Herd impunity

Tap takeovers? Remember them? BrewDog Dublin held them pretty regularly on Thursday evenings, back in the Before Times. I made a special effort to schlep out to Capital Dock when Western Herd was on the roster. It's one of those quality Irish brewers whose beers are seldom seen in these parts.

I started with a proper pint of Turlough, a straight porter of 4% ABV. It wasn't until I took the first mouthful that I realised how rare these are on the ever-unfolding beer landscape. No nitro, no outré additions, just porter. I can't remember the last time I drank something like it. It's dry and quite fizzy, leaning to the roast side but not severely. The finish, unsurprisingly, is exceedingly crisp, putting me more in mind of a schwarzbier than anything else. There's a complexity in the middle too; a floral flash of rosewater and a buzz of bitter liquorice. It's possibly just a bit too gassy to be properly sessionable, unless you work a pint or so in advance. It's good, though: old fashioned, wholesome and different in a familiar way.

The main event, as far as I was concerned, was a black IPA rejoicing in the name Citra Tuxedo. Even through the hefty layer of foam, the aroma promised an extreme experience, with lime, grapefruit and hot hot tar all lining up. Lummee. Sure enough the bitterness hits home, hard, early on. It's more pine than fruit -- sharp and resinous. The texture is heavier than I expected for just 5.4% ABV, and that spreads the hop napalm thickly over the palate, becoming a waxy bitterness in the long finish. The dark elements are less obvious, just a mild espresso note. I don't think I would mistake it for a pale beer, tasting blind, but that's more because it lacks IPA's fruit or dankness, not because of any perceptible chocolate or the like. This is a little one-dimensional and goes very extreme on the bitterness. I liked the jolt, though worried about my ability to taste the beer beside it.

Said beer is a whiskey barrel version of Blue Jumper, an IPA that last came my way in 2016 and impressed me, as above, with its uncompromising bitterness. Could four months in a JJ Corry barrel mellow it? It looks mellow: a deep and hazy orange. There's a booze whack in the aroma; an oaky resin, but with some bourbonish lime too. It's not severe on tasting though, retaining its essential US-style IPA characteristics -- the crystal malt in particular -- and while the hops are present, they're very nicely softened with vanilla and a gently herbal dry vermouth effect. Is it odd that the barrel has added this complexity to the flavour without in any way boosting the ABV? Yes. Yes it is. Almost suspiciously so. Anyway, this is a tasty and smooth sipper, and one of the few barrel aged IPAs I've liked. Four months is plenty, it seems.

What and where we'll be drinking in four months from now is the question.

Three and more

Some new beers from the components of the Third Barrel collective today, beginning with Third Circle and West Coast, a self-explanatory IPA. It definitely looks the part, pouring a clear deep golden shade. The ABV is 6%, which is a little on the low side but perfectly acceptable. The next item on the tick list is bitterness and that isn't really delivered, at least up front. Instead there's a thick marmalade quality: sweetly orangey, with minimal shred. That fades after a moment, leaving just the anticipated bitterness. It's not citric, however: more earthy or waxy, like it was achieved with European hops. This is a simple and straightforward beer, and I liked that about it. There's still plenty of character, and just enough punch. Long live the west coast revival!

A revival of a different sort next. Barrel Aged Cowbell follows from the Needs More Cowbell tonka bean milk stout that Third Circle released late last year. The ABV has gone up from 6.5% to 7.2%, but really there's not much other difference. Tonka still absolutely dominates, with its mince-pie and fig-roll fruity spicing. Maybe there's a touch of spirit -- possibly even whiskey -- lurking at the back, but that could easily be wishful tasting on my part. It sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm really not: this was a good beer to begin with, and it's still a good beer now. Just don't be expecting any oaky buzz from it.

Stone Barrel's first contribution today is a 6% ABV chocolate pecan porter called Life of Pie. At least I assume there are real pecans in here: there's a warning of nuts but none listed on the ingredients. It's densely black looking and smells like Real Proper Porter: espresso and dark chocolate, but with a lacing of caramel wafer too. That caramel is the front of the flavour, the dark sugar giving way to a real oily-sweet pecan effect. Other things going on include cola, banana and just enough well-done toasty dryness. This may have silly pastry novelty written all over the can but it's still a very well-constructed dark beer to its core. Can't argue with dem nutz.

