When in Cork

Bookending the visit to the Franciscan Well's Cask Ales & Strange Brews festival, which I covered on Monday, I dropped by a couple of other Cork boozers for a few swift ones.

Coming off the bus before noon I had a hunger that only a Wetherspoon breakfast could fix. The Linen Weaver had a fairly decent selection of cask on and I picked, more or less randomly, Scrum Down by Conwy Brewery, hoping it wouldn't be as poor as seasonal Six Nations tie-in ales from the UK tend to be. It wasn't. It's actually superb, a fresh and spritzy lemon number, served beautifully cool. Invigorating citrus bitters introduce it, and then there's a sweeter, softer, apricot flavour in the middle. It was a perfect post-travel refresher but I could see how, at 4% ABV, it would work brilliantly as a matchtime quaffer. But I didn't have time for that sort of thing.

Around the corner to Rising Sons, for a go of their Old Town altbier. It's getting to be a long time since I last had a genuine alt, but aren't they supposed to be brown? This one is oddly a golden colour. Both flavour and aroma are all perfume and biscuits, only one of which is normal for the style. I got a bathsalts blend of lavender, violet and assorted aromatic herbs, all set on a clean base with grainy oatcake overtones. It's tasty and refreshing, but really not what I was expecting from an altbier.

On the way to the train I dropped by the Abbot's Alehouse to check out its new transformation. The ground floor off licence is gone, now turned into a bar.

From the blackboard I selected Gladiator, a pale ale by White Gypsy. The brewery tends to be known for its aversion to big hop flavours, but this one packs a serious punch. A mix of Citra with Styrian Fox gives it a very real grapefruit taste, sharp and astringent: a proper enamel stripper. It's only 4.5% ABV so I can imagine getting comfortable with it and adjusting to the bitterness, something that would be aided by the soft texture. This is simple fun, but definitely fun nonetheless.

Finally the rare appearance of a new beer by JJ's. Pearl Dubh is a big stout of 7% ABV and has that chocolate breakfast cereal character of processed wheat mixed with sugary cocoa powder. That doesn't sound great but it's pretty decent, the sharp husky edges all smoothed out and the dry and sweet sides balanced harmoniously. It gets filling quite quickly so I was glad to have just a half, as well as a train to run for.

Always a pleasure, Cork.

Bungfight

Franciscan Well kicked off the 2018 Irish beer events calendar with the Cask Ales & Strange Brews festival at its brewpub. Once again I was dragooned into judging the beers of the festival, sketching notes blindly before finding out later what the beers were. With only a rushed taster sample of each, the results aren't the fullest of assessments, but hopefully they give enough of an impression.

The first was from YellowBelly, their Sweet & Sour Power Shower. It's pretty basic: just 3.4% ABV, and very light and easy drinking. There is some proper sour action going on, and a dry wheaty middle, but it's plain beyond that and does little to hold the drinker's attention. I'm all in favour of a mainstream, accessible and pintable sour beer being available, and perhaps this is what I'm looking for. I guess I need a full pint to be sure, but the competition sample didn't wow me.

Local brewer Cotton Ball's special for the event was the intriguingly titled Sherry TrifALE, though I've been completely unable to find any information about what it is. I do know it's 6.8% ABV and if I were to categorise it I'd probably put it somewhere in the English Strong Ale genre. The texture is heavy while the flavour begins at toffee apple before moving to a kind of acetone solvent vibe, making it one of those beers that tastes like hangovers from the outset. Approach with caution.

Northern brewery Bullhouse made a surprise but welcome appearance in the line-up. Their offering was a New England-style IPA called The Dankness. It's always best to be careful when using flavour descriptors in a beer title in case the product doesn't live up to it, and this one didn't really. It's still a very decent beer, only slightly hazy and lighter in texture than is typical for the style, with only a faint hint of gummy vanilla. There's a dry astringency too, which is a little out of place but also helps balance it away from excess sweetness. The biggest surprise is that there's no big hop flavour hit of any kind. Perhaps that's the deadening effect of cask. There's just a mild gooseberry note and then a citric bitterness in the finish. It's decent, though NEIPA purists may be disappointed.

Rascals' Margarita Soured Not Shaken did a much better job of self-description. Essentially a fruit gose, the salt, lime and sourness are all very present from the beginning. There's also an unexpected kick of ginger. I liked that it never loses sight of its base style and there's a very good classic gose discernible as its foundation, although it is quite thin and undercarbonated, as per its cocktail pretensions. This is a silly beer, but one of the better sort nevertheless.

