Thicc

Getting mouthfeel into otherwise light-bodied beers seem to be the urgent issue of the day among IPA brewers. Oats are often pressed into service; likewise lactose has offered a shortcut to achieve the results that our daddies managed with mash temperatures and invert sugar. What happens if you pile all the modern techniques in together? Thankfully, BrewDog is here to show us.

Duopolis is billed as an "oat cream DDH IPA" which sounds like something hefty but it's only 4.7% ABV. It looks like a proper New England IPA, being a dense and opaque yellow, shading almost to green. The aroma is mild and mostly vegetal: a buzz of salad leaves with a splash of sweet dressing. The mouthfeel checks out, being properly smooth and custard-creamy. It is a little thin when compared against the 6%+ takes on the same style, though that does add to its drinkability: no extreme flavours or booze heat here.

The veg turns to fruit on tasting, becoming a smoothie of mango, kiwi and apple, but retaining a light peppery spice: fresh rocket and thoroughly matured kimchi. A vanilla sweetness lasts long into the finish. This is a bit of a Waldorf salad, but enjoyable nonetheless, the crazy twists restrained by that modest ABV.

Fans of The Modern IPA but looking for it in a mass-produced sessionable package obviously don't exist, but if they did they'd be all over this. Well done to BrewDog for carving out that niche.

Speaking of Modern IPA, BrewDog's first foray into this realm was Hazy Jane, back in 2017. I trekked all the way to their pub in Liverpool to try it. Since then it has been reformulated and re-released, the ABV brought down from 7.2% to 5%. You can still get the earlier one, under the name "O-G Hazy", but for the sake of completeness, and since new Hazy Jane was now on the shelves in Ireland, I thought I'd throw a review in here.

It's definitely toned-down. The texture is even a little thin, which shouldn't be happening. Tropical juicy stuff? No, not really. There's a hint of peach, some sweet red apple, and a mild lime bitterness. A certain savoury yeast-dreg is included too, but even this is low-impact. The alcohol in the first version seems to have really served a purpose and I completely understand why they brought it back because this is no substitute. Duopolis does a much better job of delivering the goods.

For the lolz

If there are two nations famous worldwide for their sense of humour it's the Germans and the Norwegians. It's surprising, then, that there aren't more knockabout comedic collaborations from their respective breweries. Here's one though: Lervig has invited Bamberg's Mahrs in to create something they've called Franconian Haze.

It's badged as a festweizen, the name and style suggesting to me it ought to be hazy, but it's not -- it's a clear medium copper shade. It smells like a weizen, though: that hit of butane and bananas. The flavour continues very much in that theme, with the lighter-fuel side the dominant element. Though 5.5% ABV it's thin textured for a weissbier; crisp and sharp rather than rounded and fruity. I can't say it tastes specifically Bavarian to me -- this is a flavour profile that breweries the world over have mastered without difficulty.

A decent beer, overall, I suppose, though not worth the hefty price tag that being small-batch brewed in Norway has placed upon it. Buy a German import in a large bottle instead.

Chancing it

A trilogy of beers today from Ireland's most eccentric brewery, Canvas of Tipperary.

@Manicallyrun is a case in point, and not just from the name. "Not a lager" says the label, above its description as a "juicy tart Vienna lager". No point asking questions, just get stuck in. It looks as I would expect a Vienna lager to: that attractive medium amber, though I feel I should have stopped pouring while it was still running clear. I didn't, and got a dun-coloured glassful instead. Tartness definitely stands out in the aroma, and if they hadn't flagged it, I might rudely suggest that this wasn't meant to be sour: it smells like many a homebrew-batch-gone-wrong. Any trace of Vienna is absent from the flavour: there's none of that rich biscuit or sweetly toasted melanoidins. The label also says it's dry-hopped with Vic Secret, but I don't get that either: neither its liquorice-chew bitterness nor colourful tropical juice. What's left is just that tang, on a thin base that's highly attenuated though finished at just 4.1% ABV. It's OK, but underwhelming, lacking most of the elements promised on the label and not putting enough complexity into the tartness. A few months in a barrel and it might be a decent Flemish red, but it's not really anything now.

