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.