Year-end pints

This month makes it ten years since Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg suggested categories that beer bloggers might like to use for an annual run-down of the best in beer. I've stuck with it steadfastly since, even if I do change my criteria for the winners each year, and sometimes during the process of writing that year's entry. It's not meant to be taken seriously or considered meaningful, is what I'm saying.

2019 has been a dramatic year in beer, in Ireland and abroad. To mull it all over I've chosen something with a bit of wintery heft: Abbaye de Vauclair Biere Ambrée, a large bottle I picked up for loose change in Lidl. They're not lying about the "ambrée", it's a very ambrée hombre indeed: a beautiful clear polished-copper colour with a generous head which expertly laces the glass. I wasn't prepared for how sweet it is; it is extremely sweet, suggesting treacle, muscovado sugar and similar cake-baking ingredients you're not meant to eat raw. I was a few sips in before I noticed the balancing factor: a dry and slightly bitter tannic twang, which I'm guessing has both a hop and malt component. It doesn't stop the sugary onslaught but it does make it manageable, rendering the beer drinkable as a result. The sum total is a beer that's quite light-bodied for 6.1% ABV and tastes like a cup of very sweet cold tea. I quite liked it, but it's not one you can rush, which suited my needs perfectly. And so...

The Golden Pint Awards 2019

Best Irish Cask Beer: Porterhouse Yippy IPA
The decision to replace heavy, resinous Hop Head with pale dry Yippy was not without controversy. For the record I still miss HH's clean punchiness. To begin with, I treated Yippy like a newborn younger sibling, resenting its usurpation. It was some months later that I first encountered it on cask at Porterhouse Temple Bar and finally got it. I suspect the brewery has sneaked a Yorkshire bitter onto the Irish market dressed as an American. On cask it has that same blend of honeyed pale malt and waxy hop bitterness. It's clean, elegant, moreish and generally a fiver a pint. 5% ABV is a bit too high for a proper guzzlable session beer (bring back TSB!) so you have to pace yourself, but the result is very rewarding.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Land & Labour Coolship (2018)
The sour and the funk may become a bit of a theme in this year's edition as some Irish brewers are getting extremely good at this sort of thing. This one, sampled at this year's Hagstravaganza, was damn near lambic-grade and a very clear indication that local brewers are approaching that standard. There was also a blueberry version showing just how easy it is to mess up something this delicate. Steer your Coolship straight and true, and everything will be OK.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Wide Street Saison Sunday
It's their only bottle, but still the best beer they've released so far. I reviewed it here only a couple of weeks ago, but I hope I can avoid accusations of late-year bias by pointing out that I drank relatively few bottled Irish beers this year now that the can is king. I can see this category becoming the purvue of barrel aged beers. That said...

Best Irish Canned Beer: Wicklow Wolf Pointy Shoes
The canned Golden Pint has to go to a dark beer as we have had a slew of worthy examples from various local breweries in recent months. Larkin's Morrigan, White Hag Festa Nuda, Lineman's Astral Grains and Wicklow Wolf's own Apex and Locavore all deserve a share in this prize. But Pointy Shoes, brewed to mark Wicklow Wolf's fifth anniversary, and as the valedictory beer from the Bray premises, went beyond what any Irish stout barrel-ager has managed to create thus far.

Best Overseas Draught: Ca' del Brado Û baccabianca
Chasing the grape ales has become a travel pastime for me, one which doesn't always land great beer. I hit the jackpot in Billies in Antwerp, however, with this one from Emilia-Romagna. Ca' del Brado is a brewery now firmly on my drink-on-sight list.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: 3 Fonteinen Cuvée Armand & Gaston 2018
Every year should involve ticking a few things off the list, and I was happy to realise an ambition I'd had since the 2017 Toer de Geuze to go to 3 Fonteinen's tap room on an ordinary day and drink some beer there. And I did, and it was this, and it was very impressive. How much of that was down to the occasion? Who cares.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Crooked Stave Sour Rosé
I had to go all the way back to the start of the year to dig this one out. It's another super-complex mixed fermentation job, this time from the US. And it's permanently available in, among other places, the 4-for-€12 fridge at Stephen Street News. You're in a much better position to argue with me about this one than the previous two, but you have to buy it first.

Best Collaboration Brew: Jackie O's/Cycle Anything And Everything And Nothing At All
The runaway standout beer at the Fidelty beer festival during the summer. You think you've tasted everything that's possible to achieve with barrel-aged imperial stouts, and then along comes this. Fascinating and delicious in equal measure.

Best Overall Beer: Û baccabianca
I know. I'd love to have given this to something local, or to something readily available, but I look back on the finalists and think of my reaction to first tasting each of them, and this was the one that induced the cartoon-character-in-love effect. A-wooo-ga!

Best Branding: O Brother
The brewery's Off The Wall series of collaborations with graffiti artists began last year and has now clocked up two dozen beautifully designed cans.