Moving on swiftly, the next bottle is Pixel, an amber IPA. Well that's a style that other breweries make (though I can't think of any examples) so this should be more orthodox. It's quite a dark brownish-red and there's a pleasant malt sweetness in the aroma, with a wisp of pipe smoke too. Here's that richness I was looking for in the previous one. Not much hop though, but there's a delicious white-pepper piquancy that stands in and provides balance to the sweetness. Looking closer at the label it turns out that this has been aged in red wine barrels, so I guess that's an oak spice I'm tasting. The whole thing is just 5.1% ABV and exceedingly mellow, with none of the flavours extreme, jarring or overdone. This is unexciting in an age of bright jangling IPAs and booze-soaked barrel flavours, but I really appreciated its calm and balanced complexity.

Bringing us home is the strongest  of the set -- up to 5.3% ABV -- and the only one in a 500ml bottle. Not that I got half a litre of Biodynamic Pale Ale: it was so dynamic it gushed out of the bottle and over the table. Most unprofessional. When it settled it was a hazy pale golden colour in the glass, smelling of lemons and sunshine. The flavour is weird. There's a kind of honey note, concentrated and waxy, like you get from strong mead. The finish is a rubbery bitterness. A thin texture means this doesn't get any more complex: honey and rubber, rubber and honey is most of your lot the whole way through. There's maybe some worty Ovaltine malt as well -- it is intended as a malt showcase -- but like the Vienna lager there's no substance to carry the malt taste properly. This isn't enjoyable and a commercial brewery putting gushers onto the market is a poor show.

Canvas's eccentricities really do mean their beers are a game of roulette. When they get it right they nail it in a way a shiny brewery in an industrial unit never could, but unfortunately that's not always what happens. Be lucky.

You picked a Weihen time to leave me, Lucille

A brewery as established as Weihenstephaner is no friend to the neophile beer drinker. I certainly don't associate it with a stream of new releases and special editions. But here were two I hadn't seen before, picked up in DrinkStore.

1516 Kellerbier first, pouring orange coloured and very hazy, looking a lot like a weissbier, but with a looser head. The aroma is enticing and offers just what I would expect from a kellerbier: crisp crackers and an air of lemon. The flavour is richer than anticipated, being malt forward with notes of fruitcake and malt loaf. The hops are muted, bringing a grassy bite to the finish but not much other flavour. This is fine but unexciting, beginning to turn a little worty and cloying by the end. I was in need of hops next.

Step forward Weihenstephaner Pils. The pure limpid golden colour is outstanding and the aroma is just as pure: fresh damp grass in spades. Its Bavarian origins are more apparent on tasting: although it has the herbal sharpness German pilsner does so well, this is no severe northern example. There's a softness at its heart, a rounded and fluffy quality which makes it feel a little like a helles even though the hop kick is unmistakably pilsner. You need to be quick if you want to study that hop-malt interplay as the finish arrives quickly; the big flavours suddenly silenced. This is a magnificent beer, one where I made sure the review was done before the halfway mark so I could settle into the second half, because that's how it really needs to be enjoyed, with another on standby for afterwards.

It must be odd for a brewery as technically proficient as Weihenstephaner to try and create lab-perfect kellerbier, a style where random roughness is part of the spec. Maybe that incompatibility of approaches is why theirs didn't turn out great. Much more the brewery's milieu is a pilsner you can set your goddamn watch by.

The mild month of May

"DARK MILD" goes the Twitter cacophony when any Irish brewery makes the mistake of asking what they should brew. Well, the one nearest my house has put it up to us keyboard warriors by brewing and canning just such a beer. I grabbed some first chance I got: two of the 330ml cans because mild obviously has to be a pint.

