge
I haven't ventured too far from my usual local haunts in 2011: The Bull & Castle, Against the Grain, The Porterhouse, L. Mulligan. Grocer: chances are, that's where you'll find me. But we've seen an interesting development in Dublin pubdom this year. An increasing number of "normal" pubs -- some of them guidebook classics -- have started stocking beers from the independents. The bright green light on the O'Hara's IPA keg font is the most welcoming sight in any Dublin pub. It says "Yes, you can stay here for a drink".

The Palace on Fleet Street has long been ahead of this curve, but this was the year they went cask and got a Dungarvan beer engine installed. The Long Hall now has Hooker; there's Carlow bottled and draught beers in The Church on Mary Street. But one of the most enjoyable evenings I had all year was the Sunday night session in Bowe's Lounge. O'Hara's IPA on tap, Fuller's ESB bottled, and a casual yet wonderful trad session in the corner.

Bowe's is a decent, untouristy, unpretentious boozer that happens to take its beer a bit more seriously than most. We need dozens more like it in this town.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
I think the local highlight was Bloom in Phoenix Park back in June, but the geektastic Borefts festival at De Molen in September was something else entirely.

World-beating beers aside, it was the most enjoyable drinking session I had all year. Thanks to Derek, Ron, Lexie, Mike, Chris, Dom, Evin, Menno and Her Outdoors for making it so.

Supermarket of the Year: No-one
Looking back, I realised I've bought next to no beer in the supermarket this year. None of the offers have really caught my eye. The only one giving us any decent amount of diversity is Marks & Spencer, and their stuff is just too expensive for what it is. I've been pleased to see off licence chain O'Brien's really raise their game beerwise this year, with Carlow, Dungarvan and Eight Degrees all now in stock. But really, only the independents have been meeting my needs in 2011.

Independent Retailer of the Year: The Beer Club
Partly because it's headquartered on my doorstep, but mainly because manager Stephen has shown an incredible enthusiasm for the whole speciality beer segment. It has been a delight to deliver the tasting sessions in the basement (and if you were at one of them over the past few months -- thanks for being such a great crowd) and even more of a delight to be at the sessions where other people did the talking. I'm looking forward to more of those in the New Year.

And extras like this aside, I love that I can just nip around the corner to buy beers I've never had before. I never thought I'd see the day.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Oxford Companion To Beer
Simply for existing, and being a huge sign of beer's growing stature in the culinary world. The errors and ommissions, while they should never have happened, provide a new opportunity to help right the historical wrongs that have been done to beer. As such, The Oxford Companion to Beer is the antigen in the beer writing system, and Alan's wiki shows a healthy immune system.

Best Beer Blog or Website: DrinkStore
Yes, it's a shop that sells beer online, but I'm giving it this award for its role as a reference source. New beer comes and goes on the Irish market quite quickly, and not everything gets reported by drinkers in the field or the responsible retailers like Bradley's in Cork and Jay at Hollands of Bray. When I'm wondering where my next blog post is going to come from, DrinkStore's beer section is where I look first. Where did I find out that, at last, Ireland had Thornbridge? DrinkStore's website.

Best Beer Twitterer: BoakandBailey
One of the best things about their blog is the way it acts as a sort of clearing house for informed and mature commentary on all things beery. Their long overdue arrival to Twitter has extended that to the microblogging world and we get wonderful links and observations that we would otherwise miss. They get this award despite the unfair tweeting advantage of having four thumbs.

A dishonorable mention, of course, goes to SimonHJohnson. If you're into beer, on Twitter, and not following him, you're doing it wrong.

Best Online Brewery Presence: Eight Degrees
Dungarvan got the gong last year for sheer busyness. This year, for the same reason, it goes to Eight Degrees (not that Dungarvan have slowed down or shut up or anything). Great outgoing support for the local businesses that stock their beers, and by extension great support for the customers who want to find and drink it. Howling Gale on draught is a rare beast: it's great when Scott and Cam give us the coordinates to find it.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Cheese, generally
I'm no wiser about the principles of beer and cheese matching than I was in January, despite the government dedicating an entire long weekend to teaching me. However, I've had an enormous amount of fun this year just picking random cheeses and beers and seeing what happens when they're put in close proximity. I'll be doing lots more of this in 2012.

In 2012 I’d Most Like To: Try going pro
I've had fun this year trying my hand at the whole public speaking malarky. Together with Stephen at The Beer Club I've discovered that there are people out there willing to give up their evenings to be talked at by me about beer (previously it was just a question of picking the bar stool next to me) and having a receptive audience and a bit of back-and-forth is very rewarding. So, more of that for 2012, until I decide I hate it and don't want to do it any more.

Which leads effortlessly into a shameless plug for the gigs I'm doing at The Carlyle Institute starting in January. Two hours; six beers; small classes; lots of cheery-beery banter and only limited quantities of awful puns.

Open Category: Most Exciting Beer City
By all accounts London has really got it going on at the moment. But I wasn't there in 2011 so can't comment. My award goes to Prague for its ale revolution sitting atop a well-deserved reputation for kick-ass lagers. Well worth a weekend if you're anywhere in the vicinity.

I wouldn't say no to a return to Vienna or Amsterdam, mind. It has been a good year.

But here endeth 2011. I'm off to the beer fridge to begin putting 2012 into some sort of drinking order.

Markt for death

2011-12-26T08:38:00.000Z

Just when you thought the whole tatty Christmas market thing was over, I bring you a beer brewed specifically for taking the edge off shivering around the stalls looking at a million identical wooden angels and tiny log cabins while magma-hot glühwein raises blisters in your mouth before instantly turning undrinkably cold.

It's called Christkindlesmarkt Bier and is from Tucher in Nuremberg. A warming 6% ABV, it's a rich dark gold colour and gives off a golden syrup aroma that reminds me immediately of the better sort of Czech 12° světlý ležák. The flavour is certainly sweet, but it's nicely tempered with a decent amount of hops which prevent it from getting too cloying and which add a mildly piney flavour, the evergreen effect accentuated by an overall resinous texture.

Halfway down the glass I start to feel the warming sensation the brewer doubtless intended, along with the accompanying seasonal cheer. It really is designed as a fasttrack remedy for Christmas shopping misery. I probably should have told you about it weeks ago. Have some to hand when you're queueing at customer services with your receipts this week. Unless, of course, Tucher have a festbier for that as well.

What are you rebelling against?

2011-12-22T08:29:00.000Z

Having previously tackled industry giants such as The Portman Group and CAMRA, BrewDog's caustic attentions now seem to have been turned to the beliefs of small children. It's a fair target: like the other two, small children have some odd ideas and could do with being taken down a peg or two. Hence There Is No Santa, a seasonally-adjusted stout.

It's a dark red-brown colour with a nice thick stouty head. And it tastes of gingerbread. Cocoa nibs and ginger stems are listed as the bonus add-ons, but I'm not getting much chocolate flavour, or stout flavours generally. Just gingerbread, or possibly ginger biscuits. Nice as it goes, but I was bored before the end of 33cl.

Just as well there's another one in the range, then. Despite the less cheeky name, Christmas Porter sounds very promising. Based on the damned decent Alice Porter with added cacao, chilli and spices. My kind of beer all round.

A point and a half stronger than TINS, at 6.2% ABV, showing an enticing beige head with a subtle chilli bite in the aroma. It wears that chilli up front, and it's more about the peppery flavour than the heat. I think I can forgive that. In the middle there's lots of chocolate and the chilli comes back at the end for a dry fruity finish. Again, it's nothing extreme or wildly off-kilter, but there's plenty to enjoy. As drinkable, sinkable dark beers, both are well-suited to the season of overindulgence.

Happy Christmas, readers!

No bollekes

2011-12-19T08:52:00.000Z

I had no idea what to expect from these two: big 75cl corked bottles with a very modernist new-world-wine sort of label, though peer closely at the enigmatic logo (a wineglass on its side? a malt shovel? a man with a crewcut asleep?) and the brewer's initials are revealed: the ordinarily staid and traditionalist De Koninck of Antwerp. What are they up to? Let's find out.

I tackled the blonde first: Gusto 1833 is the title, commemorating the year the brewery was founded. Perhaps the first part of the name is a sign that they're making a play for the whole Special Beer For Food thing, which may be in danger of becoming a niche. I get a loud pop as the cork comes out and lots of short-lived champagney fizz while it pours. A centimetre of head sticks around, over a hazy pale gold body. There's a mild sherbet aroma, and on tasting my first impression is of standard Duvelesque Belgian strong blonde. At 8% the ABV is in the right ballpark too. Then my nosehairs start to burn. This beer is very highly carbonated, to the point where it becomes difficult to taste. I need to leave it to flatten out for a while.

When I do, it's still very Duvelish: sweet, soft and boozy, like a pissed-up peach. Squinting for difference there might be a little bit of extra sweetness, some floral perfume perhaps, but no real distinction I can nail down with certainty. All that matters is that it's enjoyable, I guess, which it is. With food? Sure, why not?

Gusto 1833 Ruby Red appears to be a brand extension, or perhaps they're aiming for the whole red wine / white wine duality. The cork cage was of a sort I've never seen before: there's something a little BDSM about it. I was definitely expecting another fizz bomb. There was a loud pop and oodles of foam, this time disappearing completely after a minute. However, the beer underneath is much smoother than the blonde.

First things first: it's definitely not ruby red. More murky brown. Garnet, if one were feeling charitable. The taste is deliciously off kilter. It has all the balsamic vinegar richness and spice of a full-on Flemish red, except... without the vinegar. It's really quite sweet, shading towards the dubbel end of the spectrum, but the complexities are pure Rodenbach. It went great with the hot chocolate fondant I felt immediately compelled to zap in the microwave and consume alongside it, and which brought out a wonderful strawberry fruitiness.

So there so have it: two bottles you can plonk down in the middle of a table and get some excited ooohs before the diners realise that it's only beer.

On the road

2011-12-15T08:14:00.000Z

It sounds interesting, this one: a brown ale -- that steadfastly old-fashioned style -- brewed to a very non-traditional (or at least somewhat unorthodox) 6% ABV and single hopped with Citra, the American powerhouse hop more commonly found in high-octane IPAs. Anchor Breckle's had me intrigued from the start.

It pours more of a ruby shade than brown, topped by a thick and rocky off-white head. While it's as sweet as one would expect a brown ale to be, with just a touch of roastiness at the back, the hops are at the centre of the flavour giving a major fruity dimension to it. Not the fresh and fleshy mangos and peaches that's characteristic of West Coast hops, but a more artificial-tasting Opal Fruit vibe. That sounds bad, but it's not meant to be. This is a fun and frivolous ale, a conversation beer rather than one to sit over and think about.

From San Francisco we head north up Route 101 to Ukiah and the Butte Creek brewery, to try their Porter. It's a deep dark shade of red with quite a busy sparkle, relatively thin of body for 6.1% ABV.

There's a definite stickiness to the aroma: full of treacle and burnt sugar. The slightly charred notes are at the front of the flavour with sweeter caramel and a little bit of mild coffee coming in behind it. I got an unfortunate tang of cardboardy oxidation which somewhat spoiled an otherwise plain but pleasant beer.

A u-turn and back to San Fran, so.

Howls of derision

2011-12-12T08:44:00.000Z

I really enjoyed my afternoon of quality drinking at The Salt House in Galway city a few weeks back. They kindly agreed to host the Beoir AGM, and laid on some very decent beer and tasty food. I had to split horribly early for the last train back to Dublin (6.05pm: why, Irish Rail, why?) but on my way out manager Taram charitably thrust a bottle of BrewDog Bitch Please and a pint glass at me.

This barrel-aged barley wine was produced in association with Three Floyds and is all of 11.5% ABV. It smells it, with a serious boozy waft coming off the light beige head that sits thickly over the dark copper liquid. After the alcohol there's a blast of oak and then some peaty phenols: all this before even the first sip. The taste is as loud as one might expect, all blaring peatiness and alcoholic heat. The only vaguely subtle bit is a teeny hint of oxidised wet cardboard at the back, but that fades quickly. A mouth-coating viscosity means that at least you get good value for each mouthful: the flavours stay with you for quite a while. Like 5am Saint, this is perhaps a beer to finish a session on.

Overall I found Bitch Please quite brash and unsophisticated, but it did last almost the whole way back across to the right-hand coast.

Back in the familiar confines of the Bull & Castle I find a new English beer on the beer engine: Wychwood's Dog's Bollocks. I am hounded by poorly-named canine-themed British beer, it would seem. It arrived a rather hazy pale orange but there was not a thing wrong with it: beautifully cool and sparkling busily. The zingy aroma leaped out and the first sip delivered a bitter citric smack around the chops followed by softer orange sherbet notes and a little bit of incense spice in the finish. For something that seems designed as a hoppy pick-me-up it's decently full-bodied, and though nowhere near as long-legged as the barley wine above it does leave a pleasant waxy bitterness in its wake.

I hope to see it again on the Bull & Castle's cask rotation, though obviously I won't be ordering it by name.

Second watch

2011-12-08T08:27:00.000Z

There's been a bit of a revamp over at the Bay Brewery, based at the Oslo brewpub in Galway. The makeover sees the name changed to "Galway Bay Brewery" and the dropping of their (pretty decent, IMO) amber lager. The so-so red ale is staying and there are two new additions to the range. I caught up with them in the brewery's Dublin tied house Against The Grain recently.

Stormy Port first, a porter. The lack of nitrogenation was a pleasant surprise, and I think it really helps the flavours shine. Well, flavour, singular: Stormy Port is a grade-A chocolate bomb with bucketloads of sweet candy and not a whole lot else. It's served far too cold and the thin fizzy body doesn't allow the chocolate have any warming or filling properties, unfortunately.

To the best of my knowledge, the house yeast at Galway Bay is Danstar Nottingham, a neutral strain, and this may well be the reason this beer is so one-dimensional. Mr Billings opined that a more interesting estery ale yeast might help give it a little more depth and complexity. In the meantime, I'm happy to drink it, as long as it's left to warm up a little. You can't have too many porters, say I.

The second beer is similarly cold and kegged. It goes by the disquieting name of Strange Brew -- when a brewer chooses to label a beer so it's time to worry. I don't remember seeing a style designation on the tap badge, but I've heard second-hand that they're calling it an IPA. From the amber body there's no aroma to speak of and the flavour is very much malt-driven: slightly sticky, with a small hop bang at the end but loads of carbonic bite. All-in-all it's quite inoffensive, reminding me lots of several passable, forgettable, English bitters I've had, only without the smoothness and flavour subtleties that cask-conditioning provides. Served from Against The Grain's beer engine, this could be really interesting. And, of course, it never hurts to do a bit of dry-hopping as well.

No doubt these first editions of the beers will be subject to change as the brewer tweaks the recipes. There's a lot of promise here and it would be great to see Galway Bay pulling out something really original, though the standard in Ireland is quite high at the moment.

Ankers aweigh

2011-12-05T08:04:00.000Z

These two German lads have been sitting in Messrs Maguire all year. I guess with competition from the house beers and macros they never really sold, since they were being flogged at a knock-down rate when I picked them up to take away. Both are from Ankerbräu in Nördlingen. An odd choice of name for a brewery in thoroughly landlocked Bavaria.

The lager first: Daniel-Trunk Kellerbier. It's naturtrüb, as the label makes clear: very cloudy, rendered yet murkier by the dark brown colouring. My kellerbier experience is limited, but I thought they tended to be paler than this. Daniel's keller needs a lightswitch. A hit of malteser on the nose is scant preparation for the massive ovaltine flavour. The sweetness is somewhat offset by a tang which I think is down to the age of the beer: I'm drinking it a good two months after the best-before, and it's a style I'm sure isn't meant for aging. Though what it's like when all that residual sugar is in full-flow doesn't bear thinking about.

At the finish up there's just enough of a hop-bite present to prevent anyone mistaking it for alcoholic porridge-water, though it's still hard to shake the sensation of supping some kind of breakfast cereal or nutritious dietary supplement for invalids.

When the sugar buzz wore off I turned to Rieser Dunkles Weizen: another dark one, at the same strength (5.2% ABV) but this time a wheat beer. It's a bit more orthodox: nicely balanced between mild banana tempered by caramel. Smooth and light enough to be drinkable. And although it's several weeks older than the brewer would like, there's no trace of staleness or any off flavours.

For a cold winter's evening it's really quite comforting, but it's a beer I could see working as a summer's day quencher just as easily.

One interestingly odd and the other solidly enjoyable: catch them if you still can at Messrs Maguire.

Barley's ghost

2011-12-02T08:27:00.000Z

Mind! I don't mean to say I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the similie; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for.

The first page of A Christmas Carol is my favourite thing ever written. I wouldn't be Mr Dickens's biggest fan -- I'd hazard that few of us who struggled through Great Expectations at A-Level count ourselves so -- but those first paragraphs are so beautifully crafted. The story eventually drowns in sentimentality, but for the opening sequence alone it deserves its classic status.

