Spring cask-cade

The Spring 2026 JD Wetherspoon Beer Festival has just come to an end. As usual, I made an effort to try as many of the 30 specials as I could conveniently locate in Dublin.

Handily, Keavan's Port jumped the gun, and had three of the beers pouring a couple of days before the official kick-off on 5th March. Two of those were the prestige international collaborations, so I started on Malteza Session IPA, brewed at Oakham under the supervision of Cervecería Malteza of Mexico. At 4.8% ABV, it's a bit overclocked for "session", I reckon, though there's more than a hint of Oakham magic about it. Brewed with Citra, Amarillo and Cascade, it has the fresh bittersweet lemon zing of Oakham's own Citra pale ale. Gravity be damned, this is seriously sessionable stuff. The cleanness and simplicity may, however, be a flaw, because the beer has added hibiscus, and I could find very little sign of that. Normally, it manifests for me as a cherry or raspberry tang, and there's maybe a tiny hint of the latter, though no more than that, although it does have the "light red tinge" suggested by the festival programme. I feel a little gypped on the novelty front, but this is a beer which is difficult to be disappointed by.

Staying in the Americas, Bodebrown from Brazil makes a return to the festival. This time around, the beer is called Tropical: a session IPA with a much more sessionable -- and UK-tax-efficient -- ABV of 3.4%, brewed at Hook Norton. It's another clear and pale-gold job, served unsparklered with minimal foam. They've designed it to be hop forward, but the low, low strength compromises its ability here. The beer is distinctly watery, and as well as an unpleasant texture, that has a muting effect on the hops. Mostly, there's a fruit-candy sweetness, deriving from Galaxy and Mosaic, but without proper malt substance behind it, it's a bit harsh and artificial, lacking roundness and depth. I would be willing to bet it would never occur to the Brazilians to make this kind of beer. A little resinous complexity is introduced as it warms, but that doesn't really add anything positive. I'm very much not one of those people who believe beer needs strength to be enjoyable, and I fully trust Hook Norton to be able to turn out a palatable pint at 3.4% ABV. This recipe isn't it, however.

We come back down to earth for beer three: Canongate Best, a bitter from Edinburgh's Stewart Brewing. This was quite the balm after the last two's hop intensity. It's softly textured and gently malt-focused, tasting a little of toffee, with the sweet side offset by a tannic dryness. Yes, it's broadly brown bitter, if a little paler than the norm, but is an example of it being done well. Challenger and Olicana hops add a mild peppery spice in lieu of full-on bitterness, and its initial caramelised sugar returns as the aftertaste. It is very much Nothing Fancy, but is a supreme example of that, at the same time.

I don't get why the Shepherd Neame beer is called Lucky 'Lips. The apostrophe is related to the flowers on the pump clip, but otherwise I have no idea what's going on. It's a golden bitter of 4.5% ABV and is lacklustre, even for that modest strength. Maybe that's a good thing: the brewery's house flavour profile is not one I'm a fan of, and here its presence is gentle: a hint of marmalade, dusted with clove, but none of the earthy, metallic twang which normally puts me off. The problem is there's nothing to take the place of the nasty flavours. Instead, it's just bland. This one isn't watery, and it has the heft to deliver good flavour, but beyond that li'l bit of fruit and spice, it just doesn't. Chugging through the pint entailed little effort, but let the record show that I didn't enjoy doing so. The graphics on the badge are colourful and fun. The beer is not.

The official first day of the festival was a rare sunny one, and with nothing better to do I made my way to Dún Laoghaire, paying a rare visit to The Forty Foot. Refreshment was priority one, and Thornbridge's Pink Grapefruit Pale seemed like the optimal option. "Ooh, it does smell like grapefruit" exclaimed my server over the lightly hazy yellow pint. And I agree, to an extent. I had been expecting a bit of punch from this, maybe even an intense citrus burn, but it's light on all fronts. That aroma is more like a grapefruit soda or fancypants tonic water, while the flavour hits first as lemonade. That is pretty much what I was after, after working up a thirst getting there, and I didn't exactly sip it, but I had hoped for more character here. On mature reflection, two-thirds of a pint in, I can taste the actual grapefruit, rather than generic citrus, but it's very low volume, accentuated by a thin texture which doesn't feel quite up to the 4% ABV. It could work well as a sunny day quaffer, but equally, it's a one-trick pony that gets boring fast. Not Thornbridge's best work by any measure.