Four Provinces Gob Fliuch* is 3.8% ABV and pours a murky dark brown with a flat cap of off-white foam. There's a strong roasty-toasty component to the aroma, but with some chocolate and an autumnal fruit tartness too. That blackberry and loganberry effect flashes briefly in the foretaste before the roast bitterness crawls in behind it, one powerful enough to make the "mild" designation a little ironic. Thankfully it calms down before it turns harsh, fading out on a floral air of lavender and rose.

Despite everything going on flavourwise, and a substantially full body too, this remains as pint-quaffable as mild ought to be. I can only quibble that I prefer a little more on the sweet flowers-and-chocolate side and less bitterness in my milds, but that's purely a personal thing. This is bang on style and beautiful, multifaceted, session drinking. One for all the other brewers wondering if the style is worthwhile.

*From the Irish toast "Croí folláin agus gob fliuch" -- a healthy heart and a wet mouth.

Canned witch spread

They've been busy at The White Hag. Every time I thought I had a handle on their new releases, another popped into view. Here's the most recent four to come my way.

Róc Helles shares a name with the brewery's pilsner but I hoped it would be softer and fluffier, as befits the style. It's a bigger serve too, going for the 440ml can. The strength is a little underdone at 4.5% ABV which I'm not sure would get the Bavarian seal of approval. The appearance is spot-on though: pale and clear, with a jolly cumulus of pure white froth on top. The aroma has the wholesome sweet biscuit appropriate to Helles, but there's a sharper green-pepper vegetal note there as well. Sure enough that's also present in the flavour. It doesn't taste sharp and grassy as I expected, but quite soapy: a tang of lemon washing-up liquid and a sharp astringency. This is not the smooth and easy experience that Helles ought to be. The body is there, but I think it's the sweet malt fighting with an overload of hops that creates the twangy clash. Helles is one of those styles that doesn't suit microbrewing. Leave it to the Bavarian giants.

This year's Púca next, Ginger & Lime being the latest attempt at improving the quite wonderful base beer, seeking to do what hibiscus, mint, matcha, and apricot have all so far failed to do. It's 3.5% ABV, like all the other Púcaí, and a white-gold colour, hazy like a glassful of lemon juice. Sour lemon on the aroma, with just a dusting of candied ginger. The balance tilts dramatically towards sour on tasting, with an almost vinegar-sharp tang right at the front. Lemon is there to add a little balancing sweetness (!) and the thicker lime citrus brings up the rear. The ginger is hard to detect, left as a residue in the aftertaste, and very much the flavour of ginger, without the spice. I'd like some spice. Don't let the low strength or craft ingredients fool you: this is a serious mixed-fermentation mouth-tingler for grown-up palates. It's just a little too busy and loud for me though. "What if it was stronger?" I found myself thinking, "What if they barrel aged it?" while never quite appreciating the beer for what it actually is. Straight lemon Púca, which I'm delighted to see is back in the shops now, is still the better beer.

Two lacklustre offerings in a row is very atypical for The White Hag. Maybe the third one will bring things back on track. Oh. It's a red ale. Warrior Queen was previously brewed for export only and, if only for the sake of completeness, I'm glad they've begun selling it in Ireland. Designed more for session pints than small cans it's 4.5% ABV. The colour is a dark garnet-red and there's a very trad topping of healthy foam. The aroma is intriguingly smoky, with a floral rosewater complexity. So not a Smithwick's clone then. The flavour switches things up again, showing a firm old-world hop bitterness to the fore: earthy, a little tinny, but assertive and not bland. The body helps there, being very decently full, avoiding the pitfall of wateriness that besets mainstream Irish reds. That smoky caramelised sugar wafts through next, while the finish brings my favourite feature of the style: a basket of summer fruit; raspberries in particular. There is a slight soapy twang, a function of the bitterness, which spoils the party a little, but overall I enjoyed the depth of flavour here. Maybe the flaw is less obvious when it's gulped down by the pint.

