Backroom barrels

Ireland's most bijou beer festival returned to the rear of Smiddy's Bar on a glorious day in late April. Combining two previous themes of the event, this was officially the Mullingar Wild Beer & Cask Festival, although willd beer was a little in short supply, with Third Barrel shoring up that bulwark by serving a couple of its well-established (and delicious) Brett beers.

On the cask side, Rough Brothers of Derry was a new addition. I encountered their IPA at the CAMRA festival in Belfast last November. I said it was clean and simple but unexciting, and that's very much the case for their Northern Pale Ale as well. This is only 4.5% ABV, but I'm fully aware that other cask brewers can do a lot, flavourwise, within that parameter. This offers a clean and crisp base, like a cream cracker or water biscuit, and then an extremely mild hop bitterness which threatens to become actually citric but never quite manages it. My guess is they're going for something retro with these. They have the simplicity and inoffensive drinkability of beers from a time when decent people didn't comment on their flavour, or lack thereof. Maybe there's a market for that, but since the brewery is operating in the speciality beer space, and showing up to events crawling with fussy beer nerds, they ought to be giving us beer that tastes of something more.

Their Co. Antrim neighbours have tried to show them this too. On the wicket between the Rough Brothers flagships was Texture Like Sun, a 3.8% ABV golden ale brewed at Our Brewery with Rough Brothers input. Very little about the spec suggests it'll be more full-flavoured than a pale ale or IPA, but this benefits from Our Brewery's tendency to dispense with style guides and just make things nice. It's not golden, for one thing, being quite a deep shade of amber. And it's another dry and crisp one, so don't expect golden ale's typical honey or soft fruit. Instead, the signature flavour is a spicy kick, suggesting black pepper and rocket leaves to me. For the strength there's very good substance -- thanks, cask -- and enough malt sweetness to balance the dry spicy side. This, too, is a very straightforward and drinkable beer, but the flavour complexity places it leagues ahead of the Rough Brothers' solo efforts for enjoyment.

Although there was plenty of other highly enjoyable beer, my last new tick was Scéal. This pale ale is brewed by Trouble but has mostly been sold under the Spiddal River contract brand at The Skeffington Arms in Galway. I think the format didn't suit it terribly well -- or at least the part of the format that sees a cask beer being set up and tapped on the same afternoon. It was murky looking and a little muddy tasting, the assorted flavours blurring into each other. Still, there's some good stuff in there: sweet Seville orange, some dark chocolate, dry minerals and even a little gunpowder spice. An old-school American bitterness adds bite and prevents it turning mushy and flabby. And even though the flavours aren't exactly cleanly distinct, there's plenty of them, and the overall boldness of the full-colour taste spectrum makes it an excellent beer. Your mileage may vary with the keg version, but I would love to see this on cask again, though cleaned up.

Thanks as always to the brewers, organisers, fellow-attendees and everyone else who made this unlikely event happen. The Irish beer festival circuit is barely more than a few dots these days, so I'm glad this one is still going.

Non-conformists

Czech brewery Zichovec didn't get the memo that high-variety craft beer is out and reliable-but-dull heritage beer is in. They're still churning out a vast array of different styles, with influences from all over. Today I have three of them.

First up, it's another of those purportedly Irish-style beers from a foreign brewery, a genre I find endlessly fascinating. This one is called The Irish Black, and is a stout, at 4.6% ABV. No nitrogen is involved but it still formed a very full head, with a dome and all. The aroma is plain-spoken but nicely roasty, with a pleasing dry charcoal buzz. That's there in the flavour, alongside a metallic tang of old-world hops, but there's an unwelcome sweet side too. It's a little like the caramel one finds in Czech dark lagers, but more intense without the lager cleanness, coming across here as almost saccharine. I wouldn't say it puts this beyond the style boundaries of Irish stout, but at the same time, it isn't a good one. It's just too severe, and needs softening, either with less bitterness or some element of chocolate malt. Still, it's nice that they gave it a go.