The opportunity to pay tribute to my fav bit of prose comes by way of Phil at Beersay, host of the December 2011 Session, who picked the story as his theme. In keeping with it I have unchained three spirits from my beer fridge to examine for signs of yuletide cheer.

The Beer of Christmas Past
Old Dickens had gone to join Jacob Marley some years before 4th August 1893, the date on which Fuller's of Chiswick brewed a Double Stout which they've more recently brought back from the grave with the assistance of European beer's necromancer-in-chief Ron Pattinson.

At 7.4% ABV, Fuller's Double Stout is normal strength for a pre-1917 stout recipe, and a reminder for Irish drinkers that plain old Guinness used to be up in these high reaches too (you can watch the gravities plummet on the table in this post from Ron's blog a few years ago). From the beige head I get an immediate treacle aroma. I'm guessing the finishing gravity was quite high as there's a huge and quite sticky body. That said, it remains wonderfully drinkable: smooth and not too sweet, exuding warming boozy heat and finishing with just a small carbonic bite.

Interestingly I also get a waft of smoke from it and, coupled with the smoothness, I'm immediately reminded of Franciscan Well's Shandon Century, another understated powerhouse of a stout. It's hard to beat this style of beer when it's time to batten down the hatches for winter.

The Beer of Christmas Present
Kids today, with their double-imperial this and their barrel-aged that, chasing the latest in hop highs and extreme methodologies. One beer I happened across recently combined all of this in one neat bottle: Great Divide Rumble, a barrel-aged IPA. It's an unusual proposition for the Denver brewer, since like so many of its contemporaries it values big fresh hop flavours in its IPAs. Stick them in oak and the only way is down, isn't it?

Well no, not necessarily. Rumble pulls off the feat of combining the best bits of all. It starts with a sherry-like nose, all enticing wood and alcohol with none of the oxidised warning signs this aroma often elicits. The malt jumps out first on tasting: a big toffee hit, given momentum by 7.1% ABV. A fresh hop-burst follows quickly: mellow soft fruit tempered with a sharp bitterness when the beer is cold, but mellowing even further as it warms. There's no mistaking that the hops here are bang up-to-the-minute fresh ones losing none of their flavour power under the influence of the oak which finishes the beer off.

There's a slight vanilla tang and a little bit of sappiness meeting the pine hop bitterness, but it's mostly present as a subtle complexity, an encore to the hops' big number. I imagine that achieving this delicate level of woodiness in a strong beer is incredibly difficult to do and is perhaps the reason we don't see more barrel-aged IPAs around. But perhaps we'll see more of them in the future.

The Beer of Christmas Yet-To-Come

The future. The future, in Ireland at least, is local. I'm finding it quite difficult these days to schedule in all the new Irish beers available on the Dublin market and I'm already several beers in arrears. I imagine this problem is only going to get worse as more new breweries come on stream in 2012, and those already established turn out more seasonals and specials. It's a wonderful problem to have.

To mark this rising tide of beery variety I have the first seasonal from Mitchelstown's 8 Degrees brewery, a two-man operation that has been turning out beers for a mere eight months now. A Winter's Ale is 7.5% ABV and a dark red-brown colour: not as black as the Phantom in our story, but not far off. I met it at the Taste of Christmas show last weekend where there was an excellent showing by the Irish craft breweries, both as part of The Beer Club bar and at stalls of their own. Last year, apparently, it was wall-to-wall Beck's Vier and nothing else. ¡Viva la Revolución!

For the brewing of A Winter's Ale a blend of ten mulling spices has been provided by local spicery Green Saffron, which includes cinnamon, cloves and star anise in no uncertain quantities. They give the beer an oddly sour nose which I found a little off-putting at first, but they really get to work properly on tasting. First you get a wonderful warming sweetness and then the spices come in on top: a bittersweet oriental confection that puts a keen edge on what might otherwise be a rather one-dimensional strong porter. At the end there's a lingering banana ester flavour peeping out from under the spices. The texture is smooth, the carbonation gentle and on the whole it's very drinkable, despite the busy spicing. Hot on the heels of Metalman's Alternator and Trouble's Pumpkin Ór I'd love to see even more of these seasonals with seasoning.

All that remains for us now is to wake, send a passing boy off to the poulterer, share a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop with young Cratchit, and finish on a phrase so hackneyed I can't bring myself to repeat it. Just go and read the story.

Ummm... okay then

2011-11-30T08:14:00.000Z

"We have no Herold Dark, only the Semi-Dark" said the lady behind the bar in Pifko. I was extremely flattered that she said it first in Czech (I don't think I look particularly slavic at all, more's the pity) and then I paused. The Budvar tap started doing a pick-me dance, but I was there for Herold so Herold Granat is what I got. An experience at once interesting and slightly disturbing too.

It presents itself as a foamy nitrogenated dark amber-red beer, looking for all the world like one of those god-awful creamy Oirish reds or smoothflow bitter. The aroma was along those lines too: sickly and unappetisingly cloying. I didn't look, but I'm sure the Budvar tap was making a told-you-so face at this point.

Punching through the head and taking a sip I found myself in a much happier place. The sweetness is far more piquant burnt caramel than gloopy syrup, and it finishes with a gorgeous grassy burst of Czech hops. It's still pretty heavy, but the flavours allow it to be refreshing even as it fills.

Obviously the dark stablemate is to be preferred, but this is a pretty good substitute now and again, no matter what the Budvar tap says.

Worth a thousand

2011-11-28T08:51:00.000Z

De La Senne makes me want to be a better photographer. I mean, look at that label (you might have to squint and use your imagination a bit). It's wonderful. It should be on a billboard instead of a 33cl bottle on top of my beer fridge. I usually have my cynicism turned up to 11 when it comes to beer branding and image, but De La Senne rarely fails to turn my marketing-bullshit-proof wall to mush.

Sigh. Anyway, you probably want to know something about Brussels Calling, the beer behind the label. It's a typical sessionable De La Senne job, at 5% ABV, orangey in both colour and flavour. Unfortunately the yeast character interferes with the fresh fruit that I reckon is what the beer is supposed to be based around. While the aroma still has an enticing citric zip, the taste is mostly just giving me gritty yeast. I should have poured more carefully.

It's not you, De La Senne, it's me.

Fade to black

2011-11-24T08:38:00.000Z

I'll spare you my dim and blurry pub photography for this one, shall I? A couple of weeks ago the Porterhouse launched their second Czech Beer Festival which featured a new one they'd produced in association with the brewer from Purkmistr in Plzeň. Bohemia is a black lager made using authentic yeast from Pilsner Urquell. How authentic the rest is, though, is up for debate.

Comparison with the real Czech dark lagers on sale in Dublin is inevitable and I think Bohemia stands up well, if somewhat off to the side. Yes it's black; yes it's sweet; but it's nowhere close to the treacle explosion of the Czechs. Instead it's more subtle; the sweetness is there to offer counterbalance to a lovely burnt grain flavour that sits at the heart of this beer. While still quite heavy, the dryness keeps it very much on the drinkable side and while I'd personally prefer a little more coffee or chocolate, the molasses and roast barley combo gives my palate plenty to keep it occupied.

Officially, the festival only ran for five days. I hope supplies of this will last rather longer.

Jury duty

2011-11-21T08:27:00.000Z

I confess to having done a little jumpy-up-and-down dance when Adrian, festival organiser for CAMRA Northern Ireland, asked me to judge the Champion Beer of Belfast at their festival this year. I'm usually at the festival on the Saturday and have often missed the most interesting beers. An excuse to go up on the Thursday was very welcome. To see a CAMRA awards process from the inside was a bonus.

I arrived in a dark and rainy Belfast with just enough time for a swift half in The Bridge House, just a few metres from the festival venue. This is a vast JD Wetherspoon I've never enjoyed visiting before, but CAMRA NI have seen fit to elect it their pub of the year for the last two years so I thought maybe a reappraisal was in order. For a Thursday lunchtime it was surprisingly quiet, mostly office lunchers and a fair few tables of spillover from the festival. All very mature and civilised. My half of Old Empire was pretty good too: peachy with a pleasant sulphurous bite. 93p well spent.

I reported for duty at 2 and met my fellow judges: 8 of us in all. Branch chairman Philip ushered us to the tasting room in one of the Ulster Hall's beautifully renovated salons and led us through the final six beers which had been whittled down by the festival volunteers from all those available. The process was ably assisted by Steve, running with the jugs of beer from bar to judges. The panel were tasked with grading each finalist with marks for appearance, aroma, taste and finish, weighted in favour of the final two criteria.

All tasting was, of course, done blind, with only the broad style designation revealed in advance. And they were a mixed bunch: bitters Peter's Well (Houston) and Pale Beacons (Brecon) were rather insipid, being done no favours at all by being decanted from cask to jug to glass, knocking most of the condition out of them. I had had Blue Monkey's BG Sips high on my hitlist having heard great things about it, but scored it last when it showed up. This golden bitter was almost entirely flavourless and I reckon I'd only go near it on the hottest of days, and only then if it was at lager temperatures with lager levels of carbonation.

The two dark beers claimed joint second prize. Mordue's Newcastle Coffee Porter was definitely in the ha'penny place for me: a thin and rather boring porter with little sign of any coffee at all. There was a bit more substance to Otley Oxymoron: a bitter spicy middle which made up for the waft of cardboard oxidation on the nose. It turns out they've designated this as a black IPA and while I'm not an outright supporter of the thesis that black IPA is simply hoppy porter, this beer presents blind tasted evidence that this may in fact be the case.

The winner left the rest of the crowd for dust: though inauspiciously pale and hazy, Dark Star's American Pale Ale was a symphony in citrus. At 4.7% ABV it's weighty enough not to be too bitter, adding some beautiful sherbet substance to the fruit, and the end result is insanely drinkable and moreish. I can't imagine there was any surprise when Adrian and Philip (on stage, right) announced the result.

The day's work done, it was down to the main hall to see what else was on offer. I made a beeline for the newest Irish beer, of course: Ballyblack stout from the spanking new Ards brewery. It reminds me a lot of the excellent Dungarvan Black Rock: that same roasted dryness tempered by ripe dark fruit and a similar spicy gunpowder tang in the finish. Brewer Charles Ballantine was on hand for a bit of after-sales service and a good natter about the complexities of setting up a brewery in NI. I'm definitely looking forward to more from Ards.

My experience with BG Sips notwithstanding, I hit up the other offering from Blue Monkey next: 99 Red Baboons. This was much darker than I expected: almost black with mere hints of ruby around the edges. It's a very tangy beer, sweet-sour with a sort of baking soda softness. Interesting, but I couldn't say if I liked it or not. Along the same lines but much better was Leeds Midnight Bell. This ruby mild had me thinking of Rodenbach, with an almost puckering sourness, but it made it eminently refreshing and one I could have had a few more of.

Wolf Brewery's Norfolk Lavender Honey is another for the too-odd-to-like bracket: sweet and spicy with a powerful honey aroma and flavour, but very little by way of lavender. It could have done with some floral lightness to balance the sticky honey, I think. Summer Wine Barista Espresso Stout also goes all out with a speciality ingredient, but while Mordue may be wasting good coffee, Summer Wine are laying it on too heavily. The end result is too dry, too roasty and too thin, with the poor condition doing nothing to dispel the impression of a glass of cold coffee. I had higher hopes for Gorlovka, a 6% ABV stout from Acorn and it's a solidly drinkable beer but one which should be doing more at that strength. I could happily neck this, but that's not what it's designed for.

Steve gave me a couple of recommendations of beers I probably would have passed by otherwise, and very good they were too. Bowman Elderado is a summery little number, pale gold and just 3.5% ABV. The not-so-secret weapon is elderflower and it adds an amazing piquancy to it, like a Chinese spice mix. A dry, almost chalky, feel keeps it drinkable and wonderfully thirst quenching. At the opposite end of the scale, there's Elland 1872 Porter: 6.5% ABV and massively chocolatey; sweet but beautifully smooth and to complete the circle, showing that gunpowder finish I enjoyed in the Ballyblack.

This year saw the first time a separate cider bar operated at the festival and I had a couple of halves for the road there. Northern Irish cider is undergoing a well-overdue boom and it's great to see apples from my native Armagh being put to better use than baking.

Final thanks to Adrian, Philip, Steve and all the crew at CAMRA NI. This gem of a festival really is a credit to you all.

Big swinging langer

2011-11-17T08:13:00.000Z

Our beer culture in Ireland is, to a very large extent, pub based. Even when we're not in the pub we tend to prefer approachable beers in the 4-5% ABV range. Below that is perceived as low-rent pisswater; above it is crazy loopy-juice. It results in a fairly limited range and it's impressive that our native brewers manage to do as well as they do inside it. But breaks in the pattern -- in both directions -- are always welcome. The microbrew revolution hasn't yet produced any iconoclastic new breweries making excitingly strong beers, so we have to depend on the more established reliables. The Porterhouse's Brainblásta and Celebration are plenty to be going on with; O'Hara's Leann Folláin is a tasty bonus. And now we welcome the latest of the 1990s craft breweries to start bottling strong beer: Franciscan Well and their Shandon Century extra stout.

Rebel county rules dictate that not just any bottle will do, so they've gone for hand-numbered one-litre swingtops. The beer inside is 7.5% ABV, so it seems we're a long way from the cosy confines of the pub session here. Although that said, it's also available on draught in the Franciscan Well brewpub in Cork city.

And on tasting I can see that it really would be quite pub-compatible. I've never been the biggest fan of Shandon, but this is definitely a cut above. Smooth, with lovely smoky overtones helped out of the main, lightly chocolatey, flavour by a gentle carbonation which adds further to the smoothness. Of all that alcohol there's very little sign: dangerously so, in fact. I can't see any stout drinker having difficulty sinking a pint of this which, as an exercise in trust, is wonderful indication of the maturing Irish beer market.

In short, I'm delighted to see the Franciscan Well do this, and the format has wonderful potential, even if the first outing is on the solidly-drinkable side of things rather than the awe-inspiring. But we're getting the previously-extinct Bell Ringer winter ale next. I'll be in the queue.

Tildonk do us part

2011-11-14T08:16:00.000Z

These guys have been sitting in my beer fridge since the spring and as a result, being bottle-conditioned, they provided a bit of a multicoloured experience. Hof ten Dormaal Blond, from the delightfully-named Flemish village of Tildonk, introduced itself with an assertive pop as the cork came out, and began pouring a hazy straw colour. I let the massive fluffy head subside and poured again: this time more of an amber beer came out. A second repeat of the process deposited gritty tan-coloured dregs on the surface. And the end result: more orange, shading to brown, than blonde.

The head subsided quickly, leaving room in the glass for dry and woody old-world spices: clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, plus a whiff of that workhorse from Alan's thesaurus: burlap. There's also a bit of a heady burn, showing off its 8% ABV in no uncertain terms. The taste is sweeter than it smells: clove rounds out to banana and a white pepper piquancy enters the mix, though it's hard to get a proper handle on what's going on because of the biting overactive fizz. It lacks the delicate fruit subtleties of (inevitable comparison warning!) Duvel, but it's decent.

The Tildonk Donker (beer that sounds like it's falling down stairs: love it!) is similarly fizzy and an opaque brown colour. In all honesty it's not hugely different from the Blond: the same banana sweetness and a similar clove spice. There's perhaps an extra whiff of farmyard from it and sure, the banana is perhaps a little darker, somewhat riper, and maybe even slightly caramelised. Beyond that, however, there's not much to add. While fine by themselves, these two are just too samey for this kind of horizontal tasting. If picking between them I think I'd go for the peppery Blond over the sweet and sticky dark one.

With the basic beers dispatched I had hopes for the last in the series: that it would give me something more unusual. It certainly makes promises in this direction: Wit Goud is brewed with chicory and is a pleasant, vaguely hazy, shade of gold. The nose shows those fruity esters again, but there's another woody complexity under it that invites closer inspection. The chicory is out in force in the flavour, adding an almost medicinal herbal tint to it. There's a touch of smokiness too, and a sour finish. Not for everyone, this. It's complex and very grown-up tasting: playing the same game as Orval perhaps, though not in the same league. I'd have it again.

I think the unsophisticated rustic branding on these three is more than just marketing flim-flam. They're rough-round-the-edges rude mechanicals of Belgian ales. Don't expect anything fancy.

Rogue blooper

2011-11-10T08:05:00.000Z

It's a few years since Rogue -- the Oregon brewery big on blue-collar branding but not so keen on blue-collar attitudes -- was last seen in Ireland. However, a few of theirs have just started appearing on our shelves, a welcome bit of freshness in the otherwise declining range of American beer available in Ireland.

I chose Rogue American Amber Ale as my starting point, being a fan of American ambers, with Speakeasy Prohibition as my benchmark. This doesn't have the beatings of that, however. It's watery at first, but given a bit of time some waxy bitterness comes through but no real hop flavour, which is disappointing. The finish is pleasantly sweet, with lots of biscuit and maybe even a little marzipan, but the harsh sharpness never quite goes away. It leaves me wondering if this was once a hop explosion but time has taken away its charm. I dunno, but I was expecting better from the centre of American hop country.

