Taken as red

Is it just me or are there a lot more colourful fruit beers around this season? We had one on Wednesday and today I have two more. This time the theme is red.

Initially, I had no idea what "Globe Salute" meant or why Rye River decided to call their cherry-flavoured sour beer that. I thought maybe it was a variety of cherry, but it turns out it's a firework, the one also known as a cherry bomb -- one of those occasional Americanisms for which we must forgive this brewery. The beer is 4.5% ABV and a bright pink colour. That makes it look like a simplistic novelty job, but looks can be deceptive: manys a well-made and deeply complex wild beer is luminous pink. This isn't one of those. Basic is the game here: syrupy fake-fruit flavour and a tang which definitely isn't properly sour. It's unimpressive, and for over a fiver a can in off licences, offers poor value for money. I try not to be a snob about such things, and I am aware that not everything like this has to be Brett-laced and oak-aged, but this manages to be overly sweet and rather boring. No salute from me, I'm afraid. Drop and give me twenty.

At around the same time, Hope had similar ideas and released one called Limited Edition 36: Raspberry and Lime Sour, which is rather less intriguing. This one is 4.8% ABV and, although the can claims it's red, it's more the orange pink shade of highly polished copper. It is almost unheard of for something like this to put the sourness ahead of the fruit purée, but here we are. The first sip is a puckering, mouthwatering jolt of candyshop sourness, all sherbet, sour jellies and red liquorice. Engaging my grown-up palate for a moment, I found the lime's bite to be central to proceedings, accompanied by several other sorts of sharpness, including green apple skin and a dry cereal twang. This is a very rare example of raspberry in a beer being subtle and providing background harmonies rather than the loudest vocal track. I approve. Its main contribution is a pink sugary smack on the finish. Cheeky! All told, it's a well-put-together beer, and delivers proper sour complexity where the norm (see above) is to simply pile in the syrup. And if you're not into picking the profile apart forensically, I can also tell you it's a beaut as a post-chore refresher on a sunny patio.

I doubt our nation's brewers are done feeding us fruit beers for the year yet. At least it's not endless samey takes on hazy IPA.

Fruiting the breeze

"Coconut Breeze" is an ominous name for a beer, sounding like a euphemism dreamt up by the marketing department of a chemical company for their latest additive or scent. Lough Gill is inviting us to don our Hawaiian shirts, cast our cares aside and join them in summer time. This is, in their words, a "coconut and pineapple fruited pastry sour". Let's unpack that, shall we?

The brewery has extensive form with this sort of thing, and is better at it than most. They've tended to have a light touch on the lactose, and enough sourness to actually qualify as sour. And so it goes here. It's a translucent yellow, like freshly-crushed pineapple juice, and has the unmistakably sweet-yet-vegetal aroma of real pineapple: the husk and stalk as much as the flesh. A significant acidic tartness singes the nostrils, even at this early stage. In the flavour it's the coconut that hits first, and lasts all the way to the finish. It seems to be buoyed up on the lactose, which gives it a mouth-coating creamy quality. And yet, it's not gloopy or cloying; the sourness is there to spritz away the residual sugar so it never becomes a problem. That means it's not one of the smoothie-like fruit "sours" that are par for the course, and that's the Lough Gill advantage. Pineapple's role in the flavour is very much secondary, and perhaps that's for the best, as a third sort of sweetness might not have been welcome.

6.8% is a sizeable ABV for a summer party beer, better suited to something more serious, and serious this is not. There's a considerable heat to contend with, and combined with the sourness, that gets a bit curdling and difficult before the end. I strongly recommend starting into this one when it's properly cold. It might even be refreshing that way. 

Above all, this is a strange beer, and I found myself teetering between liking it and not liking it, all the way down. I think you need to have a significant tolerance for weirdness in beers to enjoy it, and fortunately I do. Should you need a second and more forthright opinion, my house fruit flies adored it. Summer vibes all round.