Best Pump Clip: Five Lamps Tilted Drum
I liked the badge Five Lamps came up with for the Convention Centre's house beer, blending the building's distinctive shape with a beer keg.

Best Bottle/Can Label: YellowBelly Bushido
Well of course it was going to be a YellowBelly one. In picking a pastiche style for this black IPA, artist Paul really excelled himself. The beer was pretty damn good too.



Best Irish Brewery: Third Barrel
This was a tougher call than usual, with quite a few breweries doing amazing work. I'll save a special mention for Larkin's who've had some real stunners coming out especially in the latter half of 2019. But Third Barrel has really been putting the graft in. This year was the first time I found beers to impress me released under their Stone Barrel brand: Slammer and Awesome Sauce in particular. Third Circle's Needs More Cowbell and fruited Brett IPA were highlights, and then all the hyperactive hop activity under the Third Barrel label itself, as well as launching The Format, Pleasuredome and other client brewers. I'm exhausted just writing it down. I hope the pace is sustainable.

Best Overseas Brewery: Tilquin
Our dalliance was brief, but I had a lovely couple of sessions at the Tilquin blendery during this year's Toer de Geuze trying all their various experiments. They've never struck me as a particularly playful producer and perhaps it's the market that's pushing them into doing new things. Regardless, they're generally very good at it, that maple syrup lambic notwithstanding.

Best New Brewery Opening 2019: Wide Street
The promise of this all-wild-fermentation brewery in Co. Longford is enormous and the beers, in general, have been great so far.

Pub/Bar of the Year: La Venencia
Since I first visted this Madrid pub in 2009 it's been a firm favourite. I was actually apprehensive on going back last October, for fear it would disappoint. It didn't; it's still amazing. The best feature is that it doesn't serve beer, only sherry, so I get to put my notebook away.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2019: BrewDog Outpost Dublin
I've only been once and I haven't written about it yet, but I respect the sheer commitment of BrewDog in taking on 1,100 square metres of bar and restaurant space in the Dublin docklands and adding an in-house brewery to it. It's a big place and big things are expected.

Beer Festival of the Year: Fidelity
As usual I feared the worst: big queues and braying edgelords. But Ireland's first all-inclusive beer festival, organised by Whiplash and The Big Romance, was quite chilled in the end. There were lots of amazing beers and, if you didn't spend too long chatting, it was quite easy to get one's money's worth.

Supermarket of the Year: Fresh, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7
It's not what it used to be though I have found myself increasingly coming back to the beer section here, often finding things I couldn't source anywhere else. Supermarkets in general seem to have done away with continuously updated beer ranges -- it mustn't have been sustainable for anyone. Fresh is clinging on, though. Turnover isn't as rapid as you'd find in an independent, though I rarely leave empty-handed.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Redmond's of Ranelagh
I always have to make a special effort to go over, but it's always worth it. The exclusive beers created with DOT are what tipped it into the winners' enclosure for me this year. Shouts-out, of course, to my regular haunts DrinkStore and Stephen Street News.

Online Retailer of the Year: The White Hag
They sent me a free case to test their website, which was nice. It arrived very quickly after I ordered it, which was also nice. And the beer was good. Other than that, I had no cause to buy beer online this year, as usual.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: Pierre Van Klomp Says No: Life, Death and the Meaning of Beer
Another default award this, being the only beer book I read this year, and that was in ten minutes over breakfast on the morning it arrived. It's still a beautifully put together piece with evocative photos as well as earthy Belgian wisdom. Thanks to Pierre's literary agents Boak & Bailey for sending it to me.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Food For Thought
You may have noticed the occasional snarky morning tweet from me about the drinks industry. And the occasional genuinely interesting industry news story. Many of these are fuelled by the daily email from FFT, so this is just by way of thanks to the team there for all the hard work they do collecting and presenting Ireland's hospitality news.

Simon Johnson Award For Best Beer Twitterer: @BeerFoodTravel
Liam has been a bit quiet on the long-form front recently, but his snippets of Irish brewing history throughout the year have been enlightening. He takes a good beer photo too.

Best Brewery Website/Social Media: Galway Bay Brewery
I don't think I've ever given the pub taplists on the Galway Bay website a nod, and they deserve one, even if they're not always up to date (has somebody lost the keys to the Against the Grain page?). The Black Sheep is generally spot on, I get a Twitter notification when something new is tapped, and I find that very useful.


And that's another year over. Thanks for reading, if indeed you still are.

Christmas in California (or Carolina)

Some end-of-year seasonals for your Twixt-mas reading, courtesy of the good folk at Sierra Nevada.