I suck it up and move on to Rogue's Juniper Pale Ale. I like a bit of juniper but this hazy anaemic-looking chap has a slight air of infection in the aroma, a kind of acrid sourness. It's not really there in the flavour, but neither is much else: a touch of orange pith, a background tartness which I'm guessing is the juniper in action but that's about it. It's not unpleasant it's just kind of... muted.

In contravention to Irish consumer law, neither bottle sports a date or an ABV (5.6% for the amber; 5.3% for the juniper) and I'm left with the sensation that these are a job lot of elderly bottles. Fresh or not, I won't be running out in search of the other new Rogues straight away.

Bar flying

2011-11-07T08:55:00.000Z

In between bottling three batches of beer and brewing another, as well as giving my regular lecture at The Beer Club, I managed to fit in a fair bit of pub time over the long weekend. In a life consumed by beer it's important not to lose sight of the important things, dontcherknow. As I mentioned at the time, it was national Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer weekend so of course I nipped in to the Bull & Castle to give their tasting platter a go. Wherever Geoff had been buying his Cooleeney it was far superior to the one from my tasting, with none of the waxy harshness. The match with Buckley's hop-forward golden ale was excellent, and the Hegarty's cheddar fitted wonderfully with all four beers, though in different ways.

Before heading off I snaffled a bottle of Rothaus Tannenzäpfle, on special offer at the moment. This is another pils from the cult Black Forest brewery, robust at 5.1% ABV and heavily laden with the nettley German hop flavour I usually struggle with. Here, however, there's just enough of a malt profile to hold it in check, keeping both the beer and this drinker appropriately sweet. Enjoyable in small doses, but 33cl was enough for me. (Edit: I'm reliably informed by Barry in the comments that this is the same beer as the Pils, reviewed here.)

Down the hill in Temple Bar I dropped in to Farrington's, a hitherto quite plain and unremarkable Dublin boozer (formerly The Norseman, to any ex-pat Dubs who don't know where I'm talking about -- they used to have really nice runic lettering on the sign). Farrington's has, for want of a better term, gone craft. The usual macro keg fonts still line the two sides of the bar, but they're interspliced with those from Galway Hooker, Carlow Brewing, Metalman and the like. There's also an extensive bottled range -- local and import -- at least according to the blackboards.

What dragged me in was the promise of some Sink the Bismarck! and on Sunday evening a bottle from Farrington's cellars was procured, opened and offered round. I have two contradictory opinions on this 41% ABV freeze-distilled IPA: a) it's quite nice, and b) it tastes like an eastern European aperitif. The concentrated hop bitterness comes through as a sort of herbal, fennel flavour, which sits assertively atop the unctuous cough mixture body. Despite the super-dense texture there's a very faint fizz to it, and that helps soothe any intense alcohol burning, warming the insides rather than scorching them. I thought it worked great as a pre-dinner sipper. Nice beer; shame about the name.

Our hosts also had a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin on the go. It still tastes like cheap sherry mixed with lighter fuel. Nice name; shame about the beer.

Onwards across the Liffey and upstream, to dinner and the antipodean delight of a pie floater at L. Mulligan. Grocer. The main draw here was a one-off cask of Trouble Brewing Pumpkin Ór. As far as I know this is Ireland's first and only pumpkin beer, and a one-off cask at that, pending a larger batch next year. It could have stood to be a degree or two cooler on serving, especially since the pub was heaving in the run-up to the Sunday night quiz, but it was still nicely smooth and perfectly drinkable. There's no fruit as such -- there rarely is with pumpkin beer in my experience -- but the blend of spices works beautifully, adding gentle warming cinnamon notes and a background hint of almond. I reckon solid, simple Ór makes quite a good base for throwing in interesting ingredients and I definitely look forward to seeing this spiced pumpkin version more widespread next year.

Irish homebrewers who fancy mucking about with their own interesting beer ingredients may be interested in entering Trouble's Trouble Maker competition. This time round they've asked specifically for unusual recipes. Reinheitsgebotniks need not apply.

A weekend well-spent there, I think. Hurrah for pubs!

Alsation once again

2011-11-04T08:56:00.000Z

A last-minute substitution has landed this month's Session in the capable lap of Mr Steve Lamond from Beers I've Known. "Guilty Pleasures" is the topic so I had to scour my assembled beer stash for something I hadn't tried yet but which looked like it might induce some pleasant sheepishness in me, the drinker. In doing so I happened on Fischer Ambrée Reserve, a red beer from Heineken's French subsidiary, better known for its dry lager, though also the home of artificially flavoured travesties like Desperados and Adelscott -- beers which I wouldn't be surprised to find on someone else's guilty pleasures list this month (it is a well-known fact, for instance, that Dredge is mad for the Desperados), though definitely not mine.

The clear-glass bottle of this Fischer came my way via Stephen of The Beer Club, and the random Aladdin's Cave of odd beers he seems to accumulate. I think there was some Adelscott in there too but I demurred. On pouring, the Christmas cake waft leaves us in no doubt that, like its stablemates, this too is aromatisée. Uh-oh. I'm feeling guilty already.

But actually, I rather enjoyed it, straight from the fridge and with a thirst on me. The nutmeg and cloves are properly spicy and don't taste like an ersatz version of themselves, and there's also a very pleasant citric fruit punch which gives it wonderful quenching power, despite a hefty 6.3% ABV.

More than anything, it tastes to me like mulled wine, minus the wine. I shouldn't like this, but I think I can handle the guilt, especially as we get into winter properly.

Schneid comments

2011-11-02T08:22:00.000Z

Cynical wife says the only reason I like this is because I shelled out a lot of money for it. Cynical wife is cynical.

The fact is I do actually like Schneider Tap X, even though I paid all of €11 for the 75cl bottle. And yes, I do take her point that weissbier yeast doesn't play well with the other children, but it doesn't dominate the flavour profile completely. While it's clearly a weizen from tip to toe, I also get a gorgeous dry and toasty champagne-like flavour. As it warms, more of the sweet grape notes come out from the Nelson Sauvin hops.

But, she's right, there's no escaping from the weissbier yeast taste. However there's nothing so simple as banana and cloves. Instead, expect a sort of herbal spice: fennel, nutmeg and that kind of thing, all buoyed up on a hefty 7.3% ABV.

I do, in all honesty, really like this beer, and reckon I got my 90 minutes of joy out of it. Most of all I look forward to what the experiments at Georg Schneider & Sohn yield next.

Dæve's diphthongs

2011-10-31T08:50:00.000Z

At long last, the third of the Hardknott bottles Dave and Ann gave me while we queued for the Great British Beer Festival last year. I've disposed of the Infra Red and the Granite, which leaves just this bottle of Æther Blæc 2009. I do feel a bit guilty leaving it this long -- the point of brewers giving out freebies is to promote their wares, of course, and this wasn't promoting anything by sitting in my attic for 15 months -- but as I said in relation to the other two: Dave makes a big deal on his labels about how his beers are best left to age so it's really his own fault.

Anyway, Æther Blæc is an 8% ABV stout that's had several months' maturation in a Caol Ila whisky cask. The recommendation (he's big on his recommendations, is Dave) is to serve at room temperature but this came out of my attic on a chilly day so my first sip was quite a cool one. The phenols jumped out a mile, delivering powerful and rather unpleasant disinfectant flavours and little else. Given a while to warm up, however, and it rounds out quite nicely. Yes, there's still a lot of that TCP thing. If you don't like peaty whisky you probably won't like this. But there's also bags of sweet creamy chocolate (Galaxy bars, specifically), some quite dry un-vanilla-ish oak and a proper tang of bitter green hops. The aroma is an enticing peaty one, offering a subtle prelude to the bigger flavours to come.

I can kind of see how this might mellow with even more aging, but it's still perfectly drinkable now. Cheers Dave.

Curd your enthusiasm

2011-10-27T08:54:00.001+01:00

Bord Bia have designated the upcoming long weekend as the Irish Farmhouse Cheese & Craft Beer Weekend. They've helped organise a whole raft of events all around the country over the next few days, celebrating two things we produce in Ireland which are well worth making a fuss about. A full calendar of events is available on the Bord Bia website here.

I've been catching up on the new Irish beers which were launched at the All-Ireland Craft Beerfest in Dublin last month, which I missed. BrewEyed Vanilla Amber Ale, for instance, which went on tap in L. Mulligan. Grocer recently. No surprises here anyway: it's certainly amber, attractively dark and enticing. The aroma is a bit off-putting, however: a sickly waft of strong vanilla essence that leaves you in no doubt that this is not a subtle beer. First taste produces a deafening clash as the sweet vanilla smashes headlong into powerful hop bitterness. It's a mercy it's as bitter as it is, otherwise the vanilla could have taken over completely and turned it into an alcopop. But it's definitely a beer, and designed for grown-ups. The pay off comes at the end: the flavours calm down and there's a long lingering finish of vanilla-infused bitter which works rather well. Overall I think it's probably too weird to enjoy in any great quantities, but hooray for novelty and I'm really looking forward to what BrewEyed come up with next.

Following their Coffee & Oatmeal Stout special, Dungarvan Brewing have gone back to basics for their sixth beer: a straightforward 3.7% ABV bitter called Comeragh Challenger, named after the local mountains and the single hop variety employed, respectively. It was back to Mulligan's once again to give this a spin. On the first sip I did a double-take. On the second, I was still confused. Fortunately, Colin was on hand to answer my question: "Are you sure this isn't Helvick Gold?"

It has the same soft fruit palate and the same invigorating gunpowder finish. The light in Mulligan's isn't great (that's my excuse for these crappy photos) but it certainly looked to be the same shade of yellow. There did seem to be an extra smack of bitterness in the middle, but that could easily have been my imagination. Colin took a sample and assured me that it was the correct beer; that it tastes totally different to Helvick; and that I have the gustatory acuity of a donkey with a headcold. Colin doesn't get these things wrong.

I stand by my initial impression, however. Comeragh Challenger tastes very much like Helvick Gold only a little more bitter. As Helvick is one of my favourite Irish beers, especially from the cask, this is by no means a criticism.

But National Beer & Cheese Weekend isn't just about beer. There is also cheese. So with the long-anticipated arrival of Eight Degrees's new porter I reckoned I needed to introduce it to some cheesey goodness. Or some cheesey randomness at least.

Knockmealdown Porter, like its stablemates, is 5% ABV and deftly performs the Eight Degrees signature move of taking a familiar style and beefing it up slightly. It tastes dry at first, followed by a really interesting mature sourness, riding high on the extra alcohol and doing a surprisingly good impression of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. A dash of chocolate comes right at the end, finishing the whole thing on a smooth and sweet note. I like this a lot. So how does it go with cheese?

My last outing with beer and cheese on this blog concluded, er, inconclusively, with the feeling that beer and cheese matching is a mystery and that the random approach works best. Bord Bia have given us some (PDF) guidelines on what pairs with what, but I still prefer the random approach. This way I get to tick cheeses as well.

The three I picked, pretty much arbitrarily, at the cheese counter were ones I've never had before and know nothing about: Ballintubber, a softish cheddar with chives; Killeen Fenugreek, a goat-milk Gouda clone, seasoned as the name suggests; and Cooleeney, the pungent runny one essential to any cheese session line-up.

Ballintubber was my favourite by itself and faired reasonably well with the porter. The sourness of the beer bounces nicely off the sweetness of the cheese and the chives give it an almost hop-like herbal finish. I really liked the Killeen too because of the domineering fenugreek. It's too domineering for the beer, however and while the taste doesn't get lost completely it's not pulling its weight in the match. The Cooleeny I found tough going: though it has a beautiful socky Camembert finish, the main taste is powerfully acrid and rather off-putting. So I was delighted to find that Knockmealdown Porter puts some manners on it, smoothing the harsh bitter edge with its chocolate while leaving the heady mature cheese vapours to linger at the end. I wouldn't recommend attempting to approach Cooleeny without a bottle of strong porter in your hand.

And at the end of that I wanted to immediately run out and try more cheese with it, explore more taste combinations, but I'll have to leave that to this weekend when hopefully I'll get to visit at least one of the Dublin beer and cheese events. The Bull & Castle's tasting platter looks right up my random-pairing alley. You'll find Eight Degrees at the Ballyhoura Spook mountain biking Halloween party on Sunday while Dungarvan Brewing have organised a beer and cheese pub quiz in The Moorings tonight. There are loads more events going on around the country. As I say, check the website.

In the interests of honesty and transparency I should mention that Bord Bia have paid me absolutely nothing to promote this event on my blog, not so much as a snifter of beer or a sliver of cheese. In fact they didn't even ask. I just think it's incredibly cool for a state agency to be spending my taxes on promoting our breweries and cheesemakers this way, and I'd like to see the event be a roaring success.

Let the bad times roll

2011-10-24T08:44:00.000+01:00

It's part superhero, part Victorian-industrial: I do like the Malheur logo. These two Flemish beers have been on sale in Messrs Maguire for the last year or so but I've been slow getting around to them.

Malheur 12 was the first I tried, and I wasn't impressed. It's incredibly heavy and boozy with bucket-loads of brown sugar flavour, but not much else. Concentrate and there's a layer of ripe bananas, reminding me of Kwak, only not as good. Behind that, if you let it sit long enough, there's a kind of oily, herbal, eucalyptus tone. But it's all very subtle and not what you want from a 12% ABV dark Belgian ale.

After that I was in no rush to try the lighter, blonde the Malheur 10, a milksop at a mere 10% ABV. I took a bottle home with me from the Doppelbock launch last month and opened it on a quiet Sunday evening as an end-of-the-weekend nightcap, too tired to approach anything that might require my attention. And I was confounded by how tasty it was. At least once I'd managed to pour it through the insanely busy fizziness.

It's a hazy shade of pale gold and gives off the same exciting spicy yeast aroma as Duvel. Like the 12, it starts off very sweet, but does a lot more with it, offering honey, golden syrup and then more daring notes of eucalyptus and aftershave. Warming, filling and comforting, it conjured the image of a beefed-up Duvel, and I really liked that.

It's very unusual for me to be saying avoid the dark beer and go for the pale one but so it is with Malheur.

Rot' 'n' Hell

2011-10-20T08:37:00.000+01:00

They have a bit of a cult following, the Rothaus beers. Perhaps that explains why they cost over €3 when they arrived in Dublin. The branding is retro and the bottles have had more than one trip through the brewery, but is the beer inside as steadfastly old-fashioned?

Well obviously I've no idea how German beer tasted back in the good old days -- you'll have to ask Ron about that -- but Rothaus Pils definitely shows that some time has been taken over it. Never mind the Hopfenextrakt on the ingredients list, the hop flavours in this beautifully rich gold lager are fresh, green and slightly spicy. They're balanced by a big sweet malt base, laid on thicker than you might expect for a mere 5.1% ABV. Best of all, the carbonation is low, allowing the smooth heavy beer to glide over the palate and slip down the throat spreading hop goodness along the way.

A tough act for Rothaus Märzen Export to follow. I'm not sure if it's any darker than the pils. It's only marginally stronger than it at 5.6% ABV. I was expecting big breadiness, but it's much more subtle than that. It's heavy, smooth and really satisfying to drink, but it's hard to pin down anything distinctive about the flavour. A little bit of dry grain, some mild alcoholic heat, but not a whole lot else stands out. From my limited understanding of these styles I'd guess it's far closer to being an Export than a Märzen.

On to the Rothaus Hefe Weizen, an opaque bright orange shade and is as breezy as it looks. None of your heavy banana notes in this 5.4% ABV package, just some zesty orange and a light gunpowder spice at the back of the throat. Another smooth easy-drinker, this.

The Pils is the standout beer for me, but it's understated end-to-end quality with all this lot. If you're looking for a house lager in particular, these are worth buying in by the case.

My kind of pub crawl

2011-10-17T08:16:00.000+01:00

Festival over, we went to the pub. The wife Derek and I headed to Amsterdam on the Sunday after the Borefts festival. High on the agenda was a recommendation from Ron's mate Mike for Oude Jenever, so early on the sunny afternoon we darkened the doors of In De Olofspoort and received a wonderful impromptu tutorial in 3-, 5- and 10-year-old jenever from the friendly barman. You're right, Mike: it does taste like really good Scotch.

While in the area we also paid a brief courtesy call to De Prael. The brewery's eclectic tasting room was little more than a hole in the ground last time I was through Amsterdam, and the comfy chairs they have now are far more conducive to beer tasting than the alley in which they used to serve them. Derek got the round in, serving me Gepijpte Nelis, a smoked version of the dark autumn bock. With its fruity spices, it's perhaps closer to a Belgian dubbel than a Dutch bock, and the gentle smoke character lends a little complexity to an otherwise quite simple strong and sticky beer.