An attempt at a magic trick next: Get Shorty is meant to have the qualities of an imperial stout but at just 4% ABV. It certainly looks the part: a dense obsidian black with a thick tan-coloured head. The aroma is properly stouty, big on roast, chocolate and cereal, but without the comforting boozy warmth, so marks off there. It's very bitter, which I appreciate in a stout, though it's not really because of hops. Rather it's the roast: a strong stewed coffee feel, with a waxy tang on the end. A layer of smooth caramel is the only sweeter, softening element. Overall, I found it a bit harsh and unbalanced, though it never quite tips over into being unpleasant. Imperial stout, though? No, this is an old-fashioned porter, which is fair enough Give it a go if you like 'em liquoricey.

The new wave of Irish black IPAs included Third Barrel's Plastic Paddy. Dark brown rather than black, its aroma is as green and lovely as the lanes of Killashandra: a mix of wet grass, crisp cabbage and spicy rocket. The texture is smooth and stout-like. I figured it was on the strong side but was surprised to find the ABV as much as 7%. The name is a reference to its use of American hop varieties Simcoe and Columbus, and it's the heavy vegetal dankness of Simcoe that I get primarily. This hop is sometimes too severe for my milquetoast palate but here the big malt substance softens and balances it without taking away its essential wallop. Behind the pugilistic hopping there's a shot of espresso and a mild citrus acidity; the finish matches the opening, however: those boiled greens turning almost metallic on the fade-out. It took me a while to get used to it all but by the end I was enjoying the sheer raucousness of it.

One brewery, five sequential beers, and not a single hazy IPA among them. How long will they keep that up? (spoiler: not long)

Grand, Finnish

Well now here's an oddity: a Finnish lager showing up randomly in Lidl. If it was part of a bigger promotional range, the rest of them never arrived or sold out quickly. Pyynikin in Tampere is the brewery and it's called Mosaic Lager.

There's a definite haze to the 4.7%-er, rendering it a dull brassy colour. The aroma is freshly spritzy, smelling like lemon zest in particular. That continues in the flavour, lending it an almost radler-like taste, the effect accentuated by a soft texture and gentle effervescence in place of fizz. Mosaic's peach and melon complexities are missing, but so too is its nasty savoury side. The end result is simple, refreshing and eminently sessionable as a result.

Summer was a very long time ago, but keep this in mind for the next one, should it reappear.

No counting for taste

I liked the original Brew By Numbers naming convention: two digits for the style then another two for the iteration. You knew where you were, especially if you were methodically ticking through them, not that I was. I don't know where I stand with this new system. 01 is still saison, but have I had this pair before? I am old and confused.

Anyway, 01|Motueka & Lime looks much like the 01|01 I drank back in 2015: a sunny, hazy yellow. The aroma is enticing, offering a spritzy zest, less severe than one might expect from lime. Motueka is a pretty full-on hop too, but here it is also restrained. The lime makes its presence felt in the flavour: quite concentrated, like a cordial. It takes a moment for the dry, peppery base saison to come through after this, eventually scouring the oily fruit off the palate. The two sides work well together and the brewery's extensive experimental experience is very apparent. It's complex yet refreshing; unfussy but with a subtle novelty factor.

The other oh-one is 01|Mosaic, 5% ABV, like the above. It definitely smells like Mosaic, in the best possible way: a luscious mix of ripe mango with guava and apricot. So the flavour goes too, and again the saison element brings a funky/floral quality, resulting in something like the waft from a Lush shop: fancy bath stuff all the way. Nevertheless, I like how this maintains the integrity of Mosaic as a fruity flavoursome hop, despite everything else going on. Again it's the balance and poise born of experience, I guess. I definitely prefer this to the previous one. It is purer, cleaner, yet also more casual and fun. All of which is down to the beauty of Mosaic when used by a brewer who knows what they're doing.

