... so below

Following on from Monday's post about the Francsican Well Cask Ales & Strange Brews Festival a couple of weeks ago, here are the beers from round Cork and Kerry way.

Franciscan Well itself had a couple of special edition versions of its core beers, including a Dark Chieftan. I'm no fan of Chieftan IPA in general, but this one, tasted blind in the competition, was rather good. It was amber rather than properly dark, with a fresh citric aroma and a floral taste: starting at Parma Violets before veering close to the front door of Lush. An odd beastie, but quite charming, and it grew on me as I assessed it. I wasn't the only one to succumb as it ended up taking the prize for best strong or dark beer and third prize overall on the day.

There was also a Franciscan Well Raspberry Wheat Beer which was less impressive. "A brave attempt that hasn't worked" said a fellow judge. Why? Well, the raspberry element is rather overdone, coming across more as a concentrated essence rather than real fruit. There's a jarring old-world spice as well: nutmeg or clove, lending it a mulled cider quality that's not unpleasant but not right either. It fitted the festival's theme by being both wintery and strange. Too strange to be enjoyable as a wheat beer, though.

The other new special was called, for some reason, Immoral: a 4% ABV dark lager. A relation of Archway, perhaps? It's quite plain anyway, with an aroma of toffee and a touch of coffee in the flavour. It could easily pass as a middle-of-the-road Irish red, certainly more easily than as a continental dark lager of any sort.

Rebel Red with added Azacca, Simcoe and Amarillo hops plus some chipotle chillies gives us The Witcher. This is another quite dull one, the extra hops completely absent to my palate and the peppers bringing the plasticky taste they sometimes impart but nothing else as regards flavour or heat. This promised a great deal more than it delivered.

Franciscan Well still brews some beers on the kit out behind the pub so the management don't have far to go if they want something created for them. Yet their collaboration barrel-aged stout with Bán Poitín and Three Fools Coffee was brewed at Dick Mack's for some reason. It's called Foolish Monk and combines the various novel elements extremely well. There's a strong a clean coffee flavour, minus the roast, and a spirit kick from the poitín barrel it was matured in. The base is a smooth and easy-going stout. I got a mellow Black Russian cocktail effect from this and was particularly impressed it was all done at 4.2% ABV.

The presence of Dick Mack's beers is one of the things that keeps me coming back to the Cork festivals. This year the Dingle brewpub had a Honey & Hemp Ale on offer. It was pale yellow and hazy, with a grassy lager aroma. And indeed Czech pilsner is the thing it tastes like most, with the same soft mineral quality. There's a very slight honey-syrup texture but that's as close to novelty as it gets. Everything otherwise is well integrated and easy-drinking. I was surprised to find it packs a punch at 6.5% ABV: that's kept hidden. Some peppery hemp character would have been nice but I can't complain.

We finish the festival beers with another barrel-aged job: the French Oak Stout from 9 White Deer. Boy is this oaky. It's like drinking a glass of corks. There's a tawny port effect beneath that, with a square of dark chocolate on the side. The base stout was only 4.5% ABV and that may be why the oak drowned the flavour out -- it needed something bigger to stand up to the woody assault. Still, if the aim was to find out what effect this particular barrel has, mission accomplished.

My own mission at the festival was thus accomplished and I stopped off briefly at The Bierhaus on my way to the train. They were pouring Dearg, a blood orange IPA from Black's of Kinsale. This 5.2%-er is a little thin, and the oily orange side does clash somewhat with the IPA aspect. It's saved, however, by the hops: a lovely big jolt of classic American spritzy bitterness. I didn't have long to ponder it, and it works well on a gulp-and-go basis. I gulped, I went.

Always a pleasure, Cork. Until Easter then.