In the middle is Orange 'N Choco, and... I expected this one to be dark. "Orange sour with oranges, tonka beans and cocoa nibs" reads the description, and in the glass it's a thick, opaque, earwax-beige colour. 18° Plato makes it 6.5% ABV, and it feels appropriately heavy. Despite the juicy appearance, it smells fully chocolate-like: the dusty dry powder from a tub of just-opened drinking chocolate. That's quite a disconcerting sensation, but a fun one, all the same. The flavour begins with orange-juice acidity, then quickly flips to the drinking chocolate. The two contrasting features hang there for a moment or two before the big greasy tonka adds its cinnamon pastry warmth, as it always does. The sharpness -- which I took for part of the orange side but is presumably derived from a souring culture -- lands back in at the end and forms the bulk of the finish: a hard and flinty mineral effect, still holding plenty of citric acidity. It's all over the place, this, and while I liked it, I admit it's completely daft and will not suit those who prefer their beer to taste of beer. As a kerr-azy novelty brew, it works quite well, avoiding tasting cheaply gimmicky, succeeding at high-end gimmick instead. If that was the intention, fair play.

We go back to black with Coco Noir, an oatmeal imperial stout with coconut. Lots of carbonation in this one, resulting in a huge tan-coloured head and requiring two pours to get all of the can's contents into my glass. Said contents included some suspended floaty bits, somewhat ruining the look. Coconut doesn't mess about, and of course the beer smells strongly of it: the moist and fleshy sort, not dried. The texture is gorgeous, all silky-smooth despite all the bubbles, and I would never have guessed it's as strong as 9% ABV. The coconut in the foretaste is concentrated to the point of tasting almost like solvent, and then there's a softer background of fairly-dark chocolate and a rasp of dry roasted grain to finish. Amazingly for a strong novelty-ingredient beer, there's no aftertaste: the cleanliness of the finish is impressive, though I'm not sure it's entirely welcome; I like a big stout to be something that stays with me. It's a minor complaint, though, and this is excellent overall. It's fun, and possibly even balanced, with the various flavours respecting each other's boundaries well.

A lot of surprises in this set, and none of the beers were quite what I expected them to be. That's all part of the fun of craft beer, however. I'll miss it when its last vestiges finally die.

Big flippers

Scouring the lower beer shelves at speciality grocer Polonez turned up these two beers, from Lithuanian conglomerate Aukštaitijos Bravorai. Both are in distinctive flip-top one-litre bottles. A big commitment, but that just shows the effort I go to for you.

Keptinis is first, and I know enough about Lithuanian brewing to tell you that that's the style rather than a beer name: a traditional brewing method which involves oven-baked malt. That it says so on the label in English steals my nerdy thunder somewhat. It also says it's an unfiltered dark lager, and I'm not sure if that's part of the spec, but it is helpful.

In the glass it's a murky red-brown colour, with a thin and fine head of off-white bubbles. Few beers have an aroma as malt-forward as this, smelling like nougat, Mars bars, and assorted other confectioneries which rely heavily on malt extract. Thankfully it's a lager, so while the flavour goes all-in on malt sweetness, that's set on a pristine clean body, feeling very light for 5.7% ABV, though a long way from thin. Caramel, vanilla, condensed milk and praline chocolates all feature, plus a little red fruit complexity, hinting at strawberry or raspberry. How it doesn't cloy is wizardry. Instead, it tastes wholesome, warming and nutritious; refined rather than rustic. A litre was much less work to get through than I expected.

I'm in the dark as regards the meaning of Magaryčių, but the brewery helpfully tells us it's a dialect term for the celebration after success in negotiation. Seems legit, given some of the nonsense that passes for beer names these days. The description on the label says it's "unfiltered special technology semi-pale beer" which I fear may have lost something in the translation. There's caramel malt, though: that's made clear.