From there we headed down to Beer Temple. I was at the grand opening of this American-themed bar in 2009, or at least I stood outside. This was the first time I've ever been able to sit inside and peruse the prodigious selections. I figured it would be easier and more economical to limit myself to the draught offerings, but then I spotted a can in one of the fridges: Maui Coconut Porter, a beer I've been hunting for several years, having heard amazing things about it. So I duly bought it, popped the ringpull, poured it and got ready to be amazed. I wasn't amazed. It's a very fizzy dark brown beer giving off quite subtle coconut scents. It tastes extremely dry, a little sulphurous, and rather gritty, like a stout that's had a bit too much roast barley added. The sweet coconut flavour makes a very late appearance and lingers oilily on the lips. I definitely think I'd built it up too much. I mean, it's nice, in its own way, but at the same time a huge disappointment. The main thing is that it's done and I won't have to go to Maui to experience the loneliness of the long-distance ticker.

Beer Temple has commissioned its own house beer from Dutch brewery Jopen, and of course it had to be an IPA. Tempel Bier is a little bit on the light-to-watery side: a session beer in a pub without pints. But the refreshing zesty orange flavour can't be argued with. The fresh hoppy benefits of not having to cross an ocean are used to full effect.

There were a couple of strange versions of familiar beers on tap, including Flying Dog Double Dog on cask. The softer carbonation produces a different sensation to the bottled version, coating the mouth with extra-sticky toffee malt and turning the citric hop notes into something funkier and more spicy. John John Dead Guy is a barrel aged version of Rogue's Dead Guy Ale. Rogue's in-house distillery makes barrel acquisition particularly easy for them, and this one had seen some of their own whiskey before the beer went in. I'm not a fan of Dead Guy normally and this was little better. Massive wood flavours don't help the cloying stickiness, though the little bit of bretty sourness helps take some of the edge off, as do the sharp vegetal hops. I'm still glad I was just stealing a sip of someone else's rather than having a glass to myself.

The Maryland-based Stillwater brewing company were holding a tasting session in the back of the pub while we were there and as each tasting tray was brought to the corralled punters, the relevant beer went on general availability to the rest of us. RateBeer tells me that the two we tried were imported from no further away than Belgium. Jaded was brewed with the assistance of De Struise and is a dark red-brown ale doing a great job of balancing Belgian fruity esters with fresh and pithy hop zing. ’t Hofbrouwerijke near Antwerp was the birthplace of Love & Regret, another zesty one, though this time loaded with aromatic spices like coriander and white pepper. Apparently it was actually done with heather, lavender and chamomile, but you get the idea.

There was more white pepper -- a flavour I really enjoy in beer -- in Dieu du Ciel's Route des Épices. This time there is real pepper present: green and black corns are added to the recipe. There's a lovely rich chocolate biscuit aroma, but after that it's all pepper all the way. Before moving on I spent a bit of time with Marshall Wharf Old Ale. The Maine brewery has done a fantastic job with this: cola red and with a pungent vinous, almost vinegar, nose. It's one of those big textured strong ales filling one's face with sweet treacle and moreish umami, finished off with a distinctly sharp hop bite. Amazing stuff. I could have had another, but one does not leave Amsterdam before dropping in to Beer Temple's sisterhouse Arendsnest.

So we made it our last stop. Things have changed a little at Arendsnest in recent years. Gradually, the blackboards are starting to take over the walls. Since the pub serves exclusively Dutch-brewed beers that's probably a clear sign of how robustly healthy the beer scene is in the Netherlands these days.

A couple from Jopen to start: their Extra Stout is a tour de force with some fantastic smoky roasty aromas and a smooth texture given a cheeky burnt kick at the end. Barrevoet is their barley wine: dark red almost to the point of blackness. In combination with some majorly aromatic and grapefruitish hops it's almost a black IPA. But what's in a style? All you need to know is that it's one to look out for.

Perhaps inevitably, De Molen now has a blackboard to itself in Arendsnest. From that came Rijn & Veen, a cloudy pale ale with a lovely big orangey aroma. The taste is a little bit of a let-down, however: sharp and with some unfortunate disinfectant notes. Hemel & Aarde was a much better proposition: a sublimely smooth imperial stout with a touch of smoke on the nose. The flavour is heavy on the roast side but balanced by lavender perfume. Easy-drinking, balanced, but softly powerful too.

The airport train beckoned, so just one more for the road. My big finish was Bommen & Granaten: a dark red ale of a full 15.2% ABV, and possibly tasting like more. It's incredibly viscous, almost chewy. A knife and fork job. The flavours are sweet of course, but amazingly not cloying. "Turkish delight" was one comment as the glass got passed around. I was still tasting it all the way to Schiphol and was still thinking about it when I got to my own bed in Dublin hours later. Sometimes, good beers follow you home.

Festival ethics

2011-10-16T08:23:00.000+01:00

Cheeky Belgians! Struise were the only one of the twelve breweries at Borefts to be asking for more than one token for some beers. Though the range was prodigious -- far more than advertised in the programme -- our party was generally a bit circumspect about the whole thing and only took a few punts on Struise offerings. One was Tsjeeses Reserva, an oak-aged tripel. Not a whole lot of oak in evidence in this 10% ABV dark orange number, and the tripel elements are quite toned down too: sweaty apricots, a touch of honey. Worst of all, a big thick layer of foam. For two tokens you could at least have taken it to the top.

Black Damnation VII was also on the roster. Not a super-strong imperial stout like the others in the series, but a mild: some light chocolate notes and a bit of a nasty oxidised off-flavour: the sort of thing that's hard to hide in a 2% ABV beer. Yes, this one was just one token. KB Max was rather better: a light (though 8% ABV) and tasty blonde ale, and again just the one token, I think.

And then we move on to the silly name department. First up: Shark Pants. If that doesn't immediately interest you, its billing as a 288 IBU imperial IPA is probably supposed to. Lots of hop haze in here and not much by way of fizz. Actually, not much by way of bitterness either, just some pleasant citrus balanced by light tannins. Yet another beer that shows IBUs aren't a measure of anything meaningful.

Finally, stupidest name award goes to Struise's Supreme Hoppy Intensive Taste. That's right folks: it's SHIT. Haha! No seriously, that'll be two tokens please. Not in the programme so I've no idea what it's supposed to be or what it's made from, but it's quite sour and bretty, with some disinfectant phenols and the dark sugars of cheap cola. Of hops there's just a brushing and some interesting spiciness, but overall nothing to get excited about.

For the extra tokens these should have been the best beers in the world. But they weren't. We rinse our glasses and move on.

Dutch brewery Sint Christoffel had an unobtrusive stand in the back room of the windmill. Some interesting recipes, including a Wet-Hopped Wijs. Dry-hopped with wet hops, in fact. Suitably pale orange for a witbier, the hops do get a bit lost under the wheaty, worty malt, just arriving at the very end to add a mild grassiness. Perhaps I would have had better luck with the dry-dry-hopped version, but I didn't get round to it.

Winterse Christoffel Bok was a fantastic example of the Dutch bock style: dark red-brown and giving off heady alcohol vapours with a flavour profile full of bourbon biscuits and raisins. Thick and beautifully warming. There was also a touch of the bock about XXV, Christoffel's barley wine: loads of caramel and toffee plus a tiny hint of saccharine. But also bucketloads of spicy herbal hops. Cracking stuff.

If you've been keeping count you'll have noticed that's eleven breweries, so just one left. In the corner beside Närke was Loverbeer, a Piedmontese operation specialising in big, sour ales. D'Uvabeer was the first I went for, a grape lambic. It's actually not all that sour, and the sweet and juicy Freisa grape shines through beautifully, enhanced by a whiff of summery perfume.While D'Uvabeer is all red grape, Madamin, though grape-free, reminds me more of the white: bright amber, mildly tart but quite dry and fruity too. Perfect summer beers, both.

BeerBera is brewed with classic Piedmontese Barbera grapes and tastes to me quite like a kriek, having a pronounced sour cherry flavour but also some lovely earthy brett notes. Meanwhile BeerBrugna claims "high acidity" but, while tart, is wonderfully smooth and very drinkable. Plums are the added ingredient here. And of course you have to bring an imperial stout to the party, and LoverBeer brought Papessa, a beer which blends lovely toasted dark grain flavours with sweet dark fruits: dates in particular. Just a sour edge reminds you of the house signature style.

And that's the end of the festival. If you fancy the idea of sipping teeny glasses of powerhouse beers from some of Europe's élite craft breweries in convivial surroundings, then Borefts is where it's at.

See Emelisse play

2011-10-15T08:34:00.000+01:00

I referred to Emelisse as the other big Dutch presence at the Borefts festival, but that has as much to do with the beer names as anything else. It reads like someone's taken beer geek key words, thrown them on a table and brewed what they say. You've got to have a Black IPA these days and theirs is pretty much on the money: a mild apricot waft, some juicy soft fruit and lots of dry roast. It's perhaps a little too intensely dry for some tastes but I enjoyed it. Likewise their Imperial Doppelbock (11.5% ABV in case you're not familiar with what the style designation means) was very drinkable with lots of smooth and viscous caramel, though it did have a slightly off-putting sickly sweet aroma.

It seems they like their peat at Emelisse: as well as the boozy-but-smooth Peated Imperial Stout -- speaking more of turf in the heady aroma than in the slightly ashen taste -- there were two beers who'd spent time in Laphroaig barrels. The Laphroaig Imperial Stout showed little sign of the wood or whisky, being a sticky 11% ABV stout to its core. The Laphroaig phenols just lace it slightly, adding character without dominating. When the imperial stout is blended with their 10% ABV "Triple IPA" before aging and then given three months together in a Laphroaig barrel, the result is Emelisse Black & Tan Laphroaig. The hops just get lost here, however, and the end result is a slightly diluted imperial stout which also tastes a bit like Laphroaig. A blending and aging step too far, I think.

The other distillery Emelisse had taken barrels from from was Lynchburg's finest. And only. Jack Daniel's Imperial Stout again showed little actual whisky, instead coming up dry, very woody and with lots of alcoholic heat. Neither stout nor spirit character means a thumbs down from me. Jack Daniel's Barley Wine had much more of that sour Tennesee whisky aroma, though the flavour is all wood again, unfortunately, and the texture is thinner than I'd like from a 10% ABV ale.

All-in-all, you'd want to be brewing a better class of wood-aged strong beers if the plan is to haul them over the threshold of De Molen.

Inside job

2011-10-14T08:03:00.000+01:00

It wasn't all open-air pouring at the Borefts festival. Several breweries didn't get coveted spots in the sunshine, though I'm sure they'd have been glad of the shelter had the weather been less clement. Two of the indoorsies were the nordic representatives Nøgne Ø and Närke.

The Norwegians were at the front of the house, behind an unusual bar which showed off their keykeg arrangements to all and sundry but featured no badges or beer names at all. They also provided a nice bit of variety in a world of dark beers. Nøgne Ø India Saison was a beaut: incredibly clean and refreshing with delicious sherbet and fresh orange notes. The Tiger Tripel was tasty too, though a little bit by-the-numbers: some spice, some booze, but nothing to write home about.

There was a touch of tripel spice about the nose of Aku-Aku, a hazy pale amber beer they've brewed with lemongrass. But the nose is the best thing about it: it gets a bit watery after that. I was expecting much better things from Nøgne Ø Citra IPA too, but there are just some nice candied lemons and not a whole lot else.

Of course they didn't dodge the dark beers altogether: there was Not So Mild, a, er, dark mild. I liked it: it hits the super-smooth light roast coffee notes a good mild should have, but adding some lovely and distinctive hop tones to the aroma. Their Oak'd Bruin was less of a success. Though gorgeously exotic in its cedarwood aroma, the taste is too harsh: dry and powerfully woody, like chewing a sideboard.

Top of the pile for Nøgne Ø, and one of my favourites at the festival, was one that's recently appeared in Irish off licences: #500, a 10% ABV, 100 IBU imperial IPA. Dark amber and exhibiting that beautiful highland-toffee-studded-with-hops balance of really good hopped up strong pale ales. The booze adds a comforting warmth and in no way detracts from its drinkability.

Swedes Närke were in the next room over from the Norwegians, sharing a bar with the Italians. Just two beers from them. Örebro Bitter is a pretty solid dark red bitter, meeting all my requirements for the style: lots of tannins and a solid, grown-up, bitter tang. But the rent is too high: 5.7% ABV is unreasonably strong for this sort of beer.

That leaves us with Bästa Rököl. It's rather less simple. Dark mahogany, the rök is out in force, with lots of peat flavour. Juniper was promised too, but that never broke the surface of the sweet smoky flavour profile. Even with just 100ml I settled in to enjoy this. The guy at the next table was smoking a cigar which, second hand, paired wonderfully with it. Such is life.

Next up, the other big Dutch presence at the festival.

The inevitable Danes

2011-10-13T08:41:00.000+01:00

Our tour of the breweries at the Borefts beer festival this year brings us to Denmark next. Well, sort of. Mikkeller is still brewing in all corners of Europe and beyond, and there was certainly no lack of diversity in the beers they presented. They even had comedy legend Chris Morris helping out at the stand.

I went for a couple of the sour ones first, attracted in particular to Rhubarb Lambic 2010. Though I'm not big into rhubarb generally, I have known it to work really well in beer. This cloudy pale yellow beer doesn't have much by way of rhubarb flavour characteristics, but is more appley, with a pungent cider aroma and apples sitting next to the normal, invigorating, lambic tartness. The texture is very interesting, with a dry bicarbonate of soda style fizz. Not a beer I'd drink lots of, but great as a palate cleanser in small quantities.

Though a variety of fruit lambics were on offer, the other one that really interested me was Spontancranberry as I'm fairly sure I've never had a cranberry beer before. It's not too tart and the hefty 7.7% ABV goes a long way to mute the sourness with alcohol. Instead of sweet fruit, the cranberries impart a pink peppercorn piquancy, finishing a little bit acrid. I think this would be a better beer at a lower strength, but I liked it.

I just had a quick taste of the barrel-aged edition of Mikkeller's smoked chilli porter. Texas Ranger Speyside is much like the original version, not giving much bang for all it promises. There's some dry powdery chocolate, a mere suggestion of chilli, and an unfortunate wet cardboard finish.

Mielcke & Hurtigkarl appears to be a house beer created for a Copenhagen restaurant. A spell in sauternes barrels is the draw here. I can't honestly say I would have guessed that from tasting it, but it is rather nice: broadly in the tripel style with a little extra spice to liven it up. Great with posh nosh, I'm sure.

I was a little underwhelmed by Mikkeller's Monk's Elixir at the 2008 European Beer Festival in Copenhagen. As is the way of these things, the recipe has moved on since and spawned an array of variations. Monk's No Brett is a particularly odd one: dark brown and sour like a Flemish oud bruin, gushing fizz. It's stopped from all-out sourness by a sweet milk chocolate flavour which sounds like it should clash but actually provides a weird sort of balance. But even this seemed normal next to Monk's Trippin' On Cherries. Full-on Rodenbach Grand Cru vinegary intensity follows an enticing sweet and sour nose from a dark dark red beer topped by innocent pink foam. The cherries come through the vinegar quite assertively and the whole experience is intensely weird, but in a nice way. I could have had another but there was one more Mikkeller I couldn't pass up.

Again, a bit like racehorses, it's possible to guess the pedigree of this beer from its name. BooGoop is one of a series of collaborations Mikkeller has done with the Three Floyds brewery of Indiana. This is a 10.4% ABV "buckwheat wine" and starts with huge peach and apricot aromas, following it up with more of the same on tasting. The immensely heavy body was offset by a low serving temperature and it came out really quite refreshing in the end. A great beer on which to leave Mikkeller.

Just one other Danish brewer was at Borefts. Amager had a choice location in the shadow of the windmill. I've always found them to be a little staid in the branding department, though the quality of their beer speaks for itself. However, it looks like they've put a bit of graphic design effort into their series of beers based around the seven deadly sins, two of which (arguably the best two sins) were available at the festival.

Gluttony is an orange-coloured pale ale and very much hop-forward, offering a refreshing bitterness plus lots of fresh and summery hop high notes. Lust wasn't so popular among my drinking buddies but it hit the spot with me. A beautiful conker-red and very sweet, almost worty. Give it a moment, however, and there are hidden depths: a vinous complexity and some lovely tannic notes.

Amager were also serving a couple of different versions of their Hr. Frederiksen imperial stout. The plain one is a heavily textured and massively roasty example of the style, with lots of dry fresh-ground coffee on the nose and palate. Amazingly, Hr. Frederiksen Whisky Barrel edition manages to bury all that with a combination of big boozy scotch and a little touch of unpleasant vinegar. Stick to the original is my recommendation.

That's Denmark done. Where next?

Kernel knowledge

2011-10-12T08:40:00.000+01:00

The Kernel needs very little introduction from me. This London microbrewery has been making big waves since it started out in early 2010. As an ex-homebrewer, Evin makes beers of the sort he actually likes to drink and the results, I've heard, have been spectacular. Big IPAs and old-fashioned porters and stouts seem to be the stock-in-trade. Why waste capacity on lesser beer styles?