Ho ho ho, it's Holiday Haze first, a 6.5% ABV IPA that's a translucent yellow colour with a dusting of snowy bubbles on top. The aroma is very Christmas tree, and I don't know if that's deliberate: sweet pine with a warming nutmeg and clove spice behind. (I should probably disclose that I'm drinking this a little over a week ago, having just finished the Christmas shopping and am very much in a Festive Mood.) The spices more than the pine lead the flavour, and there's a very witbier-like mix of coriander and orange. The bitterness is therefore zesty, dare I say summery? This is further softened by a syrupy orangeade sweetness which I'm guessing is a nod to New England. It's not very convincing. On mature reflection this isn't especially Christmassy after all, and it lacks Sierra Nevada's signature west-coast hop kick. It's decent though: easy drinking with very little sign of all that alcohol. It's one you could have a few of.

The rather more bluntly titled Coffee Stout is only a little weaker at 6.2% ABV. Despite the caffeine it pours slowly and lazily, needing a bit of altitude to form a head properly. That gloopiness pays off in the mouthfeel: it's rich and silky, like a fine Belgian praline. Actually, chocolate is much more part of the flavour than coffee, bouncing between that praline nuttiness and a sterner, cocoa-driven flaky bitterness. The coffee is mostly present in the aroma wafting out subtly, burntness accompanied by sweeter wafer biscuit. So far it sounds like just another coffee stout; you have to wait for the finish to catch the best feature. Here's there's an unexpected echo of fruit: raisin primarily, with a little cherry essence too. It's not much but it gives the beer a tasty extra dimension. This is highly enjoyable, and ideal winter drinking when you're not hitting the double-digit-percentage mad stuff.

Both of these feel to me like a grown-up brewer doing slightly silly styles to follow modern beer fashion. The quality shines though, however. No wrong turns, no bum notes, and nothing half-hearted. Just the quality you'd expect.

Because you've been good

A special festive One-Shot Wednesday for you today. It is Wednesday, isn't it? I think it is anyway.

I was surprised to discover that although St Bernardus Christmas Ale has been around as long as yuletide itself, I had never tried it. Here we go then. It's 10% ABV for some real seasonal cheer from the get-go. Pouring the dark cola-brown of a quadrupel it smells mostly like a typical strong and dark Belgian ale -- fruitcake and warming esters -- but I get a slight jangle of specifically Christmassy cinnamon and ginger. That's either midwinter magic or my heated imagination as no additional spices are listed on the ingredients. Ho hum.

The carbonation is very busy: no relaxing mellowness here. I am definitely getting Christmas spices from the flavour, so if it's my imagination, my imagination is legit generating mince pies. There's a sharpness that says ginger and clove more than anything else. The texture is surprisingly light given the strength, helped I'm sure by the cleansing fizz. Dense and sticky figs and plums emerge after the spice fades, and there's a tangy hop bitterness of the sort you're more likely to find in the work of new wave Belgian traditionalists like De Ranke.

While I can't complain about this beer -- the standard Bernardus quality shines through -- I don't see it as anything other than a novelty label. If you're after festive cheer there's no need to eschew your usual case of Abt 12. Happy Christmas, Ron.

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 12: twelve more brewers

Surprise! I couldn't go out without one more random round-up for 2019, and here it is: all the beers that, through absolutely no fault of their own, I drank recently but couldn't fit into the previous 11 posts.

We'll start light, with a 4.3% ABV Dry-Hopped Lager from Dublin client brewer Crafty Bear. Although it's quite low in strength, it's a rich deep golden colour with a slight haze. I'm always worried when I see "dry hopped" on a lager from the anglophone world as it tends to imply citric American hops, which rarely works well. This isn't one of those, and tastes authentically noble and Germanic: celery, white pepper and nettles. The downside is that it doesn't taste or smell strongly hoppy in any direction. This is a rather plain affair and to be brutal, you'd be better off with a mainstream German lager than this attempt at brewing one in Dublin 12.

Galway Hooker released this slightly odd geopolitical art project, Four Horsemen, a session IPA of 4.8% ABV in 33cl bottles with four different world leaders on them. I got to it so late my bottle was a prime minister behind. It looks much like the brewery's flagship pale ale: a bright orange-red with a generous head of white. The parallel continues in the aroma: that classic earthy zest of Cascade on a base of crystal malt. The texture is softer, though: a gentle fluffiness rather than a hard west-coast bite. It's very decent: balanced between fresh hop zing (remembering my bottle probably wasn't even the freshest) and smooth malt-driven warmth. There's maybe a little more impact than the pale ale, given the slightly higher ABV, but everything you go to Galway Hooker for is right here too.

At Galway Bay, meanwhile, the latest new one is a double IPA called Comet on Fire. 8% seems to be the going rate for DIPA ABVs these days, though they have to be opaque yellow if you want to be down with the kids and this is merely a pale orange. The aroma is understated, even in one of the brewery's beautiful nosing glasses: a sweet and slightly hot orange liqueur effect. It makes up for it in the flavour, however: a delicious blast of fresh tangerine set on a malt base that's thick and warm but complements rather than interrupts the hop action. A hard citrus-peel bitterness arrives in the fade-out, but the finish is clean, that tangerine spritz being its last echo. This is a beautifully constructed double IPA: fresh, bright and packed with fun flavours.