There was a new release from Metalman. I guess it's a companion tribute piece to Waterford cuisine, following their blaa-based lager, though Red Lead merely takes the name from the processed meat product and as far as I know doesn't actually incorporate any. The brewery describes it as a red session IPA and it's just 4.1% ABV. It arrived a deep amber colour with very little aroma. The flavour offers tea notes and some light raspberry, but not much else. Easy drinking, overall, though a bit dull too. Another one to blame on the cask, maybe.

I got to try two new offerings from West Cork Brewery. Breakfast in Baltimore has been around since last year, and as the name suggests it's a coffee and oatmeal stout. The best thing about it was the texture: I know oatmeal is all about imparting a rich smoothness, but this one really got the full benefit of the oats, being luscious and thick, like an expensive chocolate sauce. There's lots of sweet chocolate in the flavour, some light coffee, and a comforting and warming alcohol glow, even at just 6.7% ABV. This is lovely winter drinking and very well suited to cask dispense.

I wasn't quite so keen on their newbie Heir Raisin'. This is described as an imperial red ale and is 7% ABV. Instead of merely warming, it's downright hot, with harsh higher alcohols running all through it. It looks soupy and smells of super-sweet toffee. By way of flavour I got overripe fruit in sickly abundance. I don't know if it's the recipe that's flawed, or merely the execution, but this could do with some serious tweaking, including a major clean-up.

Another pair came from White Gypsy. The brewery has been on a multi-year mission to perfect barrel-aged sour stout, and while I don't think the Sour Stout on display here was the finished product, it was very good. I'm not sure the brewery would appreciate the observation, but it tasted like a Guinness hack to me, not sour sour, but with a lactic tang, a seasoning. There's a light roast flavour, lots of umami, and a gentle astringency on the finish. All very balanced and drinkable.

The brewery also brought a Barrel Aged Belgian Wheat which didn't work as well. This deep orange coloured number is thick and cloying, tasting of undiluted orange cordial, plus a pithy bitterness. I find it hard to compare or relate it to any particular beer or style; suffice it to say I didn't enjoy.

West Kerry brewery had a Barrel Aged Winter Ale as their contribution. Though it's all of 6% ABV I found it a little thin. There are some pleasant dessertish qualities -- touches of chocolate and vanilla -- but also a woody sawdust thing which spoils it a little. It's OK but would be better if its various features were bigger and bolder.

The team of experienced judges picked the strongest beer available as the best in show. That was Imperial Stag, described as a Mexican imperial stout by brewer 9 White Deer, and clocking in at 13.5% ABV. The title suggests gimmickry but this is an absolutely rock solid luxury imperial stout from end to end. The flavour is brimming with sumptuous rich dark chocolate, all integrated into the beer, not tacked-on as an afterthought. The chilli is barely noticeable, just catching in the back of the throat as the silky chocolate flows past it. This was a pilot batch but you can expect full production in due course. It will be worth waiting for.

It's always such a relief to get the judging finished and get down to the festival to start drinking proper. Cheers to the Franciscan Well for making the arrangements and providing pizza from the always-excellent Pompeii on site. I managed to squeeze in a handful of other pub visits on my day in Cork, and I'll cover them in the next post.

Lervig in tha snug

On a dismal Saturday afternoon in late autumn, the Four Corners crew set up a tasting in the cosy surrounds of P. Mac's snug. Their guest for the day was Liam Devlin, who does sales for Norwegian brewer Lervig. Five new-to-me beers were in the line-up, but I also need to give a shout-out to the newly canned version of Perler for Svin IPA, tasting much brighter and cleaner than the mucky bottle I reviewed back here.

Our journey begins, perhaps appropriately, with Check In, another IPA. Cascade and Ahtanum are the hops; "feels like 1996" says the blurb. It's a medium orange colour and smells fresh and pithy. As billed, there's lots of biscuity malt, followed up with a swift smack of bitterness. Unlike many a '90s vintage IPA, however, it's light and spritzy, neither weighed down by crystal sugars nor scorching the palate with hop acids. The balance is excellent and the flavours subtle yet appreciable. Maybe 6% ABV is a bit on the strong side for something this easy going, though that's a minor complaint. A good start.

To follow, the unappetisingly named Mango Squirt. This is a sour ale with the titular fruit, and again with an ABV that's above the call of duty at 7%. It looks the part -- a deep Fanta-orange colour -- but I wasn't able to pick any specific fruit from the flavour, instead getting a kind of artificial fruity meld, like Jolly Rancher sweets. The sourness hits hard and fast, then disappears just as promptly, leaving it dry and crisp, almost like a prosecco, with candy overtones from the mango. It's fine, but underwhelming. I'd like a bigger bang given the strength.

