Barley dodgers

Belgian beers have become a bit of a rare sight on this blog of late. Two today from the Green's gluten-free range brewed at De Proef. They've been around forever (ie slightly longer than the blog) but these dry-hopped variants were new to me. Unlike most gluten-free beers, they haven't been formulated normally and then had the gluten (or most of it) stripped out; instead "alternative grains" have been employed, though the label does not deign to tell us which ones. I'm guessing sorghum.

First opened was Gold Dry-Hopped Lager. It's a fairly watery-looking gold, appearing somewhat washed out. The aroma is sweet and peachy, promising soft and ripe stonefruit. That's not really what the flavour delivers, however. There's quite a harsh bitterness, the sting of tasted perfume, after which it tails off suddenly. It's only 4% ABV and I suspect the base beer is quite a plain affair. Whatever hops they've used on it make it taste artificial and strangely stale. A check of the best-before revealed that it wasn't an old bottle. In fact it had a year and a half still to run. The whole smacks of a brand that doesn't take beer seriously. Anyway, this lager is not recommended and I apprehensively move on to its sibling.

The muddy colour of Grand India Pale Ale is at least partly my fault as it's bottle conditioned and I had it sitting on its side in the fridge. The poor carbonation is entirely theirs. Once again the aroma starts us off well: it smells of juicy watermelon, which is granted not a customary beer aroma but is a perfectly acceptable and attractive one. The flavour is not unpleasant, but it is odd. There's a candy sweetness; a touch of bubblegum or other luridly-coloured confectionery. This settles for a moment into a real tropical fruit note -- mango and passionfruit -- before fading out and leaving a punchy bitterness behind. It's another thin effort, and I guess that's what not brewing with glutinous grains gets you. The flavour combinations would be interesting in a fuller-bodied beer, and I don't even miss the fizz: there's enough of a sparkle.

The IPA is actively nice to drink; the lager definitely isn't. But neither really tastes like actual beer. There's a reason our ancestors selected barley and wheat for brewing.

Real Mexico

Variety in Mexican beer is hard come by in Dublin these days. I guess it's C&C's fault. They're the distributor for Grupo Modelo, via the various arrangements with AB InBev, and they seem to have decided to concentrate on Corona and Corona Light in this segment, for obvious reasons.

Therefore I was disproportionately pleased when I spotted Pacifico in the fridge at Pablo Picante on Aston Quay. I mean, it's only a mass produced hot-country lager and nothing to get excited about, but I still felt like I'd achieved something by locating it.

The burrito bar does not run to glassware so I didn't get a look at the liquid, or a proper smell, really. I found it quite sweet to taste: lots of melanoidin malt, which I guess shows its Viennese heritage. It's good that that's still perceptible after everything this brand has been through since 1900. A tinny twang is all you get by way of hops, or anything else, but the malt is enough. While easy drinking and quenching, as you'd expect, it's also heavy enough to match up to a glutinous cheesy burrito.

This isn't a beer to be dismissed readily, and certainly not to be lumped in with Corona.

All done for now

I've mentioned before my gnawing unfulfilled ambition to visit the last two JD Wetherspoons in the Republic of Ireland. They're both in the greater Dublin area so it shouldn't have taken me this long to do it, but it wasn't until earlier this summer that I set out to complete the project.

I had never cycled to Blanchardstown before and, as often turns out with these things, it's not as far away as I thought. In fact it took about as long as my more usual run to JDW in Blackrock, so I guess I have expanded my horizon for the Real Ale Festival next month. And like Blackrock, The Great Wood seems to be one of the nice Wetherspoons. This sunny Saturday morning it was all happy breakfasting families and ladies catching up over coffee, and all cask pints are €2. Cor!

I sat in the beer garden and drank a Golden Newt by Elgoods. It was a dark golden amber colour and a little hazy with it, and 4.1% ABV. There's a waxy bitterness up front, fading gradually to lemon rind, then lemon juice and finally lemon sherbet. A classic summer golden bitter, it's clean, complex and very refreshing. It was tempting to stay for another, but the day's goal was in sight.

Metaphorically, that is. My trip to Swords was a long one, travelling along the picturesque Royal Canal Greenway (above) as far as Drumcondra, then turning north and up past the airport which is a horrible road to cycle, even on a quiet Saturday afternoon. I was never so glad to swing off the final roundabout and roll into the village.