A couple of cans of Vancity west coast IPA arrived courtesy of Kildare Brewing, a beer that harks back to the brewer's time living in western Canada. It looks good in the glass: a slightly hazy gold, the substantial head doubtless helped along by the nucleation points in the base. The aroma is straight from the spice rack: minty, with a pinch of nutmeg. The bitterness is low and the texture smooth, which is not what I'd automatically think of when it comes to this style. Its flavour is quite savoury: green onion and rye crackers. That's rendered extra chewy by a big texture and a warming 6.5% ABV. I think I wanted more zing from this; even though it was delivered direct from the brewery it tastes like it's not quite fresh. It may match perfectly the tastes of Vancouver, but not mine.

Kinnegar's Brewers At Play Series has been reset with a new numbered sequence. Here's the first two.

Trouble Brewing went up to Letterkenny to brew the first one: Trouble in Paradise. It's your standard coconut orange porter and tastes like the brewers stood over the kettle daring each other to add more orange. It's incredibly orangey, to the point of turning sickly. Citrus oils bring scented candles and floor cleaner to mind. The coconut is present but as little more than a seasoning. And the porter? It's a thick beast at 6.5% ABV, slickly textured and exuding chocolate sauce and espresso. I can't help thinking that the headline flavourings add nothing positive to this. It's not bad, but you'd really want to like your novelty porters.

Hefeweizen is number 2: 5% ABV and designed to be in the classic style. It's a bright and cheery orange-yellow and tastes of green banana with a clove spice, finishing on a slightly hot note of candyfloss and butane. Though the strength is a little on the low side compared with how the Bavarians do it, it's full and firm, delivering all the requirements of the style. It's a bit odd for a series of one-off specialities to includes something as on-the-money as this, but Irish-brewed authentic-tasting weizen is thin on the ground, so why not?

Make Hay from 12 Acres has been around since mid-summer. Still tastes plenty fresh though. It's a pale yellow colour and quite hazy. There's a sweet tropical foretaste with mango and guava, leading on to an invigorating kick of lime in the finish. All this is set on a dry mineral chalk base. There's a lot of flavour for just 3.8% ABV. My only real criticism is that the citrus pithiness comes on a little too strong, but that might be down to the can's age. It's hard to argue with bold and flavourful sub-4% ABV beers, though, and this is a really good one.

Props to whoever it was at Hope decided to make their winter seasonal a black IPA. Hope Winter Seasonal Black IPA is a relatively light one at 4.9% ABV. The aroma is a promising mix of sharp pine and rich red cabbage while the flavour is equally on point for the style, beginning on a note of dry burnt toast. The hops come in behind that, mostly bitter in a tangy and metallic way. Alas it all ends there. I was waiting for a bigger hop flavour: the oiliness, the resins, the citrus and veg; I even let it warm up to allow them unfold, but beyond a faint chocolate and nutmeg they left me hanging. I blame the strength, there's just not enough substance to carry the flavour the style demands. It's a perfectly decent beer but didn't give me the warming hoppy hug I wanted.

Hopfully jumped on the dark and strong bandwagon with 12 Lovers, a Baltic porter brewed at their former parent brewery Metalman. It's a weak example of the style at only 6.5% ABV and there's a very unorthodox inclusion of vanilla: not how they do things in Poland, that I've tasted anyway. As a result, it's missing the intrinsic properties of lager, coming across sweet and thick. Not that it's a bad beer: it's quite sumptuous, tasting of caramel wafer biscuits and chocolate and nicely warming with it. There's even a teeny twang of Baltic porter liquorice buried deep and just about perceptible if you squint. Partial thumbs-up for Hopfully, but mostly this made me want a properly clean, full-strength, version.

They followed it with a big-hitting Belgian-style dark ale called Van Damme, It's not especially dark, showing a clear ruby colour in the glass. Although it's all of 9% ABV it lacks the dense pudding feel of dubbels or quadrupels -- no figs or prunes here. The Belgian esters are lighter: peach and honey, with a pleasant tea-like finish. Although it's viscous, it's not especially hot, and tasted blind I doubt I would guess the ABV correctly. I'd probably also think it was a blonde ale. It's an enjoyable, complex and clean effort, well-suited to dessert without going overboard on the sweetness.

I was pleased to see a new canned beer from Metalman itself in Baggot Street Wines on my last visit. They've described Tiptango as a "super session IPA" and it's their entry into the low-to-no segment, being just 2.5% ABV. It pours a bright pale amber colour, fizzing busily before losing its head quickly. That's the first indication of a lack of substance, something that detrimentally effects lots of this sort. That said, the aroma is promising: a smooth and slightly sweet peach tea effect. The hops that create it are even busier in the flavour, bringing a fresh and spritzy zing, all tropical juice and citrus zest. An aspirin twang is another common defect with these, and this has it in the background, but not strong enough to harm the experience. Overall this is an excellent take on the hoppy low-alcohol style; at least as good as Mikkeller's Drink'in The Sun and, to my palate, considerably better.