Hop Drop Sour was more like it. This had a lovely complex mix of coconut and grapefruit juice, turning to sharper rind on the end. It's all beautifully melded together with the hops and sour components contributing to an overall integrated flavour instead of trying to dominate the picture. Once again, however, it's too strong. I could quaff this by the barrelful, but not at 6.5% ABV.

Something sessionable finally arrived in the form of Socks and Sandals, a pale ale of just 4.5% ABV. The peach skin aroma is promising but the watery texture and lacklustre flavour matches its anaemic yellow appearance. The hops do contribute a bitterness, big and quite harsh, while the central part of the flavour is the yeast: sharp and gritty. While not awful, it is a little dull, and not something I could imagine a session on.

They broke out the big guns to finish: Sippin' into Darkness, a sweet imperial stout brewed in collaboration with Ohio's Hoppin' Frog. The aroma is off the charts: a heady, creamy blast of rich tiramisu. I found the flavour to be a little more severe; unexpectedly so. It's sticky and sweet, and piles in the booze, beyond what might be expected at 12% ABV. A strong note of bitter and roasty espresso goes some way to offset the sugar and makes it an easier drinking experience. This definitely isn't a subtle beer, though I suppose it's not meant to be. There are worse examples of this kind.

It was great meeting Liam; he made an excellent sales pitch for Lervig's local beer festival, coming up in October. And thanks as always to the Four Corners team for another fun event.

Losing it

Today in your super soaraway Beer Nut, THE BEERS OTHER BEER BLOGS WON'T DARE WRITE ABOUT. Mostly stuff I acquired from places, for reasons, and am now compelled to review.

The run-up to Christmas is notorious for throwing fussy beer drinkers into environments where they can't drink the sort of thing they're used to. And so it was that in December I found myself making the most of a glass of Heineken Light. I had a notebook with me and it was the only thing on the bar I hadn't tasted before. I... wouldn't recommend it. It's not awful, mind. There's actually a decent real hop aroma, and it's a session-friendly 3.3% ABV. Not so session-friendly is the overly sweet taste, like boiled sugar or donuts. I guess that qualifies as character, meaning the beer isn't as bland as one might expect, and it's certainly not thin. But once the surprise novelty that it actually smells and tastes of something wears off, it becomes a very dull experience very quickly. Clearly this one is not intended for any sort of analysis. Moving on...

I have genuinely fond memories of Holsten Pils as a beer I drank at the end of shifts in a job I no longer do, at a hotel since demolished, in a century many years past. I don't know what it was I liked about it, just that it offered more flavour than normal beer, ie Harp and Tennent's. Sadly, this return visit 24 years later didn't offer the same horizon-widening experience. I figured that was more to do with my tastes than with the beer being from England instead of Hamburg, until I noticed the ingredients listing included "glucose syrup". Holsten my love: what have they done to you!? This is sweet and appley; in a blind taste I'd probably claim it's an ersatz cider rather than a beer. Utter sugary nonsense. They should be protesting its existence on the streets of Hamburg.

That arrived to me as a freebie from Aldi, which includes it with several other UK BUL beers in a "world lager" gift pack. Also in there is Kingfisher, a beer I've referenced several times on here but never actually reviewed. Heineken UK brews it. "The finest malted barley & hops" announces the front label in stately capitals; its cheeky little brother round the back adds glucose syrup and caramel colouring to that. I assume the bottle had never been under supermarket lights or left in sunlight, but it was still skunked, the aroma mixing that intense sulphurous grass with a more pleasant honey smell. There was very little head and the carbonation is exceedingly low, which may be deliberate as I remember that being a selling point of its arch-rival Cobra. The flavour is... absent, by and large. Mineral water is about as complex as it gets, with maybe an added sugariness but pretty much nothing else. It's perfectly drinkable, and probably in quantity too, but don't expect even the basics of a beer taste.

The next one cost me €1. That's my excuse. I was browsing the off licence, Santa Cruz was in a basket on the floor, and it cost €1 a bottle. I suffer acutely from Fear Of Wondering How Awful Can It Be (FOWHACIB) so I bought a bottle. It's a lager with lemon flavour and declines to state where it comes from. Perhaps we're better not knowing. The ABV is 4.2%, so pitched as a sort of a session-Desperados, I guess. In its favour it has enough of a hop content to be skunked and I was greeted by an unpleasant pissy aroma on pouring. A closer sniff reveals the sweet lemon syrup. I braced myself for a sugar bomb that never detonated. It's actually very plain and inoffensive, with a light lemonade buzz, maybe a little on the washing-up liquid side, but really not severely. I quaffed it back and thought no more of it, either good or ill. I doubt I'll be dropping another euro on any more, though I really feel I dodged a bullet, gracias a Dios.

