Just another winter's ale

I only barely escaped snowy Dublin last week to spend the holiday in frozen Hertfordshire, so my Christmas drinking was mostly along English lines, with just a couple of exceptions. One sister gifted me a bottle of Saint Landelin Spéciale Noël, a seasonal from Gayant, the Douai brewery perhaps better known for Goudale. It's a yulified Belgian-style blonde -- 6.8% ABV and quite sticky with it, piling in the honey on top of gentle pot pourri spices. While warming, it's light enough to stay drinkable and sharing the 75cl bottle is entirely optional, fully subject to one's personal levels of seasonal goodwill.

The other non-English Christmas ale came from another sister (they know me so well): Merry X-Moose by Porthmadog's avant garde Purple Moose brewery. This poured shockingly flat but redeemed itself with lovely big chocolate flavours, finishing on some intriguing lavender high notes. Similar-but-different was Three Tuns Old Scrooge. A bit more condition to this, though not much. It's a dense black beer with lots of treacle spiced up by cinnamon and liquorice: an excellent warmer.

On to less seasonal fare, and Dorothy Goodbody's Imperial Stout: a boxed-up limited run of 6,000 bottles. Advice was that this is best left a few years to mature, but the air travel liquids ban left me with no choice but to pop the cap almost immediately after taking it out from under the Christmas tree. Immature imperial stout can be an unpleasant experience, often spiked with harsh metal-and-cabbage hop tones. None of that here, though. At 7% ABV it's perhaps on the light side of the genre and the flavours are quite gentle: lots of sweet and slightly sticky dark malts, a touch of roasted grain and a balanced grassiness from the hops. It could well be that it gets more interesting with age, but really there's absolutely nothing wrong with this beer right now.

A bottle of McMullen AK XXX fell across my path at one point during my stay. A fairly plain brown bitter, this. Crisp with a touch of toffee, it immediately called to mind Bailey's observations on the substituting of London Pride for altbier. This hits a lot of the same places as alt, finishing with a dry hop bite and being a little over-fizzy for English bitter. Close your eyes and think of Düsseldorf. (For more on the historical brewers' code "AK", including McMullen's use of it, see Zythophile's analysis here.)

Speaking of over-fizzy bitter, I was unable to resist the opportunity to try Whitbread Bitter when I spotted it on keg at a hotel bar near Luton. You have to try the local specialities when you travel, right? It lends further credibility to my grand theory that Irish red ale and English keg bitter are the same ill-starred creation. Whitbread Bitter is monstrously watery, generally sweet, with just a tiny shade more hopping that you might find in the likes of Smithwicks. My other guilty pleasure came on an excursion to the pub near where I was staying. Ignoring my own rule about going for something good rather than ticking off new beers, I couldn't resist a swift pint of Wells & Young's Eagle IPA. Brewed very much to hit the same market segment as Greene King IPA, this is 3.6% ABV and every bit as light, plain, uncomplicated and inoffensive. After one pint it was over to the far superior St Austell Tribute on the next tap.

I got to do very little by way of beer shopping -- just one trip to Sainsbury's, yielding the new IPA from Fuller's: Bengal Lancer. I was really quite careless in how I poured this 5.3% ABV bottle conditioned beer, but it still came out a perfectly limpid shade of dark copper. Despite the gung-ho branding it's quite understated all-in-all: I needed a few nosefuls of the aroma to pick up anything much, eventually identifying jaffa, or possibly mandarin, oranges. The malt drives the taste, leading the hops behind it, creating a not unpleasant effect of marmalade on thick-cut toast. The tail end veers almost tragically towards the metal and puke of Fuller's execrable IPA but just manages to avoid it by finishing quickly. The texture is perhaps the beer's best feature: big and satisfying. It would be nice if there was just a bit more substance to it, but as a straightforward well-constructed English IPA it can't really be faulted and I would buy it again.

And that's where we leave things for 2010. By the time you read this I should be somewhere in central Europe, gathering material for a post or two in 2011. Happy New Year!

Off garde

I always expect something a bit rough-and-ready from a Bière de Garde, something that tastes convincingly like a sullen gallic farmer just lashed it up in the back of the barn, replete with raw grainy flavours, lots of murky haze and more than a whiff of some wild fermentation. It's hardly surprising that something much tamer arises when a large US craft brewer turns its meticulous attention to the style.