Lacada's Simon kindly brought a sharing bottle of their new imperial stout, Elatha, to the Beoir Christmas party in Rascals. Thirteen different malts went into this 9.5%-er, and it was left to age for thirteen months. That has produced a somewhat autolytic aroma, giving a waft of Bovril from the get-go. All that dark malt brings a serious high-cocoa chocolate and dark-roast coffee character. The finish is lighter, fruitier: chocolate coated raisins, perhaps. The smoothness, richness and complexity on display here are not very different to what you'd get from a barrel-aged imperial stout. I enjoyed it, with only that twang in the aroma letting it down a little.

Next, an 11.2% ABV imperial stout (though the brewery insists it's metric): Black Ball, last of the Eight Degrees Rack 'Em Up anniversary series. Pouring was a bit messy as the can was filled right up to the lid, and it was very foamy as it poured. It's heavy to the point of sticky with a strong cereal dryness and a lacing of honeycomb from the Jameson barrels (via a company described as "our friends in Midleton", rather than "business daddy"). There's a mild tang of putty in the finish, which I'm guessing is the residual hop bitterness. Smoothness seems to have been the goal here, but it comes with a lack of complexity as the price. As a big imperial stout it's a bit short of character and only the whiskey saves it.

Larkins has been laying it on strong for the season, the lesser of this pair being a 10.5% ABV quadrupel called Quadditch. It hits the style points spot on, giving me a fruitcake mix of plum, raisin, date and treacle, plus a slightly sharper twist of orange peel or lemon zest. The can states that real plum has been included, though that blends into the authentically low-countries-tasting ester-driven flavour and I couldn't detect it specifically. This is a great take on quadruple, and it feels weird to be drinking it from a can rather than a bottle. Nevertheless: juicy dark fruit, a sharp acidity, a fresh-baked warmth -- this is quadrupel as it should be, whether brewed in Wicklow or west Flanders.

The topper is a little weaker than the Eight Degrees offering, at just 11% ABV: Morrigan from Larkins. It's another whiskey-aged imperial stout but this time it's bourbon. Less subtle, unsurprisingly, but all the better for that. There's a veritable sweet trolley of coconut, tiramisu and truffles, with a more savoury oak sap for balance. The whiskey brings a certain heat to the taste, but its main contribution is in the aroma: all the bright vanilla notes bourbon is known for. Lots going on, but it's every bit as smooth and integrated as the Eight Degrees one. This is a more ambitious recipe, I think, and it pays off beautifully.

I trust that has given you some inspiration for today's last minute beer shopping. Be careful out there.

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 11: YellowBelly

There was a palpable change of gear for YellowBelly during 2019, with the pace of new releases slowing right down. It didn't stop, though, so I still have a handful of new ones to cover off.

They produced something called a "micro sour" which I found at the Rascals taproom: 1.5% ABV and called Han So Low. It's a hazy orange colour and even smells watery. There's a vague tartness, some grain husk, and a sweet mix of orange cordial and vanilla. It doesn't really work as a beer beer, but as a non-alcoholic substitute it's great.

I was suspicious of the next draught special I found: Elysium. This claims to be a weissbier but is only 3.5% ABV. A leichte weisse, then. Nevertheless it's convincing for the strength, with a proper weight and rich fruitiness. It's very fizzy, which adds a pleasingly champagne-like crispness, and an edge of toasty pale malt goes with that. The surprise finish is a generous slathering of strawberry jam which makes it almost too sweet to be easily drinkable. It works, though. Another passable low-alcohol number, this one sufficiently beery.

More recently, and based on a semi-original idea by Ben Clifford, Sky Tigers is an amber ale. As one would expect for the style it shows a rich and warming toffee base overlaid with fruity and floral hop notes. I get strawberry, predominantly, but also red cherries, roses and apricots. Maybe it could do with a heavier hand on the hops, introducing more of a citrus tone, but as a red ale it does the job well. At 5.5% ABV it's on the right side of sessionable, and winter is the ideal season for its gentle malt warmth.

For Beer Club members, the next release was a fruited ale called Memberberries: a simple recipe to which blackcurrants, blackberries and raspberries have been added. It's an easy-going 4.2% ABV, pouring a hazy orange-pink with a tight head on top. The aroma was a little off-putting, being dry and grainy, like rye bread or cream crackers. However, that simply serves to magnify the rush of berry juice which floods out from the first sip. I'd probably have guessed there was cherry in this: it's richer than what you usually get from raspberries. Mixing raspberry and blackberry also gives an effect like loganberry, which shouldn't be surprising. While it's certainly sweet, there's enough fizz to cleanse the palate afterwards, leaving behind the fruit flavour without the attendant sugariness. This is extremely quaffable and I'm glad I got six of them because a second needs to follow quickly after the first.