The Old Borough should be as pleasant as The Great Wood: it's in a grand old building with lots of smaller rooms instead of a big modern drinking hall. But the crowd seemed rougher and the worse for wear, in some cases. The beer selection was uninspiring, made up of too many boring English standards, and all at an outrageous €2.75 a throw. I selected Stonehenge Danish Dynamite IPA and went out to the beer garden.

Maybe it was my disillusioned mood but I didn't take to this. It's a big 5% ABV but looks pale and watery. It soon had me wishing for watery as it turned out cloyingly thick, full of banana syrup with only a figleaf of light yeast spicing and no real hop character. There's a flatness that has nothing to do with carbonation; this is just a dull lump of a beer.

But at least I got my set completed and that's me done until Camden Street opens in the winter.

The second part of this post arose by accident. On a different bike ride a couple of months later, on my way somewhere else with time to spare, I stopped by The Forty Foot in Dún Laoghaire. One beer immediately caught my eye from the selection: Yakima Grande, the version of the Brendan Dobbin classic relaunched by Conwy Brewery in 2014 (more details via Tandleman). I make this my third version of it to try. It was a bit flat and sad, to be honest. It has some of the resinous quality as well as the amber colour of the other versions, but it lacks a proper bitterness or any other significant flavour. The beer here is usually reliable but I suspect I may have got one that had been sitting in the cellar a while. It wasn't unpleasant, though.

Time just for one last pint, in the form of Pacifica from Yorkshire's Saltaire brewery. I assumed it was single-hopped with the titular variety but it turns out it uses a range of hops from around the ocean's edge. It's a dark gold colour, 5.5% ABV and with a full and creamy texture. This is another waxy one, at least to start with, which then develops a soft and sweet stonefruit taste: apricot and plum. It's this which separates it from a million other generic bitters and is a great use of exotic hops in a very approachable beer. Too often the fancy hops just don't pull their weight in English cask.

A fairly typical Wetherspoon mixed bag, but it's good to be able to try beers from breweries we otherwise wouldn't see here. That's very much the point of the chain as far as I'm concerned.

Postponed journey

Musgrave's Journeyman range has been around for a while now at SuperValu and Centra. It's brewed by Stationworks and bears a cosmetic resemblance to the brewery's own Foxes Rock line. With the recent uptick in beer quality at Stationworks I decided it was high time I tried them.

I started out on Journeyman Session IPA, the lightest of the bunch at 4.5% ABV. The colour was a surprise: a bright and even orange colour, showing no sign of the over-processing one might expect of an own-label supermarket beer with over twelve months on the best before. The aroma is sharper than I expected: a bracing squirt of lemon juice up the nostrils. Candy malts emerge, tentatively, on tasting: tangy orange travel sweets. They're overset by a stronger citric bitterness; those lemons again, this time acidic enough to add a slightly vomity or aspirin note to proceedings. That was stronger when the beer was fridge-fresh, but disappears into the background as it warms up and balances out. It's not Ireland's greatest session IPA by any measure, but it is a characterful and flawless hoppy quaffer and worth dropping into your 4-for-€10.

It seems a little odd to have a Journeyman Pale Ale in a range with a Session IPA but here it is, just a smidge stronger and a little darker. There's a pleasant orange sherbet aroma which develops on tasting into a herbal bathsalts tang alongside the fruit. A smooth lemon-tea tannic character rounds it out. The texture is just heavy enough to give all of these flavours room to move while still keep it light and thirst quenching. It shares quite a lot of its character with the Session IPA but is better balanced, I think  While not terribly complex, this is enjoyable and tasty with plenty of hop oomph.

Next is Journeyman IPL, which ordinarily I would have opened first, but I decided to follow the ABV up from 4.6% to 5.2%. It's another hazy one, though this time a pale gold. For a refreshing change, this IPL does actually taste and feel like a lager. There's a clean crispness at the heart of it, offering refreshingly dry and husky grain. And to be honest I found myself wishing they didn't bother India-Paling it. The hopping is harshly metallic: a similar profile to the session IPA but rendered too intense by the cleaner base. I found myself trying to ignore the acidity and pay attention to the decent helles that underpins it all. That didn't work, though. This is just unbalanced and difficult to drink. It's trying too hard, but maybe that's just in the nature of the style.