Trust Brains to come up with a beer that sounds best in a Windsor Davies accent, and this is Crimson Legend, boy [gruff chuckle]. The colour is copper, but since that's mostly mined in north Wales, I can understand why a Cardiff brewery failed to make the association. It's a dry fellow, big on tannin and with a roasty sort of spice, or spicy sort of roast, like paprika, clerical incense or smouldering cedar. I guess I had been expecting caramelised malt, so was a little disconcerted to find that doesn't feature very much. No harm. Nobody likes a sticky brown bitter or red ale, and this isn't that. The better sort of dry brown bitter is probably where it sits on the spectrum, and the piquancy gives it a complexity I had not hitherto associated with Brains. It would be impressive were the ABV below 4, but at 4.8% it seemed a little thin. Still, a half was enjoyable. From my window seat I could watch the ferries setting out for Holyhead, and reckoned I was having a better Welsh experience than those passengers were about to.

The heck is up with Elgood Shug Monkey? "Pale brown" says the badge, and I had to look up pictures of it online to check the pub hadn't tapped the wrong beer. They hadn't. By "pale brown" the brewery means "golden". Dick move. I had typed "it doesn't taste brown either" after the first sip, but had to delete it. Initially it's a waxy bitter job; slightly acrid on it. But after a moment, a mocha roasted sweetness swings in, lasting into the finish, and I guess that's supposed to be the central conceit. Unfortunately, that arrived accompanied by a soapy dish-detergent twang, for which I'm blaming the brewery not the pub. Overall, not a great effort, and made worse by suggesting brown ale to the drinker and then pulling a bait-and-switch. Regardless of the beer's qualities, that will garner a poor reception, and the beer's qualities aren't especially enjoyable. "Try before you buy" says the Wetherspoon point-of-sale material, and I hope people do.

From Dún Laoghaire, a swerve along the south arc of Dublin Bay landed me at The South Strand, where four festival specials were pouring. Oakham's own offer was a red ale called Soul Synergy. In proper Oakham style, it's quite hop-forward, smelling and tasting of zesty sherbet lemon candy, with no significant contribution from the caramelised malt. That does give it a substantial body for 4% ABV, which is pleasant, but the slightly sweaty stale tang on the finish, less so. The intention may be to present this as an American-style amber ale, which is a noble aim, but I don't think they've managed it. It's a bit too one-dimensionally hopped-up for that, the red aspect contributing to the appearance but nothing else. It's OK, overall, but a bit of a near miss for me.

Beside it was another international collaboration: Cerveses Almogàver flying the Catalan flag at Elgood's. It's called Vicious IPA, and I'm not at all sure that branding an IPA with punk trappings is a great idea in the current climate. But, like Tilray Brands, I didn't have to pay very much. It's a weighty 5.3% ABV and smells a little syrupy with it, verging on the same sort of sweat tang I found in the previous beer. And while there is a clean golden-syrup sweet side to the flavour, there's a more pronounced funky hop resin bitterness. I had been wondering if they had set out to clone That Beer, and I think they have, in its rarely-seen cask form, back when it was seriously bitter and much more enjoyable. I never thought I would be enjoying OG Punk as a retro offering, but here we are. A tip of the hat to a fun conceit.

The next pair began with reliable ol' St Austell, and a red ale called Good Tides. Here, the colour is as advertised: a handsome clear auburn shade. The flavour has a few things going for it, including plummy hedgerow fruits -- your damsons and your blackberries -- as well as strong tea-like tannins which complement that well. The finish is a one-two of brightly sweet cherry skin and a hard wax bitterness. It did require a bit of work to identify all of this, as none of it is very loud, but once I had the measure of it, it was enjoyable to pick through. At 4.3% ABV, it's a beer that one could chug merrily, enjoying only its dry and bitter side, but that would be to miss the subtleties.