The Borefts festival programme promised a broad cross-section of the range but in the event we were a little stiffed on the dark ones. Plenty of IPAs, though. I started with Kernel Citra IPA, what with Citra becoming something of an endangered species at the moment: who knows where the next all-Citra pale ale will come from? It's a punchy little bugger, as you might expect. 7% ABV but you don't get any chance to taste the alcohol. The hops burn right through everything and completely dominate the flavour. At the finish it just shades into cheesiness or freshly-sawn wood, something I associate more with harsher hops like Simcoe. On balance I think I prefer my Citra a little more toned-down. Kernel Galaxy IPA ran on similar lines: assertive palate-sharpening hops and that slight touch of cheese.

Both of these were still better than the Motueka Pale Ale which I found had a sharp and brassy tang, plus some bandagey phenols which I didn't enjoy at all. And that meant I was on full alert when it came to the festival special. Kernel Borefts IPA was brewed with rye and cara-rye. The hops included Simcoe plus a dry dose of Motueka. Everything about this murky dark orange beer screamed "Run away!" at me. So I was stunned by how good it was. The hop cocktail lines up the citric flavours in mannerly order and the rye grassiness that follows complements and accentuates it beautifully. Just when I thought I was done with rye in beer, along comes The Kernel with this.

The IPA loveliness continued with Double Black IPA, though it's brown rather than properly black. 8.8% ABV read the badge (and not very clearly: it's actually 9.8% ABV, see comments) but it could easily pass for much less, so drinkable is it. The hops bring lots of fresh and juicy orange pith and this is tempered by mild coffee and chocolate flavours. A really beautiful combination and an object lesson in how to do dark hoppy beer well.

That leaves just Kernel Breakfast Stout. So much more simple compared to the others, this is light of body with lots of sweet caramel and a hint of banana. There's just a wisp of smoke to add complexity and make it properly interesting.

This brewery, it seems, really is turning out beer as good -- or at least as bold -- as everyone says. It was great chatting with you Evin and I hope to be able to drop into Kernel HQ before too long.

Brits abroad

2011-10-11T08:18:00.000+01:00

Stillage arrangements at Borefts meant a couple of the English breweries had especially impressive bar set-ups. None more so than Thornbridge who had seven casks on the go with Dom (right) & co. at the taps. I started with the beer I'd been looking forward to most: Coalition Burton Ale was brewed at Thornbridge with the help of London's Kernel brewery and recipe input from Ron Pattinson. Strong and sweet is what I'd been told to expect from proper Burton, so I wasn't expecting the bitterness in this. 80 IBUs, apparently, and with a powerful, almost metallic, hop bang. Behind it there's a lovely soft and quenching beer, laden with tannins. I really liked it and would love the chance to taste it a few months down the line. Sadly I doubt the small batch will last anything like that long.

Also on the Thornbridge historical roster was their Courage Russian Imperial Stout, one of the iconic strong beers of Britain and one which I understand current brand owners Wells & Young are due to bring back to the market soon. In the meantime, Thornbridge have knocked up this 9.5% ABV version, dry-hopped and seasoned with sea salt. It's sticky and incredibly sweet with big brown sugar notes, tasting a little unfinished to me. Ordinarily I'd still be very impressed, but at a festival inside the De Molen brewery the standard was somewhat higher.

Evenlode was Thornbridge's other dark offering, and the weakest beer they brought, at a tiddly 6.2% ABV. A dark brown porter, it has a slightly sour and yeasty aroma and tastes very dry with lots of roasted grain. Poking around the back of the flavour I found some peaches and scented soap. The missus got a liquorice hit from it. I can see this working better in quantities greater than the 100ml festival glass.

On the paler side of the Thornbridge range there was Geminus, an imperial IPA made on rye. I'm rarely a fan of rye beers and this heavy-drinking pale orange one just gave out too much of a sweaty hop vibe to be enjoyably drinkable. Your rye-based mileage may vary, of course. Halcyon 2009 IPA was a much better proposition. Despite getting on in years now, this has masses of fresh mandarin pith sitting slickly on a smooth, heavy body, shown off beautifully by the cask conditioning. It's a little sweet and sticky, with a touch of boiled sweet about it, but the hops stop it from being cloying and keep it drinkable, even at 7.7% ABV.

That just leaves the two 10%+ whoppers on the Thornbridge stillage. Alliance 2007 (picture, right) was another collaboration beer, this one brewed with the help of Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery. Pouring a very attractive dark amber shade, it shows off lots of boozy wood but in very suave sophisticated way: all smoothness and charm with none of the cloying impetuousness of younger wooded beer. I can see this working great as a fireside beer. It's fine in a brewery car park on a sunny September afternoon too, mind. The same goes for Alchemy XIV barley wine. Though rather pale for the style it's quite big-bodied and loaded with flavour. I got honey, toffee and lavender in different measures: the floral notes complementing the sticky malt quite beautifully.

All-in-all a great showing from Thornbridge and I really relished the opportunity to try the beers I read so much about but rarely see in real life.

Next we go up to the windmill beer garden where Manchester's Marble brewery had their gravity casks arrayed. They weren't playing the same high-strength game and even brought along Pint, their 3.9% ABV bitter. Perhaps they were trying to attract custom from the Dutch beer consumers' union. Pint is a clear yellow shade and very much hop forward. I found it a little watery, though the flavour did start to build quite nicely as I drank. Obviously it's not meant to be consumed in these tiddly festival glasses. At 5.9% ABV, Dobber worked much better. This hazy pale ale has lots of satsuma in the aroma and adds a coriander spiciness in the flavour. Supremely refreshing, I thought.

I didn't get Chocolate Marble at all: a soapy nose and rather dry tasting but with very little discernible chocolate. But then it was my last beer on the Friday so perhaps it's another one that needs a larger serve to be appreciated. Decadence imperial stout was much better suited to the festival milieu: there's a wonderful union of big bitter hops and rich dark chocolate to give a powerful coffee and oranges taste sensation.

Marble Barley Wine is quite a simple and pleasant one. Over 10% ABV and oozing big ripe strawberry flavours. For something more complicated and complex, there was Old Manchester, brewed with recipe input from Fuller's John Keeling. The hops are a mix of Goldings, Motueka and Simcoe, brewed to 7.3% ABV and given an extra dose of dry Simcoe. The result is a loud beer, yelling candied fruits at first, then throwing a serious big citric tang and hard bitterness into the glorious cacophony.

Another English brewery I don't see enough of, but there was one set up just behind Marble whom I'd never met before at all...

Borefts!

2011-10-10T08:01:00.000+01:00

And so we went to Bodegraven, the wife and I, and our fellow Dublin-based beer traveller Derek. We went for the third annual Borefts Bier Festival, a two-day gig at the De Molen brewery featuring an invitation-only roster of brewers from around Europe and a wide selection of serious geek-bait beers. You want it imperial? You want it sour? You want it imperial and sour? This is where you're supposed to be in late September.

Our host was showing off his everso shiny new brewery, a couple of hundred metres down the street from the De Molen windmill, so the festival was set over two locations and a steady traffic of drinkers wandered between them. It was possibly the most civilised beer festival I've ever been at: a diverse crowd from pushchair pushing families all the way up to elderly gentlemen who look liked they were more used to pints and pipes than 100ml glasses but who were having a great time nonetheless. The guy on the left even rolled up on Friday afternoon for a couple of snifters. Food was plentiful, facilities were suitable and no-one got rowdy, unpleasant or any way less than convivial, at least from what I saw.

Like all good beer festivals, it was an opportunity for brewers to show off some new and experimental recipes, and of course De Molen, with a bar at both sites, got stuck right in. Festival Smoked Black IPA was the first of theirs I tried, and I wasn't sure what to make of it really. You get some beautifully zingy fresh peach flavours seriously dirtied up by harsh and phenolic peat notes. Normally I like both of these elements in beer, but together in one glass just tasted wrong. And it looks like Black IPA may have moved on before I've got a proper punt at the style. Oh well.

Top gimmick of the weekend was De Molen Eer & Geweten, an 11% ABV imperial stout, again made especially for the festival. Upon entry, as well as a tasting glass, programme, bottle of water and some beer tokens, everyone was given an entry form on which to guess this beer's mystery ingredient. Finding anything specific in a big imperial stout is a needle-in-a-haystack job. The beer itself was gorgeous, with loads of gooey chocolate overlaid with delicious cherry flavours and a hint of sherry. A slight sourness at the back meant that "plums" went down as my guess. I was wrong and, so it seems, was everyone else. The secret ingredient was later revealed to be aged balsamic vinegar. Perhaps that's where those mild sour notes came from. Stand by for the new wave of balsamic vinegar beers.

Two versions of the deservedly legendary Hel & Verdoemenis imperial stout were on tap. Hel & Verdoemenis 666 Vintage 2011 was one of the overall standout beers for me: infused with 40-year old-cognac soaked out of oak chips. Massively heavy, with the sumptuous thick chocolate almost demanding a churro to be dipped in it. Hel & Verdoemenis MacAllan was less successful: the flavours from the scotch barrel have taken over completely and left next to no stoutiness, unfortunately. Next to it, Rasputin Bruichladdich imperial stout tasted almost bland, but showed much better balance between sweet roasted coffee and slightly woody whisky, all in a lighter and more drinkable package, despite being all of 11.4% ABV.

The Russian theme continues with two versions of Tsarina Esra. Yes, that's another imperial stout. Esra Cognac came out very dry, rather harsh, and unpleasantly spirituous. Wild Esra on Cherries, however, was fantastic. The feral yeast have chomped their way through the high gravity wort leaving an 11% ABV stout with the light body of one less than half its strength. It's beautifully warm and roasty, shot through with puckering sour notes in equal parts from the yeast and the fruit. An amazing symphony of contrasting flavours and an absolute work of art.

Last of the De Molen stouts is Hart & Ziel, a sweet and fruity 11%-er. None of your dark and brooding roasty bitterness here, this is all floral and fruity high notes of raspberries and vanilla with just a smidge of smooth, sweet coffee. Beautiful.

It being Bock season in the Netherlands, De Molen had one out, typically dark red and sticky but with nothing very special about it. The house lager of the moment is an interesting construction: Fresh-Hopped Bohemian is a grainy brewpub pils at heart but has a fantastic bright and clean aroma of lager malt and new hops.

Lastly a couple of pale ales. Bed & Breakfast isn't one to get out of bed for, being slightly oxidised but otherwise uninteresting. Then Amarillo Upgreyde which is nearly too interesting. I first encountered Chris O wandering around the brewery carpark looking a little bewildered by it. My initial impression from its aroma was scented handwipes: there's definitely something a bit cleaning-product about it. It tastes powerfully perfumed, with Earl Grey notes of sweet lemon candy and bitter bergamot. It just didn't sit right with me but my drinking companions were much better disposed towards it.

OK, that's the first of the twelve breweries covered. With cheery thanks to Menno for hosting the gig and brewing some absolute crackers, we move on.

Home, and away

2011-10-07T08:15:00.000+01:00

For only the second time in its history, The Session comes to Ireland. This one's in the care of my good friend and drinking buddy Reuben, and the topic is Thanks To The Big Boys. It's something we know a bit about here, with two foreign breweries controlling 90-something per cent of the beer market. But I'm not going to talk about them.

Instead, a different foreign multinational which operates in Ireland, though three beers it doesn't actually sell here. These came courtesy of Reuben himself, via Kristy and the MolsonCoors people in the UK. All three are brewed at the William Worthington Brewery which is sited in the National Brewery Museum at MolsonCoors's base in Burton-on-Trent, recently developed and expanded under the supervision of master brewer Steve Wellington, one of the most respected names in English beer. So how does the Canadio-American giant do when it comes to quaint English ale?

The only truly modern one in the bunch is Red Shield, a brand extension from the well-known White Shield IPA. This suffers a bit from the problem Pete Brown identified with Stella Black a while ago: breweries should not include a beery colour in a beer name if the beer isn't actually that colour. Brown's Law. So Red Shield isn't red, it's a golden blonde affair throwing off bittersweet scents of posh cloudy lemonade from the the get-go. After it you get lovely summery fresh peachy flavours, deepening to boiled sweets with the bitterness asserting itself as it warms. I'm not seeing much in common with the stoic orangey warmth of White Shield, but as a lightly-sparkled zingy sunny day refresher, served chilled, Red Shield is impossible to dislike.

Next up is Worthington E. An odd choice for resurrection, this, as it was previously best known from its time as a dodgy bitter back in the 1970s, before England learned how to brew nice keg beer. Prior to that it had been a well-respected Burton pale ale, and the recipe used here is one from 1965. It is, for rheumey-eyed hankerers after the classic beers from England's Big Six, the closest thing to Bass ale as it was in its heyday. (For those not familiar with the history, Bass acquired the Worthington brewery in 1927, and in 2002 MolsonCoors took possession of the Bass brewery, the recipes and everything else except the Bass name).

I can't imagine this bottle-conditioned version is much like the cask classic. It's fizzy as all hell with an irritating thick mattress of foam blocking access to the slightly hazy dark amber body beneath. The nose is subtly hoppy, reminding me of the not unpleasant stale beer aroma of a mostly-empty pub on a Saturday afternoon. The first pull delivers sticky, hard caramel followed by a mildly bitter orange oiliness. It keeps its balance and finishes on a classic Burton spark of gunpowder sulphur. In that typical English way it's understated without being at all bland; but the whole is let down by the overactive prickly fizz. This beer deserves more quiet dignity than the bottle affords it.

Last of the line-up is P2, a name which for me conjures images of Roberto Calvi hanging from Blackfriars Bridge with bricks in his pockets. No, I wasn't part of the focus group when this was launched. It's a full-on big-flavoured imperial stout, making waves at 8% ABV normally associated with beers in the 10-12% bracket. Like all the best imperial stouts the hops have been laid on heavy and bitter, giving an invigorating vegetal tang to the foretaste. The middle is all smooth and woody sherry followed by luxuriously silky dark chocolate. 8% ABV: I check the label again like a drunk in a cartoon. When the dark booziness leaves the stage the hops stir themselves for a slightly metallic encore. P2 is one of those complex but very drinkable beers that expert British brewers excel at.

Of course, any sane beer drinker knows that brewery size is no measure of beer quality, and that delicious beer can come from a Fortune 500 company just as easily as a tiny family-run one, so long as attention is paid to the ingredients and the methods. MolsonCoors may not be quite Fortune 500, but they seem to know what they're doing at the William Worthington plant.

Thanks to Reuben and the MolsonCoors UK folk for the bottles.

Next month The Session crosses the Irish Sea to be looked after by Mr. Brown himself, but we're taking it back in December when Steve in Cookstown will be at the reins.

Gebraut in Amerika

2011-10-05T08:40:00.000+01:00

Blumenau -- pic from Wikimedia Commons

We had a visitor from Brazil at the monthly Beoir homebrewers' meeting in the Bull & Castle a couple of weeks ago (hi Tiago!). Though not a brewer himself, he brought us a few bottles of one of his favourites from back home: Eisenbahn Weizenbock. The brewery is based in Blumenau, a little piece of Germany in southern Brazil, and the output is appropriately Teutonic. The weizenbock certainly hits all the dark caramelised banana notes you'd expect from the style, though it lacks the spicy finesse found in top-drawer strong and dark wheat beers like Aventinus. One could get cross that it's another one of those by-the-book South American beers that shows little by way of creative brewing flair, but that would be churlish and ignores how tasty the contents of the glass actually are.

Meanwhile, on the Bull & Castle bar, a rotating tap had been given over to Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest. I had high hopes for this: a brewery as conscientious as Sierra Nevada wouldn't produce one of those awful sticky orange Oktoberfests that all the other American craft breweries do, would they? Sadly, they would: whatever demonic force compels them all to turn out these cloying horrors instead of something resembling clean German-style Oktoberfestbier was at work in the Chico brewhouse. Do people actually manage to get through this by the litre in the US? The thought is stomach-churning.

One nil to Brazil when the whistle went.

On the pig's back

2011-10-03T08:45:00.000+01:00

Hooray for freebies! The lovely people at Hogs Back in Surrey have been keeping FedEx busy and my beer fridge full with their wares. Before it burst at the seams I figured I'd better get to work clearing them.

Hop Garden Gold I opened one evening, arriving home from work tired, thirsty and in need of a hoppy pick-me-up. Gold it certainly is: dark, starting to shade towards red. Not much by way of head or fizz as it pours: usually a good sign in the drinkability stakes. It's pretty heavy, though, which limits its thirst-quenching power. The nose is sticky and even a little sickly, but the taste pulls the whole thing back from oblivion. It's not the hop-forward quaffer I was expecting, but it has some lovely floral honey flavours, spiked with jasmine and hibiscus. Rather than something to quickly drown my thirst it became one to sit over and enjoy slowly. Which I did.

