The bottle of the Boyne

I can't believe it was all the way back in January when a bunch of us from Beoir visited Boyne Brewhouse. They were just getting ready to commission the packaging lines in the cavernous former car showroom outside Drogheda -- bottling and canning for their Devil's Bit cider and the forthcoming range of beers. Production on the latter had begun last October with head brewer Áine O'Hora at the helm. It's a big plant, intending to hit the microbrewery limit of three million litres from year one, and incorporating the Boann Distillery, which Áine will also be running. The project is owned and operated by the Cooney family and pater familias Pat took us around, to show where the barrel stores will be, as well as the visitors' centre with restaurant and theatre. It's an immensely ambitious project, but at the same time the sort of perfectly normal attraction you might expect to find abroad, but never here in Ireland. After the walkabout we got tasters of the beers, most of which were still not ready for public view, and I vowed that I'd come back and write about them properly after their release. Ridiculously, and entirely by my own fault, that has taken five months.

Born in a Day was already on the market in draught form when we visited, and I'd previously reviewed the first iteration last summer, when it was still being brewed at White Gypsy, but this is my first proper sit-down with a full bottle. It's an attractive clear and slightly coppery gold, with the loose topping of big bubbles that tells me it won't be over-carbonated. There's a pleasingly beery smell: nothing more complex than orange peel and iced tea. On tasting it's the bitterness that strikes first: orangey in that characteristically Australian way, though without any juiciness. The ethos here seems to be more the invigorating English best bitter than anything new-worldsy. A tight astringency on the finish might put some off but it left me coming back for the next mouthful. There's a toffeeish twang in the background that grows as it warms, creating a risk that it will get a little sickly if allowed warm too much. It's an Australian-style pale ale, so is best consumed damn cold, I reckon. An unsophisticated beer, perhaps, but with a definite no-nonsense charm.

Occupying the red ale space is Pagan's Pillar, badged as a "sparkling copper ale" with a slight nod to Cooper's (why all the Australian references? Áine used to brew at Matilda Bay in Melbourne). The use of Mandarina Bavaria hops for flavour gives a lot of the same orange-and-tannins effect that we found in the pale ale. The difference is a toffee edge sweetening things up a little. It's still ultimately quite a dry beer and there's a light touch of the roast found in better Irish reds, but it's really only a small sideways step from Born in a Day, and is even the exact same strength at 4.8% ABV. To my mind these are essentially the same beer pitched at slightly different markets: the pale ale for the youngster with a global outlook on beer, and the red for their dad, looking for something more familiar. Both are safe solid beers, well made but not likely to excite. Most Irish brewers have a core range like this and they're the ones that pay the mortgage on the breweries.


And finally Long Arm, either a pilsner or a Dortmunder export, depending on whether you believe the front or the back of the label -- Áine insists that export is just pils brewed with hard water. This was nearly finished, but flat, when tasted at the brewery, yet showed enormous promise. It has grown up into a very handsome lager, not too fizzy and bursting with grassy Saaz, the only hop used in it. The bitterness is perhaps just a little high for me, making a somewhat waxy, plasticky distraction, but it's quite effectively drowned out by the aforementioned hops and a smooth golden-syrup malt sweetness. Classical drinkability is the name of the game here and it performs very well at it.

The names, in case you were wondering, are all drawn from Celtic mythology, in keeping with the brewery's location near Newgrange and other points of archaeological interest along the Boyne Valley. I do think it's a little bit of a shame that they don't really speak to the sorts of beers they've been assigned to, being entirely interchangeable.

I think Boyne Brewhouse will do well, and I take it as a positive sign that this cider-maker with designs on the whiskey trade decided it should produce beer as well. It didn't have to. The initial products aren't likely to win them armies of geek fans, but they're three quality offerings being produced in enough quantity to make a noticeable, positive, impact on the market.

Tastes of summer

It's bright and breezy brews today, for the longer, sunnier days. First up, Metalman Zwickel, the Waterford brewery's take on the German lager style. Though unfiltered it's not specially hazy and pours from the can a pale shade of yellow. The aroma promises hints of grass and lemons though the flavour is much more malt-driven. I get a wholesome and husky grain flavour foremost in the taste, properly smooth with a satisfyingly full body and not too much fizz. The sweetness levels edge towards candyfloss but there's a late smack of serious green bitterness on the finish that holds it in check. It's a beautiful beer, and totally convincing as a German knock-off. And despite the biggish ABV of 5.3%, it deserves to be quaffed in larger quantities: three cans will fill your Maßkrug nicely.