Another favourite UK brewery was pouring alongside it: Fyne Ales. In happier times, their flagship bottles were available in these parts but they're long gone now. To the festival, we welcome Driftwood, called a brown ale on the clip, described as "deep amber" in the programme, but, arrgh! it's neither of those things. My half pint was a murky orange colour and had as much in common with brown ale as Shug Monkey. Did somebody change the rules without telling me? Having come to terms with that, it's not a bad beer, being broadly a bitter to my mind, with pleasant notes of tangy marmalade and squishy strawberries. Despite the appearance, it's cleanly flavoured, and the result is balanced but not hugely interesting after the first few sips. Hard to believe that this is brewery which set Scottish brewing on fire with Jarl 16 years ago.

The South Strand exhausted, my three-pub crawl concluded back at Keavan's Port, where the offer had turned over. Both new arrivals were dark, which was welcome.

Voyager from Woodforde's was the only dark mild in the programme: another beer at the newly-popular strength of 3.4% ABV. It's on the paler side for dark mild, showing distinctly ruby around the edges. Of course the texture is light, but it's not unpleasantly thin, and there's a surprising invigorating sparkle, which is unusual for cask ale. The coffee aroma is inviting, while a square of dark chocolate kicks the flavour off, followed swiftly by a dry and oaky cork-like rasp. That adds a lasting acidity which I found a little off-putting and made me glad to be only drinking a half. I'm not objecting to this mild showing some complexity and backbone, but equally if the point of the style, as is often stated, is to be supremely sessionable, I'm not sure that would work in this example. 

Back to the international collaborations next, and it's normal for these to be based on original beers by the visiting brewery. Nigredo from Birrificio Italiano is one of the few I've met in its original incarnation, in Venice some years back. There it was chalked up as a "black ale", though the brewery called it a Schwarzbier, and it was 6.5% ABV. The version brewed at Batemans for Wetherspoon is down to 6% ABV but it's still a hopped-up black lager. I enjoyed the original's big, assertive character, and they look to have translated that well, starting with the aroma of sticky treacle and concentrated liquorice. Lager it may be, but the cask serve has given it a gorgeously silky texture. The hops are up at black IPA intensity, brimming with tangy green cabbage or spinach, sitting alongside dark roasted coffee. Even after a day's drinking, this gave my palate a loud wake-up call and an invitation to a riotous party of massive, hopped-up, dark beer flavours. Maybe I'm getting old, but there used to be more of these big-flavoured beers in the Wetherspoon festival line-ups. This is the first memorable one in several years.

Thirteen beers is probably enough for today. In the next post we'll find out how far down the festival's list of 30 I got.

Little by little

Looks like it's time for me to get my Little Thing out again. The latest in Sierra Nevada's seemingly endless variations on its signature hazy IPA is Citra Little Thing. As usual, the can is most uninformative, beyond the ABV of 7.5%, but the brewery website tells me it's not a single-hopper, the Citra joined by Simcoe.

It's reasonably hazy, though not the full-on beaten-egg emulsion you get from the more extreme practitioners of the art. It smells reasonably juicy, though with more of a fruit candy vibe than actual juice: Skittles, Starburst, that kind of thing. For all the alcohol, the flavour is quite muted, I thought, and there's none of the hop vibrancy I had been expecting. You could argue that Citra is famously bitter so might disappear in an IPA designed to be sweet, but you'd be wrong. Plenty of breweries use Citra for this purpose to excellent effect. This seems like a big industrialised brewery low-balling the hops for budgetary reasons. For shame, SN!

That said, it's not a bad beer by any means. There's a pleasant light zesty kick and some deeper, slicker resins in the finish. It's extremely easy to drink. The problem is, I didn't come to a 7.5% ABV American IPA for easy drinking. While I recognise that west-coast punch isn't part of the offer, the absence of juice and fruity hop fun is a major black mark. Maybe I can't complain when I only paid €2.50 in SuperValu, but I'm complaining anyway.

It strikes me that naming hop varieties is a means to extending this series even further. Citra was a reasonable place to start, but I hope the next ones will be more interesting.

Meanwhile, the change of season brought out Sierra Nevada's Springfest IPA. This looks light and breezy, being a pale gold and perfectly clear. It's a full 6% ABV, however, and has the malt substance to back that up. On top of that are the hops, and it's very much in the Sierra Nevada style, which is to say old-fashioned but delicious. The varieties used are Centennial, Citra and CTZ, and they give it quite an intense lemon flavour, concentrated like meringue pie filling, and with a raw rind bitterness on the finish.

