The customer is always

Ding has helpfully set out some options for this month's Session, on the topic of where we see ourselves within the beer 'scene' (his scarequotes). One of them leapt out at me straight away and it wasn't the capitalisation that did it: Are you JUST a consumer? That's pretty much it for me. I'm the guy at the bar with a fiver looking for something nice to drink. As such, I believe this makes me the most important person on the beer scene, alongside all the other consumers who pay for breweries to stay in business. We, or at least I, ask for nothing but good beer, priced reasonably. Our most powerful weapon against the opposite is to not go there or drink that again. Everything else on the 'scene' is decoration.

I needed a bit more than a fiver to secure a pint of Gnéas Dublin Dark Ale, it was all of €5.60 in 57 The Headline, which is high for something of only 4.2% ABV. I guess the fact that brand owners Kerry Brewing are getting it made at Rascal's adds the extra few cents. It's one of a pair, though I haven't seen the pale ale anywhere yet.

Calling a beer after the Irish word for sex does raise certain expectations. One of which, to put not too fine a point on it, is that it wouldn't be as dry as it is. But crisp dry roasted grain is the centrepiece of the dark garnet coloured ale, enhanced even further by the carbonic sparkle. It's a severe and pointy-edged beer when served cold, and while it softens a little as it warms and flattens, the flavour doesn't get any more complex or interesting.

My place on the beer scene, where this one is concerned, is using my next fiver to order something else. There's never a shortage of options at The Headline.