Sticking on the hazy and yellow theme, we have The Púca next, described by White Hag as a "Dry Hopped Lemon Sour". I found it on tap in The Adelphi on Abbey Street, recently refurbished following a short spell as The Jolly Monk and shaping up into a very nice venue. To be honest I didn't find a whole lot of hops in the beer, and the lemon takes a while to show itself, but it is substantially, deliciously, sour. It has that very straightforward tang that you find in Berliner weisse which is supremely refreshing. The lemons lurk behind this, creating an effect very similar to posh cloudy lemonade. A cereal crunch finishes it off. If I wanted to nitpick I'd say it is a little thin of texture, which I guess is perfectly understandable at just 3.6% ABV. But that's a very minor quibble: this is a beaut and perfect sunny day drinking.

 Galway Bay, meanwhile, has a new amber ale on the taps at its bars, named Althea. My pint in Alfie Byrne's arrived a somewhat murky orange colour. It's only 4.8% ABV but is very thick and chewy. There's lots of resinous dank and spicy pepper in the flavour and it almost tastes bright and juicy but there's a savoury fuzz from the yeast in the glass that gives it a much more serious edge. This got more and more pronounced as I moved down the pint, eventually becoming almost brett-like in its muckiness. There's a very good beer lurking in here somewhere but Althea just misses the mark to be worth the €6 they're asking for it. That's what Goodbye Blue Monday cost, and this is no Goodbye Blue Monday. Clean-up required.

Finally, and staying on a hoppy buzz, I chanced across Eight Degrees Citra on a quiet sunny afternoon a few weeks ago in The Hill. This IPA is 5.7% ABV and is very Citra indeed. All the Citra, in fact. Lemon candy meets herbal cannabis in a recently disinfected bathroom. For all the hop action it's surprisingly sweet-tasting, almost sticky, like a half-sucked boiled sweet, though also like resin, I guess. The texture is greasy, in a not unpleasant way. Citra is impressively put together and will keep the hop-lovers happy but one pint was plenty for me. Next in the brewery's Single Hop series is Mandarina Bavaria, which should be hitting taps over the coming weekend.

Regarding this lot, however, the lighter and cleaner beers are definitely my preference for summer drinking. Amber Ale and IPA can wait until the autumn. At the Killarney Beer Festival which starts today and runs to Sunday, look for me under the Púca tap.

The one and the zero

Digital IPA is the first Yeastie Boys beer I've ever had. It has been popping up in lots of places around Dublin lately and I caught up with it at Alfie Byrne's.

5.7% ABV and a perfectly clear gold colour, this stuff is New Zealand in a glass. It has all of that spicy, peppery hop blast that switches over into ripe mango mid-sip and continues in this binary fashion -- spicy and juicy -- all the way along. The firm body helps the hop flavours do their thing, but it's so clean it could still pass for being a much lower-strength beer. I got a tiny touch of butane or diesel in the finish, those crazy kiwi hops again.

More than anything this is an entertaining beer. I'm guessing from the supreme freshness it was actually brewed somewhat closer to home than Wellington -- I understand some of that work happens in the UK these days (at BrewDog, say my always-reliable commenters below). But it certainly does a great job as an ambassador for its purported country. I'd love it if a beer could taste so unmistakeably of Ireland as this does of New Zealand.

Black hops

There's a bit of a buzz going round about the "Discovery IPA Series" recently released by Black's of Kinsale. You'll find glowing reviews from Simon, Reuben and Wayne, so I was sufficiently convinced to go and get some myself.

It did help that there's a Mosaic IPA in the set. Mosaic can do no wrong. This is 6.5% ABV and slightly hazy. There is a bee-yootiful juicy aroma, all satsuma, tangerine, mango and possibly a variety of other good things. It's hoppy. It smells hoppy. The flavour is a bit more savory: there's a touch of spring onion and spiced red cabbage, but the juice is there in the finish, albeit in a slightly muted form. This is a superbly complex number, firmly giving the lie to notions of single hop beers being one-dimensional. There's something in here for everyone, assuming they aren't averse to lovely hops.

A notch down from there is Exp 439 IPA, a light 4.3% ABV job, looking lovely and clear and warmly golden, like a beautiful classic lager. Lacking even a proper name, it's hard to know what to expect from hop variety Exp 439, but dank appears to be a big part of it: this smells thickly resinous with lots of herbal grassy tones. It's not so interesting to taste, however. There's a wateriness at the core of this beer which suggests Black's hasn't quite got the hang of the session IPA thing. It's like the hops are present but there's nothing for them latch on to and they just slide sideways off the palate as a result. I get what this beer is trying to be, but more substance is required.