The beer, conversely, is not. It's that unattractive muddy shade you get when a copper coloured beer is left unfined. I suppose it's meant to look rustic, but to me the colour will always carry associations of bad homebrewed bitter. Other people's, obviously. The aroma tells me that it's not dissimilar to the previous beer: warm malt loaf with a hint of runny toffee sauce. At 5.8% ABV, it's very slightly stronger than the last one, and is similarly weighty and malt-driven. Paradoxically, it's a little lighter, however, with more of a lager crispness (ie a tiny amount) and even a faint echo of hop bitterness. It's fine, but I drank these in the wrong order. Everything Magaryčių does, the Keptinis does bigger and better.

Something to be said for traditional brewing practices here, perhaps, even if it takes a big-brand company to show it. Fire up the oven.

Of age

It's only Tuesday, so just a modest celebration for this blog's 21st anniversary. I've pulled out a bottle of Insulator, a barrel-aged barley wine released last winter by Lineman. I've had a differently-barrelled version of this before, back in 2021, and this one is Margaux wine. The ABV remains a decidedly wintery 14.8%.

The visuals aren't lovely. It's a muddy red-brown, though has a tight snowy head on top. The aroma makes it very clear that wine is involved, smelling richly of plums and raisins. A warming, fresh-baked cookie waft is present too. The fruity high notes take a backseat in the flavour, which pushes dark warming cake or pudding first, then bitter liquorice and nutmeg spice. After that, the fruit is back: sultana and orange peel, with a little fresher raspberry tartness. Not that this is in any way a summer beer. The booze isn't exactly concealed, and the malt is concentrated and emphasised, exactly as the words "barley wine" imply.

It could have done with a bit more cleaning up, and maybe some more time settling would have taken care of that, as would a larger-format bottle. It's still very good, however: packed with complexity and working well as a special occasion beer.

Be cute, rebrew it

A promise of botanicals is where I left my last visit to Open Gate Brewery, and that materialised in late February as a beer called Ancient Gruit. Details of what they've used instead of hops would be nice, but as usual, there's no mechanism for finding that out once they've decided not to put it on the menu card. It's 5.2% ABV and a cloudy yellow-gold, the paleness suggesting the malting techniques are very modern indeed. It doesn't taste like other gruits I've had. They tend to be spicy and herbal, usually with a strong sweet side due to the lack of hops. This is bitter, centred on a raw vegetal effect, like the thick white stem of a red cabbage leaf. A rasping acidity and weedy, dandelion tang give it a medicinal quality: it feels like something you drink for solely health reasons. I quite liked the oddness, but it won't be for everyone. Some darker malt and some brighter flavours might make it more accessible.

There was also another flavoured stout, following on from the pistachio one last winter. Sarsaparilla Stout is heftier, at 6% ABV, though is just as smooth and easy drinking. There's a vaguely herbal tone to the aroma, suggesting some novelty but nothing too loud, and also plenty of properly typical stout roast. There's lots of chocolate in the flavour, followed quickly by a raft of herbal complexity (where was that in the gruit?) including clove and the unmistakable root beer character of sarsaparilla. A different sort of spice -- dry and cedarlike -- finishes things off. Just like the Pistachio Stout, this is first and foremost a fun beer: sweet and a bit gimmicky, but extremely quaffable. Keeping the gravity up and the chocolate malt level high is the key, I reckon. If they have embarked on a whole new series with these stouts then I'm very interested in what they try next (details below).

The new Kristalweizen hadn't gone on sale yet, but had just been tapped up so I got a sneaky advance taster. This is one of those beer styles it's hard to impress anyone with, and indeed this example has modest aims: brewed to provide easy refreshment, albeit not exactly low in strength at 5% ABV -- a 2021 version was 6%, mind. The clear golden appearance shows they got the crystal part of the spec right, though any typical weissbier flavour appears to have been filtered out with the Trüb. Rather than banana and clove, it has toffee and butterscotch, which is rather less appealing. A green bite of celery-like noble hopping saves it somewhat, but it's not a beer for me. Now finished, I'm sure it found its audience among those who have been dragged reluctantly to Open Gate by their beer-enthusiast partners when visiting Dublin.