Flying Dog's Garde Dog is properly hazy all right, and the pale orange colour is certainly more attractive than any murky brown. The nose is exciting and enticing: sourness first followed by citrus zest and a sprinkling of herbs and spices.

The intrigue ends there, however. On tasting I got quite a thin and rather under-carbonated beer which exhibits a certain amount of the spice that was promised on the nose, but not enough for my liking. The citrus zest is just about present too, but it ends up dominating the flavour in the absence of anything else.

Now, a big part of this could be a freshness issue: I noticed that my bottle was only a month away from the expiry date, so I could well believe there were all manner of subtle and interesting things going on in it when it left Maryland. What I got, however, was an easy-drinking refreshing mid-strength (5.5% ABV) beer, and perhaps that's all it's meant to be. I can't complain too much really.

Not home for Christmas

I've not gone back to Northern Ireland for Christmas. Instead, the whole family has decamped to Hertfordshire for the next few days. While in exile, I have only the memory of Ulster's native beers to keep me company.

Like McGrath's Irish Black, the third outing from Waringstown's Clanconnel Brewery. I don't have a picture so you'll have take my word that this session stout poured beautifully from the bottle: pure black with a thick layer of loose tan bubbles. I was quite surprised to find bitterness in the ascendant, something rather unusual in an Irish stout. The middle has lots of dry roast plus a very interesting chocolate-marzipan character at the end. It's a very interesting take on your standard Irish stout and one of the better bottled ones. This took the top prize at CAMRA's Belfast festival last month and I bet it's absolutely amazing on cask, with all that lovely sweet chocolate to the fore.

2010 saw the arrival of a fourth Northern Irish brewery: Inishmacsaint is based in Co. Fermanagh though brewing happens at Loughry College in Tyrone, on the same kit that provided Clanconnel's training wheels. Distribution is still pretty thin, though I did manage to get hold of a bottle of Inishmacsaint Lager through some back channels (thanks Ed!).

Well, it's a lager all right. For all its microbrewed and bottle-conditioned credentials, it tastes a lot like mainstream fizz, with maybe just a bit of haze and yeast character from my cack-handed pouring. Such cleanliness of flavour is a technical achievement for the brewer, of course, but not really what I'm normally after in a beer, and not what you might expect a beer fan with his own pro kit to produce. But it is what it is, and if you're going to drink one of these sorts of beers wouldn't you be better drinking it from the local guy? There's a wheat beer in the range as well: I'm looking forward to trying that.

The past year has been a significant one for Irish beer: three new breweries arrived on the scene while several of the established ones have expanded their ranges. Dublin has three great new speciality beer bars, all coming with cask ale as standard, and we saw the launch of Ireland's first beer consumers' organisation. But I should do this properly, and in accordance with Mr Dredge's annual awards template (you'll find last year's round-up here, by the way).


The Golden Pint Awards 2010

Best Irish Draught Beer: Ór
It's hard to believe Trouble Brewing have only been with us for eight months or so. Ór has replaced Galway Hooker as the beer I drink when I don't want to think about which beer to drink. Full-bodied, lightly carbonated, simple and delicious.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: O'Hara's Irish Pale Ale
Last year's top beer was the cask special Goods Store IPA. That recipe has since been tweaked, twiddled and turned into a regular part of the O'Hara's range. It shows up on draught now and again, though the bottled version is superior in my estimation. Unapologetically heavy and bitter with just enough citric zest to keep it approachable and fun.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Uerige Alt
Going way back to the top of the year for this one. Brewery hopping in Düsseldorf is a fine way to spend a day or two, and Uerige is the pick of the bunch, not only for the fantastic atmosphere of the premises -- a lively centre of activity, even at 11am on a Thursday morning -- but also for their gorgeous hopped-up altbier: probably the most moreish beer I had all year. That said, I also have to put in a word for De Molen's Turf & Veen, a peat monster that very few of my acquaintances are likely to enjoy but which I loved.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Midtfyns Chili Tripel
A perfect example of how to do innovation well. All the great things about tripel coupled with all the great things about chilli beer to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. Let the purists weep into their Westmalle: this is tripel which rewards the adventurous.

Best Overall Beer: Uerige Alt
Three very different beers there, but if I had to pick one it would be the Uerige. Find me a quiet alcove with the paper and an attentive Köbe and I'm in heaven.

Best Pumpclip or Label: Metalman
Yeah, I'm cheating on this one. Gráinne and Tim's Waterford operation is still under starter's orders and at the moment has little to show except a logo. But what a logo! I've every expectation the beers will be just as stylish when they appear next year.