Our finisher is a stout: 08|Fruit & Nut, where the ingredients list helps us out with... "nuts, fruits". Oh. There's no point listing ingredients if it's still a guessing game. It's 6.6% ABV and pours a handsome black with a tall topping of off-white foam. From the first taste I would guess it's stronger: there's a thickness and a depth of flavour of the sort normally found in stouts well beyond the 7% mark. This is also true for the wine-like aroma. The flavour shows classic stout characteristics: coffee, burnt toast, dark chocolate, and not much else. It's properly bitter, and if your pastry palate was looking for the titular novelty ingredients, it was likely looking in vain. This is a decent, middle-of-the-road medium-strong stout. It's a little bit rough, however, which lets it down. The brewery can't polish a stout quite as finely as it can a saison.

Conclusions? Nothing beats a classic style, done well, with a classic hop.

IP eh?

The "IPA" designation gets stretched past breaking point with this pair from Larkin's.

First up is Elements double IPA, less than a year since fellow Kilcoole brewery O Brother used the name; is there a statute of limitations? This is a modest one at 7.5% ABV but there's no compromise in the flavour: big sweet and juicy mango, clean and clear. Simple, perhaps, but I'll take that any day of the week over onions and vanilla and everything else that goes wrong in modern double IPA. Speaking of which, this is custardy-looking, and there's a tiny burn of yeast dregs hovering to the rear, though nothing to interfere with the fun tropicals. Weird as it is to say it, but it seems that bringing the ABV down from 8% really helps the drinkability. Maybe hop-forward beer is just nicer if it's not boozed up for the sake of appearances. More hazy double IPAs at this strength, please.

That came side-by-side with a Hopfully collaboration called Cherry Bomb, described as a cherry sour IPA, which is a combination I hadn't seen before. Let's unpack that. Well, it's pink, verging on purple, looking rich and dense. Cherry colour leads on to a strong and very real cherry flavour: the flesh, the skin; the sourness is of a level that you would find in an actual cherry, with just a tiny note of sweeter sherbet bringing the only artificial aspect. As regards IPA, it in no way tastes like an IPA and I don't know why they decided to pretend it does. It's a decent kriek, though. The medium-sweet sort of the Belgian variety is what it has most in common with, and that's a good thing. Fruity, tangy, and just sour enough. What's not to like?

Two very different, and pleasant drinking experiences here. Is it time to start ignoring those three letters when brewers use them?

Arthur in Africa

The Nigerian version of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a beer I had been looking for, casually, for some time. When I'm in Britain I check cornershops and minimarkets in search of it. The quest finally ended in an oriental supermarket in The Hague.

This edition differs from Irish Foreign Extra by being based on sorghum rather than barley. The crop is indigenous to Nigeria and brewers are encouraged by the government to make use of it. The story goes, and I'm open to correction on this, the pale sorghum beer is brewed and then added to a Guinness essence produced in Dublin, containing the roasted barley and sour cultures that give the beer its colour and Guinnessy flavour profile. With that in mind I wasn't expecting anything radically different to what I'm used to.

And while it's not radical, it is definitely different. The sticky, treacle character of the Irish version is replaced by a dried flowers effect: pot pourri, with a little woody cinnamon and clove. It's quite harsh in its dry roastiness, lacking the balancing richness. A metallic hop kick doubles down on this, though there's not much of a lactic tang.

Overall, this is quite a tough beer to enjoy. For me, the domestic version still beats both this and the Jamaican one.

Grabbin the 'Hut

Beer Hut is one of the exciting new wave of Northern Irish breweries. My previous experience of them was only a share of a can suitcased down by Simon. At last, however, a selection has arrived in Dublin via a more capacious distributor.

The début began inauspiciously with a botched tap takeover at BrewDog, but that at least got me off the starting blocks with Peach Slush, a fruited sour ale. This is a pale orange colour, hazy like a diluted cordial and with an element of that kind of sweetness in the flavour. It's only 4.5% ABV and there's a thinness attendant with that. Not impressive so far but the sour side is pretty good: tangy and stimulating; complementing the fruit sugar, not drowning in it, yet far from overpowering vinegar either. I'm not sure I would have picked out peach as the fruit, tasting blind: there's more of a tangerine or satsuma vibe to me. This is very decent. No moulds are broken nor paradigms shifted, but it's clean, fruity and refreshing fun, and that's plenty to start with.