All of that makes it invigorating rather than refreshing; while it may be presented in easy-going sessionable terms, I'm not sure it would work as such. There's a fair bit in common here with the brewery's flagship pale ale, although the lack of any dark malt component makes it something different. Both beers share balance, drinkability and an assertively punchy hop-resin taste. Exactly what I'm after from Sierra Nevada, for the most part.

Finally, a pils, of all things. The name, PILS, sets down a marker that this will be definitive and no-nonsense, and I'm very much of the opinion that that's how pilsner should be done. I've not seen it in cans, but Tapped had it, er, tapped, in late February. Full marks for another flawless gold colour and long-lasting fine foam, although the latter could stand to have been a bit thicker: I blame the made-for-UK imperial pint glass for that. There's a suspicious fruit quality in the aroma; not unpleasant, but not pils-appropriate, suggesting modern craft's peach and apricot rather than herbal greenness. Sure enough, that proved to be the centre of the flavour as well, which had me running to the brewery website for a hop-related explanation.

Here I found the beer described as "Pilsner as it should be," and also that it's made "with an innovative twist." You can't have it both ways, lads, unless you think the Czechs have been doing it wrong. I couldn't find a hop listing among the marketing guff, but they do say it should taste of "citrus and tangerine", which is a long way from pilsner as it should be, in this critic's opinion. I give them credit for the beer's texture: the carbonation delivers optimal crispness and the body has the weighty, creamy density of the very best pilsner (*cough* Keesman *cough*), but these are also features of good pale ale, and that's what this tastes like.

I'm whining a lot here, so I should add at this point that it's a beautiful beer: tasty and subtle; supremely sessionable at 4.7% ABV, though only for plutocrats at €8.70 the pint. My only real bug is dressing it up as though it's an authentic expression of Europe's lager-brewing tradition. Maybe that flies for beer drinkers in California or North Carolina, but it doesn't here. Of all the breweries in the US, Sierra Nevada is the one with least need to pretend to be something other than itself.

Afters

It was Sunday evening and I needed dessert. Step forward Wavy Gravy, an imp. brown ale from Third Barrel, "imp." meaning 8% ABV, for those unfamiliar with the terminology. It looks quite black once poured, though pales to ruby with the light behind it. The aroma mixes soft toffee and red flower petals, which is a good mix for strong brown ale, though it's not as aggressively fun-forward as I'd have liked. Smoothness is what this beer is all about. The texture is light yet silky, flowing past the palate in a siphon motion, making the conscientious beer writer careful not to chug it all down quickly. The flavour is standard brown ale business, but the style is rare enough for this to be welcome, and maybe a little exciting. To the toffee is joined lavender, milk chocolate, café crème, condensed milk and pink candyfloss. It's sweet, but not overpowering, with a lacing of crunchy roast to balance any dark sugar excesses. I had expected something more full-on and boozy, but am fully prepared to accept this altogether more subtle creation. I think the brown ale aficionados -- you know who you are -- will appreciate this. But it's also a good all-rounder; the sort of thing which shouldn't be as rare as it is.

It's not often we get an imperial stout from Third Barrel, but here's the latest: After Midnight, clocking out at 9.5% ABV. It's pure black in colour, topped by a thick settlement of beige foam. A surprise herbal effect greets the nostrils, all aromatic clove and fennel. Not very stout-like, but it'll do. It's big and dense on the palate, creamy and soft; feeling almost nitrogenated. The bitter herbal notes sit at the front of the flavour, and I really enjoyed their pointed and spicy contribution. This isn't one of those American stout jobs, where it's all grapefruit and pine. The front here is spearmint, rocket and cinnamon: spice of the old-world sort. Give it a minute for that to fade, and there's chocolate and toffee at the centre, matching the pillowy texture. It finishes sharp and vegetal, hopped up on green cabbage and cola concentrate. This is quite the tour of imperial stout characteristics, and a demonstration that you don't need double-digit ABVs to do it well. Quality stuff; just a shame that the brewery has reverted to crappy AI-rendered streetscapes for the label. This beer is much better than that.

So, I got my dessert.