Best Irish Brewery: Dungarvan Brewing Company
I don't know where Cormac, Jen, Tom and Clare get the energy from but they're phenomenal. From a standing start back in the spring they've been to every festival going, held tasting sessions around the country, run food matching evenings, hosted brewery visits, organised a walking tour of the town, been interviewed by countless media outlets, blogged, Twittered, Facebooked and somehow managed to find the time to brew and distribute three cracking beers. The brewery's commitment to all-natural conditioning pays dividends in the product and they've been a driving force for getting cask beer onto the bar in more and more Irish pubs. Keep it up, guys!

Best Overseas Brewery: Harvey's
Consistently excellent beers, readily available wherever I go in England. This was the year when I realised that it can be a lot more fun just having a few pints of a beer you enjoy rather than working methodically along the pump clips. Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter was the beer that showed me the way.

Pub/Bar of the Year: The Salt House
Instantly my favourite pub in Ireland when I first discovered it in February (not realising that that would be the last time I'd get to have a pint in nearby Sheridan's -- a curse on intransigent landlords), The Salt House has picked up a bit of competition over the year, from the likes of the super-classy yet casually-comfortable L. Mulligan Grocer and its own sister pub Against The Grain, but for that laid-back Galwegian vibe and a kick-ass beer line-up I'm still giving this one to them.

Beer Festival of the Year: Copenhagen
Why more of my fellow bloggers aren't making beelines for this festival is beyond me. 2010 was scaled down a bit from 2008, but still featured a stunning array of beers from most of Europe's first-string brewers, no small proportion of which are based in Denmark. There's also the wonderful beer launch sideshows at Ølbutikken, and on the weekend evenings when it's too packed to enjoy, you won't be stuck for somewhere to have a decent beer or two in Copenhagen. It's 26-28 May 2011. Go.

Supermarket of the Year: Superquinn
It could easily have been SuperValu on Aston Quay whose range of beers rivals some of the specialist off licences, but like last year I'm awarding this one based on one single great offer: 6 beers for €12, featuring Adnams Innovation. Thank you very much, Superquinn.

Independent Retailer of the Year: DrinkStore
Ken and Richard have been pulling out the stops this year, and scored quite a coup by getting a supplier for Cantillon and De Molen beers. This in addition to a peerless range of Americans. Room for improvement? Yes: the UK. How about some Thornbridge, Otley or the like?

Best Beer Book or Magazine: 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die
And not just because I wrote bits of it. OK, mainly because I wrote bits of it. So if you're reading this, you may as well read that.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Beoir
A little bit of tootling on my own trumpet here, but more of a homage and thanks to the dozens of people who help make the Beoir website a great resource for brewers, drinkers, travellers and anyone with an interest in Irish beer, beer in Ireland, and going outside Ireland for beer. A special big-up to Barry who put in a lot of work on the site during the year, both in terms of the total redesign of Irish Craft Brewer and the various technological doohickeys in the background which make it work.

Best Beer Twitterer: Team Hardknott
I don't follow any soap operas, but I would if they were as interesting as the goings-on between @HardknottDave, @HardknottAnn and the supporting cast.

Best Brewery Online: Dungarvan Brewing Company
Given what I said about them above, of course Dungarvan are going to be here. They seem to have grasped the social element of social networking better than anyone, linking up with restaurants, state agencies, the media, retailers, customers and all the other parts of the gourmet food and drink industry of which they are most definitely a part.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Pork and stilton pie with Hobsons Old Henry
What? I was supposed to come up with another one of these? I'm still slurping through the fisherman's pie and Galway Hooker from last year. It's still brilliant. If I'd realised another one was expected I'd have done some research. Erm... oh, I know: pork pies. 2010 has been all about the pork pies and I confess I've eaten quite a lot of them. I make an IPA that goes rather well with them, though I also really enjoyed the pork and stilton one I got at Battlefield Farm Shop in Shrewsbury with Hobsons Old Henry, so that's my nom nom nomination for this year.

In 2011 I’d Most Like To…: Travel
Not too dissimilar from my aspiration for 2010, though rather less planned out at this stage. After four years I've finally managed to stuff enough cash down the money pit that is Beer Nut Towers to keep it quiet so now have the opportunity of putting some aside for a trip somewhere interesting in 2011. Not necessarily for the beer, but I'm sure there'll be beer there. Putting some sort of shape on that will be my project for January.