The final chapter of Beer Club 2019 (and possibly Beer Club Ever as they don't seem to be running it again) is called The Last Stand. The stress of getting these releases out on time is perhaps apparent in the lack of a proper label. It's 8.2% ABV, a dun brown colour and hopped with Columbus, Citra and Cascade. I was expecting Bigfoot. It's quite a bit different, however, and a lot sweeter. There's an oily orange rind taste up front, and some rosewater high notes, all backed by lots of caramel. The bitterness arrives in the end, tasting quite old-world (I guess that's the Cascade): grass and boiled veg. This is filling, warming and nicely balanced between hop and malt flavours. Just what you want from a barley wine, and a fitting end to the two-year series.

And so: it's almost Christmas Eve and I have just one more of these posts to do. Who will it be?

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 10: Whiplash

We hadn't heard much from Whiplash during its brewery build in the latter half of this year, but ahead of completion they gave us Six Million Ways, another of their stock-in-trade New England-style IPAs. They've really doubled down on the murk here: it's a milky orange-grey colour and the grittiness comes right through to the texture, feeling almost like sand in the mouth. There's no doubting the commitment to hops, with the first sip delivering a tasty citrus juiciness which is too short-lived. Behind it there's a burn of garlicky hop oils and a dreggy sharpness: the usual things I dislike about beers like this. Yes it's bang on trend and is doubtless garnering both ooohs and aaahs from the crafterati, but it was one and done for your correspondent.

After cancelling a number of bookings they went back on the European festival circuit in late autumn, launching three new beers the remnants of which formed a mini tap takeover in UnderDog a couple of weeks ago. All three were dark, which was pleasing but most unWhiplash.

Bowsie is a brown ale of 4.5% ABV and served on nitro, alas. It opens with a surprising hard bitterness -- there was me expecting soft caramel and latte. It does calm down into coffee and cocoa after a moment, but does nothing more interesting than that. The heart and soul has been scooped out of this beer by cold relentless nitro, leaving a hollow, watery quality. Curse you again, nitrogenation! Stop ruining flavour!

From brown ale to brown porter, and Smell the Glove. This is one of my favourite styles, though I prefer them lighter than the 6% ABV here. The thick and sticky texture suggests something even stronger. Quaffing is out of the question. The flavour begins on salty milk chocolate and then there's a tangy Guinness-like sourness and a pinch of green vegetal hops. Some cherry and raisin add a fruity complexity to the end. It's old-fashioned, I guess, though somewhat lacking on the malt front -- it definitely needs more brown. Overall it works, just not in the way I was hoping for.

This set finishes on a big 11%-er, Fakey Cake Maker imperial stout, Ireland's first Vic & Bob tribute beer. Coconut, hazelnut, coffee and muscovado sugar went into this. It's very thick, very hot and, as implied, very cake-like. The coconut dominates with the coffee backing it up, and that's all you get until it warms up a little. This is pretty much the sum of its parts, offering nothing unusual either good or bad and pulling no extraordinary tricks. One small one was plenty.

And just in time to make the deadline, the first beers from the new brewery to come my way.

Sky Burial is heralded as a recipe they've long wanted to make but never had the equipment to do it on. A highly specified custom brewkit was the solution so let's see what new level that brings us to. It's an IPA of 6.4% ABV, hazy but not completely opaque, to about witbier standard. The aroma is bright and tropical with a hint of weedy dank beneath: so far, so good, so balanced. Resins coat the tongue and there's a bitter herbal spice: raw rosemary and chamomile, but only briefly. It doesn't fade, exactly, but it takes a back seat to rising sweet fruit note: mandarin and mango. Is it madly different to what has gone before? No. It is good though. To ding it, bitterness turns a little garlicky when it gets any way warm, while there's an unpleasant grittiness from that modest murk. Still, it avoids the worst excesses of modern hazy IPA, delivering fun fruit and invigorating hop bitterness. This bodes well.

The companion piece is a double-dry-zested ("DDZ", because high-end beer needs more codes) pale ale called Whirlpool of Love. There's no gimmicky fruit in the aroma, just a blast of very real, very fresh hops as soon as the tab is pulled. It's a sickly-looking emulsion in the glass, though the ABV is a respectable 5.2%. There's not much zest in the flavour either, but lots of heady Citra dank so it's not missed. Though the finish is bitter and slightly gritty there is a thin lemon-dessert streak: posset or meringue pie. Mostly, though, this is a bright and banging symphony in Citra, hitting a lot of the hophead-favourite notes usually found in beers several points stronger. I might even consider it sessionable were it not for the €5.25 price tag. That brewery has to be paid for somehow.

My palate is insufficiently sophisticated to regard this pair as markedly different from Whiplash's contract brews, but I enjoyed both a lot more than Six Million Ways. I hope the standard stays up.