Crow flight

In the interests of balance for what follows, I did buy one IPA from the range of Dois Corvos beers which arrived in Dublin from Lisbon recently. There were numerous options but I picked Funchal Drift, the New England-style one made with Citra and Motueka. That sounded interesting, though the unappetising pale yellowish green emulsion it poured as, less so. A worrying kick of vanilla and plasterboard manifests in the aroma, alongside an assertive lime bitterness. Hello Citra. From the foretaste I got an initial waft of that chalky mineral effect I smelt, followed by hot yeasty dregs and vegetal leaf bitterness. At least a part of this is down to the Motueka, adding a eucalyptus medicinal effect which dovetails neatly with the grit and the murk, but not in a good way. The Citra fails to come to the rescue; where there might be a zesty citric finish, it's only smoke and burnt plastic. Any dessertish custard softness has been thoroughly drowned out. I took a gamble and I lost. This beer presents a catalogue of reasons for calling the whole haze phase to a halt sooner rather than later.

Ugh. With that out of my system it was time to move on to the stuff which attracted me more. I began on Café Racer, which is as good a name for a coffee stout as any. Funny, it doesn't smell of coffee. It smells, and bear with me, of the things that coffee smells of. Toast, hazelnuts, tar and tobacco. I didn't say good coffee. It is intriguing though. The body is surprisingly light and fizzy, and the flavour primarily dry. 5.4% ABV means it shouldn't necessarily be a big and creamy fellow, but I was still surprised by how gassy the whole thing is. Nuts are at the centre of the flavour, with a bit of the aroma's hazelnut and even more dry peanut shell. A certain amount of dark chocolate surrounds that, though oddly no coffee. A tang of burnt salt is all the finish offers. I really wanted to like this, but it's all harsh and pointy; neither refreshing nor comforting. It doesn't smell like good coffee and it doesn't taste like good coffee stout. Maybe I should have expected that. 

Our last last best hope is Magnetic Poles, a Baltic porter with tonka beans. Normally I'm very much not in favour of microbreweries adding their own kooky twist on classic European lager styles, but I was so desperate for something good at this stage that I was determined to give it a fair shake. It's 8% ABV and densely dark brown with a tobacco-stain head. The aroma is oddly sour, of old sherry and cherry liqueur. It doesn't say it's barrel aged but I might believe it is. The cherry note continues in the flavour, even sharper, and joined by an oily tobacco leaf effect, classy dark chocolate, rosewater and Christmas cookies. It's the first beer that almost manages to put tonka in its place, turning it into a surface-level seasoning instead of the beer's whole deal, though the dusting of cinnamon is a dead giveaway of what's going on. It works beautifully, however. Strong tonka-laden stouts tend to be stickily sweet, but by adding the lager dimension this one retains a level of crispness which makes it far more drinkable than one might expect given the strength and other specs, which is of course the Baltic porter way and why we love the style. Never before have I encountered a beer that managed to put manners on tonka's busy confectionary, but if one style was going to do it, it would be this one. Baltic porter purists need not apply, but I found it a perfect melding of old fashioned meticulous decency and frivolous craft creativity. Fight me.

I've had a few Dois Corvos beers over the years, and their hit rate is generally better than what we have here. While I may have chosen poorly, I am not rushing back to try more of their hazy IPAs.

Sugar rush

What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Look, they were in my eyeline, in the supermarket, labelled as BEER despite all other appearances. So that I could stop wondering whether they should be included on the blog or not, I bought them both, God forgive me, and here they are.

You will find a review of classic Desperados here, written in 2009. These are extensions of a brand that probably didn't need any. Both are at the same strength as that: 5.9% ABV.

Desperados is (loosely) tequila flavoured, but for Desperados Tropical Daquiri they've taken pains to point out that rum is the spirit invoked. It looks like a standard lager: a clear deep golden. It doesn't smell like a beer at all, however, with sickly sweet syrup of the generically tropical variety, done with passionfruit. To taste, it's not as sickly as I was expecting, something it has in common with the original. There's a clean base that has been syruped up but not completely destroyed. Where the beer side contributes most is the finish, cleaning up the worst of the sugary excesses so that they don't dwell on the palate. The promoted rum character does not materialise at all, which suits me as a disliker of rum-flavoured things that aren't actually rum. I mean, it's not good beer, but it could be much worse. There are "proper" artisanal breweries passing off products as fruited sours that are more sticky and unpleasant than this. Though as a fan of both beer and daquiris, this doesn't really give me any sense of either.