From lager back to ale, and Journeyman IPA, at the same strength but coming in a dinky little can. This is thicker, darker, and altogether more serious looking than the previous. With the thickness comes the dankness and there's a real old-school west-coast vibe here: fresh American hops, oily and green, with peppery spices. At the end there's lovely sharp bite and I'm pretty sure it's the same metallic kick found in the others, just better integrated and given something substantial against which to provide balance. This is the best of the set, and in the own-brand battle, up there with Rye River's Grafter's IPA for Dunnes, if a little off the pace against their Crafty Brewing IPA for Lidl.

Overall, this lot met most of my expectations and in a couple of cases exceeded them. Well played, Stationworks.

Don't wine

This was a surprise freebie from English beer label Curious: a 75cl bottle of Curiouser & Curiouser Chapter 2. It's a collaboration between Curious's parent winery Chapel Down and London microbrewery Brew By Numbers. They've come up with a wine-channelling saison, designed to mimic the German grape Bacchus by using elderflower and grapefruit zest with Hallertau Blanc and Hüll Melon hops. It's a bit of a beast at 7.3% ABV.

Despite the cheery sparkle and my cheeky choice of champagne flutes, it doesn't look like wine in the glass, being a hazy dark yellow colour. The aroma is definitely saison: a husky cereal dryness with a touch of diesel and honeydew melon. I do get a certain buzz of Champagne grape in the flavour, and I suspect that's the Hallertau Blanc's doing. The strong alcohol helps with the effect, and there's an acidic edge which I'm guessing is from the grapefruit but which genuinely does bear a resemblance to that found in a flinty Sauvignon Blanc.

And with all that said I should stop trying to squeeze this into wine-shaped clothes and add that it's also a very well made, hop-forward, strong saison. The raspingly dry grain, boozy fruity esters and tiny sprinkle of white pepper it offers belong to beer and beer alone. And despite the strength it still quenches a thirst in a way wine simply can't.

This was a well thought out and executed idea. One of those beers that expands the parameters of what beer can be without resorting to silly gimmicks. I'm glad I got to try it.

Gan bei!

I have my friend Dave to thank for today's subjects. When he tweeted he was off to China for work I asked if he could help me scratch my most persistent beer itch. Chinese lager Snow is the biggest selling beer in the world and I've never tasted it. Would he be able to bring me a can back? Star that he is, I subsequently took delivery of six cans of unfamiliar beer.

The Snow issue proved more complicated than anticipated. The brand covers a dizzying array of variants, each seeming to have its own multiple packaging designs. After considerable research I'm not even sure that there is even a core Snow beer. Dave's bundle included two Snows.

The one I started with is called Globe Trekker, announcing that vertically on the can in characters bigger than the ones spelling "Snow Beer". And that may be the last time "character" gets mentioned in this post. Globe Trekker is 2.5% ABV and an anaemic yellow colour with a fast-dissipating head. It's as watery as you might expect: extremely thin and not even very fizzy. Still, the brewers seem to know the limits of their brief as it shows none of the flaws often found in this sort: no tinny metal, cheap sweetcorn or stale cookedness. There is a clean malt sweetness at the centre, flashing briefly before fading away completely. It is therefore thirst-quenching and perfectly serviceable as a weak hot-country lager. While not something I'd actively seek out, it is at least inoffensive and well made.

The next Snow is branded "Refreshing" and I don't know if that's a name or a description. Either way, the claim's veracity is thrown into doubt by it being marked as 10° Plato and 3.3% ABV, which suggests under-attenuation to me. It's even flatter than the previous one, looking more like a cider in the glass. Now here we have those classic lager flaws. There's a syrupyness I associate with much stronger, cheaper lagers, and an on-style metallic tinfoil buzz. The stickiness does mean the flavour has more legs than the Globe Trekker, but that's really not a good thing.

We leave the Snow investigations here. I'm still interested in finding out if the One True Snow exists, so if there are any experts in Chinese beer out there, let me know.

