Back at it

I'm trying a new strategy for 2020, cutting down on the giant round-up posts in favour of shorter, more frequent ones. Let's see how that goes. Today I'm covering off the random Irish beers I found around the New Year period and into January.

Going back to the heady days before the Christmas break, I took a half hour out of the city centre chaos to sit on the quiet second floor of JW Sweetman and catch up with their last special of 2019. It's called Extra Special Pale, a pale ale brewed with Ekuanot, Chinook, Bramling Cross and First Gold. Amber coloured with a little haze, it has an aroma mixing fruit candy with a sharper grapefruit citrus. The texture is light, befitting 4.2% ABV, and the citrus dominates the flavour in a complex but almost unbalancing way. Orange rind and lemon zest lead on to bath-bomb bergamot, the bitterness both jaw-pinching and mouth-watering. This has a lot in common with the resurgent west coast IPAs all the smart brewers are making, but light and refreshing, without the malt weight. It took half a pint for my palate to adjust but I was enjoying it by the end. Nice work.

Galway Hooker has done a house beer for venerable Dublin institution The Long Hall, marking a decade since their Pale Ale was first sold here. Sticking with what they know best, I guess, The Long Hall Session IPA is an amber coloured ale of 4.2% ABV. In contrast to the brewery's flagship, however, they've dropped the bitterness right out, leaving a mildly juicy tropical character. There's a growing grapefruit quality, but much more about the flavour than the sharpness. The malt balance is minimal and the finish quick, a kick of limestone or aspirin minerals is the final flourish. As an easy-going house beer for a traditional pub it works well, though I'm not at all sure it's better than the beer it was created to commemorate. Still, it's good to have choice, especially in a pub where the beer selection is not part of the core offer. I liked having an excuse to drop by.

In addition to this session IPA, and The Four Horsemen session IPA I reviewed late last year, Galway Hooker now has one called simply Session IPA. The strength is half way between the other two, at 4.5% ABV. How does it differ? The bitterness is back, showing a similar grapefruit bite to Galway Hooker Pale Ale. This aggressiveness is accentuated by quite a thin body, though that also means the attack is a short one, the whole thing finishing quickly. Malt character is entirely absent this time. This therefore earns its session credentials by being accessible and easy-drinking with just enough character to pass muster but running a real risk of coming across as boring and bland. Again, a pint of the Pale Ale would be my preference.

The house brand of 57 the Headline and Brickyard, Two Sides, added a red ale to the line-up. Red Brick won't startle the horses at 4.5% ABV; they may even prefer it as the recipe includes oatmeal, an unusual twist for the style. That definitely contributes to the texture, making it big and weighty, a base for strong caramel flavours in the foretaste. There's a modern trend for putting a high dose of hops in reds but that hasn't been followed here. The bitterness is more saccharine than citrus and you needn't look for fruit or flowers. It's characterful, and there are no missteps or off-flavours, but it's really only for those who enjoy the sweet caramel stylings of an old-school red.

For a red with more of a hop character, try YellowBelly's latest special Judge Red. They've described this as a "Simcoe red IPA", though for one thing it's more brown than red, murky and only turning auburn when held to the light. It's 6.2% ABV and quite heavy as a result, with the dark malts doubtless playing a role in that -- there's the caramel feel of a weighty brown ale. Any similarity ends with the flavour. There's lots of fruit in the foretaste, strawberry and gooseberry to me, plus a grassy dankness and some sweeter fudge. These varying flavours are distinct, despite the murky appearance, adding up to a decent medium-strong winter ale with plenty of fresh hop character.

O Brother's first of 2020 is Ether 5, a double IPA. It's getting hard to describe modern New-England-influenced DIPA in a way that differentiates them from each other but here goes. It's 8.1% ABV, for one thing: most Irish breweries (*cough*Whiplash*cough*) round down to the integer. The colour is pale to the point of looking watery: a witbier sort of hazy yellow. A strong peach-nectar syrupy booze puts that impression to rest from the first sniff. The flavour is cleaner, sunnier, however: fresh apricot, satsuma pith, leading to a harder and stickier Calippo or orange cordial as it warms in the mouth. This is a straightforward sipper, avoiding extremes of hops and booze. I'm on board for sensible double IPA.

Larkin's also gave us a new double IPA over the winter break: Kaleidoscope. Azacca and Strata hops promise a big hit of the tropics from this 8.5%-er, and it they certainly deliver. The aroma is how I imagine the concentrate they make Lilt out of smells: intensely tropical, with sweet mango in the ascendant. The body is a little syrupy, and that intensifies the hop flavours into something quite cordial-like: sweet and sticky. Somehow it doesn't cloy -- you get the initial burst of fruit, but then it fades quickly leaving no residual syrup. There's also no alcohol heat to speak of, and none of the onion or garlic notes that too many of these show. While it might not be madly complex, it's a well-polished example of the style.

The Larkin's doppelbock, Lore, is their first take on the style since the launch of their original core range almost two years ago. The ABV has been ramped up from 7.6% to 10.3%. It's still deliciously true to the style, however. The colour is the right shade of chestnut while the flavour mixes the requisite bourbon biscuit crispness with a spinach-and-nettle greenness. The extra strength is apparent too: I got a definite extra warmth and maybe a little extra thickness in the texture. It's not distractingly strong, however. A very slight solvent heat flashes briefly, but disappears almost immediately. I liked this a lot. Supercharging an Easter beer style to suit Christmas is a great idea.

Bringing us home the long way, The Roads Less Travelled is a DOT beer that appeared briefly on draught last year but is now in circulation in smart little 33cl cans. It's a rye IPA, aged in an exciting combination of Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso, bourbon and single malt barrels, finishing up at 10.4% ABV. Phew! It pours an innocent amber-gold colour and smells of surprisingly little for what should be a hop- and sherry-bomb. The strength is apparent from the first sip: it's a thick and slow pull. With that comes a sugary rush of hard lemon sweets and bone-dry cider, fino or tequila. Although it's pale and clear, there is that heavy and unctuous PX quality: without looking I might guess this was a dark beer. The back of the flavour is just more sugar but the warming sensation it creates down below is the real finishing note. I expected more complexity from this though I liked what I got: something heavy, sweet, spirituous and clean. More hops would have been good, though: IPA it ain't.

There. That wasn't so painful, was it? I'll try and keep the next one tight too.