The spirit moves once more, and the next one is Desperados Red Caipirinha, claiming to be flavoured with cachaça, though I'm not expecting to find much of that. It's a dark rosé shade in the glass and, bizarrely, actually smells like beer. The listed additives are cachaça, which isn't a strong flavour by itself, and elderberry juice, which I'm guessing is mostly for the colour. That leaves the grain of the lager base as the main character in the aroma. It does taste syrupy: sweet and generically fruity, more raspberry and cherry than anything fancier. There's absolutely no sign of the spirit and it really doesn't resemble a cocktail of any kind. This is an alcopop in all things but smell. The previous one, and standard Desperados, do at least add interesting things to the syrup; this doesn't. Its USP is that it's pink. I'm not impressed.

In for a penny, in for a pounding. The same supermarket also sells Kopparberg's Orange Ginger Beer, and what with ginger beer having a bit of a moment in these parts lately, I thought I ought to give it a whirl. 4% ABV seems to be standard for this sort of thing, likewise the pale Golden-Delicious yellow colour. To taste, it's sweet, which is hardly surprising given Kopparberg's form with cider-adjacent products. You don't get much ginger, just a tiny pinch of spice; a spritz of heat in the back of the throat. In front of that is masses of sugar, which is mostly cleanly syrupy but includes a fun element of boozy orange, like a cheeky dash of triple sec. Half a litre of this was hard work. While it's light on alcohol, there's so much sugar here that I found it difficult, and I'm pretty tolerant of sweetness in beers. The orange gives it something of an interesting twist, but ginger beer fans would be much better off sticking to the examples from Smithfield Brewing and Kinnegar. Add your own orange to taste.

Well, I'm glad that's over. If you've ever hovered at the colourful, ultra-sweet, not-quite-beer section of the supermarket, consider this your cue to walk on.

Red, white and new

The randomness is part of what I enjoy about the churn of British cask beer at The Silver Penny, the Wetherspoon on Dublin's Abbey Street and current unlikely champion of decent ale. On a recent visit, however, there was a pattern: two new ticks, both with a colour in the name.

Oakham's presence in the regular roster of breweries is a blessing, and I hadn't seen White Dwarf before. It's a golden ale of 4.3% ABV, made mostly with English hops, plus some bonus American Cascade. Beer quality is rarely an issue at the 'Penny but this one was served uncharacteristically warm on the sunny June afternoon. Perhaps the cellar cooler has gone the way of the wifi and the gents' hand drier. It's a pale gold and perfectly clear, giving off a gentle aroma of pear and apple. The pear ester is more pronounced on tasting, allied with some sweet banana: ripe fruit, or even artificial candy. The finish is clean, though there's no real malt character, whereas a little biscuit or cracker would have improved it. As well as the slightly high temperature, it was on the flat side too, which was another factor in preventing this from being everything it could be. This beer should really be crisp. Warm and flabby isn't going to suit any beer, but I think this one suffers especially. Oh well.

The other was Red Kite from Vale Brewery: a bitter at the same strength. "Chestnut" says the badge, and indeed it is: a lovely clear auburn with a cream-coloured head. The aroma presents that most unhelpful of descriptors: "beery", like a carpeted pub just after the doors have opened for the day. It's heavy, almost chewy, and here the warmth is really helping it out, lending what may normally be a so-so brown bitter the character of a wholesome porter. There's milk chocolate, dark toast, a coating of caramel and a slightly fruity finish, giving raisins and red apples. A tannic dryness prevents any of this making the overall effect busy or difficult. Well-made brown bitter is a rarity and, for me, Harvey's Sussex Best is unassailable. This different take, leaning into the roast and residual sugar, impressed me too, however.

That's your lot. Nothing amazing here, but at the same time, both beers were exotic and noteworthy pints for Dublin. If there was anything like this available from local breweries in locally-owned pubs, I'd be all over it, though would probably have the place to myself. Until then, rack 'em up, JD.