The next pair are from AB InBev's brewery in the far north-east of China: Harbin. Harbin 9° gushed forth with an abundance of fizz, but again no head retention. There's a decent substance to this, even if the pale gold colour isn't very striking. There's a wisp  of white pepper in the aroma while a cakey sweetness forms the foretaste. But a foretaste is all there is: no follow-up for good or ill comes after it, just water. Given a decent noble hop pinch, this has the makings of a genuinely good pilsner. As is, it's a much more satisfying glassful than either of the Snows, and again only 3.3% ABV.

That boded well for the bigger sequel: Harbin 10°. It looks identical and tastes very similar, but a little more intense. This time the pepper makes it into the flavour, and the texture is bigger too, almost sticky, despite an ABV of just 3.6%. I got a slight plasticky burr on the very end, something I occasionally find with German hops so I probably can't mark it down as a flaw. A raw sugar sweetness sits at the centre of it all, somewhat balanced by the hop spice but still a little overdone, especially considering the very modest strength. I think I preferred the cleaner profile of the 9° out of this pair.

Two random outliers to take us home. Laoshan Beer, from AB InBev's Tsingtao brewery in Qingdao, is 10° Plato and 4% ABV, which is more like it. There's a proper golden lager colour too, and a rich malt aroma. The flavour is middling: quite dry and minerally, showing an aspirin tang that veers towards metallic sharpness but thankfully stops short. There's also a slight funk — cheese, or possibly phenolic — that adds a mildly unpleasant note to the finish. This is almost a passable lager but just misses the mark.

We come back to the capital to finish, with Yanjing. I reckoned this would be the best for absolutely no other reason than the vaguely German-style blackletter font on the can. It looks like it contains a proper pils. It doesn't really, though. Despite the statement on the side "Quality Grade: Excellent" this is another dull one, pale and watery like Snow. It is clean and flawless in the manner of Globe Trekker, and offers more of a bang at 3.6% ABV. It doesn't have much to say flavourwise at all, however.

It's just as well there's a growing beer scene in China these days. I don't think I'd like to be stuck with just these six as my only options, though I guess I'd make peace with  Harbin 9° if that happened. Cheers Dave!

The last of them

I've been away for the last couple of weeks, leaving in a rush of hastily-scheduled blog posts. Today's concerns the final few Irish beers I tried before I left.

We begin with Toothless Grizzly, the first brand new beer from Mountain Man in quite a while. They've badged this as a schwarzbier but my pint at the Black Sheep was distinctly amber-coloured, and a bit murky with it. The aroma is a strange mix of sweet dark malt and an out of place sour tang. Thankfully the sourness goes no further. It's properly crisp and lager-like, with a mild orangey citrus in with husky biscuit before finishing on a green and peppery bitter noble hop bite. On the downside, it's over-carbonated: nobody wants a flat lager, but here the jagged fizz is detrimental to the flavour; and, just as the colour is wrong, the distinctive dark lager flavours -- charcoal, liquorice, tar -- are completely missing. The recipe has potential but desperately needs darkening.

YellowBelly produced a beer to commemorate 85 years of Molloy's off licences. Covert Operation is described as a juicy pale ale and very much delivers on that promise. A bolt of pineapple strikes the nostrils immediately on opening, and it pours a hazy medium orange. The texture is fluffy, as fashion dictates, and all the fruit is worn up front: ripe mango, passionfruit and tangerine. There's just enough of a citrus punch late on to balance it, as well as a wisp of savoury garlic. It's very similar in style to Trouble's now-legendary Ambush, with the same level of satisfying drinkability. The tall can was emptied in short order.

At Hagstravaganza I missed the third Canvas offering, Double Wingmirror, so I was pleased when it showed up bottled in DrinkStore. The first warning light comes with the label, where "Double IPA" has been unconvincingly blacked out. It fizzed busily on opening, pouring a dark copper colour. There's a homebrewish yeasty spice in the aroma and the flavour mixes Belgian esters with burnt caramel and a touch of phenolic smoke. The marker was right: this isn't anywhere close to being a double IPA. I'm not quite sure what it is instead: though less than six weeks in the bottle it reminds me of long-abandoned home brewed pale ales, their hoppy days long past and the deathless yeast steadily drying them out. My 33cl bottle cost €4: top dollar for a beer that really doesn't warrant it.