So just as well I get to follow it with Overkill, a 9.5% ABV imperial black IPA. It's certainly black, with a healthy layer of white bubbles on top. The aroma is muted, to the point of being barely-there, just a little mild roastiness. And, a bit like the main Black's Black IPA, this tastes much more stout-like than IPA-ish. The flavour is very smooth and has a lovely gentle citric tang which lasts long into the finish overlaid with dark roast and a slightly metallic aspirin bitterness. I was expecting a much more aggressive beer -- I guess it's the name -- so it's an odd mix of disappointment and relief that it isn't that. Overkill is relaxing drinking and you need a lot of reminders that it's as strong as it is: there's absolutely no sign of all that alcohol in either the flavour or the texture.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it looks like Mosaic wins again.

Chasing Trouble

Lately I've been all over the southside, looking for Trouble. It started with the grand re-opening of Ranelagh's The Hill as a craft beer bar. I lived around the corner when I first moved to Dublin so remember this as a dark and slightly down-at-heel football pub. Darragh (pictured, right) and Derek from Ugly Duckling have taken it on, brightened it up, and installed a wide selection of good draught beers.

Opening night saw the début of the first of this set of new Trouble offerings: Stakeout, described as an "American Wheat Ale". I was sceptical: in my head, that combination of words means a wheat beer fermented with a neutral ale yeast and sorely lacking in character. Early American craft brewing seemed to be awash with them but you don't see them as much any more. In 2016, "American" seems to have become a signal that we are to expect citric hops, and so it goes with this. The wheat is still a big part of what it does: the haze is that of a wheat beer, as is the soft pillowy weissbier texture. Then there's a quenching tropical juiciness from the hops, guava and papaya flavours assertively refreshing, though perhaps turning a little too bitter on the finish. At 5.4% ABV it's substantial without being unsessionable. Another welcome addition to the Trouble pantheon of hop-forward delights.

To The Beer Market a week later, and a pint of Last Crash, a passionfruit lager, of all things. This had been pouring in a few places around the country -- cheers to Liam for the heads-up that it had made it to Dublin at last. And it's hard to think of anything to write, beyond the brewery's own description. It's got passionfruit and it's a lager. The former is a huge and rather sickly hit, on both the aroma and right through the flavour. It smells and tastes pink, with a fleshy fruit softness up front and then a harder twangy bitterness at the end. There's a certain syrupyness to the effect, as though the passionfruit were the tinned variety rather than fresh. Behind this sits the lager itself, and I got the impression it's a rather good one: crisp and husky, while the post-gulp burps brought a waft of grassy Saaz to the palate, as well as the fruit flavour add-on. I drank this quickly but couldn't help wondering how it would have turned out without being, erm, "enhanced".

Last Crash is fun for one, but the novelty wears off quickly. Should you find yourself ordering a second it's possible that you don't like drinking beer. Have a word with yourself.

Beer three landed at 57 the Headline following a world première at the Belfast Craft Beer Festival in late April. Owl Day is a pale stout at 6.1% ABV. YellowBelly has been twiddling with this style for a while now, and they have a bottled version knocking around now. Trouble's attempt is definitely pale, a clear orange-gold behind the condensation on that glass. The aroma is low: just a touch of green-veg old-world hops. The illusion is all accomplished in the flavour: a big and crunchy Irish stout roast opens it up, followed by a rather forced-tasting chocolate and coffee. The finish is dry but it still leaves a bit of a sickly impression from the chocolate. So, yes, this beer does successfully achieve what it's trying to do -- it really is a pale beer that has the assorted flavour characteristics of a dry stout -- but it's not a dry stout and, beyond the gimmicky giggles, isn't something I'd be interested in drinking again. Where black IPAs brought something new and thought-provoking to the beer world, pale stout, in my opinion, does not.

And finally it's back to The Hill for a fourth beer: Amber Avenger. Sorachi Ace hops loom large in this, producing big, big coconut flavours with just a slightly more severe acidic burn coming in behind that. I was fairly convinced that it was a single-hop job, but a glance at the Trouble website tells me there's Wakatu and Mosaic in it as well. They have been thoroughly bullied into submission by their loud Japanese colleague, however. As befits an amber ale there's a strong contribution from the malt, but here it's more texture than flavour: it's a heavy and filling beer, tasting stronger than its 5.5% ABV. There's maybe a slight crystal malt sweatiness, but not so much that it interferes with the hops.