Everything but the haze

After the positive performance by Bådin's saisons last month, I noticed there were seven other beers from the same brewery in the fridge at Craft Central. I took six of them, judiciously deciding that I didn't need their hazy IPA.

First and lowest-strength is Nightshift, a Czech-style dark lager. There's rarely anything to dislike in these. It looks well: the appropriate shade of cola-brown or dark garnet with a decent off-white head. The aroma says rich and wholesome, with elements of malt loaf, burnt toast and dark, viscous treacle. That made it surprising that's it's relatively light of body at 5% ABV, and very drinkable. 440ml is too small a measure for this, which does a very good job, I thought, of replicating a sessionable sort of dark lager, designed for venues where a multiplicity of beer styles is not part of the offer. That said, it's also far from bland, delivering a beautiful combination of earthy, savoury umami, lighter caramel and a decent poke of Mitteleuropa herb-and-grass hop bitterness. Full marks for style fidelity, then, which also means it's a very tasty beer. I can't think of anything I'd change.

Two West Coast IPAs follow, beginning on Hyperion, at 6.5% ABV. I requested no haze but the haze has found me: this is murky, though at least amber rather than yellow, and with a very handsome layer of loose bubbles. For hops it uses Galaxy, Amarillo and Centennial, which I associate with orangey citrus flavours, and this does have a significant sharp and pithy quality in the flavour. It's not clean, though: the murk makes itself felt in a fuzzy texture and a rough dregginess. It's not unpleasant, but it lacks polish and poise. The bitterness is also a little lower than I would have liked; we do not progress beyond pith into pine. Its aroma does much the same as its flavour, though adding a little spice to the fruit effect, presumably from the suspended lees. I had Bådin tagged as a brewery that pays attention to style fidelity, but I don't think they've managed west coast IPA proper with this one, and its raw roughness means it wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped.

Their second chance is Swim, a collaboration with Outer Range. The ABV goes up to 7% and the mist clears a little, but it's still an unacceptably cloudy orange for something calling itself west coast. The aroma is juicy, dammit, which is lovely, but off-style. The flavour is plainer, however, deriving from Krush, Centennial, Simcoe and Citra. I'm guessing the Krush is responsible for that juice thing, which manifests in the flavour as mandarin segments. There's something a bit off behind that: burnt rubber or plastic, and I'm blaming those dregs. Again the bitter side is low and it just doesn't zing the way west coast should zing. I got the impression that maybe IPA isn't Bådin's forte.

Hold on, what's this? Three beers in, I discover that while I definitely left one hazy IPA behind, I accidentally took a different hazy IPA. This hazy IPA is called Hazy IPA, which makes the mistake even more egregious. Making the best of it, I note that it's not all that hazy, and the bright translucent orange colour does make it more attractive than the two IPAs which went before. The aroma is extremely juicy, like real satsuma spritz and tangerine flesh, bordering on Fanta-grade sweetness. The carbonation is low and the texture quite weighty, which doesn't go well with the sweet flavour. While it doesn't taste any way dreggy, there's a candy-chew and undiluted squash character to it. The density and intensity are more than I would have expected for 6% ABV. Still, for all the fruit sugar, it's clean, and relatively inoffensive. I see that Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops are included in the recipe but I didn't pick up any of their distinctive features, which is a shame. Overall, it's not a bad effort, and I retract my previous catty remark about Bådin and IPA. When they're meant to be hazy, the result is passable.

We're back on track with a stout next, similarly simplistically named, as Bådin Stout. Though a full 7% ABV, it looked a little thin on pouring, and is red-brown in the glass, rather than black, with a fast-fading head. The aroma is sweet, with lots of caramel plus an aniseed-candy herbal side. It's not thin, I'm happy to say, but it doesn't quite reach the realm of creaminess, and I wouldn't have guessed it's as strong as it is. The flavour is plain. Chocolate forms the centre and then doesn't go anywhere especially interesting from there. There's a little buttery toffee and a slightly acrid smoky side. Some coffee roast would have been nice; likewise proper hop bittering to take the edge off all the sugar, but neither materialises. Sure, this qualifies as a stout, but it's not a great one. Strong and dark doesn't have to mean sweet.