The conclusion? That you can make crappy lager overly sweet without needing to resort to lemon syrup? I dunno. Who'd be a beer blogger, eh? Mug's game.

Agile development

A core range seems increasingly to be an optional feature for new breweries. You can argue the merits or otherwise of that amongst yourselves. Today's post concerns two relatively recent additions to the Irish brewing scene, neither particularly pushed about having permanent beers in their respective line-ups.

Third Barrel is that odd betweeny brand produced by Third Circle and Stone Barrel at their shared brewery in Dublin. After several months of silence it was very busy with the new releases at the beginning of 2018, most of them showing up on the handpump at UnderDog.

First out was Plum Mild, enough of a rarity to make the mild-starved beer drinkers of Dublin line up for it, even in the depths of early January. It's 4% ABV and a gorgeous dark ruby colour, its flavour mixing perfectly the milk chocolate and succulent fruit. The latter tastes more of juicy raisins than plum, with an additional sweet blackberry preserve character. A pinch of black pepper at the end of it all finishes it with a flourish. Unlike a lot of milds, there's no roast or bitterness here; nothing to allow any harshness in. While it's predominantly sweet, it remains light and clean enough to avoid getting cloying, as evidenced by the three pints I caned in a row. I hope we'll be seeing more of it.

When that cask emptied it was replaced soon after by Third Barrel's Huell Melon SMASH pale ale. It started out all new-worldy, with a spritzy jaffa flavour, then takes a more waxy turn, finishing on an altogether harsher, but not unpleasant, bitterness. It's nicely big-bodied and the malt (Loughran's pale, SMASH fans) gives it the feel of a wholesome quality lager, those hops very much hanging on to their German passports. At 5% ABV it's maybe a little too strong and heavy for quaffing, but just one pint hit the spot beautifully.

Rumbling out next was dry-hopped Franken Stout. I think I can see where the name comes from as it's a strung-together mélange of contrasting flavours: sweet chocolate bolted onto juicy mandarin with a tighter, more astringent, grapefruit finish, plus lighter meadowy flowers. Though it's the strongest so far at 5.5% ABV, I found it very easy to slam through a pint, the bitterness keeping the chocolate in check. The body is nicely light and the sweetness doesn't build. This sort of multilayered complexity is probably what brewers are trying to get at when they bung extra fruit or flavourings into their casks. It's worth putting the effort in to do it properly from the start, I reckon.

Finally, Third Barrel Red IPA, which I am extracting from my forthcoming round-up of the Franciscan Well's Cask Ales and Strange Brews Festival for reasons of thematic cohesion. I do actually plan these posts, you know. The style is not one that normally does much for me, usually taking the toffee excesses of red ales and adding unnecessary bitter acidity. With this one at 6.8% ABV I feared the worst of all that. But! It's surprisingly light and easy-going, offering zesty sherbet and only light caramel: all very simple and accessible. Dialling down the punch to amber ale levels is definitely the way to go with these. This particular recipe has graduated beyond the Third Barrel pilot phase and has joined the Third Circle range in full production as their Red IPA.

Also keeping me busy with specials and one-offs, in the same pub, around the same time, was Wicklow's Larkin's Brewery. There were three new beers out of four in their January tap takeover and I began with Larkin's American Lager. From the name I was expecting big hops so was disappointed to find it crisp and clean but otherwise uninteresting. There's a slight noble-hop mustiness but it's more sweet than hoppy, reminding me a little of the Vienna style... and then it clicked. They're going for a sort of pre-Prohibition vintage American feel here, and yeah, I guess it does that. My initial sense of underwhelm lingered, however.

Something perkier next: Non-Stop IPA, a pretender to Founders's throne, it seems, though at 5.5% ABV a fair bit heftier than All Day. This is a similar medium-gold colour to the foregoing, this time with a slight haze. A lovely bitter and spicy hit arrives on the first sip, beginning at grapefruit skin, turning to softer apricot, but with just a naughty soapy twang in the finish. The carbonation is also a smidge high. It is possible to look beyond these teeny flaws and accept this as a damn decent zingy IPA. I'm told that the brewery will be launching a core range at Alltech Brews & Food next month. This would be worth including in there.