The canned selection I picked up at Stephen Street News commenced with El Dorado / Columbus Pale Ale. No indications here of it being "DDH" or New England-style, but I guessed from the pastel-coloured label that the contents would be hazy, and so they were. Not full-on opaque, mind, and the choice to use a standard neutral ale yeast rather than a New England one might have something to do with that. There's a lot of fruit flavour in here, a concentration of ripe tropical essence, to almost perfume or lurid chew-sweet level. Though the texture has been bulked out with oats and dextrine, it's light enough at 4% ABV to be quaffable. Still too sweet for my liking, though, turning a little sickly by the end.

IPA The Bruce takes its name from a hop blend used for dry hopping. It poured a quite washed-out orange colour with the head fading quickly to nothing. Both aroma and flavour are savoury, with a lot of fried onion character in particular. This sits next to a citrus sweetness, like lemon barley water, finishing on a sticky note caused by the frankly unnecessary use of lactose. This is another quite sickly one; brimming with fresh hops but they're not used to give clean flavours or bitterness. On trend, perhaps, but not for me, and not at over €5 a can.

Lastly, Sparks Will Fly is one of those beer names that writes a biiiig cheque before the can is even opened. It's a 7% ABV chocolate and vanilla stout, so I would guess sparks will only fly if the drinker is pre-disposed to that sort of thing. Me, I'm not, but: this doesn't really taste of them, or at least not simplistically. Yes it's sweet, and more unctuous than the strength might suggest, but there's a proper depth and complexity here; a rose-petal note, a rasp of toasted grain, a jolt of espresso and even some vegetal hopping. It's a proper stout, in short. As with the Peach Slush, the novelty elements pay respectful tribute to the base beer and complement instead of overpowering.

More than anything, this lot left me feeling like a grumpy old curmudgeon. I'm reasonably sure they're all as the brewers intended and are without inadvertent flaws. However, they're all very much aimed at current beer fashion, and I have a feeling that there's talent going to waste here. I'd be interested to try Beer Hut's takes on the styles of beer that have been around longer than a wet week.

Trouble again

Once one of the busiest Irish breweries with regard to new releases, Trouble has settled into a groove in recent years, offering a solid core range with only occasional bouts of playfulness. Today's post isn't about a sudden return to the old days, just two reformulated recipes from the brewery's past.

In 2015 there was Hardwired, later scaled down to Wired, and now back as Rewired, still an oatmeal IPA. There's fresh mandarin up front, followed by a growing dankness, packed with spicy grass, turning bitter and pithy towards the end, finishing on a galvanic kick. It's massively thick and sticky, even for a porridge-based, hop-heavy 5.8%-er. Resins coat the tongue, line the palate and follow you around for some time afterwards. It's quite a workout, but worth it: one of those welcome antidotes to New England-style beer.

Voodoo Logic was a sticky imperial stout released at the end of 2017. It garnered a bit of criticism, including from me, for being overly sweet, concentrating the maple syrup in its flavour to an overpowering level. The 2020 revision brings the ABV down from 10.1% to 9.2%, which doesn't seem like much of a change but it's made a big difference. This is considerably bitterer than the previous edition, showing lovely tar and tobacco notes behind the sugar. There's a slight violet perfume, some liquorice and a Turkish coffee herbal effect, showing that the sweetness hasn't been vanquished, just rendered more nuanced. The finish is quite quick with no cloying stickiness, just pipe tobacco on the lips. Lovely balance in an extreme beer, here: a recipe that has very much grown up. I hope it'll be around for another while.

Reviving and revising old recipes isn't very fashionable in the novelty-driven modern beer scene, but these two examples show that it's well worth doing.

Dark roots

This is one of those shameful back-of-the-fridge beers, transported home from Croatia last September and semi-forgotten about. It's no kind of life for a black IPA. The Austro-Croatian operation Bevog is the slighted party, and the beer is called Black Blood 2, brewed for the Metaldays music festival.