I was still thirsty at the end, though, so opened a TEA. Can't say I'm a fan of the use of the word "traditional" on beer labels generally, and "Traditional English Ale" is more meaningless than most. Still, a 4.2% ABV loose-bubbled brown bitter. What's not to like? Well, there's really not a whole lot to it. Virtually no aroma, and no crispness or tannic notes. I get a little hint of caramel at the end, and as it warms this turns a little more complex to slightly tart red berries, but overall there's not enough here to hold my attention. For "traditional" read "boring", I'm afraid.

They also sent me a couple of the new season winter beers. Rip Snorter is the strong one, all of 5% ABV and a lovely shade of dark amber -- clear, of course, due to the brewery's open committment to brewery conditioning. The carbonation is low once again and that lets the heavy warming malt through. It's not any way boozy or hot, however: more ripe and full like squashy strawberries or country wine. There's a solid kick of bitterness at the front and a dry finish that does wonders for its balance and drinkability. I can see this really coming into its own when the nights draw in, and at that strength there's no need to stop at one.

Impressed by Rip Snorter, I was more sceptical about the full-on Christmas ale Advent. Only 4.4% ABV? That can't be good. It looks the part at least: dark red, shading to brown and it tastes... surprisingly nice, actually. It has a lot of the coffee and milk chocolate character of a brown-malt-laden porter, but adds in some subtly Christmassy spice as well (without the addition of actual spices, I think. It's not one of those beers). While definitely not as wintery and warming as the Rip Snorter, it's tasty, easy-going and sessionable. I imagine it would be great with Christmas pudding without being too filling. But perhaps it's just a bit early for thoughts like that.

Some lovely new additions there to the bottled English ales on sale in Ireland (available in all good etc etc). Thanks to John at Hogs Back for sending them over. Particular kudos for the way they've set their carbonation: this sort of light and loose sparkle should be an example to other brewers of how to do bottled ale well.

Alternative arrangements

2011-09-29T08:34:00.000+01:00

I missed all the rí-rá agus ruaille-buaille of the first All-Ireland Craft Beerfest, held at the RDS last weekend. A shame because it was, by all accounts, a storming success. Big congratulations to the organisers and a hearty pat on the back to the Beoir volunteers who stepped up and helped out. Next year I will manage my calendar more carefully. (Details of what I did instead will feature in the coming weeks as I sift through my scrawly notes.)

Lots of specials and seasonals from the Irish breweries were on tap at the festival and I really hope I'll be able to find them elsewhere at some point. The first opportunity came yesterday, on the warmest afternoon of the year in Dublin, when I dropped in to the Bull & Castle for a quencher. Thankfully, Metalman have taken the unorthodox step of making a witbier their winter seasonal and it was on tap.

Alternator's pale and hazy shade of orange has me immediately thinking of German-style weissbier, but the aroma is definitely wit: lots of coriander leaping out of the glass. On first sip I found the texture a little thin and a bit gassy, but I can't really quibble about this since cold and fizzy was exactly what I was after. Thirst slaked, there was enough left to give the flavours a bit more considered analysis, and there's plenty to be analysed: big fresh and juicy jaffa oranges first, gently spiced around the edges with that coriander, some white pepper and a properly bitter, floral hop kick. Towards the end the weissbier vibe came back as clove notes started to make themselves felt.

Overall, a cut above most interpretations of the witbier style and perfect while the sun shines. Just the one keg in the Bull & Castle so get it while it's hot, er, outside.

In it for the money

2011-09-26T08:32:00.000+01:00

Odell again. This time another of their dark malt-driven beers: 90 Shilling. It's a darkish amber colour and shows little by way of aroma. The signature fruity Odell hops are there in the flavour, but they're muted under lots of milk chocolate and a heavy dose of caramel.

While warming, it's not especially thick or heavy and the fizz keeps it from being properly mellow. Like lots of the beer from this brewery, and the dark ones in particular, it just misses the mark. Some fine tuning and it could be fantastic. As it is there's nothing wrong with it, per se, but it's less than the sum of its parts.

Meanwhile, just 12 weeks from the brewery to my back garden comes Odell's double IPA Myrcenary. Keeping things fruity, I get masses of magic mandarins on pouring what proves to be quite a pale and hazy beer, showing very little gloop for a 9.3% ABV monster.

A proper sniff shows it's no hop-bomb either, giving off innocent sherbet notes. The texture is more full-on, however: heavy and a bit greasy in the mouth. The first taste brings a gorgeous hop burn, but not harsh at all, nor inappropriately alcoholic. Smooth, warming and flavourful are what it's all about. This is not an aggressive beer, but rather charming and fun to spend time with. I'd be interested to compare it with Sierra Nevada's Torpedo. It's more subtly flavoured but I couldn't say if that's a good thing or bad in double IPA.

That subtlety means Myrcenary is scarily drinkable. Remind yourself to sip it. It's an awful beer geek cliché to say the double IPA is the best beer in the brewery's range, but with Odell it really is.

Come back Leffe, all is forgiven

2011-09-22T08:29:00.000+01:00

I guess it was one of those "I'm leaving Sainsbury's and there's still a square inch of space in my trolley!" moments. I recall the items purchased on that excursion included a duvet, a toaster, a thing for poaching eggs in the microwave, and this: Sainsbury's Abbaye blonde. This was last October and the large bottle has languished in the back of my fridge ever since.

My enthusiasm for drinking it probably lasted less than the time it took me to wedge it in next to the tea towels, and as far as I can see it's no longer sold by Sainsbury's. The web tells me it's from the Saint Omer brewery in north east France which raises a question about the "Bière de Belgique" wording on the label. Can this be translated as "Belgian-style beer"? I dunno. Though it being French would explain the awfully clunky "Premium Continental Blonde" style designation. And does anyone still buy things because they're "Continental"?

Anyhoo, it's rubbish. Though a lovely shade of dark amber, its flavour is completely hollow, showing only the faintest hints of golden syrup right at the very back. I had been bracing for something horribly sticky, and its wateriness left me feeling somewhat short-changed. On the plus side it's very easy to put away, even at 5.6% ABV. The carbonation is low so it's actually quite refreshing.

But who wants a Belgian-style blonde that's refreshing?

Murky cygnus manoeuvre

2011-09-19T08:31:00.000+01:00

"White Gold": such a lovely way to describe a beer that looks like slightly cloudy Budweiser. But I'm being facetious. Wild Swan (are there any tame swans?) is a lovely 3.5% ABV summer blonde from Derbyshire's finest, Thornbridge. I think it's an English golden ale at heart. It has the crisp lager-like refreshing qualities of the best ones, and a piquant, pithy hop bite at the finish. Even at this low strength there's also a touch of bubblegum malt coming through as well.

But that pale haziness is pure Belgian witbier. It's missing the spice, admittedly, but there's the right sort of lemony zest at the heart of the flavour, as well as the palate-cleansing fizz.

Complex enough to sit over; light enough to quaff: Wild Swan is a great all-rounder.

It's only a number

2011-09-15T08:20:00.000+01:00

The six hundred and sixty-sixth entry on my blog. Well there was only one thing for this: the bottle of Black Damnation II that Stephen from The Beer Club gave me. As is usual for this sort of super-rare imperial spoogebeer, you'll have to give me a whole paragraph while I explain what it is.

So, we have a blend of three imperial stouts, starting with 50% Struise Black Albert which has been aged on Colombian coffee beans. Add in 25% of De Molen Hel & Verdoemnis matured in Jack Daniel's barrels, and fill out the rest with Struise's Cuvée Delphine. They've subtitled it Mocha Bomb. Oo-er.

I'm guessing it never occured to them that they had all the makings of beery Irish coffee, but that's sort of how it's turned out. Yes there are hops, lots of them: deliciously bitter with plenty of fresh green veg flavour. But under that you have some pleasantly mild coffee, sweetened with brown-sugar-like malt and boozed up by the whiskey. A smooth creaminess really adds to the effect as well. Rounded, warming and exquisitely balanced, it's not a mocha bomb, it's a purring fireside pussycat.

Imperial Irish coffee. Satan in an aran sweater. Lovely.

Diageo with a human face

2011-09-12T08:51:00.000+01:00

It's a rite of passage for the Irish beer drinker to be able to reminisce on a failed Guinness brand extension. You're not fit for a bar stool if you can't bore innocent people senseless about your memories of Breó, or the St James's Gate series, or the Brewhouse series, or (the holy grail of failed Guinnesses) Guinness Light.

I've tasted most of these (yawn, yeah, whatever, grandad) and in several cases they weren't bad beers: they just weren't ready for that time and place. Diageo are currently pushing out a new brand extension -- this time to the venerable Smithwick's marque -- and, in the opinion of this amateur market analyst, it's in a much better position.

Smithwick's Pale Ale is a very pale -- blonde, really -- beer being launched on keg and in half-litre bottles around the country this month. It's 4.5% ABV and has been late hopped, including dry-hopping, with Amarillo. And it shows. While light of texture to the point of wateriness and a little on the gassy side, at least from the keg, there's no mistaking the flavour of proper hops: a sweet and juicy peachiness is given an empty stage to sing its heart out.

Cleary, a lot of thought has gone into this product, and it owes its existence to more than Diageo's general revitalising of the Smithwick's brand and the flatlining of mainstream beer sales in the developed world (though I don't doubt both those things had a lot to do with it). Why, of all things, a hop-forward pale ale?

Five years ago such things didn't exist here. Microbreweries made red ales, and lagers, and stouts and wheat beers. Then Galway Hooker came along and changed the parameters, eschewing the mainstays of Irish beer and going for high doses of Saaz and Cascades. Established craft breweries followed them and the hoppy pale ale is now in the repertoire of most of the nation's micros. It's an accessible style of beer and just different enough from the other taps on the bar to make it worth investigating. But most importantly it just tastes nice. You don't need a slick brand identity to shift this stuff, nor countless centuries of brewing heritage, nor suggestions of sophistication or the exotic. It's the sort of beer grown-ups like to drink and it stands on flavour alone.

There are apparently several more to come in this Smithwick's series, but I reckon they've started in a safe and sensible place, and my perspective on the beer offerings in the Typical Irish Pub is certainly brightened by its existence.

However, I also think there's a darker lesson for Ireland's independents. Medium-strength hoppy keg ales are done. Diageo make one now, and unless you can play the local card or have some other unique selling point I imagine it's going to be a much harder thing to flog. Time to make something else.

Monte: got a raw deal

2011-09-10T08:00:00.000+01:00

I feel shortchanged by my beer experience in Uruguay. We arrived in the picturesque seaside town of Colonia, just an hour's boat ride across the Rio Plata from Buenos Aires. We just had the one night before moving on and started the evening watching the sun set from the terrace of La Torre, a café-bar on the waterfront. They had three from the Mastra range, and Mastra Negra was my introduction to Uruguayan beer. It's a gorgeous 6.2% ABV Baltic-porter-a-like, bottle conditioned to a smooth texture with lots of chocolate and rosewater, turkish delight floral overtones plus a dry finish. I made a note to try the other Mastra beers -- a red one and a golden one -- when we got to the capital, and moved on to dinner.

That was the last I saw of Mastra. In the four subsequent days in Montevideo I never found any of it. Or much else of merit, to be honest. Patricia Porter looked promising: 5.8% ABV and a rich shade of dark brown. Plenty of brown sugar sweetness, edging on to molasses, but not really much else. Easy drinking and inoffensive. Plain old Patricia is a decent enough lager, lightly carbonated, leaning towards sweet, but with more hops than you might expect for a leading macro in a South American country.

Zillertal also gives the hops a decent outing, but they're a little musty for my tastes, and the anaemic wateriness of the lager doesn't help. A Germanic name will only carry you so far.

Probably the biggest national brand in Uruguay, at least if promotional pub furniture can be taken as any sort of measure, is Pilsen. Ironically, this is much more like a helles than a pils: smooth and sweet. Its dark gold colouring makes it look better than the others but it's really not up to much. And to further bewilder the incautious drinker there's Pilsen Stout: authentically black with red edging it's almost totally flat. Flavourwise there's not a whole lot going on: a vague sweetness, bordering on metallic saccharine plus some dry, burnt notes. It went fine with my cheese and charcuterie plate, though the roquefort drowned it somewhat.

And with that, three weeks were up and it was time to go home. Some beautiful beers in South America, and some stinkers. Just like Europe, then.

The big guns

2011-09-09T08:23:00.000+01:00

To this northern European it's a very alien drinking culture they have in Argentina. It would almost be fair to say that they don't really have one. Beer tends to be treated almost the way we treat wine: shared comunally with meals. The human need for mild psychoactive stimulation appears to be taken care of by the ever-present mate -- a ubiquitous cross between tea-drinking and pipe-smoking. In several places, a request just for beer was met with well-OK-then suspicious looks, though doubtless I could have got my mate thermos filled with hot water as a basic courtesy. On one occasion I ordered a beer while perusing the menu in a restaurant and since my wife didn't, the 33cl bottle arrived to the table with two glasses. These bizarre backward foreigners with their weird notions of beer being something to be served in large bottles and enjoyed with food. What do they know, eh?

One upshot of such practice is that big bottles are the norm for most beers, certainly the stuff the mainstream breweries produce. For some unfathomable reason 970ml is the standard measure (and cm³ is the standard unit). There's a definite thrill of the exotic when glancing through the window of a classy restaurant to see a family at table with giant mutant bottle of Stella Artois in a silver ice bucket on the side.

None of that for me though. On a cool sunny day in downtown Puerte Iguazu, however, I did partake in a big bottle of Iguana. I love the branding on this, though the beer is a very simple and thin quenching hot-country lager, designed for taking edges off thirsts and nothing else. The other biggie I met, again in Iguazu where choice was severely limited, was Palermo Ice. Quite smooth and sweet, this, in almost a Munich Helles style.

Only two servings of Quilmes Cristal passed my lips on the trip, one being in a pub which I'd been told had a great beer selection, and indeed featured well over a dozen taps, but for some reason (recent change of ownership?) was serving only Stella and Quilmes and I was too tired and thirsty to back out. It was horrible. The other was in the Iguazu Falls park itself, after a long morning of trailing about in hot sunshine we sat down for an empanada and an ice-cold Quilmes straight from the can. It was nectar. I didn't enjoy the stout or bock from the same brewery when last we met, but my curiosity was piqued by Quilmes Red Lager. It's a red-brown beer with some nice roasted flavours at first, but it gets too sickly too quickly and I resorted to draining the remains straight from the bottle, confident I wasn't missing much by way of sensory experience.

Imperial Lager I met on the terrace of an upmarket bar in the rejuvenated dockland district of Puente Madero. It looks the part, or maybe that's just because it was a nice day. A bit stronger than the usual at 5.5% ABV, it's another sweet one, expressing hints of banana ester that get louder as it sits around. But that's about it: definitely not as especial as the label would have you believe.
I'm not sure where on the macro-independent-craft spectrum the beer from Otro Mundo sits, but I'm sticking the one I had in here: Otro Mundo Golden Ale: a bold move to sell it in a half-litre bottle, I'm sure. It's very pale and quite hazy with some fun fruit tartness: a bit of apple and some light lemons. First impression is of a light and zesty ale for witbier lovers, though wait a while and there's some toffee to be found in here as well. Passable, I thought.

The brass-neck award for audacious marketing bullshit goes to Schneider, one of the major lager brands and one which makes big claims about its German heritage and standards. Featuring the signature of old Herr Schneider himself, it's brewed "according to German tradition". I caught up with it on the ferry crossing to Uruguay, where the label's fine print confessed to "cereales" of the non-malt variety, as well as stabilisers and anti-oxidants. In short it's a hideous adjunct lager: dry, dull and unpleasant. I don't think I've ever seen a beer put this much distance between what it is and what it claims to be.

And then, just like that, we were in Uruguay.

Colonial stylings

2011-09-08T00:02:00.000+01:00

Continuing with the craft beers I found out and about in Buenos Aires, the city boasts two English theme pubs at opposite ends of the centre. The Gibraltar and Bangalore are both dark and cosy bars, with comfy leather seats and open fires perfect for taking the chill out of a dark blustery August evening. If they opened during the day they'd both have got a lot more of my business, not least for Kingston the cask ale they both sell.

Here we have the clearest indication of the confusion between Scotch ale and IPA in Argentina: Kingston is billed as the former in The Gibraltar but is an IPA in Bangalore, perhaps to fit better with the pub's overall theme. Anyway it's definitely on the sweet side with little to say for itself as regards hops. There are lots of other things going on instead, though: milk chocolate and caramel first, then some sharp perfume notes: orange blossom, turning to jasmine. Behind this there's a tannic quality which gives it enormous thirst-quenching power and prevents it from getting too cloying or overly sweet.

Both these pubs, plus many of the Irish theme pubs littering Buenos Aires, advertised three beers under the Gambrinus marque. Gambrinus Pilsner was an odd one: perfume again, at least at first, and giving off an unsettling air of urinal cake. This fades and it's plain old dull yellow fizz after that, with maybe a smack of extra pils bitterness. Gambrinus Pale Ale is a nitrogenated red with typical yucky, sticky caramel, then adding injury to insult with a galvanic metal tang on the finish.

