Third time's the charm

Just the one post from me for Hagstravaganza 2019. I was flying solo for this the White Hag Brewery festival's third outing in Ballymote, although that was offset a little by the extra hour of drinking time thanks to a change in the Sligo to Dublin rail timetable. With this 7.20pm departure, Irish Rail, you have us spoilt!

The brewery's barrel stores are really filling out the vast space where the festival is held. That constrained the bar a little this year, but it still had the full complement of 60 taps, with breweries from Ireland and further afield.

I opened my account with one of the new releases from the hosts: Hopstravaganza, a New England-style IPA of 6.2% ABV. It's a properly murky yellow with a greenish tint. The flavour divides neatly into a vanilla side and a garlic side, and the combination is oddly pleasing. While I found it a little shockingly sweet at first, the dank burps it engenders help to counteract that. On the one hand this is nothing special: very much a true-to-style typical NEIPA; while on the other, it delivers exactly what the style is supposed to, without any of the off flavours which too frequently come with it. In the few weeks since the festival I've seen tall cans of this out and about. They're well worth your while when fresh.

As usual there was also a barrel-aged festival special. Hagstravaganza 5 is a bourbon-aged barley wine which they were serving directly from the oak cask. It looked rough: a murky red-brown and completely headless. But it turned out to be beautifully smooth, with gentle toffee, a buzz of espresso and a classy port oak finish. Despite the massive 13% ABV there's no heat, just richness. I suspect it spent a long time in that barrel as the only thing resembling an off flavour I could find was a dusting of autolytic umami, though barely noticeable. This was definitely one to have late on in proceedings and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

Otherwise, regarding Irish beer, I kept it sour and funky. That's where the really interesting things are happening. Boundary isn't a brewery I would associate with microbial creativity, but here was 2019 Cuvée. No information was provided beyond that it's mixed fermentation and, from the name, presumably a blend. It's a pale and hazy yellow colour with a bright yet funky farmyard aroma. The flavour mixes juicy white grape and peachy Brett with dry wood, finishing on a pinch of white pepper. The sourness is teeth-squeakingly clean. It's only 5.1% ABV and that seems to have left it a little thin; allowing the intense acidity to unbalance it slightly. It's still very decent overall, and shows a brewery well in control of this genre of beer.

I had an unprecedented three beers from Land & Labour. The fact that they're so rare has a lot to do with that. First on the board was Panta Rhei, a foudre-matured saison. Hazy yellow and sharply sour once again. This one has some extra spicing -- all saltpetre or gunpowder. A cool green-apple-skin bitterness finishes it off. It's an unusual set of flavours but works incredibly well.

That was followed by Coolship 2018 Blueberry, a bright red-coloured 6.3%-er, spontaneously fermented. I found it convincingly kriek-like, with the right level of dry funk and sweet fruit. Vanilla oak complements the latter, and then there's a slightly harsh vinegar burn at the end. The distinct blueberry flavour is missing from it, however: that could be any of several berries. I liked it, but it's not up there with the best of blueberry lambic by any means.

Just before leaving I managed to catch the unadorned Coolship 2018 for comparison. This is much better. The funky flavours are cool and refreshing; the oak spice adds an extra-quenching spritz. Its sourness, meanwhile, is restrained and refined. Above all this is accessible, showing all the great features of this style of beer, but in a gentle and balanced way. Not that it's a lightweight: 5.8% ABV gives it plenty of substance. I would love to see something like this in regular production at an appropriately accessible price.

We'll transition from the funky Irish beers with a funky foreigner: Azimut's Barrel Brett IPA. This is a pure golden colour and has a gorgeous honey texture. From this there follows luxuriously sticky-sweet apricot and a huge farmyard funkiness. There's just enough hop character to qualify it as an IPA, but I'm not complaining about the Brett being in charge. The brewers of the wild-fermented stuff really did well at this festival.

A downgrade to a basic kettle-soured beer next, Garden Brewery of Zagreb's Kiwi Sour. It's still pretty good, though, with a real and distinct kiwi flavour at the front, turning to a juicy roundness in the finish. The satisfying mouthfeel is aided by 5% ABV. There's just enough tartness to make it interesting and refreshing, while the Citra hopping both balances the fruit with some bitterness, and complements it with lemon and lime flavours. This is an ice lolly more than a full meal, but great fun to drink.

My second Pressure Drop beer that month, and indeed second ever, was Ida, a Berliner weisse promising added raspberry, elderflower and basil. Well, the raspberry is there: it's never a very shy fruit when used in beers. But elderflower and basil? Nope. There's a vaguely sweet herbal tang, but nothing distinct or identifiable. Worst of all is the texture: horribly thin and watery. Yes it's 3.8% ABV so was never going to be a chewer, but this is just offensively dull. At least it wasn't much effort to drink: I'll give it that.

Several people recommended an alternative sour pink beer: Amundsen's Cosmic Unicorn. No messing here: they come right out and describe it as a "pastry sour". I shuddered and went ahead anyway. It's not watery, at least, but it's horribly sticky, like drinking a glass of raspberry jam. There's a concentrated and cloying vanilla flavour too, while the strength is an unreasonable 6.5% ABV. I suppose if you like very sweet fruit beers this will work for you, and as I said, it certainly had its fans there on the day. But it wasn't for me, and I dearly wish brewers would stop using the word "sour" on beers that aren't remotely sour.

Time for another IPA, then. It was great to meet the representatives from Pilot in Edinburgh, and their sales patter landed me a glass of their India India double IPA. The special ingredient in this dark amber 8.5%-er is jaggery and that adds a definite brown-sugar density to it. And I'd say it was plenty dense enough already, being a big and chewy west-coast job, packed with resinous hops. This certainly isn't built for fans of the modern juice-bomb approach to double IPA, but I liked the wintery stylings of it; the warming alcohol making for refined sipping.

Compare and contrast with Higher and Betterer, a double New England-style IPA from Brasserie du Grand Paris at the same strength. This is the appropriate opaque orange colour. The aroma is worryingly funky but its flavour is bright and clean; spritzy with mandarin and satsuma. Here the alcohol is very well hidden. While great fun for the first sip or two, it is a little one-dimensional, offering little beyond the initial citrus. A beer of this strength should have more going on.

With the train home beckoning it was time to score some imperial stout. My first was called Imperial Cosmic Cocoa, coming from Sibling Revelry in Ohio. As the name suggests, it has chocolate in it, and this was the bourbon barrel-aged version. While dense looking it's quite light of texture, reflecting an ABV on the low side for this kind of thing: 8.5% again. There's some good pastry complexity, however: wafer biscuit, gooey caramel and Turkish delight all feature. I don't think they got their money's worth out of that barrel, but the end result came out fine.

The big finish was a Cloudwater job called The Act of Chewing. The blurb said this was nitrogenated, but if so it didn't take, pouring with only the thinnest of loose-bubbled heads. Though 10% ABV it had very little heat going on. The main flavour was a lovely liquorice bitterness of the kind found in too few modern imperial stouts. It could be that my palate wasn't up to tasting any further complexity at this hour, but I'd still have thought I'd get more from a bruiser like this. No matter; it was enjoyable and carried me out of the brewery and onto my train.

Another great show from the White Hag team. The whole event was handled efficiently and professionally, crucially keeping the service moving even at the busiest times. All going well I'll be back for the 2020 gig.