I guess if you want coffee, you have to ask for it. It's an ingredient in The French Dispatch, a 10% ABV imperial stout created in collaboration with French brewery Prizm. There's vanilla too, so I was expecting another very sweet job, but got a pleasant surprise. The aroma doesn't give much away, showing a little chocolate sauce or caramel, but nothing especially distinctive. The flavour, however, makes excellent use of the coffee, bringing all the complementary oily, roasty fun which matches well with the toasted grain and caramelised sugar. The vanilla is restrained, for once. I would normally expect a big hit of milk chocolate due to its effect, but here it's all the high-cocoa dark sort, which is much classier. There's an excellent balance to this, keeping sweetness, booze, and the novelty gimmick factor in check, while still being sumptuous and satisfying: perfect as a dessert beer.

Don't trust Bådin with west coast IPA seems to be the takeaway lesson from these six cans. I'm sneakily happy that I made a mistake and inadvertently bought one of the hazy IPAs, because it helped make sense of those other two. Overall, the brewery seems to know what it's doing, which is very much normal for Norway, in my experience.

German bite

It's lager time! This pair was selected from the bottles at Redmonds of Ranelagh. That, their ABV, and their general Bavarianness is about all they have in common.

I've had a Doppelbock from Kloster Scheyern before, but this is my first time with the more modest Kloster-Gold Hell. I'm assuming a very ordinary sort of Helles (Tucher brews it), though the strength is on the high side, at 5.4% ABV. It's a flawless gold in the glass, pale with a hint of aquamarine. Its fine white head crackles audibly, like a TV ad for breakfast cereal. The aroma indicates that it's going to be sweet, adding a sliver of ripe pear to spongecake malt. That high-ish ABV doesn't add much to the body, and it's light. Coupled with the soft sparkle, this is very easy drinking. The somewhat muted flavour also contributes. There's no fancy fruit, just quite a plain base of fresh white bread. Noble hopping is evident in the finish, where there's a rasp of bitterness; leafy like lettuce or raw spinach. I'm not a big fan of that, but it doesn't disturb the beer's equilibrium, in fact it adds to it. This is no superstar, but it's well-made and characterful, providing the fuss-free easy-going comfort-drinking for which I look to Helles.

Hasen Original claims to be a naturally cloudy Kellerbier, though there wasn't much haze in evidence when I poured it, even after giving the bottle a proper jiggle, merely a token skein of sediment. This is a degree darker than the previous, more amber than golden. Still, the head is properly fine and generous, in the Bavarian way, and it's another relatively light beer, gently conditioned to accommodate big satisfying gulps. The Keller side of the offer gets busy right from the start, adding a dry and crisp cracker snap. That doesn't mean it isn't cuddly: a softer layer of bready malt, brown this time, follows the husk, adding a different sort of rustic wholesomeness. Hops don't feature, but I don't mind. The malt-driven flavour is restrained enough to not require balance, and I don't really miss noble hops when they're not present. This is exactly the simple, sessionable, rustic lager that it's presented as. Again, it's not going to blow anyone away with an awesome riot of anything, but it's very nicely done, in a way that you really need to go to Bavarian beer to find.

Neither of these deserves picking apart on some English-speaker's beer blog. They are normal, standard, well-made German beers of the sort one takes for granted over there. I'm sure the price I paid for them in Ranelagh would give a fit of the vapours to any drinker from their locality, but I'm glad to have the option without needing to catch a plane.

Go collab yourself

Today's beer is a coffee porter, brewed by Third Barrel for TwoSides, the beer-brewing arm of Brickyard the pub. It's a collaboration with Grindstone, the coffee-brewing arm of the same business, which operates an adjacent café, and that's the name they've given the beer.

An enthusiasm for coffee shines through in the labelling: we're told it was roasted at Dublin roastery Blind Monkey, and is a combination of Santa Izabel from Brazil and Santa Monica from Colombia. I'm a little sceptical about the variety specifics mattering much when they're used in a beer, but if it means the creators had some extra fun designing the recipe, then I'm fine with that. There's a bit of heft to this, at 5.8% ABV, and it's an attractive, shiny, vinyl-black.

There is something a bit different about the aroma here: it's not just coffee. There's a nuance of tart red berries and roast chestnuts. The nutty side is very pronounced in the flavour: dry and savoury, rather than sweet. There's a not-unpleasant hint of fried onion, and then a herbal bitterness, which might be hop related, but equally could be the coffee again.

