Inchicore blimey

With the Rascals brewery, taproom and pilot kit going full tilt these days, it's an endless game of catch-up for me. The cliff-hanger last time was Das Beaut kölsch-a-like. It was half of a set with its cherry counterpart, Das Beaut Cherry, which I got to on my next visit. I was expecting a clear red fruitbeer tint to it and was not prepared for the milkshake I was served. It's an almost grey shade of pink. So not just a squirt of cherry syrup, then. The realness of the cherries continues on tasting: it has a perfumed foretaste, an intense but brief sweetness with real maraschino skin, not sugary extract. Amazingly, the underlying beer survives all this: there's still a crisp finish and a waft of hops on the reflux. The fruit becomes a bigger part of the picture as it warms, shading its flavour towards the yogurt it resembles. It's remarkably well integrated and not just a novelty. I'm glad I came back for this. Perhaps I should be less sceptical about fruit beers in future.

The latest in a long line of Rascals fruited pale ales is Fruitropolis. This 4.3%-er is fruitier than most, thanks to the inclusion of passionfruit in with the apricot and pineapple. Passionfruit dominates in that sorbet/Calippo way it has, making it very sweet and tangy. The hops are left as background players, contributing little more than a twang of peppery bitterness in the finish. If you like your tropical and juicy beers to taste actually tropical and juicy rather than attempting it with hops, this may be the pale ale for you, though I understand that subsequent batches have the passionfruit dialled back.

On this occasion I had arrived just as the new stout, Cereal Killer, appeared, on nitro and via a brand new cask engine. I got to try both. The name comes from the inclusion of granola in the recipe and it really does have that crunchy oatcake effect, bringing a dry grainy quality, especially in the finish. But this is balanced by lots of milk chocolate. Although nirogenated, there seems to have been a light touch on the ol' N2 as there was plenty of sparkle to push the flavour compounds out, including a seriously rich and desserty aroma. The richness is more apparent in the cask version, and there's a summer fruit complexity too: tart strawberry and redcurrant. The chocolate is still there, as is the sparkle, but the dryness is reduced. Cask stout wins again, but the nitro version is barely compromised.

A couple of weeks later I was back for a whole new round. Tartness on the Edge of Town started me off, an opaquely milky sour beer of 3.4% ABV. The texture is soft, and as light as one might expect from the ABV. Fresh mint or rosemary blends with light lemon cordial to create the effect of something you'd drink from a big jug on a summer's day. Not lemonade because it's not fizzy enough, but maybe a non-alcoholic punch of some sort. The ice-cold serving temperature accentuates this further. What lets it down is the yeast burn, bringing a savoury kick that really doesn't belong. A bit more time in the tank is needed to fulfil its refreshment potential.

Rascals joins the micro IPA party with Microwave, at just 3.2% ABV. I think this may be the first clear example I've seen: a limpid amber-copper. With that comes a charming burnt caramel foretaste before the hop resins take over. You'd miss the alcohol, though. After the initial burst of flavour it turns quite hollow and watery, while the oily bitterness means it doesn't quite work as a thirst-quencher. Another interesting pilot-kit experiment, but I can't see this going mainstream.

A cream ale next -- you don't see many of them around. It's called Yale, is 5% ABV and a bright and shining gold. It was nice to have a bit of substance back after the sub-4%ers but the flavour isn't up to much here. There's a mild tang of marmalade or orange jelly and the rest is silence. Cream ale is a tough style to impress with, and I don't recall any that did better than making the best of it. This one fits in there too.

They've added Grapefruit to their inevitable Brut IPA, something that has the potential to jazz up this often pedestrian style. It didn't really work. The stripped-out brut IPA flavour is still there while the fruit adds a savoury, smoky, wax-and-plastic overtone: definitely not an improvement. For 6.3% ABV the texture is unforgivably thin. It's still entirely within the spec of brut IPA, so if you like them you'll like this. For me, the hacking just didn't move it far enough away from the style's inherent flaws.

Guest beers still feature regularly, and the most recent I tried was Baniwa Spring from Hopfully, a sequel to the original Baniwa Chilli saison from last year. The ABV has gone up to 5.3% but it looks the same and the flavour profile matches: a grainy crispness contrasting with banana esters, a generous dusting of chilli pepper and tropical hints of coconut as it warms. With all that going on I'd definitely describe this too as a saison more than a wit, though I also think the chilli has been laid on stronger this time. While I enjoyed the full-thorax warmth, the banana sweetness is just a little too full-on for my liking. It's a brave recipe, but one with room to be cleaned up a little, I think.

Daring recipes, varying styles and high turnover: exactly what you'd want from your local taproom.