Open Category: Most improved brewery: Messrs Maguire

As I wrote in my post on the re-launch, we've seen the first signs of a new and improved Messrs Maguire pub and brewery. There's much more of a can-do feel about the place, and the house beers aren't the neglected stepchildren they once were. Here's hoping this upward trend continues in 2011.

And here's wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas.

Double Trouble

I've been drinking it fairly regularly all month, so apologies for only getting round to telling you about Trouble Brewing's Dark Arts porter now. It made its first appearance at the Food & Wine Magazine fair in the RDS a few weeks ago, followed by an official launch in the Bull & Castle on 30 November.

It's an unfiltered dark brown session porter of 4.4% ABV which starts out quite roasty and dry but follows this with a long-lasting chocolate and caramel sweetness. Just on the end there's a nip from the hops adding a bitter, slightly sour complication.

Dark Arts is a beer of marvellous balance: light enough for session drinking, but properly warming as well. It's on tap at the Bull & Castle and L. Mulligan Grocer for the next while.

In addition to this and Ór, a third beer comes to us from the Trouble kit, though its origins are rather more obscure. Last year Dublin pubs Sin É and Dice Bar began selling beers badged with old Dublin Brewing Company brands: D'Arcy's Stout and Revolution Red, names that hadn't been seen since DBC went under in 2004. Word around the campfire was that these were Young's Double Chocolate Stout and Bombardier, imported from the UK. And then, just a few months ago, I spotted a new poster outside Sin É proclaiming that Revolution is now brewed in Ireland. Investigations led to Trouble where, I'm told, the management rent out the kit to Revolution's owners and leave them to it.

The beer is quite good too: very sweet, with lots of toffee and smooth caramel. There's a nice roasted element to the flavour as well and just a tiny bit of hop aroma. A well-rounded Irish red, basically: not going to set the world alight but quite enjoyable to drink. And while it's quite possible that it's not terribly different from the kegged Bombardier, I really like that they see "brewed in Ireland" as a significant enough selling point to actually go to the bother of arranging it. Well done them.

...on a such a winter's day

It was lovely to see globetrotting Beer Geeks Chris and Merideth back in Dublin last week. Thursday was Merideth's birthday and a bunch of us bravely crossed the ice floes of Smithfield to gather in L. Mulligan. Grocer for some excellent food and a few beers. The guys had brought some bottles of interest over from California for us to try.

First up was Saison Ale from the recently-established Odonata Brewery in Sacramento. Paler than I would have expected from a saison, this put me more in mind of a witbier, albeit a very very good one. Lots of lovely gunpowder spice on the nose and lovely zesty Belgian yeast flavours on a light and breezy body. There's just a touch of earthy funk on the end which brings it back into more familiar saison territory, but on the whole I'm theorising that this is what witbier used to taste like before the industrial breweries got hold of it.

Firestone Walker Union Jack was my favourite of the set. This is a very heavy, sticky IPA of 7.5% ABV. The aroma sings loudly of golden syrup and sherbet and the opera continues on tasting: a massive malt backbone overlaid with oodles of sweet Californian hops. There's very little of what I'd call bitterness in this: no trace of acidity or harshness, but there's bags and bags of citric flavour, incorporating more pineapples, mangoes and tangerines than grapefruit. Hefty, totally unsubtle, but wonderfully balanced.

The Russian River Blind Pig which followed it was an interesting contrast. It's a wonderful beer (a previous donation from Chris and Merideth was reviewed here), though lighter, paler and bitterer than Union Jack. Proof that American IPA is just as broad a genre as the English ones.

We finished the tasting with Denogginizer, a stonking double IPA from Drake's Brewing. I loved the nose on this: fresh American hops and plenty of them, but the flavour was just overpowering -- a harsh burn from the hops, goaded on by the heat of nearly 10% ABV. There's plenty of toffeeish malt in that deep amber body, but nowhere near enough to carry all that bitterness. It's a beer for people who like their hops in indiscriminately vast quantities.

With these out of the way it was on to dinner (mushrooms and Cashel Blue cheese on toast followed by juniper-spiced beef with roasted vegetables), and a sublime birthday cake for afters, made with Trouble Brewing's Dark Arts porter -- a beer I'm well overdue telling you about properly.

Thanks to Chris and Merideth for the beer and for being excellent company despite what must have been some chronic jetlag; and thanks also to the Mulligan's crew for looking after us on an evening when Dublin's winter water shortages would have crippled many a less tenacious establishment. We beer people really are troopers when we need to be.