The surprise on opening was it pours purple. The body is fairly black but its head is distinctly pink. What's going on? Beetroot, says the ingredients. And plenty of, say the visuals. The aroma is typical for a normal example of the style, even after prolonged storage: tarry, with a red cabbage spice. The flavour is similarly spicy and vegetal; roasty with a pinch of bitterness but not too much. 6.66% ABV (because metal) gives it considerable weight and a balancing smoothness. I was expecting a slightly severe earthy quality from all that beetroot but that's not there. You have to hunt for the veg and it's a kind of baby-beet sweetness, though slight. I'm guessing the brewers were more interested in its contribution to the colour and the name.

This is still a lovely beer, though. A full-bodied, full-flavoured black IPA, yet balanced with no severity or sharpness and minimal novelty vegetable silliness. That'll do, Bevog.

A little rain must fall

It's been a while since I last wrote about any Cloudwater beer, though it still trickles into Dublin on the regular. When there was a bunch of them on at the same time in UnderDog I figured I'd take a look and tell you what I made of them.

I began on A Name For Everything, a 7.4% ABV sour beer with fruit added. Before looking it up I thought I'd try and guess which ones. It smells like all of them: a Skittley mix of artificial sweetness. There is a proper tang in the flavour, early enough to be noticed, but its presence is overshadowed by a lot of sweet syrup. Skittles again: orange and lime flavours that are utterly unrelated to real oranges or limes. There's maybe something juicier: peach or mango, but really it's a total muddle. To be honest, I noticed more sticky, milky lactose in here than fruit. It's not offensive per se, and has a more prominent sourness that the worst of this sort. It's still not great though. And the big reveal? All passionfruit, apparently. That explains the sweetness to some extent but this is no Castaway, for sure.

To follow, An Ever Flowing Body of Water, described as a juicy IPA and 6.5% ABV. It's a hazy orange colour: darker than your typical New England-style IPA, perhaps. The aroma is at once dank and pithy while the texture is light and soft. First impression was of something more sessionable than expected. In the flavour there's more herbs than juice, which is nice. Earthy yarrow, peppery rocket and oily rosemary mix with mild mandarin juice and a peach-skin bitterness. At different points in the glassful I got coconut, grass and a dreggy yeast buzz. Overall, I liked it: it's no juicebomb but is a multifaceted and interesting IPA. No by-the-numbers trend-chasing here.

Perhaps unwisely, I finished this set with the baldly-titled Cloudwater IPA. It ended up tasting like a watered-down version of the previous one. It's the same strength but tastes sharper. In isolation it's likely a delightful mix of vanilla and allium flavours, very much in the manner fashionable at present. But I wasn't feeling it on the night. It's fine, if a bit basic. By-the-numbers, one might say. Though I'm not a fan of the savoury central flavours, there's a very pleasant sweet and spritzy satsuma effect in the finish. I don't know if they've made this a core beer, but I can see how they might. If you're looking for something the Cloudwater fans will order more than once, this will do until fashion moves along to something else.

I have no idea if Cloudwater still commands the admiration it did a couple of years ago; I certainly don't hear as much about them, though they're clearly still busy. Perhaps they're better off with the hype train rolling on past them.

Old man yells at Claw

A change from your regularly scheduled beer reviews today. I shouldn't know what hard seltzer is. It shouldn't be part of the beer discourse, any more than wine coolers or pre-mixed cocktails are, but for some reason the industry analysts over in the US have marked it out as part of our world, impacting on beer sales and therefore worthy of study or concern. It's flavoured fizzy water with alcohol and sugar added. The alcohol presumably is of malt origin though it's definitely not beer. There is no head and all the versions are colourless.

Brand leader is White Claw, and I have John to thank for these three cans. The Natural Lime one is probably the blandest. It's quite thick, feeling like sugary white lemonade, with a similar high level of burpy fizz. The lime is is no more than a squeeze, and tastes quite artificial, ironically. My favourite of the three was Ruby Grapefruit which smells incredibly authentic and tastes realistic to a certain extent too. It even has the concentrated pepper effect I associate with grapefruit peel. There's no finish of any length, however; a reminder that you're drinking sparkling water. Raspberry is probably the silliest of the lot, strongly flavoured with raspberry candy, a tooth-rotting taste that I haven't experienced since I was a nipper.