A double IPA to finish: Malafemmena, created for Johnny's Off Licence in Rome who, I assume, sell a lot of White Hag beer. It's 8.5% ABV but is no one-dimensional booze-bomb. The aroma is a stimulating blend of tropical fruit: pineapple first, then ripe juicy peach and a spritz of citrus. The last element is missing from the flavour, which is a little unfortunate as it would have provided a useful bitter balance. What's there is still good: apricots, red apple, mandarin -- quite a fruit salad. There's an over-riding alcohol heat, intensifying the fruit flavour rather than fighting with it. The whole thing is a sweet bruiser that makes for some enjoyable sipping. I'm just not enough of a double IPA fan to be head over heels about it, but there's little to complain about here.

Four very different beers but I think the red is the one I'm most likely to drink again. Strange times indeed.

In a funk

"Farmhouse pilsner"? Is that a thing? Isn't pilsner intrinsically industrial? Anyway, here's Mill Pils from Wide Street. A lager with wild notions. I hoofed it vertically into a half litre glass but got very little head for my efforts, so instant pils points off there. The aroma is an autumnal mix of grass and apples, intriguing, but smelling a little too much like Bad Lager. The texture is big and sticky and gummy: the brewery's Brett-in-residence making its presence felt whether it was meant to or not. It doesn't taste like a pils. Yes there's the peppery rocket from its Saaz and Hallertauer Mittlelfruh, but that's a sideshow next to some seriously loamy funk and a musty, dusty, damp-attic finish. I think I have to file this beer under "interesting" rather than "good". I can see how it's taking on the costume of pilsner, but it's not a pilsner and shouldn't be advertised as such. As a wild-fermented oddity, the hops are too prominent and the bitterness interferes with the funky fun. A fascinating experiment, but not one that yielded good beer, I think.

Released next to it was Down To Earth, a six-month-aged mixed fermentation sour effort. I was expecting lambic vibes here. I didn't get any from the appearance, mind, it being pale and hazy. Did you know witbier used to to be spontaneously fermented? Just a digression... The beer smells very funky and extremely Belgian, like a back room at the Orval monastery where you have to wear a protective mask. On tasting, an explosion of lemons, apples, beetroot and kiwi, finishing on a slightly harsh vinegar note. It's busy, but not difficult or hard to take. While trying to find an angle I asked the wife how it tasted and she opined that it's like it comes from an earthenware pot. Spot on. This is rustic, raw, funky and special. The acidic bite is a little too far but otherwise it's absolutely beautiful. There's no direct Belgian analogue; it's just its own funky funky thang.

I suspect that the early, calmer, Wide Street beers were just to lull us into a false sense of security. The gloves are off here, the wild yeast is roaring, and while it's distinctive, it doesn't always play well with the underlying beer, or my palate.

Foil stickers

Something about the recent raft of releases from Oud Beersel have the feel of products made deliberately to be collectable, rather than designed for the optimum sensory experience. They all seem based on the same 6.8% ABV lambic, with a plethora of unorthodox ingredients added, including rose petals, green walnut, olive leaf and assorted teas. I put all griping aside when I tried the rose one last year: it's superb, so I had no qualms about ordering Oud Beersel Hibiscus when that showed up in UnderDog back in February.

This poured a vibrant red colour, all the way to the brim with no head. What makes me so forgiving of the novelty factor is that they are unable to mask the exquisite quality of the Boon lambic it's made from. This absolutely sings with oaken spices, spiky spicy saltpetre and a pleasingly acrid wax bitterness. The assertive sourness is tempered by the raspberry effect of the hibiscus: a flower that always just tastes like raspberry or cherry to me when used in beers, so I guess it's perfectly appropriate for flavouring a lambic. The end result tastes like a very good and classically-constructed framboise.

Yes, I am going to keep chasing these. My faith in the blenders at Beersel is second only to my faith in the brewers at Boon.

Life begins at...

Sierra Nevada celebrates 40 years in business this year, something that must be extra poignant given the rate at which first-wave American craft breweries are selling their credibility or just plain going out of business. The beer to mark the occasion is 6% ABV and amber coloured with a slight haze. The aroma is definitely old school: crystal malt and Cascade, like American beers used to be, out on the craft frontier all those years ago. Hops dominate the flavour: lime citrus, turning to slightly harsh wax. There's a floral background too, the hops providing a mellow balance that one would normally look to malt for. It's fun: punchy, loud, and hop-forward in an old-fashioned bitter way. It's not massively different from the brewery's flagship, but I regard that as a point in its favour.

