Fool's Gold

Something truly special for you today: a beer too long neglected by this blog, and indeed beer blogs in general. Dutch Gold has been an Irish budget mainstay since the mid-1990s. The brand is owned by Coman's wholesalers and it's brewed, to the best of my knowledge, at the Dommelsch brewery in North Brabant. Full marks, then, for accuracy: it is Dutch and it's most definitely gold.

This isn't my first time tasting, nor even my first since I developed beer-critical faculties, but it is the first time in the lifespan of this blog. Let's say I wasn't impressed on the previous occasion, and 14 years is the minimum waiting period before a reassessment. It smells quite sweet, though with a certain richness, belying the mere 4% ABV. There's a decent body too: no thinness here. One might even class the texture as helles-like. There's a small pilsneresque hop tang and the crusty-bread smoothness of a Dortmunder, and if that was everything we'd be in clover for €1 a can. That's not everything, however.

Bawling loudly over the top of all the lager subtleties -- which are genuinely there -- is a sugary sweetness which I'm guessing comes from the extensive use of maize in the recipe. At points it tastes like refined white sugar, others like sweetcorn husk, and others like concentrated honey. It leaves a syrupy residue behind on the palate as well. As it warms to gutter temperature it takes on characteristics of proper tramp-strength lager: that sherry and markers effect. It's not an improvement.

All that said, this isn't as bad as I expected. There's a decent lager down there somewhere, and a warming hug too. I can completely see how its fans manage to ignore its worst points.