Despite the clanging sodapop flavours, these are all very easy to drink. I was not long getting through over a litre here. But the experience is very very unbeery. I cannot fathom why anyone would switch their preference from that to this. White Claw is not (yet) available in Ireland but you will find very similar products from Oskar Blues and Ska, both of whom should know better.

How did that get there?

I'm sure someone out there can explain this one to me, but from where I'm sitting now it's an oddity. Last Spike is a brewery in Calgary, specialising in making beer for other people. But like many such operations they have a handful of own-brand beers. One of them is this: Cereology, a "Canadian Pale Ale" but which as far as I can see is mostly sold in continental Europe. And a number of my regular off licences here in Dublin.

The liquid, then, is 6.5% ABV and comes in a 473ml can. It's murky but glows from within, a cheery orange colour. Maybe it's the name, but my first thought on sipping it was "cereal". Certainly not hops. And the flavour too is a wholesome wholemeal bread-and-biscuits thing, with a more intense twang of banana sweets and nail varnish. Hop flavour is completely absent; a tinny bitter tang on the very finish the only indication of them at all.

This is not especially good, and certainly not an advertisement for a producer touting its abilities to interested clients. To whomever shipped it all the way from Alberta: was nothing better available?

New meat

A new month, and time to look at some new beers from across the Irish brewing scene.

Kinnegar's rebooted Brewers at Play series reaches number three with a low-alcohol offering. Such is the brewery's commitment to this exciting sector of the beer market they've given it the imaginative name 3: Low Alcohol. It's a bright golden colour with a stack of white foam, looking for all the world like a lovely glass of Duvel, down to the skeins of suspended lees floating through it. Any sense of Duvel instantly evaporates on drinking, along with any sense of body. This is very thin and has that sharp mineral-aspirin thing that haunts so many of the new wave alcohol-free beers. There's a little lemon sherbet or Berocca as well. All of this tastes like the fringe flavours of a proper pale ale. What's missing is the middle where the malt substance and rich hop fruit are supposed to go. An unpleasant soapy twang is the only feature to speak of, right on the finish. This sort of beer seems like something made because there's a gap in the brewery portfolio. It seems odd to create it as a limited special.

Here's bravery: The Format's sixth beer, Pretty Green, has a mere three months as its best before on the can. I've had a couple of off licence owners tell me that even in notions-riddled Dublin, speciality beer doesn't sell as fast as brewers expect it to. I hope The Format has chosen its outlets carefully. It's an IPA, of course, a very American 7.5% ABV and using equally American El Dorado and Centennial hops. The picture looks like it has a lovely fluffy head but I had to coax that up as it flowed almost lifeless from the can. The texture is a bit flabby as a result, while the appearance is hazy but not opaque, and darker than usual: a medium orange rather than DDH Yellow. There's plenty of hop flavour, however: El Dorado's Skittles effect is in full throat, giving chewy tropical candy under a sugary shell. A grassy dank finishes it off, providing balance of a sort, but not as pronounced as you'd get from a sharp citric hop. There's a savoury side too: not garlic, but a sort of warm akvavit. All of this adds up to an unusual combination, which is great, given how samey the DDHs can be. I'd prefer more bitterness, but other than that: yeah, I liked this odd creature.

And here's even more bravery: li'l ol' Galway Bay going toe-to-toe with Schlenkerla by releasing a smoked Märzen: Märzen To The Fire. The brewery's lager chops have been well-honed over the last couple of years; could they get away with this? The attempt is 5.5% ABV and a very dark mahogany brown colour. Marks off for poor head retention as my pint didn't have much left by the time I got it to my table. The aroma is no more than slightly meaty, but beers like this aren't really built to smell. The flavour, though, is absolutely spot on. Not just bacon, but specifically the crispy edge of an expertly fried rasher. A touch of bitumen bitterness follows, helped by the full proper-Märzen texture. The fade-out is perhaps not quite as clean as the Bamberg classics, but it's still very good, taking full advantage of the lager format to prevent any cloying from the abundant smoky phenols. Moreishness is one of Schlenkerla's hallmarks and this does that too. Overall, a beautiful and audacious beer, and I hope it's more than a one-off special. I was delighted to hear it's about to arrive in cans, and I'm gasping to try it blind next to Schlenkerla.