Stakeout and Amber Avenger are my top picks out of this lot, which leaves me wondering if Trouble Brewing's hop mastery is leaving it at risk of being a one-note operation. Probably not. I'm just a bit intolerant of gimmicky recipes, unless they taste better than the middle two here.

On a promise

I like Mosaic hops. I like Founders brewery. I'm... fairly indifferent to Golden Promise malt, but the joining up of the first two was enough to pique my interest when Founders Mosaic Promise rolled into view. This is 5.5% ABV and a pale gold colour. I noticed a lot of gunk sloshing around in the bottom of the bottle so I poured carefully and got a clear glassful for my troubles.

There's a lovely spicy aroma. I've heard Mosaic described as having a garlic quality and I get a bit of that here: savoury, but fun. No garlic on tasting, though. The flavour hits that perfect sweet spot on the American hop flavour spectrum: a bit of sharp pine, some mouthwatering citrus, quenching peach and passionfruit and a subtle white pepper or rocket finish. And yet none of those elements dominate or unbalance the flavour. It's nearly perfect except... the malt lets the side down. The body is thin and the finish on tasting is unpleasantly watery, unexpectedly so for a beer of this strength. Can I forgive it? Yes. Ignore the ABV and pretend it's a point or two weaker. Call it an imperial session IPA: I don't care. It's damn decent drinking and another high-five to lovely Mosaic.

What a con!

The National Homebrew Club held its second annual Brewing Convention in Dublin last month. El Presidente Thomas invited me to the after party in the neo-Gothic splendour of Smock Alley Theatre's Banquet Hall. YellowBelly had brewed a beer especially for the day. As a non-member of the NHC, I can't comment on the appropriateness of its name: Keyboard Warrior. Declan is manning the taps there and he cheekily described it as a 6% ABV session IPA. It's certainly sessionable in the sense that the flavours are a little muted. I found it quite English-tasting, with subtle notes of orange blossom and a light pithiness. A dry, tannic centre ensures drinkability. If I were making IPA for an assembled mass of home brewers I'd probably have gone more for the hop wow factor, but maybe that's the point.

Back from travels in Spain and England, Steve came bearing bottles he had picked up along the way. The first being passed around was The Matador from Flying Monkeys brewery in Ontario. It's a deep red colour, rather murky, and both smells and tastes like a bathroom cabinet circa 1978. The Great Smell of Brut™ is hardwired into my brain, and those wires lit up with just a smell of this. For the record, it's a dark rye ale, aged on cedar, coming out at 10.1% ABV, but all you need to know is that it tastes like stale cheap cologne, is napalm-thick and damn near undrinkable.

This was followed by yet more cedar, in the form of El Cedro, described by brewers Jester King as a "hoppy cedar-aged ale with brettanomyces". Now this is more like it. The brett aroma is huge and stinkily beautiful, the honking funk just pitching slightly towards tropical fruit, before going full-on peach and pineapple when tasted. The cedar gives it just a gentle and complementary pepper buzz. And the slightly sour (but not tart) brett farmyard character is there too. All big flavours, but popping together in sublime harmony. Beautiful, and fun to boot.

Last of the big bottles in circulation was Wild Beer Co.'s Beyond Modus II (The Blend, Winter 2015), offering yet more barrels and brettanomyces. The base beer is a mixed fermentation sour ale, and that is still very much what it's doing. I was reminded a lot of Rodenbach, though it's bigger and chewier than Rodenbach classic while not as aggressively vinegary as Grand Cru. There's a wonderful balsamic cherry effect, as well as a heady dose of earthy brett. The biggest surprise is that it's only 6% ABV -- it's so complex I was expecting a few points more. But I'm not complaining: this is fine drinking and another lovely example of the sour and the funky performing well together.

We finish on a beer Thomas himself brought to the party, BrewDog's AB:13, a cherry imperial stout brewed in 2013. I got massive autolysis from this: soy sauce in spades, alongside cocoa powder, raisins and chocolate syrup. There's quite a sherry buzz as well, the grapes turning a bit Pedro Ximinez on it. More than anything it reminded me of Samuel Adams Triple Bock, though thinner and less coherent. Perhaps this was better when fresher but I don't think it has aged well.

And then it was back to the homebrews: Brendan's rauch märzen was my favourite of the day. We're in for a treat when that guy goes commercial.