We wrap up with Larkin's Irish Stout which looked, frankly, gross: thin-looking murky bogwater with no head at all. It proved to be not at all the bland watery effluent I expected, starting with a rich and delicious chocolate fudge and toffee flavour, as sweet and filling as any milk stout. By way of balance there's an assertively dry coffee roast in the finish, rounding it out very nicely. It just goes to show that one should always, always, take the first sip with the mouth and not the eyes, because that pair are idiots who know nothing about good beer.

It's pretty rare for one of my blog posts to cover an assortment of Irish beers like this and the quality of them to be so good overall. Keep 'em coming, Third Barrel and Larkin's.

Trilogy part two

I wrote about my first three Vocation beers early last year, all with affirming names, beginning "Heart", "Pride" and "Life". Three more came my way recently, via Dublin off licence Stephen Street News. "Cloak", "Naughty" and "Smash" suggested I was in for an altogether darker experience.

Cloak & Dagger, an oatmeal stout, resisted my efforts to photograph it with a decent head, the bubbles fading away to nothing with each top-up before I could grab my camera. "Rich & Creamy" goes the strapline, as oatmeal stout is supposed to be. But this isn't. I was quite shocked by how thin it is, even at 5.9% ABV. There's an overactive sparkle creating a carbonic dryness, and then a hard metallic bitterness, presumably from English hops. The hopping is a bigger part of it than any more typical stout aspects: there's a little burnt toast and some espresso, but that's as far as it goes. It is quite tasty, free of flaws and with a character all its own. The unmet expectation created by the brewery's description did spoil my enjoyment a little, however.

They can't possibly have made the same mistake with Naughty & Nice, a chocolate stout at 7.5% ABV, can they? It's just as tragically headless, with a strangely sour aroma. The chocolate flavour is sweet and artificial, reminding me of ersatz-chocolate sweets from my childhood. It does have a nice texture, full and smooth, but the flavour is not right. It's by turns too sweet, unexpectedly sour and with a similar metallic twang as found in the previous one. Maybe a change of style will help.

Last of the set is a double IPA: Smash & Grab. It smelled fantastic, all bright and fresh apricot, though is murky and I could tell the last of the pour was pure dreggy gunk. A warning about that on the can would help. Nevertheless it tastes gorgeous. There's the slick vanilla and burning garlic that so many brewers try to jam into their IPAs these days, but balanced perfectly between them and properly bitter too. The very apparent 8.5% ABV supercharges the lot without adding any unpleasant heat. Of yeast and dregs there is no trace, buried under the hop fireworks. This is genuinely a cut above most of what gets badged as New England IPA these days, and that includes the style archetypes which don't use those particular words.

And then a beer arrived which sidestepped Vocation's usual three-colour branding but was explicitly badged as a New England IPA. Blueprint is a collaboration with Atom Beers of Hull. It's not all that murky, as these things go, but plods through the style points in a workmanlike way. Vanilla first, garlic after, yet without the punch the good ones, like Smash & Grab above, offer. Claggy yeast takes over after a moment, and the finish is harsh and plasticky. This is a New England-style IPA for those who want their prejudices against them confirmed, which I'm sure was not the breweries' intent.

Quite a contrast here. In general, I think pale 'n' hoppy is where Vocation's strength lies.

Dinky Binkie

Herself acquired a bottle of Binkie Claws barley wine on our recent trip to the Netherlands. Though De Molen badged and packaged, this claims to be based on Hair of the Dog's Doggie Claws, though what was brewed where is unclear. They've done a few versions of this and the 2017 one is 14.4% ABV and was given 27 months' maturation in bourbon casks. After that it was freshness all the way: cracking the wax seal after less than a month in the bottle.

It's a very dark red-brown colour and smells more like Madeira wine than beer or bourbon: that juicy ripe grape thing, shading almost towards brandy. The flavour continues the grapeish character, turning to prunes, and adding a tincture of autolytic chocolate, but there's amazingly no rough alcohol heat. I guess that's what the extended barrel time does, knocking all the rough edges off and leaving a beautifully smooth and classy sipper. A light sparkle reminds you that it's still a beer not a liqueur, as does a gentle herbal bitterness.

This is a really good late-night sipper and the effort that went into it pays off wonderfully. 27 months folks: that's the magic number.

Emerging complexity

It's hard to escape American beer in this game. It crops up all over the shop. Today's post is a collection of isolated odds and sods from US brewing, from the basics to the mad stuff.

Sweet Water's tenure in Ireland was short but the Atlanta brewery still feels familiar. Hop Hash "easy IPA" was new to me when I spotted it in The Hague just before Christmas. It's 4.2% ABV and a pale gold with a slight haze. There's a serious floral perfume, almost like walking past a branch of Lush. This continues in the flavour: slightly spicy and with little bitterness and almost no aftertaste. This is refreshing without being thin, and easy for sure. But boy it gets boring very quickly. Built for chugging, I guess, which is fair enough.