Back from my train trip it was straight to The Brew Dock to try the newest from Galway Bay. It's the second sequel to Goodbye Blue Monday, a collaboration with Begyle called Last Goodbye, just a little weaker than the original at 5.8% ABV and utilising Hallertau Blanc, Azacca and Ella. I expected Opal Fruits from that lot but got Fruit Salad chews instead. It's mouthwateringly juicy: an almost sickly blend of pineapples, mangoes and apricots. There's an oddly prominent booze buzz cranking this up unexpectedly, but thankfully also a lime and guava tropical bitterness, shading into garlic as it warms on the palate. It is, above all, a fun beer, much as Goodbye Blue Monday was: a fruity hop celebration, albeit no longer served by the pint. No matter: you probably don't want this getting warm.

Whiplash treated us to two new double IPAs in August. I tried Do You Wanna Touch Me, their collaboration with Wylam, at Alfie Byrne's. The murk level is off the charts here. I mean, it's not even beige, more a bile-coloured grey-brown. It smelled fantastic, though: fresh tropical fruit, with a background hint of custard. 8.3% ABV means you get an alcohol burn as the first flavour. The fruit is in the middle and, unlike so many of these, it actually sticks around for subsequent sips, staying sweet and interesting and fun. The usual hangers-on are present for those that expect them: an oily garlic buzz and some dry gritty yeast and protein bits, but they confine themselves to the finish and the next mouthful tops you up with mango and pineapple again. It's an excellent interpretation of a super-fashionable style that is done too poorly too often.

So what's the point of a simultaneously-released 8% ABV one that's hopped with Citra like the other. Eventually looks a little more appetising but is still a milky opaque colour. I get caraway and poppyseed in the aroma, with a softer but acidic garlic backing track. To taste it's very sweet, with non-specific artificial fruit, like Refreshers or Lucozade, plus a smoothie-like cream texture. It's all softness and fuzz, leaving me wanting more punch and zing. It avoids any boozy heat but only by wrapping it in a lemon-scented fluffy blanket. This is one of those beers which I'm sure has an audience but isn't for me.

Twin releases also came from Stone Barrel. Poppin' Pils is in a tall can and describes itself as a "hopped up lager". It's 4.5% ABV and a slightly hazy golden colour. The aroma is quite sweet, with an air of lemon and lime shandy, plus perhaps a hint of scented detergent. A malt sweetness begins the flavour: brioche and Maltesers. The quite flat texture did nothing to dispel that, then after a second or two there's a sweeping spinach bitterness, fading to candy and bubblegum. It's not the crisp lager I was hoping for. The flavours aren't bad, but they don't gel together well, malt hops clashing where they should complement, resulting something a bit too sweet while also a bit too bitter.

The second in the set is a black IPA. Remember them? It gives the game away right on the tin, with the name Dark, Dank, Pineapple? though perhaps it's not sure of itself. Poured, it just about passes the blackness test, showing brown to red at the edges. The head dissipates disappointingly quickly but there's still a lovely aroma, full of herbs, spices and fruit of all sorts. For a tiddling 4.3% ABV it's a thick lad, slick and tarry. The flavour presents spiced red cabbage, a classic component of good black IPA, then a harder dark roasted bitterness and a long lemon rind finish. It's another one where the carbonation is too low and the sensation is a little watery as a result. It's still a decently complex black IPA. The clashing smashing flavours work so much better in this style than in a pils.

That's it for today. It's nearly time to go home and find out what the Irish brewing scene has been up to in my absence.

Once more round the park

The other row of festival bars at Big Grill 2018, you'll be pleased to hear, was smaller than the one I wrote about on Monday. It still had its highlights, though.

I began at the north end with DOT, which had a rapidly rotating selection of barrely specials. Early doors on day one it was Double Down, a 9.5% ABV double IPA given time in a single malt whiskey barrel, from Teeling's, one assumes. I was amazed how the fresh and fruity hop flavour was preserved even when exposed to wood and liquor: it still has a bright lime and apple character, with a touch of herbal coconut, in with the dry oak and slick vanilla. I was also amazed how easy drinking it was, given the strength and complexity. If you saw me wandering around the field looking dazed at any point, the flavour of this beer was definitely the reason.