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 9: O Brother

This busy Wicklow brewery seemed to have calmed its prolific output a little lately, something I only realised with the appearance of Metamorphosis, a new double IPA and the first new one in a couple of months. This is 8.3% ABV and an opaque pale yellow. The aroma is quite funky, cheesy even, which doesn't bode well. The taste is similar: a super-intense hop flavour of the raw pellet variety, with isovaleric overtones. Hate those. It's hard to find fruit, spice or herb analogues in something that presents very real hop flavours, and not in a good way. Every sip reminded me of the 2013-harvest Columbus I found in the bottom of my freezer last year. "Juicy, creamy, citrus and tropical fruit juice" goes the brewery's official description. Nope. It's not a drainpour situation but this didn't deliver what the brewery intended, I think.

That was followed by Thoughtforms, a New England-style IPA. It's hazy and thick, 6.4% ABV but feeling hotter and heavier. A savoury aroma crystallises into distinct white onion notes on tasting. Sometimes with these there's a little fruit relief -- an echo of tropical juice -- but this is savoury all the way. Relentless onions. Again, I got through it but there was very little joy to be found.

No [Milky] Way imperial stout was a relief after that. At 10.5% ABV it would be an anaesthetic against most things regardless, but it's quite beautifully put together. "Imperial Chocolate Stout" says the badge, from which I was expecting sweet, with a likelihood of sickliness. So I was delighted by the kick of roast from the very beginning: a real coffee grounds and burnt toast dryness. There's a certain chocolate sweetness afterwards, but none of the sugary density I feared. And hops! A real grassy-green acidic pinch. This is a classic stiff-upper-lip British imperial stout re-skinned for the pastry generation. And I'm here for it.

In under the wire, arriving on Thursday evening last, is Bringer of Light. They badged this 3%-er as a session IPA but it had much more of a table beer vibe about it, not that there's any clear line of difference there. Aside from the strength and pale murky appearance, what I mean is the pithy flavour and gritty texture both say table beer to me. A hint of vanilla suggests that the aim is to make something low-strength but still retaining the characteristics of modern, New Englandy, DDH-ish IPA. If so it hasn't quite managed it -- the textural weight is an intrinsic part of the deal there, and this is very, understandably, thin, with no aftertaste. It's inoffensive, and it is good to see brewers offering beers at this strength at this time of year -- running between Christmas parties on Thursday I certainly appreciated that it wasn't another double IPA. However, it might be better suited to warm summer days.

Doubtless O Brother is giving the drinking public what it wants on the IPA front, but I think I prefer their takes on other styles.

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 8: The White Hag

Today the Sligo brewery White Hag is under the spotlight. Earlier this month they asked me to test their online shop by placing an order which landed me a free case of one of their beers. I picked Unfinished Business, described as a "tropical lager" seemingly solely because it's hopped with Mosaic. It's good, but I think "tropical" is a bit of an overstatement. The aroma is peachy, promising juice which is delivered in the foretaste. That doesn't last long, however, being overtaken by a hard lemony bitterness. And then that fades too, bringing on a neat and clean lager finish. It's nothing fancy but it's tasty and characterful. Getting through a full box will be no hardship.

A collaboration with Milan's Lambrate, Festa Nuda, is recklessly badged as a "barrel aged imperial Irish coffee pastry stout". The ABV is 9%. The use of pastry is not metaphorical here, it smells like actual pastry: warm buttery dough with a mix of dark chocolate and burnt sugar. The sweetness is beautifully balanced for something incredibly sweet. It just manages to avoid tipping over into a harsh saccharine twang. There are flavour elements from all across the Milk Tray box: wafer, caramel, nougat, Turkish delight, coffee and more. A firm tobacco bitterness seals the edges. I went in sceptical but I was properly wowed by this. If every pastry stout blended its complexities so melodiously, the style would get more respect than derision.

And finally, I wasn't expecting this. Last year White Hag released No. 40 Table Saison, in collaboration with Brew By Numbers. They didn't tell us at the time it was the second runnings of something much bigger. And here it is: No. 40 Rye Wine, a beast of a thing at 13% ABV, black as sin and caring nothing for head formation. The aroma is certainly winelike: a heady herbal mix of retsina, vermouth and similar highly-processed grape-based drinks. There is a certain amount of fizz, helping offset the worst excesses of the syrupy texture. The herbs arrived first, followed by a mix of dark chocolate, soy sauce and old oak. I am instantly reminded of Samuel Adams Triple Bock, a beer I've always loved but I know isn't for everyone. Regardless, this is fun, fascinating, and uniquely flavoured.

That's White Hag finishing another year as one of the country's top brewers, then. They've been making great use of the brewery space too, with three festivals this year. If you haven't been yet, make it one of your resolutions for 2020.

The Twelve Brewers of Christmas 7: Third Barrel

The rationale behind this twelve-day project was shorter posts, but that's not an option with Third Barrel / Stone Barrel / Third Circle. Today I'm looking at a raft of recent releases from across the three labels.