For a Georgian IPA with a bit more meat on its bones, here's Stay G-O-L-D from Creature Comforts (in collaboration with New York's Interboro), for which I have the fantastic Mr. Fox to thank. It's a 6% ABV job, pouring out a sickly pale yellow, looking like lemon curd in the glass. The aroma is cracking, however, offering pure peach and mango with just a slightly harder garlic burn lurking beneath. Meanwhile, its flavour is all about the fruit: juicy, fleshy, mouthwatering tropical goodness. A piney acidity finishes it off and somehow accentuates that juiciness further. The texture is light without being thin, enough to let the hops shine incandescently yet without risking lack of balance. A rising garlic note as it warms spoils it a little; it was a better beer at the beginning when that was muted. Nevertheless, I immediately wanted another. Textbook stuff.

American icon Founders held a tap takeover in Alfie Byrne's back in the autumn, concentrating on its barrel-aged offerings. For me, it was my first time trying DKML. The "malt liquor" style designation presumably means this is a lager, and definitely means it's pumped full of corn sugar. This, in conjunction with the bourbon barrel maturation, brings the ABV up to a frankly excessive 14.2%. Just a taster for me, please. It's nearly very good but doesn't quite escape its roots. The flavour mixes cream sherry, vanilla and toffee into some sort of weird winter liqueur your aunt drinks. It's certainly smooth, but gets quite cloying quite quickly. While it's certainly distinctive, I doubt that bourbon-aged lager is an idea whose time has come.

Finally, a beer I brought home from New York in 2016 and shared with Reuben and Brian when we did our New Zealand beer tasting last year. Kvasir is one of a series of ancient beer recreations produced by Dogfish Head, aided by renowned beer historian Patrick McGovern. The full background is here, involving chemical analysis of a 3,500‐year‐old Danish drinking vessel. The result is a hazy dark orange ale, 10% ABV, and flavoured with honey and berries. The fruit is a major component of the aroma, buoyed up on strong alcoholic vapours. It doesn't taste as soupy as it smells, thankfully, with intense raisin and redcurrant; clean and tart at first, then getting sweeter and more jam-like in the finish. I thought the malt would have more to say -- I guess the letters "kvas" make me think of beer made from rye bread -- but it's not in that genre at all. Overall a very interesting mélange of flavours: a novelty beer that's not so weird as to be unsettling.

The surprise bonus beer, just when I thought I had finished this post, is another Founder initialism: CBS (Canadian Breakfast Stout), an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels previously used for maple syrup. There's a Mountie on the label. The hype machine was already cranked up to 11 by the time it hit Ireland so I was expecting big things. It delivers relatively big things, starting with a pure Irish coffee aroma: cream first, then oily beans and brown sugar. The texture is one of pure silk, and I think that's to the flavour's detriment: it glides off the palate a little too quickly. As it slipped past I got more coffee first, and then the vanilla oak from the bourbon, complemented by the different woodiness of the maple. And that's sort-of it: sumptuous but simple, leaving only a boozy buzz in its wake, one which doesn't fully suggest the whopping 11.7% ABV. For something that could easily have been a nasty mix of sugar and heat, it's very pleasantly refined. I really enjoyed the six or seven minutes it took me to gulp it down.

Nevertheless, out of that lot, the winner is the IPA. America, ladies and gentlemen.

Slav to the rhythm

A swift dash along the taps in Dublin's top Czech pub Pifko today.

Lately the management seem to have hung their hat on the Moravian Pivovar Litovel as the house brand, beyond the usual standard ones. Moravan is the pale lager, one with a slightly buttery aroma starting out. Heh, who do you think you are? Pilsner Urquell? Heh. For better or worse (better, IMO) this doesn't come out in the flavour and instead there's a wonderful unexpected floral taste, all lavender, violet and other breezy bucolic blooms. It's not sweet with it, offering a dry carbonic bite to balance it, and then finishing flawlessly cleanly, disappearing politely off the palate, ready for the next mouthful. This definitely has a character all its own, not just another Czech lager. I was intrigued to find out what happens when the brewery goes dark.

Litovel Dark is, predictably, the result. It's only 4.8% ABV but crams the favour profile of a beer twice its strength into that. From the powerful rubbery aroma, to the thick treacle texture, to the throat-scorching roast, this beer fights any effort to relax into it. As such it's not very enjoyable and almost the opposite of what I want from a Czech tmavý lager. This might suit some weirdo out there looking for a session-strength Baltic porter, but it definitely wasn't for me.