The troubled life of Brittany's beers

"Bières d'Excellence" it said on the box of Breton brews that Dave and Laura brought back from holidays for me, accompanied by the proviso that I should expect no such thing from the contents.

The first one I opened was called Dremmwel Blonde: 5% ABV, made from organic ingredients and sporting a jaunty set of Breton bagpipes on the label and cap. Lots of sediment in the bottom of the bottle so I poured carefully, giving me a hazy brass-coloured glassful, topped by a fine foam of purest white. Lots of breath-stopping carbon dioxide from the nose, and an odd herbiness underneath, warranting further investigation. It's not overly fizzy, just a pleasantly busy prickle helping keep the flavours clean. The main one is dry, slightly grassy and vegetal -- asparagus springs to mind. Beyond it there's little by way of malt or hops, but as a light clean aperitif, I was quite happy with this.

The amber followed next: Gwiniz Du. An attractive conker-red body is somewhat spoiled by the large floaty chunks buoyed up by a vigorous carbonation. According to the label it's a wheat beer [correction: buckwheat. French lessons via Mark & Laurent], but there's no sign of the soft texture or fruits or spices that one might expect. Instead it's very sweet, exhibiting lots of dark treacle and a touch of bitter liquorice. As is so often the case with sugar-bombs like this, once it gets warm it becomes sickly and cloying. This isn't my sort of beer but doubtless the style-conscious tramps of Quimper will be all over it next season.

Last of the trio is Celtika. "Enter into Hell" is the strapline on the MS Paint label. Oo-er. That bad, eh? Since it's advertised as a blonde and is 8.8% ABV, and given the satanic branding, I figured they were going for something along the lines of Duvel. It pours rather darker, however: a murky orange with bits in. The aroma has the yeasty spice of a strong Belgian blonde, but the similarities end there. Like Gwiniz Du it's powerfully sweet, full of candied lemons with a finish of aftershave. There's a definite touch of cardboardy oxidation in there, and an unpleasant gastric sharpness. OK, that sounds worse than it is. It's drinkable, but it's no kind of substitute for proper Belgian-style strong blonde ale.

I don't know enough about the beers of western France to start making generalisations, but if this is what gets classed as excellent then there's some work still to be done in getting the recipes right. Thanks again Dave and Laura for generously off-loading these on me.

Lidl donkey

One thing I won't miss about not attending the Pig's Ear festival this year is execrable Christmas beer nomenclature: Rudolph's This, Santa's That -- it's stultifyingly dull. Mind you, the beers are often quite good, at least when they have a bit of oomph to them. I've found in the past that low-ABV Christmas ales are very rarely drinkable.

So it was with trepidation that I approached Shepherd Neame's seasonal offering (sigh) Rudolph's Reward. I was quite fond of their, more soberly-titled, Christmas Ale: a bitter and spicy 7% ABV thumper. But the new kid is only 4%, so how much yuletide cheer is there likely to be inside?

(Can we pause for a second and look at that label? Smirking Rudolph appears to be wearing Santa's clothing, implying some kind of gruesome Animal Farm-style takeover of the North Pole workshop or mid-air sleigh mutiny. Whatever Rudolph is hoisting to celebrate his seizure of the means of production, it is a blonde beer and plainly not Rudolph's Reward.)

The beer looks, in fairness, lovely: dark red-amber, with a long lasting fine-bubbled head. Nothing offensive about the nose: hints of caramel and chocolate. It's the latter which leads the flavour. I say "leads", but there's not really a whole lot else. Just on the finish you get a whiff of Shepherd Neame's signature lightstruck hops, but not enough to contribute much (good or bad) to it. It's mercifully less fizzy than a lot of the brewery's bottled offerings, but the texture is very watery. Stronger it would just be sweet and cloying, however. It needs more complexity before I'd recommend it, even at €1.49 a pop in Lidl.

Fall forward

The new autumn seasonal from Sierra Nevada, Tumbler is a medium-strength brown ale, 5.5% ABV and a dark mahogany in the glass, topped by thick off-white foam. The nose gives fresh, lightly mandarin, hops and a hint of caramel sweetness. It's quite understated in the flavour department, though what's there is nicely balanced between burnt treacley caramel and punchy hop fruits. The hops come out on top at the end, finishing bitter with a hint of saccharine.