Thanks to all who brought beer on the day, and to the hospitable organisers who put on a very impressive event. Plans have been hatched for 2017 and it sounds like it'll be even better.

Any given Friday

When I first visited The Open Gate Brewery, Diageo's Dublin brewpub, I expressed some concern about its lack of, well, openness: that you need to plan forward and book in advance to visit, and how this is likely to keep the masses away from what is intended as a reaching-out gesture. I've been back in a few times over the intervening months, though always as part of invitation-only events and I was very curious to see what The Open Gate is like on a typical Friday evening. So, having waited for the brewing roster to turn out some new stuff, I made arrangements a few weeks ago and headed in.

Pleasingly, the system does seem to be working. It was a mixed crowd, including the inevitable tourists, though very much of the prior beer-enthusiast persuasion. And then groups of locals: either workplace groups or friends using it as somewhere to congregate before moving on to the rest of the evening. And the spirit of the venue was also being observed: folk leaned in as the bar staff explained the beers, others wandered from table to table, inspecting and sniffing the jars of assorted hop pellets. It was a bar themed around beer the way almost no Dublin bar is. Score one for the geeks.

But I wasn't there just to look round me. There was beer to be evaluated. The headline draw was 1516 Anniversary Pilsner, created by ex-Alpirsbacher brewer Jasmin Winterer as the Guinness tribute to 500 years of Reinheitsgebot. The sample I got in my introductory flight looked a bit sad: the perfect clear shade of spun gold, but lacking any sort of head. I traded up to a pint before leaving and that's really how this beer needs to be enjoyed. And enjoy you will: a classically grassy noble hop aroma starts it off, as well as a soft rub of light diacetyl. On taste it's perfectly crisp with a light green Saaz bite, gentle white pepper and a mild baked-cookie malt note. The only fly in this ointment is a tiny one: a finish that's just too abrupt, leaving this drinker hankering for more of a bitter smack on the end, where there's only mineral water fizz. But otherwise it's an extremely well executed pils and a beer I would happily drain many pints of were it more widely available.

A tough act to follow, and next along was Offset Rye IPA, launched in association with the Offset design festival a few months back and causing a storm of controversy after the organisers cancelled a previous sponsorship arrangement they'd had with Kinnegar Brewing. Well, as far as the liquid is concerned, the brewers of Rustbucket have no cause for concern. While Offset does contain enough rye and hops for both to be tastable, it's dominated by a sweet toffee flavour which belongs in a red ale, not here. There's a mild rasping rye grassiness and a token tang of generic citrus but not enough of either to make the beer worthwhile. If you came to Open Gate to learn about IPA, this will leave you with a false impression, even if you enjoy the beer, as some people apparently do.

Last of the new ones is a Chocolate & Vanilla Stout, bearing some resemblance to the Milk Stout they were serving at the opening, in strength at least, at 6.3% ABV. I wasn't quite sure what it was trying to achieve. Yes, there is both chocolate and vanilla in the flavour, and it is predominantly sweet, but I think there's been an effort made to avoid cloying sickliness and this has toned things down to the point where the beer lacks distinguishing features. It's quite bland, in other words, and I ended up hankering after the mild sour twang that defines Guinness stout. The body is lacking as well, and the sweetness grows while it warms. Brewing a beer that's both overly sweet and overly thin is definitely a mortaller.

Antwerpen, the microbrewed version of Special Export Stout, was still on tap and I filled out my flight with one of those: and there's that sour twang. I got it to compare with some that they've been ageing in a rum barrel for a few weeks. It's made a huge difference as well: the sap and sawdust of the wood is very apparent, and there's a little of the sugary spirit as well, but what really interested me is how much has been lost: all the lactic elements, and the smooth creaminess is stripped out. The end result is still weighty and warming but the flavour just isn't as complex. It has been dumbed down. I've occasionally suspected that barrel ageing isn't always in the beer's best interests and this is very much an example of when it's not.

So, pilsner aside, I'm coming out of The Open Gate yet again rather disappointed by the quality of the beers. But chalked up on the blackboard was a forthcoming "Tropical IPA". Nothing can possibly go wrong with that, right?

Blonde porter?

I don't know anything about Hertalse Poorter, though judging from the label it appears to be endorsed by Renaissance Donald Trump. I do know that, despite the name, it's not a porter, the paleness visible through the brown glass of the bottle and pouring revealing it to be a very light shade of Budweiser yellow. Originally the glassful was perfectly clear but I got greedy and topped it up after the head settled, landing a pinch or two of yeast into the rest. Maybe it'll add character.