For the St Patrick's Festival, the brewery turned out an Oyster Stout. This is the second one they've done, having covered this ground back in 2024. As tends to happen with re-brews, the ABV has come down, to 4.9% from 5.5. They serve it carbonated so there's a lot of crispness, the fizz complementing its roast grain foretaste. Beyond that, there's... well, not very much, actually. I was expecting at least some sort of saline tang from the shellfish, but damned if I could find it. Unlike the recent pastrified Open Gate stouts (see above) there's no chocolate side, and nothing you could call coffee. Instead, it's the hard char of bottled Guinness and nothing else. I can manage a pint of bland fizzy stout without complaint, but I think I'm within my rights to expect more when oysters are involved.

It was nice that the next two were both dark beers, although I don't think West Coast IPA is supposed to be this brown. Or murky, or only 5.9% ABV, for that matter, although the strength is an improvement on 2017's version, which was only 5.2%. I know better than to judge a beer by its looks, however, and the fresh and zesty hop aroma told me that they had got this one at least in the west-coast ballpark. The hop-phobic Guinness yeast does take its toll in the flavour somewhat, resulting in marmalade shred rather than sharp grapefruit, set on a toasty, bready background with a pithy finish. There's a bit of an English cask IPA vibe to it, and one that has perhaps not been kept well, as there's some slightly dreggy interference. Only slight, though. It's a bit of easy-going fun; not pristinely perfect, but still enjoyable. It's perhaps noteworthy that, within a month of being tapped, it was quietly re-named "Old School IPA" by the brewery. That yeast really is no friend to the hop.

By the half pint beside it is the latest Open Gate Barley Wine, and down goes the ABV again: 9.4% in 2023 and only 9% now. Only. The cola-brown colour is very close to Guinness-black, and there's not much aroma beyond a broad and undefined dark fruit effect. Plenty happens in the flavour, however, with the fruit front and centre: identifiably plum and damson, as befits a barley wine when it's not made to be hopcentric. Complexity comes via a brush of corky oak and a pinch of roast grain. A hint of buttery diacetyl emerges as it warms, but that's tolerable. Overall, this is a clean and tasty effort, using the alcohol to deliver a smoothness without any unwelcome heat. Refined barley wines of this sort are a rarity, with too many breweries simply using it as a base for something outré, which ironically makes them commonplace and less interesting. I'm all in favour of this one coming back at a later stage, though maybe keep the ABV up where it is.

The latest addition to the line-up arrived last week: Czech Amber Lager. I think this is Open Gate's first time making polotmavý, a style I'm not a huge fan of, having not quite enough of the attributes of dark or pale Czech lager. This was decent, however. It's on the dark side, which brings a degree of dry roast to the foretaste. That dovetails with the greenly bitter noble hops, telling you you're definitely in the Czech zone. Crispness abounds and there's no sweet malt. Such a dry take may not be what the polotmavý cognoscenti are after, but it suited me. Another great lager from Open Gate.

I don't think there's any in the forthcoming summer line-up, alas. Haze, radler, orange Berliner weisse, fruited double IPA and rum-coconut stout will be coming your way in due course, I'm told. Stand by.

Fresh fish

Assuming a 12-month best-before, I drank these Lough Gill beers six days after they came off the canning line. It's not a metric I pay a whole lot of attention to, in fact I think the importance of freshness is massively overstated by a certain sort of beer geek who are marks for the breweries, but I thought I should mention it on the rare occasion it happens.