I can't help being reminded of lighter, the punchier American and American-style amber ales like Speakeasy Prohibition or Brewdog 5am Saint: they do this sort of thing better. Tumbler is much heavier and creamier in texture, perhaps intended to be a softer, more huggable beer. But those typically Sierra Nevadan hops are just sending me the wrong signals: begging to be taken out for a wild time. A draught version is currently on tap in a couple of Dublin pubs and the hops are even more subdued there, to the point of invisibility.

It's hard to fault it, though. Tasty, smooth and filling it's a nice one to have on hand on a chilly evening, and there's no shortage of those round here right now.

Subterranean homesick booze

A brewpub? Really? That's the place you made an unexpected beer discovery? Well, sort of.

Messrs Maguire has been coasting for some years now. Launched in a blaze of glory in the late 1990s, the multistorey superpub on O'Connell Bridge boasted a lending library and a cask bitter at the beginning. Sadly, it wasn't long before the management sidelined the more high-concept aspects and it gradually reverted into just another brash city centre booze warehouse. It's perhaps suprising that the brewery and its beers survived at all, discounted in both price and brand by the owners. As brewer, Cuilán Loughnane kept the wheels on and the beer flowing, sticking to a punishing routine of commuting from Tipperary up to Dublin and back each brewday. When he finally got his own White Gypsy brewery up and running closer to home it's not surprising that Messrs Maguire production moved there and the pub kit fell into disuse.

A little over a year ago, word had it that the owners had finally twigged that a microbrewery can be more of an asset than a liability and moves were made to revitalise the pub, the brewery and the beer. A new Dublin-based brewer, Melissa Camire, was installed to blow the cobwebs off the kettle and get everything running once more. While the three above-ground storeys of the pub were given little more than a lick of paint, a whole new bar has been opened in the basement. The Brewery, as they're calling it, caters much more to the needs of the beer enthusiast with a fascinating range of continental imports plus specials from both the brewery and its Tipperary cousin. I went along recently with a few of the Beoir guys for the opening night.

Nothing from the in-house brewery was available yet (a brown ale will be first out of the tanks in the next week or two), but there was Melissa's first Irish-brewed beer: Messrs Maguire Pale Ale brewed at White Gypsy though -- Cuilán insists -- without any input from him. It's no hoppy quaffer, this one: heavy and almost English-tasting in its no-nonsense marmalade bitterness on a smooth caramel base. It may lack the zingy high notes of fresh C-hops but it's a lovely one to take a bit of time to sip.

The handpump was serving the latest edition of White Gypsy Emerald blonde ale, this one made with a twist. It's the first beer brewed from totally home-grown ingredients in over a decade thanks to White Gypsy's new plantation of First Gold hops. It's a full 5% ABV though doesn't feel it at all. Light of texture and low on bitterness it's very easy drinking with a beautiful mineral softness underlying the slightly lagery pale malts and gentle green bitterness.

Under the new arrangements, Messrs Maguire will still be an outlet for White Gypsy beer, and Cuilán will continue to brew the core house beers for the upstairs bars. And hopefully that in turn means that we the Dublin drinkers will still have the opportunity to buy his specials and seasonals as well as Melissa's. The coming of winter means the arrival of a beer that's much less unexpected than the above but no less delightful: Messrs Maguire Jul-Ól. Resolutely brewed without spices or adjunct flavourings, this 6%-er has different emphases from year to year. In 2010 we're leaning more towards malt for a very sticky and warming ruby ale. The hops sit in the background and add a bitter complexity to the whole: toffee and jam with a liquorice bite.

I will be back over the coming weeks and months to further explore the new-look Messrs Maguire -- Melissa's beers, the bottle fridge and of course the new food menu. Hopefully it'll all seem like less of a surprise with each visit.

Czech again

I did say I'd be back for a go of the bottled beer at The Porterhouse's recent Czech beer festival. Not everything that was promised arrived in the end, but among those that did was Žatec Xantho, a 5.7% ABV black lager. Very black, in fact: opaque with a hint of red around the edges and a healthy layer of off-white foam on top. The aroma is odd: carbon dioxide and liquorice reflecting both the intense gassiness of the beer and its sticky weight. The two elements provide a balance of sorts.

The flavour is dominated by a kind of sour caramel taste -- lots of dark roasted sweetness and plenty of vegetal bittering hops. More than anything it reminded me of Baltika 6, the St Petersburg brewery's porter, but it's an easier drink than that one.

If you like a bit of meat to your dark lager this is a good one to go for.