There's a nod to the non-tradtional styles on Pifko's bar, in the form of Flying Cloud IPA from Pivovar Vysoký Chlumec. In the way of eastern European brewers making IPA, they seem to have decided that it should be a huge and sticky maltbomb infused with a powerful floral perfume. The citrus notes that have made American-style IPA a desirable commodity worldwide do not appear to have been part of the plan. An exotic jasmine spiciness helps offset the heavy strawberry syrup sweetness a little, and the base beer is lager-clean, not spending an unwelcome amount of time on the palate. It's still not a great example of an IPA however you slice it, and again tastes much stronger than its actual ABV of 5.5%.

I went to Pifko looking for a good alternative to světlý ležák but the golden lager was the best thing on.

Maybe the Slovaks can help. A few months ago I encountered Zlatý Bažant's Medový Porter. The name means "honey" and while it's sweet, and a strong-ish 6.7% ABV, it's quite a gentle beer, offering comforting chocolate and plum notes with a pinch of light roast. There's a certain liquorice bitterness which calls Baltic porter to mind once more, while the fruit side introduces elements of dark Belgian ales. Nothing fancy and nothing difficult, it's an all round pleasant dark beer. Thanks to Reuben for sending it my way.

Tea time

Talk about working slowly through a beer range. I enjoyed Digital IPA, brewed at BrewDog for New Zealand's Yeastie Boys, in the first half of 2016. Now I've finally got around to taking a second one for a spin: Gunnamatta, another IPA, this time with added Earl Grey tea. This one is a murky pale orange colour with little more than a desultory effort at a head. It smells like a straightforward American-style pale ale, if perhaps a little old-fashioned, all orange candy on a caramelised malt base. The flavour continues in this fashion: plain drinking, lightly citric, though it does introduce the tea right at the beginning. I had been expecting this to be a bathtime blast of bergamot, but it's much more subtle. The tannins come through pleasingly, adding a classic tea-ness to the whole thing, the bergamot oil arriving right at the end, brushing past the back of the palate on its way out.

Whereas Digital was all about the hop fireworks, this is much more refined: delicate and refreshing like, well, a good cup of Earl Grey. We have to gloss over the unreasonably high ABV of 6.5%. It's good to see a brewer use an extra ingredient to enhance the base product without letting the novelty take over. Another quality effort from Yeastie Boys; give me 18 months more and I'll try the third one.

This lot

Protect Ya Neck is a lactose and vanilla IPA, a style description that gives me the absolute fear. It looks like a real IPA all right: an only slightly cloudy medium amber colour. The aroma is unpleasantly sweet, that on-trend lurid-yellow vanilla ice cream thing that has very little to do with real vanilla. And that's the long and the short of the flavour: big sticky melty ice cream with just a half-hearted grassy burr on the end which does not complement the rest of it. The smooth texture is pleasant, though probably contributes even more to the general sickliness. I'm certain this is technically perfect and exactly what the brewer meant it to be, but it is not the sort of beer I enjoy. It needs more hops and, to put not too fine a point on it, to be Ambush.

To the brewpubs next, and JW Sweetman, host of Barrelhead, was pouring the cuckoo's latest creation East Coast IPA, on cask, no less. I was given a cloudy pint, which is par for the course given the name, though was surprised when that turned out to be just the effect of the sparkler and it settled to a fairly clear medium amber. Simcoe, Citra and Mosaic are the hops and they give it a big hit of tropicality right up front, though more like Skittles or Starburst than the real thing. This tails off quickly leaving a pleasant bitterness, one which unfolds to completely take over the palate before the pint is half way finished. I've been noticing this pattern with New England-style IPAs generally: amazing fruit juice on the first mouthful but none beyond that. Usually it's garlic that gets in the way; this time it's pine. I enjoyed this one overall though, the only other thing I noted being its surprisingly thin texture at 5.2% ABV. A kegged version is due to follow.

As it happened, the neighbours were also playing with this on-trend style. Urban Brewing New England IPA is lighter again at 4.9% ABV, and also darker and clearer than one might expect. The characteristic hop freshness isn't in any doubt, with an almost tangible thick and funky resinous aroma. Rather than fruit in the first sip, there's creamy sweet vanilla. That's where the New-Englandishness stops, however. Next there's a sharp bitterness and a dry bite from the excessive carbonation. This beer only brought me half way to New England: very much a mid-Atlantic sort of IPA. After all my kvetching over the murkiness of the brewery's beers I probably deserved getting one that isn't murky enough.