Returning to DOT the following day, I found it had been replaced by Dainty Wood, a very different proposition at 4.2% ABV, though still barrel aged. The base here is a tart pale ale, spicy and fruity, showing bags of juicy white grape and oily black pepper, with a puckering pinch of sourness and a mild oaky twang on the end. Phew. Quite a workout for session-strength drinking, but definitely my kind of beer.

Moving right we come to Five Lamps and their barbecue special, a crystal wheat beer called Meat Our Wheat. I didn't like this guy at all. The title implied something easy and clean, and the 5.5% ABV isn't excessive. Then it began with a funky aroma, which turned sweaty on tasting, at least at first. This grew in intensity as it went, getting sharper, saltier and nastier until it resembled a flinty Italian cheese. I like flinty Italian cheese but I do not want to drink one. I could do without seeing this beer outside of the festival grounds.

Boyne Brewhouse was turning heads with its Raspberry Sour, revised since this year's Alltech festival, and now even more flamboyantly coloured and flavoured. New for me was another Pilot Series offering, the Belgian Blonde. This is a middle-of-the-road 6.5% ABV, and gently hazy blonde, of course, and serves up all the flavours one would expect from the real thing. Warming fruit esters are a big part of it, though they're balanced by clean and dry vegetal notes: celery and courgette. It's very smooth and easy-going, one for swirling in a balloon glass and taking time over.

There was gold at the Sullivan's stand too: Irish Gold to be precise. This new 4%-er was badged as part of the Kilkenny brewery's taproom series, though was actually brewed in a bigger batch in Boyne, where the red ale is produced too. I wasn't expecting a lot from it, but it was genuinely nice: denser than it looked, bringing in sweet notes of honey and golden syrup. You'd be a long time looking for hop fireworks in here, but it's a flawless version of a clean yet weighty golden ale, and very satisfying to drink.

The Porterhouse marks the end of the line this time, and their latest is Early Ryzer, a rye pale ale at 4.6% ABV. It's no Rustbucket, that's for sure. While there's a touch of fun grassy bitterness, it's mostly quite harsh, the acridity enhanced by a cloying buttery quality. I found even a small sample to be hard going.

Those were all the new beers I could find in the main drinks tents. As always there were a couple of standalone satellite bars as well. At the top of the field, an incognito Heineken pavilion was serving their new "wild lager" H32, made with yeast they found lying around in the Himalayas somewhere. It's 5.1% ABV and has the same estery buzz as its Patagonian predecessor, but with a worty sugary quality that reminds me more of an alcohol-free beer than a proper medium-strong lager. A clean and crisp finish redeems it somewhat, but I think I'd find it just too heavy for drinking much of.

Away at the far corner of the festival, Founders and Lagunitas were standing shoulder to shoulder under the banner of their common distributor Grand Cru. It was the first Irish appearance of Founders Honey Wheat, a beer I expected to taste of honey and wheat, but which includes noisy coriander in the recipe. This really dominates the taste, almost turning it soapy but instead giving it an invigorating bathbomb quality with a refreshing ginger-like spice. At 5.5% ABV it's substantial, yet still deliciously gluggable: well suited to one of the rare days on which it's legal to drink in a sunny Dublin park.

And with that I'll wander off into the sunset after another Big Grill. This used to be the opening act of a late summer double-header which included the Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS. I'm glad one of them is still standing, giving us an excuse for a day out. Or two.

Taking sides

Two evenings at the 2018 Big Grill Festival was enough time to get round to all the beers I wanted to try. As usual the beer and cider offer was prodigious so I'm going to have to split the review into two posts, arbitrarily on geographic lines. We begin at the bars on the west side of Herbert Park.

Rascals, at one end of the row, had brought a new spiced milk stout called Chai So Serious? It's a sort-of answer to calls for them to bring back their original ginger porter. There is, apparently, a complex mix of flavourings added to this, but for me it was all about the ginger. That was present as flavour rather than heat, as you'd find in a ginger cake or biscuit, with plenty of it in the aroma too. The base beer is balanced and creamy, with enough of a roast bite to prevent it getting overly sweet, and a modest ABV of 4.8%. Although this was a small limited batch, it is due to be scaled up and tweaked to bring out more of the spices.