A new beer brand to the scene is Clean Slate, an Australio-Irish operation whose first beer was brewed at Ballykilcavan. It's called AHAA!, standing for Aussie Hoppy Amber Ale. It's on a few taps in the trendier Dublin hangouts and a pint set me back a handsome €7.60 in Drury Buildings. It's a bright and cheery deep orange colour, densely hazy though not completely opaque. The aroma is gently fruity, suggesting mild mandarin and raisin. Its texture is smooth, entirely in keeping with the style and its biggish 5.4% ABV. There's more of a malt side in the flavour, some moist fruitcake or flapjack to sprinkle those raisins into. The soft orangey fruit element is back, spiced up a little by the suspended yeast and finishing with a curt whipcrack of proper bitterness. While not particularly complex or strongly flavoured, it's well-constructed, quite pintable, and different to anything else on the market. As such it represents a pleasant change from the norm in bars which aren't beer specialists. I'd advise putting it on someone else's tab, though.

I missed 12 Acres's Pallet Jack first time round so was pleased to see it back as part of Lidl's current range of seasonal Irish beers. It's an India pale lager, 5% ABV, and looks deliciously lagery in the glass: a bright and almost flawless gold with a proper pilsner-like dome of foam. Indeed it's described as a pilsner on the back of the can, for those who find IPLs not to their taste. The aroma is sweet and lemony, like meringue pie filling, with just a hint of something sharper -- perfume or citrus washing-up liquid -- lurking in the background. It tastes much more bitter than one might expect from that, the sunny lemons turning to harsher limes and then on to wax and dried grass. This might be unpleasant but for the fact it's a lager and so finishes quickly and neatly before any of the hop napalm can build on the palate and spoil the experience. Instead it's bold, flavoursome and invigorating. I'd even go so far as to say balanced as well, showing enough spongecake malt sweetness to keep the bitter excesses in check. I'm an avowed IPL sceptic, but while this is no classic pilsner it is pretty tasty.

Carlow Brewing's single hop series reaches number seven with O'Hara's Hop Adventure: Centennial. Not the newest or trendiest of hops but a reliable workhorse of the craft beer movement. As usual it's 5% ABV and it follows the pattern of the previous outing by being hazy. Centennial's alter-ego of "Super Cascade" is reflected in the aroma: that rough and earthy bitterness. The flavour is a fresh lemon sherbet, leaning a little to fabric softener. There's a pinch of new-mown grass, a certain dank resinous bittering and a tang of tin. It all adds up to a rather good classically styled IPA. The malt side of the picture is just enough to give the hops a bounce. My favourite aspect is probably the mouthfeel: a soft and fluffy witbier-like texture that complements the lemon notes beautifully. This sort of complexity in a single-hopper is unusual but great to find.

Double IPAs continue to abound, from the usual suspects. O Brother has given us nothing else to date this year. The second is called Follow>Dream>Path, and it looks pale and hazy, like the fruit juice that fans of this style want it to be. Except at 8% ABV, of course. Kveik fermentation and a combination of Vic Secret and Hallertau Blanc are the other parts of the spec, and they result in a beer that has quite a boozy burn in the aroma. The flavour is gentler though. The first sip delivers a super-sweet rush of pineapple juice, and then a weird but not unpleasant funky twang, a bit like the grassy, weedy effect I associate with strong noble hops. The peppery spice that follows is another Germanic trait: weird for a double IPA but rather enjoyable. It all tails off into thick orange cordial, with a trace of yeasty dregs lingering on the finish. It's not a refreshing beer, but is refreshingly different for a hazy DIPA.

Peach & Passion Fruit Sour is number 18 in the Hope Limited Edition series. Sour indeed: it's almost off-puttingly tart; sharp and severe with the chalky dryness often found in kettle-soured beer. The tropical fruit is an afterthought here. Passionfruit has a tendency to dominate everything it's in with a thick and sweet sorbet effect. Here that has all been attenuated away leaving just a faint tang of marmalade and brown bread. This isn't one of those horribly sickly fruited sour beers, but nor is it subtle, complex or fun. It's sour for the sake of sourness and not something I'm into.