I was treated much better by Urban Brewing Earl Grey IPA. It didn't look great: a muddy foxy shade. A surprisingly fabulous fresh and juicy strawberry flavour opens it up, and I immediately thought I might have been given the Strawberries & Cream beer (reviewed here) by mistake. A taster of that proved that no, this was its own thing. When you get past the red-berry sweetness there's a delightful citrus spritz: unbitter, like a quality lemonade. It did leave me wondering where the tea was in all this, and I think maybe a dry tannic note in the finish shows that at work, but it's quite faint, sitting next to a gentle clove spicing. Overall this is a beautifully light and refreshing summery IPA, and definitely my favourite that the brewery has produced so far.

There's another brewery in Dublin's class of 2017 that I haven't written about yet. Four Provinces launched in 2014 as a client brewer and last year graduated to a standalone brewery, one which is roughly 600 metres from my front door. I should pop round. The first beer fully created on the new kit is Torc Fiáin, a double IPA. I caught up with it at The 108 a couple of weeks ago. Oranges and pine is the executive summary. A surprisingly tart orange zest kicks it off: sharp enough to make me wonder if it was infected. It wasn't, though, it's just a lot drier than a typical DIPA, with an almost spirituous alcohol burn, despite the modest ABV of 7.5%. As it warms it stays clean but gets more complex, showing orange blossom, savoury biscuit and then a big pine bitterness. A sticky cordial note was beginning to creep in as I finished it, but not enough to disturb my enjoyment. Welcome to the neighbourhood.

Carrig's Hop Bomb came recommended by Reuben, on tap at the brewery's Bar Rua. The name promises much from what turned out to be a wan-looking 5.5% ABV IPA. It backs it up, though, beginning with an enticing mix of fresh peach and caraway in the aroma. The flavour, appropriately, explodes onto the tongue with a huge lemon bitterness from the outset. The caraway is present but muted, and while the texture is a little watery, the pithy buzz lasts long enough to be truly satisfying. I'd take this citric Semtex over any number of sticky custard IPAs.

I had been meaning to drop over to The Merry Cobbler in Sandymount for ages. It's the Dublin branch of the more famous Merry's Gastropub in Dungarvan and I stumbled across it in the company of the Fine Ale Coundown team as it's the nearest pub to where they record. There's a modest draught selection, including Rascals, Brú, and a house pale ale called Merry Brew, from Dungarvan Brewing, of course. 4.5% ABV and a pale yellow colour, it smelled a bit musty at first. The flavour is fine, though, if not quite exciting. There's a soda-water minerality with a squeeze of lemon juice for bitterness, finishing dry. I needed a second pint to fully get the measure of it, but the truth is it's designed more for drinking than measuring. Which is absolutely fair enough for a house beer.

We finish with the YellowBelly inevitabilities, starting at the taps at UnderDog. First up is Weisse Versa, a dunkelweisse. While it is the appropriate dark brown colour, the head is a bit lacking, and weissbier never looks the part in a stubby pint glass. Milk chocolate is the main feature, backed by a certain yeast-derived spice. Obviously banana, clove and the like were expected, but never showed up to the party, and the beer gets a black mark in the style column for that. It pretty much tastes how it looks: like a decent fizzy porter, getting better and smoothing out as the carbonation dissipates.

De-Vine Intervention is described as a wet-hopped sour ale, and as such should have been right up my street. It's only 3.7% ABV, however, and I think that really made it pull its punches. A bright hazy gold in appearance, the flavour is at least complex, mixing cantaloupe juiciness with savoury sea salt as well as hints of smoke and farmyard funk. All of these things can be found in great beers of this sort, but here they were just too muted, and once my palate had adjusted, two mouthfuls in, it became almost bland, leaving me reaching to find any flavour at all. I'm definitely not an extremist when it comes to hoppy or sour or funky so this isn't a do you even lacto bro? situation. The recipe really could use some punching up on all sides.

And finally this just in: Electric Dreams, a Simcoe-Amarillo pale ale. A murky yoke, it smells of raw hops: bitter, spicy and vegetal. The texture is thin, and that doesn't do anything to offset the onslaught of big hops. Lemon skin and lime pith start it off, after which the yeast swings in, by turns fun and spicy, then serious and savoury. At the end, the hops fade, leaving the drinker and the yeast in embarrassed silence, trying to think of something to say to each other. Overall, I'm not a fan. It's just too mucky, and the freshness of the hops offer insufficient compensation. I can see how it's sessionable, though: no part of it is going to clog up anyone's palate. It would just be nicer if it showed a bit more polish.

Here endeth the round-up. Still not bad for a quiet January.