Even with 40 years on the clock and nothing left to prove, Sierra Nevada can't resist a brand extension or two. Hazy Little Thing has been one of their more recent success stories and where do you go from there but up. Presenting Fantastic Haze, a double IPA version. It's 9% ABV and a medium hazy yellow. The aroma is understated: just a hint of tropical guava and maybe a squeeze of grapefruit behind this. Neither side of that equation is represented in the taste. The base is heavy and thick, and the flavour riding on it is a fruit salad of pineapple, grape, mandarin, apple and strawberry. The syrupy texture helps that dessertish effect along. There are no extremes here: the heat and the sweetness are kept within approachable boundaries, and with these edges smoothed off it risks blandness. It's not bland, though. There's enough going on here to keep the drinker interested, even if it's not the intense experience that New England-style IPAs from smaller brewers offer. That may be bad news for some, but I don't miss the garlic and caraway that the others too often show. This is decent, competent stuff. Sierra Nevada's IPA reliability strikes again.

A few weeks after that landed we got Hazy Little Thing - Session Edition at just over half the strength. It's quite a wan, sickly colour, though the tall head of foam is handsome. The aroma is middle-of-the-road: a wisp of herbal dankness and some worrying savoury garlic. The mouthfeel is quite thin, even for 4.6% ABV. So that's all the bad things out of the way before we come to the flavour, which is magnificent. Fresh and squashy mandarin juice is the opener, then a spritz of lemon zest to provide a token bitterness. The juice turns sweeter and is joined by the fizz to make a quality bitty orangeade effect: Orangina comes to mind specifically, bringing with it sunny holidays in France. I miss the substance provided by original HLT, but this version really does not taste like a compromise.

An odd joint effort next: Triple Hop'd Lager was created with Sierra Nevada as collaborator at the unlikely host Bitburger, mainstreamest of the mainstream German lager factories. The result is 5.8% ABV and... no: that's the sum total of information the exterior of the can provides. For something bragging about the hopping, and less than two months in the can, it smells powerfully of malt: quite a sticky and worty aroma, of cookies and golden syrup. A slight waft of lemon is as hoppy as it gets. The body is very full, unsurprisingly, removing a lot of its lager feel. Meanwhile the flavour is a gentle blend of weedpatch noble hops and American citrus, neither in full voice. I feel a bit gypped that it's more like an ale than a lager; big and chewy. There's nothing very special in the flavour and I'm glad I didn't buy the full sixpack some off licences were insisting on, as drinking one was hard enough work. This is passable but nothing special.

We go out on a big one. Too big for me, actually: my wife sprung €10 for the can and kindly donated a taster to the blog. It's a Barrel-Aged version of Narwhal imperial stout, given the bourbon cask treatment. A favourite feature of basic Narwhal is the hopping: a bitter, metallic clang in the finish, and that seems to have been a victim of the barrels here. Instead you get bourbon up the wazoo and a square of chocolate on the side to distract you. In my original Narwhal review I mentioned that it tastes barrel-aged to begin with, and it turns out that actually doing it doubles down the booze and vanilla, resulting in something tasting even stronger than its substantial 11.9% ABV. A soy-sauce autolysis twang finishes it off and doesn't improve the picture any. It's not a bad beer, just not an improvement on basic Narwhal, and there are plenty of better examples of barrel-aged imperial stouts available, including from Irish breweries.

Here's to 40 more years of safe and reliable hop-driven beers. The world will always need them.

Three wee kiwis

New Zealand contract brewers Yeastie Boys returned their beers to Irish fridges last year after a period of absence. It gave me a chance to catch up with one I missed last time around, and try a couple of new ones. Production has moved from BrewDog to West Berkshire Brewery.