"NEIPA" proclaims the headline on Nectaron Drift, even though its 4.5% ABV might boggle the minds of any visiting Vermonters. The "drift" means that Comet, El Dorado and Citra are also in the hop mix. It's a fairly standard beaten-egg yellow murk job, and there's a lovely spice aspect to the aroma: fresh grass and rocket leaves, to an almost peppercorn intensity. The flavour carries that right through without much change. I know Nectaron is from New Zealand, and their hops tend to have Germanic roots, but I've never encountered Nectaron tasting so Saaz-like. Isn't it supposed to be fruity? Regardless, it's lovely. The other hops don't make much of a contribution. I don't really know Comet, but nothing of El Dorado's bright Skittles nor Citra's lime and grapefruit were separately discernible. But that's OK, it's still a roaring hop bomb. Except... there is a gritty quality, especially in the finish: one of the perennial issues with the haze/hop genre, and I think the low gravity exacerbates the problem, combining dry powdery dregs with a little wateriness. If I'm doing low-strength and sessionable, I want it clean, and this doesn't quite pull that off. In a pub situation I would be dubious about a second pint of this, but the honeymoon first one treated me to all the sparkle and fireworks I could wish for.

We're up at "proper" (spare me) IPA strength with Happy Coincidence: a full 6% ABV. It's even paler than the last glass of haze, and looks thinner, a little more transparent. Nelson Sauvin is placed first and second on the label's hop list, though the aroma doesn't give us much of that, only a very gentle flint minerality. The bigger strength pays dividends and there's a lovely soft and fluffy texture, in place right to the finish with absolutely no wateriness or resultant harsh qualities. I would love to say the flavour takes full advantage of that, but it's quite (faint praise alert) subtle. It's still definitely Nelson, with the sharp stone spice offset with sweeter vanilla and Victoria sponge. Pleasingly, there are no dreggy bum notes, and the whole thing is as slick, smooth and perfectly engineered as a high-end iPhone. It's a relaxing and, well, happy beer. Why the brewery thinks that's a coincidence is for them to explain. 

Two different takes on haze here, proof perhaps that this large sub-set of contemporary beer has a significant degree of variation within it, even when only one brewery is involved. Disagree with me on the freshness thing? Just post some honest blind tasting data and we'll go from there.

Imported enjoyment

Villa Torlonia is a grand 19th century mansion in Rome, which latterly served as Mussolini's official residence and then as Allied High Command headquarters after the war. The Italian state subsequently redeveloped it, opening the grounds as a public park. The orangery is now a rather grand café with a terrace, and in recent years it has hosted an annual festival of Franconian beer -- FrankenBierFest -- organised by Roman beer institution, The Football Pub. It just so happened that the 2026 edition was taking place when I was in Rome with EBCU a couple of weeks ago.

The programme lists 91 different beers, poured both from kegs and Bayerische Anstich wooden casks, though I reckon not more than half of these were on sale at the bars at any one time. Arriving when things were in full swing on the Saturday evening, I could tell this wasn't a gig for tasting samples: you're meant to drink.

My drinking began with a half-litre of Ur-Kö, an economically-named beer from the economically-named Hoh brewery in Köttensdorf. It's quite a strong amber lager, at 5.4% ABV, yet is raspingly dry, devoid of any Helles or Märzen sweetness. The slightly dark colour means it has a touch of roast in the flavour, but that's about the most interesting thing I can say about it. I guess it's intended as a retro recreation of an olden-days beer. If so, things sure were bland back then.

I didn't choose the next beer; a complimentary barrel of it was heaved onto a nearby table and tapped. This was the Vollbier from Stern of Schlüsselfeld, and quite a contrast it was too. It's kickingly bitter, packed with sharp damp grass and gentler salad herbs. That vegetal noble hop quality is very real and fresh, with no trace of the burnt plastic that often turns me off such beers. As the name implies, there's plenty of substance, its 5% ABV making it smooth and dense. And yet it still manages to be crisp and quenching. It took some time and effort to get the barrel emptied, and I enjoyed the beer immensely, right down to my final, sad, refill. Then it was back to the bar.