Brewtonic had one of the sensations of the festival: Passion Wagon, a sour ale with passionfruit. It's a light and refreshing 3.8% ABV, not overly complex but great at what it does. The sourness is merely a dry chalky tang instead of full-on tartness as found in, say, YellowBelly's Castaway, while the texture is smooth and effervescent rather than fizzy. There's loads of real passionfruit flavour as well, but like the milk stout above it's not too sweet.

Next door to them, Rye River was showcasing the third in its limited edition series. After a big stout and a big IPA, part three is a summer lager called Ól. They've added orange zest to this, as well as a cocktail of orangey hops. I expected zingy and clean but that's not quite what I got. The flavour is certainly fun, sweet and juicy first, then with a more savoury spice, as found in orange skin. All of this lasts long into the finish and I think that's my problem with it: it lacks the cleanness and crispness of a good lager. Enjoyable, but not quite what I was looking for.

From an unmarked tap, Simon was offering sneaky tastes of Rye River's new smoked stout, Big Smoke, and this was much more my sort of thing. The almost meaty aroma from this paired well with the enticing smoky smells coming from the festival's barbecue pits. The mouthfeel is big and satisfying, suggesting more than its 5.7% ABV, and then there's an unexpected but pleasing spicy bite in the finish. I don't know what the availability of this is, but it's worth keeping an eye out for.

Next along was Metalman who had brought a new pale ale, badged here as The Pitmaster, though also known as Waterford Walls and other things, apparently. It's 4.2% ABV, yellow-amber in colour and with a charming lemon tea aroma. That develops on tasting into a dry white wine, Pouilly-Fumé in particular, with a similar kind of smoky edge. That's a lot of complexity for such a light ale, yet it's all well-integrated and not busy.

On day two, they tapped up Calypso which, in defiance of the New England trend, they've badged as a "South-Eastern" IPA. It's pale yellow and slightly hazy with a full body and sweet core flavour. So far, so New England. Lemon-flavoured chews was the main impression I got on tasting: zingy, with just a small bitter tang on the end for balance. That's pretty much it. It's simple and tasty, if maybe a little overclocked at 5.6% ABV. It will enhance your lazy summer evenings, if you can still squeeze a couple of those out of the next few weeks.

The first stretch of bars ended at Eight Degrees, offering MAD as their new one. This 4.5% ABV IPA gets it name from the use of Mosaic, Amarillo and Denali hops. I think I just plain don't like Denali, and nothing here convinced me otherwise. It tasted sweaty: a bitter staleness with an added sour fruit tang and vanilla sweetness. Nothing about it suggested Mosaic or Amarillo to me, so I'm laying the blame squarely on the Denali. Your mileage may vary with this one; in fact I hope it does.

We turn the corner, literally and metaphorically, by moving on to the perpendicular row of bars, and O Brother. Their new one was called The 1%er, and yes that's the ABV. It's an IPA too. Brave. And yet there's a proper depth to this. It's the hazy yellow of a table beer, and has a similar kind of yeasty buzz, but there's no unpleasant thinness. There is a proper IPA bitterness, and even a mild dankness, while it avoids being harsh or acidic -- another pitfall that often besets these. The flavour is smooth and orangey, and while the finish is quick, there are plenty of IPAs at five times the strength which do the same. I hope there's a market out there for a beer like this as I think there are plenty of occasions for it.

Kinnegar was next along. There was a bit of a buzz about Phunk Noir, the Brett-aged version of their Yannaroddy coconut porter. Maybe I'd built it up too much by the time I got to it but I was underwhelmed. It tasted like sour chocolate: two things that are fine when separate but just don't meld together well for me. Add in a thin texture and a heavy dollop of dark soy sauce and I was done. It's distinctive and complex all right, just not very nice.

Luckily they had a handy counterbalance available in the form of Inquisitive Hare, a lager which is usually only available at Tigh Neachtain in Galway. "Hoppy" is how the brewery describes it, and it is that: almost greasy with resins. A sticky sweet-apricot aroma wafts from it, while the flavour mixes refreshing herbal notes with a bitter and zesty lemon bite. The combination, akin to some sort of fancy cloudy lemonade with green sprigs and twigs, is lovely and refreshing in spite of the full body and 5% ABV.

