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.