It smells pleasant: lightly peachy with a hint of pear. Getting to the flavour was harder work, however, due to the heavy fizz, its overactive bubbles jamming the taste signals initially. The beer underneath is fairly plain: a crisp and grainy blonde ale that's almost lagerlike. What rescues it from mediocrity is that fruit character I identified in the aroma, coming through here as lychee and hondeydew. The label mentions that it's brewed with spices local to Herentals (near Antwerp) but elaborates no further. Maybe they have something to do with the flavour, in which case, well done them. Despite it being a 6.5% ABV Belgian blonde it has no headachey esters or cloying residual sugars and I don't miss them one bit.

This was a pleasant surprise and a beer I'd be happy to drink again some sunny day.

Rapid fire

The special edition beers are fairly flying out of Carlow Brewing these days. They have two one-off series running in tandem and a moment of near-synchronicity between them meant that I got the latest from each in a single box, courtesy of the brewery, on Friday afternoon.

From the 20th anniversary series comes 'OPsession, a 4% ABV session IPA. In recent months this has become one of my favourite beer styles, with White Hag's Little Fawn leading the field. I'm always on the lookout for a beer that can better it. 

The first surprise here was the colour: expecting pale and yellowy, I found it the copper shade of a vintage French cider. And almost as tannic too: the first sip delivers a strong astringency that won't really let much else past. It even smells like heavy black tea. What's not present in any of this are the hops. The label mentions citrus but I can't imagine the copy was composed after the beer came out of the brewery filter because there is no citrus character of which to speak here. There is a certain level of bitterness in the finish, but again it's that tannic astringent sort, rather than anything bringing hops to mind. If feeling charitable I might describe this as a decent example of dry English bitter, albeit in a fizzier-than-usual form. But those of us who have become accustomed to Little Fawn, Via Maris, Rollover and the like will not find anything recognisable in this session IPA, sadly.

The other series is O'Hara's Hop Adventure and the latest addition is Aramis, a relatively high-alpha French hop of Alsatian and English pedigree. The beer spec is the same as its predecessors -- a 5% ABV pale gold IPA -- but once again the hop adds something very distinctive to the drinking experience. My first thought on tasting was creamy and I couldn't think why. Most likely it's a noble hop characteristic, that it reminds me of first-rate Bavarian pils, which are all about that soft creamy taste. The label mentions spices and I get a certain amount of that too: the cedar and nutmeg you find in Belgian tripels and their ilk. I also get a sort of weissbier-like banana effect, strange in an IPA but not off-putting or unpleasant, and definitely part of the hop's business rather than something up in the fermentation: the underlying beer is perfectly crisp and clean.

This is a subtle and interesting one. You can roll the flavours around and find different things with each sip -- coconut? chilli? blackcurrant? melon? -- but if you want to drink it down as an easy-going pale ale there's nothing in the profile loud enough to prevent you from doing so. Certainly, the mission of the series to show off the variety of flavours available in the world of hops is fulfilled.

One missed step and one unique perspective: a reminder of why variety is so important to the beer drinker, and not just the one with a blog to fill. Thanks to the Carlow crew for the bottles.

Keep on truckin'

It's a slightly worrying topic for Session number 111. Oliver Gray is asking if any of us keyboard warriors are feeling less enthused about beer blogging these days. A glance at the tumbleweed blowing through my RSS reader would suggest that some of us definitely are. Beer blogging is not what it used to be. Blogs are still being born but many die in infancy while numerous older ones seem to be suffering from terminal blogrot, that gradual process where posts become less and less frequent until there's the final one which begins "Hey! I've been bad at keeping this updated but starting today there'll be lots more regular posts!" and then you know you can close its eyes and draw the blanket over its face.

Not me, though. Oh no. I'm eleven years in and fighting fit. 2015 was my bloggiest year so far and I've just increased my posting frequency, for a while anyway, so 2016 might yet top it. Is anybody reading what I write? Don't know, don't care, that's not the point. The secret of my longevity, you ask? It's all in the blog's governing rules. Creativity loves constraints and all that. Having a regular publishing schedule is crucial: I used to agonise over whether I was publishing enough, or too much, and then I set myself a schedule and all that went away. I know there are slots to be filled, it's just a question of colouring them in with words. Words like "grapefruitish" and "under-attenuation": you know the words I mean. And then there's the thematic rule: every post is about a beer or beers I've never drank before, and contains my opinion of it or them. It means I'm never stuck for a topic, unless I'm stuck for a beer, and that has yet to happen. All the inspiration I need is in the glass in front of me. Write it down, stick it in the next available timeslot and boom: you have a regularly updated beer blog that runs for as long as there's new beers to try. Mid-life crisis? Sorry, too busy writing about beers for that.