A new dark lager always grabs my attention so I prioritised the new Wicklow Wolf one, a collaboration with Berliners Brlo, called Bear With Us. The ABV is a middle-of-the-road 4.8% ABV and it's a properly dunkelish cola-brown. For hops it uses the German varieties with new-world notions, Hüll Melon and Mandarina Bavaria. The aroma isn't fruity, though; it smells meaty more than anything -- a rich umami savoury note which was unexpected. The texture is thick and ale-like, its dark malt and savouriness making it taste more like a porter to me. The crispness I go to dark lager for is missing and it's a bit sad and flabby instead. Zingy hop flavours would have helped offset this, but they're absent: no fruit, no real bitterness, just a kind of rubbery funk, akin to dankness but without the fresh herbal quality. This isn't offensive or flawed, it's just not what I was in the mood for. I finished it hankering for a proper dark lager to make the craving stop.

Next, a rare appearance here from Clonakilty Brewing. I wondered at first if Galley Head was a re-label of their other blue-branded pale ale, Tojo, but the ABV is lower at 4.7%. I poured the bottle-conditioned contents carefully though still got a hazy glassful, a bright glowing orange in daylight, turning a little grey when brought indoors for drinking. The aroma is clean, with a gently spicy citrus air. Flavourwise, it has a lot in common with a good English bitter: that dry tannic base, topped by a mouthwatering fruit and flower effect, finishing with a slightly metallic tang. I'm not usually a fan of bottle conditioning when it comes to a hop-forward beer but this makes good use of it, adding a roundness to the texture and a richness to the flavour, just as if it were from a cask. Despite the English feel, the hops are unmistakably American, and the spritz of lemon and lime is fresh and stimulating. This is a class act.

Celebrating the boss getting injured, Fracture is the new one from Metalman, a rye IPA of 6.5% ABV. It's another pale and hazy orange job with quite a sweet and cordial-like aroma. I would have expected some of rye's spice or bitterness to begin coming through there. But no, that waits for the flavour to make itself felt, and does so thoroughly and properly. It doesn't have the squeaky astringency of the style's archetype -- Kinnegar Rustbucket -- but it's equally charming. The grass is meadow-fresh, the acidic bitterness cleansing, and there's just a sprinkling of black pepper on the finish to add complexity. The cordial is still there too, providing a sweet counter balance to the bitter shapes entertainingly thrown by the hops and rye. All together it's very enjoyable -- distinctive, powerfully flavoured, yet not harsh or difficult. I don't think Rustbucket has a serious competitor here, but this could happily co-exist, doing something different in the same space. I hope they keep it on.

"Juicy" is the current holy grail of IPA brewing, and while on one hand it's a brave brewery that puts it front and centre in the beer's name, they also have your money by the time you find out whether or not the beer lives up to it. Such were the musings elicited by this can of Rascals Judge Juicy, the new 6% ABV New England-style IPA. Before even getting to the flavour, the visuals are off: it's a deep amber colour and barely hazy, not at all the yellow opaqueness one expects when New England is invoked. The flavour is only a little sweet, with a tangy orangeade kick up front. It then finishes dry, the opposite of juicy, with a savoury rasp of caraway and a long pithy finish. A light, slightly thin, texture is another way it comes across as distinctly unjuicy. This seems much more like a clean and hoppy west-coaster to me. It's not bad by any measure, it just fails to live up to the description in almost every way.

Finally, this round-up's big gun: 2020 Vision, a triple IPA from Black's of Kinsale. This is one of those styles where points of difference can be hard to spot, though this one poured darker than most, albeit still that hazy orange shade that all the ones I have encountered have been. The same spirituous vodka burn as well, tasting all of its 10% ABV. And hops? Where we're going we don't need hops. Steam-distilled Azacca oil, if you don't mind. That gives it a concentrated orangey flavour. In smaller doses there might be a more complex tropicality but here it's largely marmalade: bitter tangy rind. There's a touch of rye-like spice as well; a savoury kick on the end. This is an unapologetically hot and heavy IPA, definitely not built for nuance, subtlety or easy drinking. I found it a bit rough and awkward, taking nearly two hours to sip through the can's worth. There's nothing technically wrong, it's just not my sort of beer, all things considered.

And that is indeed all things considered, for now.