Savoury and unsavoury

The pace may have slowed, but enough beer featuring the DOT Brew name is being turned out to get it the occasional dedicated blog post. Here's the latest, with five new ones which landed over the past few months.

The first is Spin Off Series NEIPA, part of the sequence of beers DOT makes for Aldi. It's not the densest of haze, looking a little thin and vapid as it poured. The aroma tells you it's no milquetoast, though, delivering what I interpret as a west-coast vibe of dank resin and sharp grapefruit. No complaints about that. The flavour brings us back to the eastern seaboard, with a soft vanilla and apricot effect, aided by a full and soft texture. There are no sharp edges here. The finish is quick, though, and I feel that a beer in this style, and of 5.8% ABV, should have longer legs. There's also an oddly savoury off flavour lurking in the background: a bit smoky, and a bit onion-ish, but nothing good and I'm reasonably sure it shouldn't be there. Still, at the sub-€3 price point, you get a decent hazy IPA. Don't scrutinise it too closely and you'll enjoy it. It's too late for me. Save yourselves.

I trundled along to UnderDog a few weeks ago where a tap takeover was under way, and two further new IPAs were pouring. I started on Levitation, a 6% ABV job which is a medium hazy orange colour. I don't have the hop information to hand, and I'm not even sure they've been published, but whatever they are, they work brilliantly. Both the aroma and flavour have a fabulous sweet and zesty character, exactly like freshly squeezed orange juice. While that makes it a little one-dimensional, it is highly enjoyable. It's almost a shame that the ABV is so high, because it slips back with indecent ease; at once satisfying and refreshing. Complexity doesn't really feature, although I did find a little bit of spicy grapefruit peel lurking in amongst the jaffa segments. It remains to be seen whether the brightness and freshness on display in UnderDog will last if they decide to can it, but I've had my fun, and that's all that matters.

Next, the grandly titled IPA IPA Reborn, created especially for the Craft Central off licence, and a 6.5% ABV reboot of a 7% ABV IPA that they made back in 2020. I didn't like that one and I didn't like this either. The dirty dark orange colour hinted at oxidation, the beer itself resembling carrot juice in a most unattractive way. Last time round, hot garlic was the problem, mixing badly with plastic and vanilla in a worst-of-everything take on hazy IPA. This one draws on a different set of common flaws, tasting gritty and savoury, with a harshly bittersweet marmalade tang being its only fruity feature. I don't think it was actually oxidised, but it was far from clean; too murky-tasting to be any way enjoyable. If you liked the original then maybe you should pick up a can of this as well. I can't recommend it, however.

Perhaps it's a signifier of contract brewing that these were so wildly different from each other, though alas I have no way of knowing which was brewed where. Whoever was responsible for Levitation can take a bow, but I will be keeping any third version of IPA IPA at arm's length.

DOT also makes barrel-aged beers, though it has taken some time and effort to hunt any down lately. First up, though, is To Ten and Beyond, marking ten years of Dublin's Teeling Distillery (est. 1782) and one of the regular specials DOT makes for the giftshop. As with many of the series, it's a barrel-aged pale lager, this time matured in single-grain ex-red-wine casks. There's certainly a fruity element to the aroma, though all about macerated grapes, not wonky fermentation, I'm happy to report. A cleanly crisp lager is still discernible beneath. And that's all the flavour really does. I had anticipated a little bit of whiskey, wine or raw oak, but instead it's almost purely dry to the point of being a little papery. "Hop forward" says the label, and I do get a certain Saaz-like grass note, although that does little to soften it. The finish is mineral-like: a kick of zinc and chalk. I guess it does have a few extra dimensions than your ordinary 4.8% ABV pils, and the aroma is good fun, but I didn't really get it otherwise. Happy birthday Teeling; enjoy my €6.