Oliver does touch on a wider issue of the beer subculture: many people who are interested in writing about beer end up working in beer, and that changes the dynamic, while the industry itself (at least in the US where Oliver is) seems to be suffering a bit of an upheaval. It's hard to know where you stand as a fanboy blogger when your favourite brewery is liable to be snatched away from you by a grasping multinational, keen to share it with the rest of the drinking world. The horror! It can be exhausting to follow and I can see how a hobby based on beer might end up feeling like work.

Again, though, not for me. I still am a fanboy for all things beer and I don't think my enthusiasm has waned at all. Like, for example, I was really delighted to be granted a place at the Beavertown event that importer Four Corners organised at L. Mulligan Grocer last month. Brewery founder Logan Plant came to talk to the crowd, as did Nick Dwyer, the creator of Beavertown's highly distinctive artwork. And they're both very entertaining speakers, but I wasn't there for the banter.

Seven Beavertown beers were on tap, with freebie samples offered to attendees. Five of the seven were new to me, and sour featured big. The Phantom series is Beavertown's badge for Berliner weisse and gose and my opener for the evening was Pearvert Phantom, a Berliner brewed with pear and gooseberry. The latter is barely there, adding maybe a certain green quality to the tartness, but the pear is very apparent and gives the beer a soft, clean juiciness that I really enjoyed. The base beer has an assertive lactic sharpness and a strange sort of boozy heat which is not something I'd expect to find in the style, even when the ABV is a high 4.8%. There's a strange sort of aftershave musk in the finish too. A delightfully thought-provoking beer, this.

I followed that with Pom Pom Phantom, this one with grapefruit and peppercorn. Once again, only one of those is really making much noise, and it's the grapefruit: massively fresh and contributing a zesty bitterness to match the more thick and oily sort provided by the hops. Perhaps there's a touch of dryness from the peppercorns, but perhaps not. There's certainly no spiciness, which was disappointing. As a fan of the trend for lightly-soured hop-forward beers, I enjoyed this one, despite a lack of complexity. It did taste more like a thin session IPA than a Berliner weisse, however.

Oranges and lemons went into St Clements Phantom, as did a load of Lemondrop hops, but the sourness is the beer's driving force. The aroma promises a puckering tartness and that sting is the first thing to hit you on sipping it. The rest of the flavours queue up behind it and take their turns: heady, dank hop resins and then a palate-scrubbing jet of citrus. Though session-strength at 4.8% ABV, it's not lacking in body. This one is beautifully balanced and incredibly easy to put away.

They brought out Skull King next, an 8.7% ABV double IPA which demonstrates everything I don't like about the style. It's hot and heavy, sticky and sickly, sharply bitter at first but then succumbing to cloying orange cordial yuckiness. The aroma is nice: I'll grant it that, just don't put it in your mouth unless you want a tongue coated in revolting orangey sugar.

To finish, we got Spresso, a coffee stout. I had no idea, until just now when I looked it up, that this is an imperial stout, with a stonking 9.5% ABV. It doesn't taste or feel anything like that heavy. The aroma is an enticing mocha mix of freshly-brewed coffee and comforting chocolate. On tasting you get a rawer coffee experience: the oiliness of just-ground beans and the dry chewy roastiness of their outer husks. It tastes like the smell of walking into a warm coffeehouse on a cold day: a soul-infusing rich perkiness. No stout flavour? True, there isn't, but that really doesn't matter. Not a subtle beer by any means, but a fun one. And if beer isn't fun, what's the point of drinking or writing about it?

A massive thanks has to go to Four Corners for arranging the event and L. Mulligan Grocer for hosting and canapés. Much as I enjoy it when it's just me and the beer, it's also great to get a bit of colour in one's drinking life through events like this.

Right, that's today's slot filled. What's in the fridge for Monday?

If we must

Doesn't this guy look classy? A half champagne bottle with painted-on calligraphy is making a statement about quality. And probably about price too, though this bottle of Ceriux Tostada was, I think, left behind in my place by Thomas.

It's from the Rioja region of Spain and includes concentrated grape juice in the ingredients. Over in Italy they've been getting great results when they mix the grape with the grain so I'm intrigued to find out how the Spanish get on.

