Lidl goes shopping

Lidl unleashed a plethora of independent Irish beer in an autumn windfall of generosity last month. I picked up the ones I hadn't tried before, of course, including relative newcomer 59 South Pale Ale. It's brewed in Dublin at Select Batch but claims a pretend brewery at the foot of Mount Leinster in Co. Carlow on the label. It's a middling copper colour and a middling 4.8% ABV. A solid west coast bitterness opens the flavour: sharp pine and grapefruit; not exactly fresh and zingy but with plenty of punch. The aroma combines this with balancing toffee, but that dark malt doesn't get a look-in in the flavour, which is (pleasingly) all hop. The initial pine fades to wax then tails off, leaving a dank residue. Maybe it's the Carlow connection, but I'm reminded a lot of O'Hara's IPA here: it has the same sort of combination of heavy body and uncompromising acidity. I liked this solid pale ale much more than I thought I would and am all ears for the next 59 South release.

12 Acres had two new ones in the line-up. I began with Shepherd's Warning, a red-labelled (oh I get it now) IPA of 5% ABV. And there's a distinctly reddish tint to the beer too. The aroma is a wholesome mix of lemon and tannin like, well, lemon tea. I have a lot of time for a beer that smells refreshing. The flavour is blander, and sliding much more into red ale territory than IPA. I got a jammy kick of strawberry and some harsher green cabbage notes. After this it finishes quickly, abruptly so for a beer of its strength, leaving an odd wisp of caramel smoke in its wake. While perfectly drinkable it lacks character and is certainly putting on airs by calling itself an IPA. More hops please.

The other was Lazy Meadow, a lager I opened a few days later. It's a dark gold colour with a fun lemon spritz aroma. Lemon tea is again a feature, this time in the flavour, leaving it nicely thirst-quenching if a little flat. Though a mere 4% ABV, it has quite a big and chewy texture, and could easily pass as a pale ale more than a lager, which is a bit of a shame. It is clean and lacking in flaws, however, which can't be said of every budget Irish supermarket lager. I didn't take too long over it, and I don't think it's designed to be savoured anyway, but I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

It was great to see a nordie brewery represented at Lidl too. There were three releases from Hillstown, and my first to try was Douglas Top, another lager. Though only 4.1% ABV it's a rich dark golden hue and the aroma gets full marks: a classic pilsner mix of crisp green veg and soft sweet biscuit. Both of these elements get turned to an extreme in the flavour, in a way that wasn't to my taste. The hops are tinny and tangy; the malt musty and stale-tasting. I've certainly had real German lager that has tasted like this so I think the fault is entirely mine here, though the beer is a little flatter than it should be, technically speaking. Otherwise it's a cautious thumbs up, unless you have the same weird aversion to intensely German lagers that I do.

Long Mountain was an altogether smoother affair, being a wheat beer in a broadly weissbier style, though with a dab of witbier lemon in it too. The low carbonation works better here, giving it a full and silky texture for ease of drinking. In place of banana there's a gentler lychee fruit sweetness, and a piquancy that may be the yeast, or is possibly down to the surprise inclusion of rye, according to the label. The more subtle fruit and spice does fight a little with a level of alcoholic warmth which suggests more than the 5.3% ABV, so this isn't one of your light and refreshing weissbiers. It's not one for hammering through anyway.

The trilogy is completed by Mid Hill, an IPA, though a modest one at 4.5% ABV. It looked unattractive while pouring, as flat and pale as a half-litre of white wine. It is a little bit darker in the glass, with a skim of white foam which doesn't last long. The aroma offers fun mandarin and candy, followed by a harder metallic edge. Oddly, my first flavour impression is of chocolate, coupled with oily oranges, like a Terry's confection, or the orange creme sweets that tend to be the last ones left in the tin. And then there's that bitterness: a harsh buzz of green cabbage and zinc, rising late and forming a long and insistent finish. Coupled with further thinness and flatness, the flavour did not endear me to this beer. It's nearly a decent, vaguely American-style, pale ale, but it misses the mark on texture and fresh hop taste.

No stand-out bargains here, but a couple of decent and unfussy efforts. It seems kind of strange that Lidl's core beer range is of generally better quality than this handful of specials, though that's not a complaint.