The only reason I didn't give up on the whole range in the first place was that I tried the Gambrinus Stout first and was hoping for more in this vein. It's chocolatey with some lovely dark fruit sweetness thrown in, and just when you've got bored of that it adds extra dry roast and a vegetal hop tang to the palate. A little bit Murphy's and a little bit Wrassler's, I really enjoyed it. Plenty to take my mind of the €6 it cost for a pint.

Argie spargie

2011-09-07T08:23:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned yesterday, Buenos Aires is a big and sprawly city and involved quite a bit of walking. Fortunately there are a few decent pubs spacing out all those monuments commemorating arse-kickings delivered to, and received from, the Brits (final score 2-2 after extra time). I was particularly glad of Territorio down in the Bohemian neighbourhood of San Telmo. It's a stylish street-corner café with a few decent beers which, crucially for the meandering tourist, opens in the afternoon.

Aside from the better ones from Antares, they also had Dorada Patagónica, a cloudy, slightly weissbier-like, blonde ale from Cervecería Gülmen. It's rather more forward with its hops than your typical weiss, however, displaying some gorgeous succulent mandarins alongside an almost Belgian yeasty spice. Highlight of the menu for me, though, was Yapai Negra Especial. I've seen this stylised as a porter elsewhere but it tasted much more like a dark lager to me: red-brown, quite thin with lots of fine sparkle. There's a hint of light caramel, some mild roast and then a wave of sherbetising hops. As a bonus there's even a slight smoky finish. Yapi do a fully smoked version but sadly I never saw it on sale anywhere. Negra Especial is sublimely refreshing, and one of the few beers I met that manages to get all of its complexities out even when served at the low low temperatures preferred by the Argentinians.

There were two from El Búho on the Territorio menu but they weren't in stock. I caught up with another of their range at Cruzat, the bar with the most diverse selection of beers I found. Though, once again, the menu bore little resemblance to what was actually available, but they have the good sense to put the beer fridge out on the main floor on a semi-self-service basis.

El Búho Imperial Stout wasn't really worth the wait. The aroma starts with some promising, but worryingly understated, roast grain but follows it with sweet porridgey wort. And it's the porridge that dominates the taste, missing all the big-hop, big-roast marks that make imperial stouts great. A failure of the style and a failure of a beer, unfortunately. It probably didn't help its case that it was served next to possibly the single best beer I tasted in Argentina: Montechristo Imperial Stout. You only have to look at the photo to see the difference in densities. Montechristo is 11% ABV, supremely dense and silkily smooth. Both aroma and flavour lay on the coffee and molasses at the centre of the palate, adding gentle chocolate and lavender high notes to make it approachable, drinkable and, most importantly, fun.

All down hill from here, then. Berlina India Pale Ale is another one of those dark-red toffee-laden Argentine IPAs. This one at least has a teeny bit of mild hop flavour, reminding me a little of some US brown ales I've tried. There are no off flavours and it's overall an enjoyable though unexciting beer. Siete y ½ Cream Stout was what I was given on ordering the smoked stout, before I figured out that it's easier to just help oneself from the Cruzat fridge. Anyway I'm not sure I missed much: the sour infected smell from this suggests a brewery with a general hygiene problem. Whatever got in here chomped through the sugar very efficiently so instead of a creamy cream stout it's something as thin and gassy as a schwarzbier, and not a good one. A little bit of gunpowder spice arrived towards the end as it warmed, but really I just wanted rid of it and on to something else.

My weird beer curiosity got the better of me when I spotted El Bolsón Con Ají, a blonde ale with chilli in. I suspect, however, that the small shred of chilli pepper floating in the bottle neck represented the sum total of chillification. The beer itself is grossly sweet, full to the rafters with cloying butterscotch. The chilli gives just a slight catch in the back of the throat which in no way makes up for the rest of this atrocity.

Moving away from the pubs, the commonest Argentinian craft beer (-ish. Made by A-B InBev, see comments. Thanks Max!) I found in shops was the Patagonia range, in their imposing 74cl bottles. With two lagers and a weissbier it's not the most curiosity-inspiring of line-ups and I never made the time to try the latter. But the lagers were decent enough. Patagonia Bohemian Pilsener (shudder ye at the broad-brush American style designation) is as clear and as golden as you'd want it to be. The hops are genuine Patagonian ones, we're told, and there's a lovely green aroma from them as it pours, though not so much by way of flavour. It's smooth and crisp, with mild mineral notes but not much by way of malt except for a tiny bit of golden syrup on the end as it warms. Perfectly drinkable and quenching, though.

Patagonia Amber Lager is also very plain fare. Pouring a much paler golden amber than I was expecting, this has never been within a llama's spitting distance of a hop. The body is very light and the carbonation is gentle enough to make it an inoffensive easy-drinker that would work well by the neck if it wasn't in such of a monster of a bottle.

More on monster bottles when we come to the macros, but tomorrow it's back to the pub again.

De la casa

2011-09-06T00:52:00.000+01:00

Brewpubs! One of the few beery things I'll go out of my way for when I'm abroad. In Buenos Aires out of my way meant a lot out of my way: the city sprawls like none other I know, with good bars and restaurants scattered far across the suburbs, and transport links which range from awkward to none. Standard Argentine opening hours make it all even harder, with most pubs closed until 6pm, restaurants to 8 or after, and the metro closing up at 10.45. The drink-eat-get-home window is rather small if you don't want to taxi everywhere.

We were lucky then (and it was pure dumb luck) that one of the city's brewpubs was a three minute stroll from our hotel in Recoleta. Buller is squeezed in to a narrow plot on a strip of restaurants but stretches back from its front door to a wide back room and upper mezzanine. The substantial brewkit sits on display at the entrance, something I always like to see. Six beers grace the laminated menu, with a seasonal on the blackboard behind the bar. Let's take it from the top:

Buller Light Lager (yes really) was actually the last one of the set I tried, for obvious reasons. As with Porterhouse Chiller (the only other craft-brewed version of the style I can think of) I surprised myself at how much I liked it. It's crisp, it's clear, it's very easy drinking and properly refreshing. In fact it's a hell of a lot better than most of the Argentine macro lagers I tasted.

The Hefeweizen is a small step up: translucent and anaemic, with hints of orange blossom and dry grain it's almost more witbier than weizen. But it's tasty and thirst-quenching and does the job. And the Oktoberfest is in the same vein. Pouring the dark amber of an American Oktoberfestbier it has more of those lightly sweet oranges from whatever hops they're using. Unlike most American Oktoberfests I've met it's entirely uncloying, keeping things light and breezy throughout.

Yet more oranges in the India Pale Ale, giving it an air of Englishness. However, it's far too sweet, neglecting the bittering hops and piling on sticky toffee where it doesn't belong. Served cold to be consumed cold, I guess. The real oddity in the house line-up was the Honey Beer: an 8.5% ABV stonker with a waxy aroma and loads of honey flavour in amongst the heavy sticky malt. It's Sugar Puffs in beer form, and not at all easy on a by-the-pint basis.

Buller Dry Stout completes the regulars. Quite a simple one this, with a little bit of roasted grain complicated by some mild dark fruit flavours, shading towards plum sourness at the finish and just catching the back of the throat with its acridity. I felt somewhat shortchanged by the whopping 5.8% ABV strength: a better brewery could do this kind of thing well under the 5% mark, I reckon.

The seasonal beer was another dark one, a Porter. Pulled straight from the homebrew handbook this was loaded with brown malt for a gorgeous smooth and rich espresso flavour, finishing with a similar fruity tang as the stout. No points for innovation, but full marks for making a top notch beer, and one of my favourites of the trip.

On to another far-flung district of the city and I'm really not sure if I should be counting Bar De Cao for this post. It's a bit of a mystery whether or not it's a brewpub, a mystery largely of my own devising due to my inability to articulate "Here, do youse actually make this stuff here?" in Spanish. On Scoopergen, Gazza says De Cao has a brewery attached, and elsewhere I've seen one of the company's other bars -- La Poesía -- listed as the brewery site. Anyway, I've been to both and saw no brewing equipment, but I did get to try the house beers. (Also, a tip of the glass at this point to Gazza for his Argentina beer guide which provided a couple of great pointers for bars in Buenos Aires. Much appreciated.)

De Cao itself is a lovely pub, being largely unspoilt since its founding in 1915 and reminding me lots of the Irish spirit grocer style of boozer, only with a bit more of a colourful Latin flourish. Their brewery, wherever it actually is, turns out three brews. De Cao Negra is the good one: very close to quality Irish stout with its light roast and hints of chocolate, but once again showing signs of mild sourness that add to its complexity. I could have stayed drinking this. I should have stayed drinking this.

De Cao Rubia is orangey-amber, hazy and looking to me more like a weissbier than a blonde ale. There must have been a complete failure on the hop utilisation front, because it's horribly porridgey: a little bit sweet and grainy and then just watery afterwards. But hey, at least it wasn't infected. De Cao Colorada, on the other hand, was. It looked so promising, with a loose-bubbled cask-like head over a hazy red body. The carbonation is very low, but that merely serves to accentuate the vinegar and the overall impression of a glass of cold runny sick. As you usually get with infected beers, somewhere underneath there were traces of what it should have been: some lightly toasted grain, a bit of gentle roast, but they were very hard to find.

"Ack! What the hell happened with this one?!" is also missing from my Spanish vocabulary, alas.

Arrivals, departures

2011-09-05T00:34:00.000+01:00

Last week's launch of the new Messrs Maguire Doppelbock was tinged with sadness. Not that there was anything wrong with the beer, you understand, it's a supremely complex 7.5% ABV dark lager, intensely sweet at first with bourbon biscuits and treacle, following through to a citric pithiness with hints of puckering sourness.

No, the sad bit is that Mel, who has been in charge of the MM brewkit for the last year or so, has been called home to the US. Mel has been hugely supportive of the beer geeks and -- far more importantly -- has taken an active role in bringing the unconverted into the city centre brewhouse to show them what beer is and how it's made. She will be missed and we selfishly hope that someone worthy of her mash paddle will be taking up the reins at the brewery before long.

And with one exit, a new appearance. From the pictures I've seen, the Dingle Brewery is an impressive operation, taking over the abandoned creamery site outside the west Kerry village and converting it into a working brewery and visitors' centre. While I'm all in favour of local beer for local people, and don't begrudge the fact that Dingle already has a brewery providing this, I was still pleased when a keg of Dingle's first lager, Crean's, showed up in Dublin's Against The Grain last week.

Rather darker than advertised, it's a deep rich gold colour. The texture is quite heavy and I think the solid dose of diacetyl might have something to do with it. I'm not one of those people who regards diacetyl as a fatal flaw in lager, but if you object to the buttery flavours it imparts then this might not be the lager for you. All in all it's a decent beer and while not a stand-out example of what Irish breweries produce, I'd be happy to drink it ahead of the other likely options in Dingle town's pubs.

A couple more new Irish beers are on the horizon and I'll hopefully get to try them in the coming weeks. Metalman débuted their third recipe, a witbier, in Waterford at the weekend. Meanwhile Diageo Ireland are about to launch their first new beer in several years: a pale ale, no less. While I'm chasing these, more on Argentina's beer, starting tomorrow.

A Cokes and a smile

2011-09-02T08:37:00.001+01:00

Anyone else remember Ray Cokes? Early-evening show on MTV Europe in the mid-1990s? No, I wouldn't admit to that in a public forum either. Perhaps Ray hasn't done as well for himself as his colleague from that time Davina McCall, but he did show up a couple of years ago on Belgian telly presenting a show about beer called Tournée Générale. The programme has since spawned a second series, and it offers us a slightly askew take on this month's Session topic -- beer art and breweriana. Curtis has asked us to pick our favourite example of cap or label art, but I'm not one for covering old ground on this blog. Instead of an artistic endeavour promoting beer, I give you a beer which promotes an artistic endeavour: season 2 tie-in beer Tournée Générale Tripel Hop.

It's brewed by Palm but the design (love that minimalism) more prominently bears the logos of the host TV channel and Ray's production company.

Though it makes no style claims, it's 7.5% ABV and fits in with the new-ish wave of Belgian IPAs. Fitting for the accompaniment to a documentary there's a long explanation of the hopping process on the bottle: Magnum for bittering, late Amarillo and dry-hopped with Cascade. The end result is a bright shade of amber, hazy with vast amounts of fizz.

Like so many of this style, the hop fruitiness gets buried under the powerful Belgian yeast, but before we even get to that there's a strongly sweet barley sugar base, with only the busy carbonation keeping it from getting too sticky. The yeast esters follow, a mix of bananas and pear drops, and only after this do the hops get a look in. Soft and succulent fruit flavours are what's going on: honeydew and nectarine for the most part.

It's an enjoyable and well-constructed beer, all in. I'm even more impressed that a show about beer had the good sense to put an accompanying brew together, one which showcases excellently what malt, hops and yeast do. Interactive TV at its best; breweriana you can drink.

Look south

2011-08-31T08:02:00.004+01:00

My summer hols took me to Argentina for most of August. The main things on the agenda were the Iguazu Falls (spectacular), beef (spectacular) and Malbec (surprisingly unspectacular, at least at the price bracket I was drinking). Of course I managed to squeeze in a beer or two as well: I know you'd have been disappointed if I didn't have a post for you about South American suds. Turns out I have six of them. You lucky people.

The only Argentinian independent I'd heard of before I left home was Antares, and their beer was relatively easy to come by in Buenos Aires. On the way to dinner one evening we dropped in to their tap in the upmarket Palermo district of the city. Antares reminds me a lot of Ireland's own Porterhouse. They started out as a pioneering brewpub in Mar del Plata which they have since outgrown to become the largest craft beer brand in the country, with a string of tied houses as well as distribution to supermarkets and other pubs. The Buenos Aires branch is a high-ceilinged bar in the modern-brewpub style of raw concrete and shiny copper, with the beer coming straight from conditioning tanks behind the bar.

They don't do much by way of cold-fermenting, it seems, so if you want yellow fizz it'll have to be Antares Kölsch. It looks the part: a clear, bright yellow. My preference is for kölsch to be dry but this doesn't quite hit the mark for me. Instead it's actually quite sweet, with a sour kick on the end giving it a sort of lemon candy vibe. Just a little bit of dry grain in the middle redeems it, but there's really not a whole lot going on here. It's passable. Their Porter is rather better: light and fun with smacks of caramel and marzipan, deserving of outings in measures greater than 33cl.

There's a Cream Stout, a big lad at 7% ABV and a major victim of Argentina's preference for all beer at 5°C or under. At first I thought it was completely tasteless, but given a few minutes it comes out of its shell to show some mild but pleasant roast and coffee flavours, as well as that weighty texture implied by the name. It's actually much stoutier than what Antares have dubbed their Imperial Stout, a beer which is pretty much red in colour and with no high-impact flavours, just a light dryness and maybe a hint of toffee. At only 1.5% ABV stronger than the Cream Stout I'm not sure why they bother with this.

On the paler side of things there's Antares IPA. Oops! Forgot to put the hops in. There's a little bit of toffee in this hazy amber affair, but not much else. Better, and more expected, toffee was to be found in the Scotch Ale: a dark red with little by way of head and some lovely caramel and bourbon biscuit malt. Like the Porter, it's simple, sweet and enjoyable.

Antares's best work is with stronger pale beers. They make a very drinkable Barley Wine, a big hitter at 10% ABV which, when given time to warm up, is full of pithy bitterness and boozy heat: perfect for keeping out the early spring chill. I also enjoyed their seasonal Wee Heavy, an amber-gold ale served in large bottles, featuring an intense strawberry aroma and a similar foretaste of ripe and squishy red berries, followed by smooth warming caramel. I suspect it could get a bit cloying if it got too warm, but served at the usual temperature it worked rather well, I thought.

A mixed bag from Antares, then, making it perhaps representative of Argentinian craft beer in general. But more on that on the other side of Friday's Session.

But I know what I like

2011-08-29T08:02:00.004+01:00

I respect BrewDog for their beer-as-art Abstrakt series. Anything that does something different with beer in terms of ingredients, processes and flavours is good in my book. Not that I would ever considering buying any Abstrakt beer, of course: it's hideously expensive and for as long as there's other, cheaper, interesting stuff on the shelves I'll go for that instead.

So I owe this post to the wonky packaging plant at BrewDog HQ, and the time it sent a batch of AB:03 out into the world with no labels on the bottles. Having secured saleable replacements, DrinkStore gave the defective ones away and, after a year or so of ageing in my attic, I'm finally getting round to drinking this one.

"Imperial Ale Aged Over Two Years In Whisky Casks With Raspberries And Strawberries" is the official description, with a strength of 10.5% ABV. The pour gives a hazy chestnut beer, quite thick of body with big floaty bits and topped by an ivory head. Brown sugar and molasses on the nose, and it's definitely malt-driven on tasting, though not cloying or overly sticky. A piquancy from the fruit cuts through it quite beautifully, the way we normally expect hops to, and this sits next to a pleasant pepperiness which I'm guessing is yeast-derived.