As a beer writer I'm usually annoyed by stupidly long beer names but I have a serious soft spot for Bock, Stock & 2 Whiskey Barrels. It's not convoluted for the sake of it; it's informative. So, this is a doppelbock, and a fairly light example at 7% ABV. It's the appropriate mahogany red colour and has a clean and gentle lager consistency, showing a mild spinach hoppiness too. But all of that is a sideshow next to the whiskey. Interestingly the barrels don't bring any extra heat, but lots and lots of flavour: vanilla, or course, but also a genuine crisp malted grain and honey effect of the sort you only get from refined whiskey. Yes it's a novelty beer and has doubtless already horrified a number of Germans, but it's very tasty and an excellent twist on an established style.

It was quite a contrast to move then on to Into the F***ing Stratasphere (long name less necessary), a triple IPA using Strata hops. I don't know that TIPA is a worthwhile style to test a new hop with, because almost all of the ones I've encountered have tasted the same. This is 11% ABV and has quite a hard alcohol burn, which is understandable. There's a jaffa-skin tang and lots of oily hop dank. But the hops here could be any combination of high-alpha citric Americans. It's fine; they didn't mess it up, and Irish triple IPAs are thin on the ground so I don't resent them introducing another one. But the style hasn't evolved since Trouble's Hop Priority in 2015. Maybe it should do something else.

The next two I had missed out in the real world and was very happy when a request to the brewery resulted not in directions for where to find them but fresh and freebie cans. No free rides review-wise, though, obviously.

Stone Barrel Awesome Sauce is one of those DDH IPAs at 6% ABV. Lie back and think of New England. It's a dense and murky yellow. There's a hint of hot garlic in the aroma but it mostly smells genuinely juicy, of tangerine and satsuma. In a surprise switcheroo the flavour is floral: a fresh buzz of lavender and rose petal, rising to flood the palate and lasting long into the finish. You think you know what hazy IPA is and does, then one pulls a totally unexpected move like this. There's a mild chalky grittiness on the fade-out, but nothing unpleasant, and nothing distracting from the Citra-Mosaic party. Citra's signature lime buzz makes an appearance too, but not too extravagantly. The garlic does grow as it warms, so best enjoyed cold.

The other donation to this Christmas fun run was Bear Hug, also released on the Stone Barrel label, a 9% ABV barley wine, dry-hopped with Simcoe and Amarillo. It's a dun orange colour with a generous white foam on top. The aroma is quite citric: lemony citronella and a meringue pie sweetness. The flavour is... odd. With barley wine one expects a rounded, possibly boozy, warmth which is heavy on the caramel and naughty sherry. This leans right into those hops instead, eschewing the bitterness of highly-hopped examples like Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot, going for a sticky lime-like punch: part cordial, part air freshener. It's a bit jarring, but not unpleasant. The comforting warmth of the style is missing and in its place you get something along the lines of a west coast IPA. Enjoyable drinking, but not the cosy nightcap I'd had cued it up to be.

The normally po-faced Third Circle brand offers us the playful Needs More Cowbell, a milk stout with added tonka beans. Tonka doesn't mess around, and it's front and centre here with its sweet mix of almond, coconut, rose and cinnamon. The body is smooth but not too heavy so the flavour flits across the palate instead of sticking to it. Nor does it completely suffocate the stout beneath: the coffee, cocoa and tang of green veg suggest that this would have been a very decent stout even without the enhancement. It's a bit silly but I liked it. 6.5% ABV means it's not overboard on the alcohol but it still provides a soft, warm, smooth quality.

Dubbel in a can? How very unBelgian. This is another 6.5%-er from Third Circle and is called Love in Traffic. It's weak for the style and wan in colour: a washed out murky amber-brown. The flavour lacks the rounded maturity of a dubbel, showing honey and fresh fruit first, then a more serious burnt caramel and breadcrust note. I liked it, but it's not very dubbel-like and has only faint Belgian characteristics. A daring Irish take on a staid continental style, or a recipe that didn't work out as planned? And does it even matter?

Finally, one that sneaked up on me at the Rascals taproom: Third Circle's Raspberry & Blackberry Brett IPA. Quite a mouthful. The only element of the title which isn't delivered is the last part: I got nothing I could nail as a hop character from it. The rest is spot on, though. There's a tartness which seems like it's all fresh berry but I suspect some fermentation-related souring may be going on too. The flavour from the fruit is well represented, creating what to me tasted a little like redcurrant jelly: certainly not the dominant raspberry that less sophisticated raspberry beers tend to show. And then there's a sharp Brett funk; assertive but not jarring or difficult, adding just the right amount of balancing complexity. This is some of Third Circle's best work so far and I'd love to see more like it.

It's been a busy old year down in Bluebell, between the three house labels and several new start-up clients. I hope the guys will be getting some well deserved downtime over the coming weeks.