Obviously, there needed to be smoked beer, even though that's very much a minority interest in Franconia. Räucherla by Lippert caught my eye, and then my palate, because this one is extremely smoky. It's the right kind of smoke, fortunately, giving caramelised bacon rashers on another full and soft body. It's quite a pale amber, and the lack of balancing roast means it could easily have slipped into being cloying, but it deftly avoids that. Regardless of the scarcity of Rauchbier in the region, I guess when you have two world-famous practitioners on your doorstep, you get it right. For me, this goes toe-to-toe with the core beers from Spezial and Schlenkerla.

Smoked beer ticked off, I scanned for something dark next, finding Schwarzer Adler by Brauerei Eichhorn of Dörfleins-Hallstadt. I should have known it wouldn't be a typical Schwarzbier, because that's not really a Franconian thing. What I got here was a garnet-coloured lager of 6% ABV, with a horrifically sweet, saccharine, core. Around that, there's some liquorice bitterness and some dark chocolate, but no roast and, crucially, no lager-crispness. The result is somewhat sickly and, while passably drinkable and free of technical flaws, didn't suit me. My least favourite elements of Munich Dunkel and Czech tmavý pivo seemed gathered here in one glass, just to annoy me.

Although I only had four beers, I think my hit rate was better here than when touring the small breweries of Franconia for real. The person picking beers for the festival knows what they're doing.

As I mentioned on Monday, beers which were in town for the festival had also found their way into the general Roman on-trade, including at Be.Re, where we went straight from the gig. In need of more lager, I began there with the Zwickl by Hausbrauerei zur Sonne in Bischberg. I don't think it's just that I was no longer in the sunny garden of Villa Torlonia that I had a problem with this. For one thing, I don't think Zwickl should be as clear as this 4.8% ABV job was. There's also an unpleasant dry caraway seed flavour, turning almost papery by the finish. It's harsh, and I think may be one of those German beers designed for a palate very different from mine.

That leaves just a handful of other imported beers to report on. The Dutch delegate had brought sample cans of No Time Like Now, part of a regular series of charity beers organised by the Beer Geeks Facebook group. They used to happen at De Molen, and now it seems that Baxbier has stepped in to replace it. This is a grape ale, 20% must, built big at 8.3% ABV, and doubling down on the grape by dry-hopping with Nelson Sauvin. The result is a spectacular Nelson showcase, demonstrating that hop's luscious soft white grape flavours, accentuated and complemented by the actual grape juice. It's zingy and brightly fruity in a way that beers of this strength rarely are. It could be that it gets harder to drink in larger quantities, but I was very impressed with the small sample I had.

Retracing my steps to The Football Pub, they were serving Allsopp's Pale Ale on their handpump. This is the recently revived Burton brand, now brewed at Kirkstall in Leeds. The owner would like us to believe that this 4% ABV fellow has been brewed since 1730, showing it's not just the big multinationals which enjoy lying to their customers. Whatever about the details of where the recipe comes from, it seemed thoroughly modern to me. It's a clear yellow colour, the flavour opening on bright and sharp citrus, before softening to honeydew melon with a mineral chalky finish, because Burton, I guess. There's a lot of complexity in this small package: plenty of hop wallop, given a beautiful smoothness by the cask (maybe) format. It may be pitched as the heritage of England, but I think I detect an American accent too.

And finally, an English porter which was pouring from the handpump at Treefolk's. I've had the barrel-aged version of Five Points Derailed before, back when the London brewery's wares were in regular rotation at UnderDog. This is the plain version of it, although it is itself based on Five Points Railway Porter, given some Brettanomyces wild fermentation. It's a combination that works exceedingly well, keeping the classy dessertish chocolate of the base beer and adding in a serious funky Brett perfume, making it taste mature and vinous, with  mouth-watering dry bite. Gorgeous stuff, quite unusual, and maybe an object lesson for the Allsopp's people in how to give a beer some proper 18th-century feels.

That's all from Rome for now. The Italian capital remains an enjoyable beer destination at any time, but it's a bonus if you can catch an event too.