An Seisiún

I'm late to the party on this one, but the first Friday of every month is observed by the international beer blogging community as "The Session", whereby everyone posts on a chosen theme. This is the fourth one and, rather than a style, the theme is local brews.

Unfortunately for me, the nearest brewery to my gaff is megamacro Guinness at St. James's Gate, and I don't think that's in the spirit of The Session. Lucky, then, I recently discovered that the next nearest (Messrs Maguire brewpub) now bottles two of its beers and sells them in off licences. Their Porter is deep black with a half-hearted fizz, barely bothered with constructing a head. It's a rather sweet affair, with chocolate and coffee notes coupled with a dry sour kick at the end. If it wasn't for a sad watery lack of body this would be a very fine beer indeed.

The gas missing from the Porter is more than made up for in the Bock, which fizzes into the glass and forms an incredibly tight creamy head. I'm not the world's biggest bock fan, finding it often too heavy and cloying, and I think this is a particularly bad example. There's an offputting saccharine sweetness in the foretaste which tails off into a musty, soapy effect at the end. In the middle there's that lack of body found in the Porter, but while the Porter could be happily consumed as a session beer, this one is just too sickly to encourage opening another.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed by what my nearest proper brewery is bottling, though I will be buying the Porter again. However, here in the shadow of Boss Guinness it's a miracle we have anything at all.