It's a sipper, no doubt, and one that could pass easily for much stronger than it is. The whisky barrels have put a boozy edge to it that sets me on my guard. If you've bought one and still have it, treat it as an after-dinner beer in place of a liqueur.

And before you ask, no: much as I enjoyed it I'm not now an Abstrakt subscriber at current prices, but I can understand why someone with the money to spare would be. A freebie is always welcome, though. Give the labelling machine a nudge if you're passing.

Dinner for two, with drinks

2011-08-25T08:09:00.005+01:00

The 75cl bottle is, I think, one of our greatest allies in the campaign to get beer taken seriously (or at least frivolously) as an accompaniment to food. Wine goes with food because it's strong, robustly flavoured and a 75cl bottle allows two people to share flavours in common even if what's on their plates is different. The infinite flexibility of beer means that this niche is completely open to it as well. And though the Italians are playing a fast game of catch-up here, with the Dutch and Americans also making their presence felt, the accomplished masters at big bottles of strong complex beers are the Belgians.

Kasteel Cuvée du Chateau, the subject of this post, isn't even a particularly special example. A dark ale of 11% ABV it suffers a bit from the sherry-like heat I've met in Kasteel beer before. Beyond that you get some nice figgy fruit and a hint of wintery nutmeg spice. Nothing to blow your socks off by itself, but it did pretty well with some minty lamb burgers, though the grease probably could have done with a bit more fizz to cut through it. The beer really came into its own when I turned to the cheese, however. The big sweet boozy flavour matched fantastically well with the earthy funk in my bleu d'Auvergne, improving both beer and cheese in equal, substantial, measure.

The lesson here is that even medicore beer can be put to work in a foodie context, as long as the basic parameters are right. And if you want a really good strong dark Belgian ale, well there are plenty of them out there too.

Pair o' hawks

2011-08-22T08:10:00.000+01:00

I think I may finally be running out of new American beers to try. I mean no slight to the good brewers of Mendocino, but you're close to the bottom of the barrel right now.

Black Hawk Stout first, a quite simple and tasty affair. Lots of sweet portery chocolate and raisins, finishing on a dry note that bends slightly towards metallic at the end. Texturewise it could benefit from being smoother: there's lots of prickly fizz and I found it interfered with the rich dark notes underneath. Still an enjoyable beer, and at 5.2% ABV it's entirely possible to drink a few in one sitting, if that's the kind of thing you like to do.

Me, I moved straight along to Eye of the Hawk, an 8% ABV strong ale. It's actually quite refreshing for all its alcohol. Neither the hops nor malt jump out in any big way, there's just a light white grape fruitiness and some slightly sticky cookie sweetness. As it warms it does take a turn towards cloying, with the booze making its presence felt more and more, and doing a disturbingly good impression of trampish lager. A bit more generosity in the hops department could probably have stopped that from happening. In fact, I'd nearly recommend drinking this on a sharing basis, to ensure the measures are small enough to keep the temperature down. Don't take too long over it, however, and you have a winner.

Two solid decent beers here. I think there are a couple more from the same brewery knocking around the Dublin offies. I'll give them a go if I see them.

No mean lager

2011-08-18T08:02:00.000+01:00

Following on from last month's review of BrewDog Avery Brown Dredge, another British lager, this one from Meantime in east London where BrewDog's regular lagers are currently produced. London Lager comes in a dinky 33cl and is designed, I assume, for the style-conscious bottle-by-the-neck brigade who'd otherwise be on the Corona or similar.

It's certainly rather lacking on the aroma front: I get little beyond fizzy water on the nose. But the flavour is quite pleasantly full-on, even cold from the fridge. Lots of toasty whole-grain pilsner malt, given a gently herbal complexity from the hops, plus a smack of golden syrup as it warms. I fall to my knees in thanks to the lager gods that it's not nettley or otherwise unpleasantly Germanic. I'm not sure it's especially British either, nor yet is it generic world lager. While comfortingly familiar, I can't really place where I've tasted something like this before. Maybe I just don't drink enough lager.

Anyway, Meantime's dry yet thirst-quenching London Lager gets a thumbs up from me.

Dutch Kerrygold

2011-08-15T08:32:00.000+01:00

One for the home brewers, this: Olm Pilsener, from Weesp, not far from Amsterdam. It's appearing on draught in an increasing number of Dublin pubs and is priced very much for the budget-conscious at well under €4 a pint. And, if the pint I had is in any way typical, it's the perfect reference point for what diacetyl tastes like in beer. Despite the pale pale yellow colour and the busy fizz gushing from the head-keeper at the bottom of the glass, it is very much like drinking a pint of Werther's Originals. A liquid butterbomb of the highest magnitude.

In my very tolerant way I did get through the full pint: it's light enough not to get too cloying though I did start to find it quite sickly towards the end. And no, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone except those who approach it in the spirit of zymurological inquiry. Everyone else should probably order something different. Something, y'know, nice.

There's fresh and there's fresh

2011-08-11T08:43:00.000+01:00

October 2010 was the bottling date on my Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale Ale so I wasn't expecting a whole lot of fresh hop oomph from it. Possibly no bad thing: I've always found the competing product from Sierra Nevada to be just a smidge too busily acidic. Hoping for something mellower and more mature, I poured.

A slightly hazy beer came forth, on the darker side of amber with a thick layer of froth. Not much by way of hop aroma but some lovely big caramel and candyfloss malt, more than you might expect from a mere 6.1% ABV. The big malt gives it lots of body, though the higher-falutin' hop tones are quiet, there's some lovely juicy middle range flavours of mango and peach, and under that a firm but enjoyable spiky spiced bitterness. The weight keeps the fizz in check and the total sum is a relaxing sippable pale ale, hop-driven but showing well-judged balance too.

Wild West Argyll

2011-08-08T08:18:00.000+01:00

Hurricane Jack and Maverick: they sound like beers better suited to a tumbleweed-strewn frontier town, drunk by hard-bitten ranchers. As-is they're from western Scotland, and the Fyne Ales brewery.

Starting with the blonde Hurricane Jack, much like its stablemate Jarl, I got a bang of hops the second the cap came off. Pouring revealed a deceptively watery looking beer, very slightly hazy and appearing for all the world like any number of crappy lagers. It doesn't smell like any of them, however, being aleishly sweet and bubblegummy, giving overtones of orangeade and a little gunpowder spice as well. It's heavier than Jarl, having a very full body for a mere 4.4% ABV with only a gentle hum of carbonation. And despite the fun and fruity aroma, the taste is very bitter to begin with, almost sour, in fact. The flavour comes behind it and is all orange pith and wax, the sharpness just held in check by that big soft texture. I found it a bit of a workout to drink. Even by the end of the glass my palate hadn't quite adjusted to all that bitterness. It's just a little too jaw-piercing for me, overall.

I waited a few minutes before opening Maverick, dark red-brown and malt-driven with a firm off-white head. Again (I think, unless it's residual from the earlier beer) the bitterness is at the front of this, though much milder. There's little by way of hop flavour and instead just a flash of bourbon biscuit and caramel before the dry bitterness reasserts itself. I can't say it does much for me: I'd like more fruit, more biscuit, and as I write that I realise what I want it to be is Clotworthy Dobbin. Dammit, Whitewater, you've ruined me for dark red sweet beers with any kind of mild hop complexity. Maverick is still pretty drinkable, however, so I didn't have to stew over it for very long.

That, I think, is the end of the Fyne Ales range currently available to me right now. Nobody will be surprised to hear that Jarl's the star.

Something oude, something new

2011-08-05T08:21:00.002+01:00

"Time shows no respect for that which is done without it" reads the inscription hanging in the Cantillon brewery in Brussels. Making lambic is not something one simply waltzes into: it's an art which requires time and skill more akin to the making of whiskey than normal beer brewing. So one tends not to see new brands of Belgian lambic popping up very often: the established houses in and around Brussels have the market pretty much to themselves.

So, for this month's Session, it was very exciting to find myself opening a bottle from a completely new lambic maker. Tilquin doesn't actually brew the beer from scratch but buys it in from the established breweries and ages, blends and bottles it. The process started over two years ago but the first Tilquin beer wasn't released to consumers until just a few months back.

Gueuze Tilquin A L'Ancienne is the uniquely Wallonese name of the first release, though the more familar Flemish term "Oude Gueuze" is also on the label. The base beers came from Boon, Lindeman, Girardin and Cantillon -- each with their own in-house ecosystems of wild yeasts and bacteria which contribute to the taste of their beer.

Tilquin introduces itself with a sharp aroma, a very typical lambic one which always puts me in mind of brick-lined cellars and nitre stalagmites. The cloudy orange beer is a much smoother drink than the nose suggests, however. Sour yes, but not strikingly so. The ageing process has mellowed it wonderfully and in with the tangy lambic zing there's a sappy fresh oak woodiness as well. Lambics are usually barely hopped at all, but I also detected a touch of pithy orange in this.

The intense fizz, the fruity tang and the full-on sourness make for a beer as invigorating as a faceful of iced water. Yet wood and time have added a smoother, more contemplative dimension to it as well. It's very much a beer to savour slowly.

I look forward to more blends from Maison Tilquin in due course. But no rush.

One non-blonde

2011-08-03T08:44:00.007+01:00

Thanks to DrinkStore for the eagerly-anticipated bottle of BrewEyed Blond, one of the newest Irish beers to start seeing off licence shelves.

At its début in Galway last spring, the Metalman guys reckoned this was quite similar to their own pale ale, so obviously I've been looking forward to assessing that for myself. Pouring from a bottle which is resplendent in '70s tracksuit livery, it's definitely amber rather than blonde: a bright, clear copper shade. Some mildly assertive hops on the nose as well as hints of golden syrup. That firm malt base is borne out in the heavy texture: it avoids syrupiness but definitely has a fuller than average body for a 4.5% ABV beer.

The flavour begins sharp, with lots of bittering hops delivering an electric jolt to the front of the tongue. Then a softer alkaline flavour comes in the middle, chalk edging towards soap. This doesn't last long, however, and the hops fill in the rest of the detail, with hints of fresh spinach and jaffa oranges coming out of the bitterness.

I like it. More than anything it reminds me of Eight Degrees Howling Gale, with similar full-on hop bitterness in a medium-strength package that deftly manages to retain balance. My bottle only paid the briefest of visits to my fridge, but I reckon this will still work well at much lower temperatures. An invigorating summer refresher is where I see it fitting into my drinking repertoire.

You'd want to be parched

2011-08-01T08:37:00.001+01:00

Jordan is high on my must-visit list. Not for the beer, mind, though I'm sure I'd get a blog post of some sort out of it. I've been saved the trouble of looking for one particular Jordanian beer by Jay of Holland's pub and off licence in Bray who has supplied me with a can of Petra lager, courtesy of one of his customers.

It was with no small amount of trepidation that I flipped the ringpull. I've some experience of middle eastern beers, and they're often not great. I've some experience of canned lager in the 10% ABV bracket, and they, also, are often less than stellar. How do they go together?

As expected, I guess. The pour produces an ominously dark amber colour that just screams syrupy tramp juice. The screams get louder on tasting: lots of cloying sweet sugar and heady alcohol vapours. I'm surprised to see that no adjuncts have gone into it: all that booze is malt-generated, apparently. It's scary how quickly one gets used to it, however. Half way down the pint I'm thinking "I could actually drink this". The nasty sickly sweetness gives way to a watery quality that renders the beer something close to drinkable. A beer to treat with extreme caution.

Cornish freedom

2011-07-28T08:36:00.000+01:00

The nice people who do PR for the St Austell brewery sent me a box of the new one: Trelawny, a 3.8% ABV bitter, named in honour of a local hero who fought valiantly against religious tolerance in 17th century England.

Australian Galaxy hops are, we're told, at the centre of this dark amber beer. It's no hop-bomb, however, preferring subtlety and understatement throughout. The hops impart a fresh and succulent fruitiness: some nectarine, perhaps shading towards more tart plum and even rhubarb notes. The malt base is light and quite dry and tannic, something I always enjoy in English bitter. Putting them together you get a refreshing quencher designed very much for session drinking.

My only real criticism is that it's a little thin and gassy. While I'm sure the cask version cleans that up, I'm not sure if the lovely fruity hops would come out of that arrangement well. I'd have to try it on draught to know, of course, which I'd be very happy to do should I ever see it in a pub.

Does this taste irony to you?

2011-07-25T08:58:00.001+01:00

There's something just a little bit poignant about Goose Island Demolition in the weeks after the Chicago micro was acquired by Earth's largest beer company. The beer was brewed as a tribute to those who kept the Goose Island spirit alive as their Chicago neighbourhood was ripped down around them. Whether A-B InBev end up doing a different sort of demolition job on the brand remains to be seen, of course.

My bottle pre-dates the takeover by several months. In fact, it's over a year since it left the windy city and the label specifies it's best before six months. I was worried that the flavours may have done their own self-destruct job as well, but if they did, they've built a damn fine edifice in their place.

The vital statistics are a 7.2% ABV Belgian-style golden ale. I was expecting something Duvellish: quite bitter with lots of fizz. The carbonation is low, however, though enough to leave a layer of foam on top. The beer itself is rather dense, gold coloured with nonchalant floating sediment through it. The real action starts on the aroma.

First out is a sticky honey scent, quickly followed by light and succulent melon fruit. The middle eastern theme continues on tasting as the honey is accompanied by chopped nuts and buttery pastry, finished off with the mouth-watering juicy fruit. There's nearly mead-like quality to it, though it also reminds me of sauternes or similar botrytised dessert wine.

And it is insanely easy to drink. The light and subtle fruit flavours do a great job of distracting the drinker from the weight of malt behind it, and a dry tannic finish sets up the next mouthful straight away. The 650ml bottle is probably meant for sharing, but nuts to that.

Close the door and stage a demolition of your own.

More Belgian tinkering

2011-07-21T08:39:00.002+01:00

Witbier, blonde, amber: the standard trinity of styles put out by lots of middling Belgian breweries, where back-of-an-envelope market analysis trumps imagination and individuality every time. The Ghent City Brewery have also gone for the same three, but opted to make one significant change to the well-worn recipes: the removal of hops.

Presenting the Gruut range from Gentse Stadsbrouwerij: three plain looking Belgian beers with a slight twist. Gruut Witbier is a very pale and watery-looking yellow, the whitest wit I've seen. The aroma is normal enough: light spices like coriander, nothing unusual for this sort of beer. There's definitely something different going on on the palate, though. I get ginger up front, and lots of elderflower plus some light liquorice. The body is quite full, and leaves a sweet sticky sensation after swallowing. Despite this, it's an ideal summer refresher. And skunk-proof too.

On to Gruut Blond next. Lots of foam from this as it pours, the thick head atop a barely translucent yellow-amber body. A mildly chemical, chlorinated nose, but altogether more natural tasting. I get honey and jasmine plus a finishing bitter tang from the yeast. Though a mere 5.5% ABV, this feels lushly unctuous and is best enjoyed as a sipper. Too fast and it could turn sickly, I fear. Granted, if you're not a fan of sweet and thick Belgian blonde ales this probably won't float your boat either, but I think there's enough interesting and different things going on in here to make it worth a try. That's always the joy of unhopped beer.

After the haziness of the previous two, Gruut Amber's clarity was a surprise. It's rather more one-dimensional than the others: all caramel with only a tiny herbal piquancy stopping it from becoming an undrinkable sugar bomb. As a winter warmer it might fly: there's quite a bit of booze to the flavour and it's 6.6% ABV. On the patio of a sunny afternoon, however, it doesn't hit the spot.

These three are an interesting aside to mainstream Belgian beer styles and worth a look if you fancy something different, but not too different. In the absence of an efficient bittering agent, however, be prepared for a rather sweet experience.

Big red comes to town

2011-07-18T08:40:00.002+01:00

The second of the three core beers from Mitchelstown's Eight Degrees brewery arrived on tap in Mulligan's recently. Sunburnt is (small sigh) an Irish red ale. They've promised us hoppy in the advertising copy, and it's got a fair bit more poke than the typical Irish red at 5% ABV. Putting my style-based prejudices aside, I went out to see how it measures up.

My pint came out very very cold, which wasn't in its favour. I got a sharp bitterness but not much else. So I sat and waited for it to come up to pub temperature. It was worth doing: buried under the ice there's a lovely rich strawberry fruit flavour, buoyed up on sticky caramel. The hops aren't up front as I was kind of hoping, but contribute a waxy bitterness to the finish. All-in-all, though, and true to style, the malt is still firmly in charge.

I can't help but think there are more things one can do within the confines of a 5% ABV Irish red. Personally speaking I'd be saying feck the style and dry-hopping the bejasus out of it, but no-one likes a back-seat brewer. If you're generally better disposed towards Irish red than me, this will give you a pleasant bang for your buck.