It's a hearty 6.5% ABV and brown-red in colour with a slight haze. A thick layer of dead yeast coats the bottom of the bottle but I managed to keep most of it out of the glass. There's not much by way of aroma -- I could detect only a faint whiff of aftershave spices. The texture is smooth but the flavour is rather bland. There's a touch of caramel balanced by drier grain husks but that's about all you get. If you want to imagine there are juicy red grapes in the mix as well, the beer will allow you that, but I don't expect anyone would be able to pick them out without prompting.

Bit of a damp squib, then, which is a shame. Best stick to the Tempranillo, Riojans.

Feel the Gs

We don't have celebrity brewers in Ireland, for very good reasons, but if we did, Alex Lawes would be a candidate. From award-winning homebrew before winning awards for homebrew was really a thing, a spell at James's Gate, to Rye River where his tenure as head brewer has seen some of the best hop-forward beers Irish brewing has produced arriving and making waves, both under the brewery's own McGargle's brand, and the two supermarket house labels it produces. So it's entirely unsurprising that there's been a buzz about the first beers under his own solo marque, Whiplash.

"Brewed under contract for Whiplash by Whiplash at Rye River Brewing" explains the copy on the label: the honesty of the text offers refreshment before I've even taken a mouthful. Scaldy Porter is the first one I opened, a 33cl bottle at 5.5% ABV. It's a thick beast, glugging slowly out of the bottle to become a dense black glassful topped by a dark tan head. Roast looms large in the aroma, and that dark -- almost burnt -- character is the centre of the flavour. Around it orbits an array of other tastes, nothing outré, but it's unusual to find so many in a single beer. You get strong espresso, a milky creaminess, bitter dark chocolate and some chewy butterscotch toffee. It's all rather serious and there's an acridity in the finish that doesn't exactly invite the next sip. The label describes it as a "robust" porter; I'd say downright surly. While definitely tasty and well-made, you do need to be in the mood to do battle with this one. Easy drinking it isn't.

A change of format for its fraternal twin: portentiously-titled Surrender to the Void double IPA comes in a shiny monochrome can styled like one of them high-art Danish contract brews. It's 8.5% ABV and beautifully clear, a pale orange-gold. From the get-go it's another complex one. Various hop elements vie for superiority in the aroma, loudest among them the juicy mandarin and viscous pine resin. There's nothing viscous in the texture however. Though the carbonation is low and strength high, it has a fantastic light touch, the warmth only really becoming apparent after a few swallows, and happening in the belly rather than the mouth. Assuming the best-before is a year from canning, mine had spent a mere week in the tin before I drank it, which goes some way to explaining just how banging the hop flavour was. Bitter pine is the first impression, but it steps off after only a second letting sweeter zesty orange oils come through, lightening further to tangerine and mango. This fades quickly leaving a sticky marijuana funk as the finish. The malt base is... there, somewhere, probably, but you don't really get to taste it: Surrender to the Void is a beer with a hop obsession and wants to share it with you, loudly and at length. Alex received big plaudits for McGargle's Francis' Big Bangin' IPA and I hope this one gets equal attention. It's a better beer, in my opinion, and I'm not the sort of beer geek who thinks that you just need to up the ABV and add more hops to achieve that. There's a roundness and a nuance to Surrender that's rare in strong and hoppy Irish beer but which this pulls off neatly. If anyone fancies putting it in a blind taste against Galway Bay's Of Foam & Fury I'd be interested to see the result: I think the contention would be very close.

Alex very kindly gifted me a couple of cans of his third beer, released the week before last. Rollover is a session IPA of just 3.8% ABV. It's a murky little chap, pouring a cloudy pale orange and looking more like a witbier in the glass than anything else. A clever bit of sleight of hand sees the addition of oats to the grist, presumably to help boost the body of what might otherwise have turned out a little thin, and it works too: the texture is convincingly weighty, providing a perfect platform for the hops, though it's rather flatter than I expected. Sweet satsumas are the aroma, laced with some sharper pine, and the flavour performs a similar double act. First it's juicy orange sherbet but that's quickly upstaged by bitingly acidic resins. The pineyness grows as you go along and does bring the cumulative effect a little too close to floor cleaner for comfort -- I think I'd like a touch more fruit softness than this offers. Those after a bitter bang for their buck will definitely get a kick out of it, and there's no question about the freshness, though its sessionability will depend on your tolerance level for explosively flavourful new world hops.

So that's Whiplash: another front on which Irish beer is rendering imports increasingly unnecessary.