Finally, here's the twentieth version of Rum Red Dark, the perennial barrel-aged strong red ale. This time it's 9.5% ABV and claiming to be "the boldest red in the series so far". Oo-er. It's the same murky dun colour as all the rest, and smells of warm oak and sunny rum cocktails. The wood is right at the fore of the flavour, given a slightly burnt and smoky cast, though more caramelised sugar and glazed brisket than anything unpleasantly kippery. There's a separate sticky-sweet summer fruit jam element, running in parallel to the smoky wood, and an immediate boozy heat that grows steadily in the belly with each successive sip. I drank it outside on a warm evening, but it's is very much a winter beer, and an enjoyable one. I particularly commend how it melds the sticky red malt side with the barrels and booze, keeping everything smooth and sippable, even if balance isn't a concern, exactly. This is worth picking up at your leisure, but don't be in a rush to drink it.

While I prefer to see DOT releasing the barrel-aged blends, the fact that my favourite of this set was a straight IPA shows that they're fully justified in doing the less involved recipes too. Good beer is good beer, regardless of the producer's ethos or tendencies.

The history round

Or is it the geography round? It's Session day again and our topic this month was chosen by Laura: The Ultimate Pub Quiz. Hopefully not literally: I do like a quiz and wouldn't like to think of them coming to an end. As regards preferred subjects, rounds on beer trivia are rare, but I'll settle for geography or history, two areas that I've learned about extensively via beer.

In which year was the Spanish Armada wrecked on the Irish coast?
Today I'm assessing two beers from Western Herd in Co. Clare. As a regular visitor to Donegal in my youth, I was well aware of the associations there with the Spanish Armada, the failed attempt by Spain to invade England by sea, resulting in a swathe of wrecked ships down the western Irish coast. I'm less familiar with how it affected areas further south, but Clare got a coastal placename out of it, and from the placename, a beer: Spanish Point.

This has been around for a couple of years now, but I've only just encountered it for the first time. The brewery calls it an "American pale ale", though at 5.9% ABV it's stronger than many an Irish-brewed IPA. That's one part of its authentically American sensibilities; the other is the huge citrus aroma, packed to the gunwales with zesty, spicy citrus. There's a bit of heat too, making it smell a bit like an Old Fashioned to me, even though there's no barrel-ageing involved. On tasting, that turns to pine resin: a different sort of classic US character. It's not a million miles from what Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale does, though maybe a little more fruit forward. And I shouldn't have to mention this, but for the record, it's completely clear: a slightly amber-leaning golden. All in, it's a class act, and leaves me wondering if the American brewer at Western Herd makes this sort of thing because he's homesick. I assume it's in regular production, even if it's a bit tricky to get hold of in Dublin, and I heartily recommend it to everyone who's done with the vanilla, garlic and grit of contemporary pale ales.

How long has Western Herd been brewing?
It has not been a good time for microbrewing out west, and the boom is certainly over. Bridewell, Galway Hooker and most recently Black Donkey have all packed it in of late. That makes me extra grateful for the breweries from Donegal down to Kerry who are still keeping the lights on. Maybe it's because I don't see their beer very often, but Western Herd seems to be staying out of the rat race, and I hope that's working for them. It has seen them through to their tenth anniversary, for which they brewed another classic American-style beer.

Milestone describes itself matter-of-factly as a Centennial IPA. There's no crowing about the West Coast anywhere, but it's immediately obvious on pouring that it's that sort of IPA. The beer is perfectly clear again, and a shining copper colour, promising toasted malt to go along with the hops. The aroma is floral: sweeter than I thought it would be, and any citrus is juice, not pith. The flavour goes big on jaffa oranges, and it too is surprisingly sweet. There's more than a hint of hard candy and lollipops about the hop taste here. I thought there would be toffee from the malt, but that whole aspect is very understated, tasting merely tannic, stewed not caramelised. All told, it's not a very bright and distinctive beer, resembling a simple English bitter more than an American IPA. I didn't quite get what I was expecting, but an easy-drinking bitter is never a chore.

It seems that Western Herd has a house style, and it's a distinctly retro one. No remarks would be passed on either of these beers if they'd showed up in the US microbrew scene of the 1990s. Perhaps those that do know their history are still doomed to repeat it, in quite a tasty way, it turns out.