This is certainly no ordinary coffee porter, and anyone looking for the straight-up coffee-beer experience will be disappointed. Indeed, even the beer side of that equation is lacking. This has the creamy feel and light carbonation of good porter, but I didn't find much by way of chocolate or dark malt. It's still enjoyable, however, in its own odd way. I'm not in a position to say if the coffee is well represented in the flavour, but it certainly makes a singular and distinctive contribution. If coffee porter is your thing, here's a fun twist on the norm, which is still a very decent beer.

Rockies II

For the second week in a row I'm starting with a selection of beers from a brewery in Colorado. Odell is rather more familiar than last week's Bootstrap, and its beers are generally top-notch, bordering on iconic in places. I see a couple of potential challenges to that reputation among today's lot.

The "Sippin'" series of sour fruit beers hasn't been Odell's best work, in my opinion. Today we have Sippin' Blackberry: no surprise what the fruit is, but they've also added that pink Himalayan salt, for gosey notions. It's a dirty, murky pink emulsion, with something of a greyish tint. As usual with this sort of beer, the head is gone in moments. The aroma doesn't say much, only a mere suggestion of tart berry. The flavour, too, is understated, and maybe that's for the best. It might have been a sticky cordial, but it's not. The clean flavour includes a definite salinity, so they got some value out of that bonus ingredient. It's only 4.5% ABV and light-textured, with a busy fizz pummelling the palate. I'm guessing the blackberry has mostly fermented out, because there's no more than a trace of it, largely confined to the finish, and not really specifically blackberry; just a generalised hedgerow purple. It's fine. I could happily drink more than this 12oz serve. It's a bit plain to have been shipped from so far away, however.

The next beer is the one which made me particularly apprehensive. I have never understood the appeal of Mexican-style lager to the sort of fussy drinkers who buy beer from the likes of Odell. That it's a degenerate style is evidenced by the front-and-centre role of sweetcorn in the recipe, which gives this one its name: Kernel. It looks like an industrial lager: a bright clear yellow, and we're two-for-two on rubbish head retention. Unlike the last beer, the aroma isn't just minimal, it's non-existent. No surprise there. It has a certain amount of substance, 4.7% ABV providing an acceptable amount of body, so it's not one of those watery ersatz-Mexican affairs that you might find round here in a longneck bottle. That doesn't mean it's good, however. Flavour is hard come by. A little malt-syrup sweetness; maybe a hint of dry grain husk, but not enough of either to give the beer anything I would call character. I was genuinely tempted to squeeze a wedge of lime into it, just so it would have something going on. You would want to be a superfan of Odell, this style, or both, to make it any way worth your while. For me, like the last one, there's just not enough taste action.

That meant all expectation was on the final beer, a double IPA. They couldn't possibly not deliver here. Wire Walker is 8% ABV and specifies that it's in the west coast style. And they mean it too: it's very nearly as clear and golden as the lager. Finally, a worthwhile aroma: it's a classic citrus bite, blending oil and zest. That heralds a very old-school flavour, in quite a delightful way. Before anything else there is malt. While not the full-on toffee sweetness of crystal, there's a honey or golden syrup character, adding weight and texture but not so much heat. The hop bitterness is next, and it's perfectly balanced: punchy without turning harsh. The initial hit softens rapidly, grapefruit and pine fading to sherbet lemons and Seville orange marmalade. For such a strong beer it's incredibly drinkable, and I reckon it's the balance that does it. In particular, making the malt a major part of the offer is one of those ideas, along with cleanness and clarity, that lead commentators like me to opine that IPA has lost its way somewhat, here in the haze age. This beer is how it used to be done, and it was good. I guess it isn't madly dissimilar to Odell's magnificent flagship IPA, but I haven't had that in a while, so a reminder about it is always welcome.

I was right to be suspicious. Fruity sour ale and Mexican-style lager are not things that even a brewery of Odell's calibre is likely to excel at. Double IPA, however, is right in their wheelhouse. Here it's delivered crisp and tangy, in what's now essentially a heritage manner. Far be it from me to suggest any brewery stick to what it knows best, but if IPAs made you famous, maybe do more of that.