Wicklow Wolf's new draught special is called No CAN Do, in part because it's draught only, but it's also another hop-acronym, representing Citra, Azacca and Nelson. All of them were added late to the pale ale which is a mere 4% ABV. It's a slightly hazy golden colour and offers an enticing aroma which is dank and tropical in equal parts. I was surprised by its density: this is a thick beast. A hard lime-skin bitterness kicks it off, bringing in a wisp of friend onion on the end, and a tiny vanilla aftermath. While not complex, it has a lovely punchy hop character, very much in the Wicklow Wolf style.

My standout beer of the whole gig came from the last bar on the row. It's not the first time that a Hope limited edition has been the highlight of Big Grill: beers 1 and 2 in the sequence caught my particular attention way back in '16. Number 12 is the latest: Hop Hash Double IPA. I understand this is the first Irish beer to use hop hash, a miracle ingredient which is essentially a by-product of the pelletising process. It's sold as being capable of concentrating the hop impact, and the Centennial and Amarillo varieties used here certainly did that. A very large basket of tropical fruits is on offer here. I'm not going to list them, but it's all the ones you'd expect. Now maybe the bitterness is lower than it should be, and at just 8% the ABV is too. But this is the DIPA's DIPA: clean, bright, fresh and simply booming with new world hop goodness. If you see it, get it.

Only twelve beers in and I've run out of bars. Guess I'll have to start again over on the other side of the park. Sit tight...

Still dropping

Trying to keep up with the output at Urban Brewing has been exhausting. After a year of following closely, I'm starting to let some releases go by. I never thought I'd say this, but there's only so much I can drink and write about. Anyway, here's my latest from Urban, even if it's not the latest.

I was surprised to find I hadn't already had a beer called Urban Brewing Saison, but they've all had proper names before -- this is the first totally straight one. It's 4.6% ABV and an orange-amber colour, served very cold and topped by a luxurious thick head. Cool banana and dry straw are equally matched in the foretaste, set on a softly effervescent base with a tang of zinc on the periphery. A juicier melon note emerges as it rises above ice temperature, completing the saison picture. This is a very good interpretation of the style, refreshing, quenching and unfussy. I would like a pinch of pepper for seasoning, but that's just a minor personal preference. I doubt Urban has any plans for a core range, but this would be deserving of a place in one.

Reluctantly I ordered the Nitro Pale Ale. I haven't seen one of these in quite a while, and y'know I haven't missed them. The blackboard told me it was the seventh iteration of the recipe, but it was my first. Until the barman struggled to get it to pour properly, it didn't occur to me how odd it was that this existed. Urban serves all of its house beers directly from their bright tanks: how does nitrogenation work there? Not very well, if the pouring drama was any indicator.

It arrived, eventually, a burnished copper colour and smelling of coffee and toffee. There's a distinct caramel foretaste leading to a metallic bitterness in the finish. I'd describe this as a red ale more readily than a pale ale, but it's not a bad effort. Where these are often gloopy and gummy, this has a black-tea dryness holding that back: while it may not be hoppy it's at least clean. Throw it on cask instead and you'd have a quality bitter.

I almost always feel like the only beer geek who drinks in Urban. I guess it's largely a function of its location in the financial district that it doesn't get my sort in much. That gave me a perspective on the next beer, chalked up as DIPA: DDH Citra. I know what that means, or at least what it stands for, but how many other Urban customers would? A venue like this could do with paring back the jargon a little; they don't need to impress the Cloudwater-or-GTFO hazebros. That said, I've always found the barstaff very helpful and forthcoming.

From the name, then, I was expecting something of connoisseur quality from this 8.4% ABV beast. The muddy brown colour and floaty yeast gobbets did not inspire confidence, nor the immediate hot banana esters, but that wasn't the worst of it. It tasted like bleach. I tried desperately to fit this into a Citra-shaped hole: that piney floor-cleaner effect you sometimes get? But I don't think that's it, and either way it's not good. I can't see this one appealing to either geeks or norms.

You take what you get at Urban: that's part of the charm. I'm looking forward to a fresh board of new additions next time I'm in.