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.