"Like a Antipodean summer packaged in a can" goes the blurb on Bigmouth session IPA. It's just as well I drank it outside on a sunny January day, then. It pours a clear, pure, golden shade, the bubbles fading quickly to a thin froth. Its aroma gives me what I would hope for from kiwi hops: fresh and juicy mango and pineapple, without the grassy element that sometimes comes with. The texture is light and fizzy, unsurprising at 4.4% ABV, and there's quite a strong candy-malt sweetness: barley sugar boiled sweets come to mind. The zingy hops are still there, however, bringing a lemon zest bitterness as well as dry white grape and a satsuma juiciness. All-in, it's very good, and certainly delivers what it's meant to do as a low-cost, easy-going, sessioner.

Moving on, I wasn't sure what to expect from White Noise. It looks like it might be a white IPA (rarely good news) but they've just put "white ale" as the descriptor. Is it a straight witbier? The can isn't much help: it's brewed with wheat, oats, orange peel and chamomile so I guess it depends on how strongly hopped it is. Only one way to find out... It looks like a thin wit in the glass, a slightly hazy yellowish orange. It smells vaguely orangey, like highly diluted cordial while the chamomile comes into play in the flavour. Definitely not an IPA of any stripe, then. I guess they're going for something in the witbier vein but offsetting any risk of soapiness by swapping out the coriander. The resulting flavour works quite well: it's refreshing and meadowy but I think it falls down on the texture. Only 4.4% ABV again has made it quite watery and hollow. The carbonation is low as well, so it feels tired straight out of the can. While not at all a bad beer, it needs a bit of punching up, I feel, to give its interesting and unusual flavour profile more impact.

Pot Kettle Black has been around before though I never got to try it. Here we go then. It's described as a "South Pacific Porter", presumably to signify a higher than usual hop presence. Sure enough, there's a tangy citric effect — lemon and lime — in the foretaste that shifts it towards black IPA territory. No harm. Alongside it there's a stimulating coffee roast, spiced red cabbage and lavender bathsalts. 6% ABV suggests it should be quite heavy but the texture is surprisingly light and the finish quick and clean. This is another one where the flavour is good but unsatisfying in its lightness.

All three beers are balanced, accessible, and warrant another go: exactly what any brewer should be doing as their core range. Since I drank these I've noticed another new Yeastie Boys offering knocking around. I'll cue that up for a later post.

Heed the call

Hey, remember Siren? Once one of my consistent favourites among the new-wave "craft" British breweries, I just sort of lost track of them. UK brewing moved on and the most-discussed ones became producers of beer I didn't really like, by and large. But Siren is still there.

Yu Lu dates back to that era, and I seem to have missed it first time round. It's still on the go, though: a 3.6% ABV pale ale with Earl Grey tea and lemon zest. It looks quite plain in the glass, a medium hazy yellow. I was expecting lemon zest in the aroma but dammit if it doesn't actually smell like hops: that analogous resin and zest rather than the real thing. The flavour is a little more forced, with an artificial lemon sweetness sitting on quite a watery texture. The very light base beer and the rambunctious flavourings don't meld well together: the bad sides of both remain apparent in what is quite a busy, noisy flavour profile. While not offensive, it just doesn't quite work for me.

I hoped for something calmer and more integrated from Santo, a dry-hopped lager. This is another hazy yellow job , again smelling bright and zesty. The ABV is dialled all the way up to 5%, though the texture is again light. This is one of those highly hopped lagers that mostly tastes like a pale ale. Not that that's any way unpleasant. There's a bold and very enjoyable citrus foretaste, turning sweeter and dessert-like in the finish; a pie that's half lemon meringue and half key lime. That runs the risk of turning cloying until the lager runs to the rescue, neatly cleaning up the finish, leaving just a subtle and spritzy lime aftertaste. It's an easy-going little chap, but packed with flavour. It doesn't quite deliver on refreshment -- just too strong and strongly flavoured, I guess -- but it's very tasty.

These examples lack the wow I got from the earlier ones. It's just as well the likes of Broken Dream and Calypso still exist.

Themes may apply

Time for another unsorted round-up of new and new-to-me Irish beers. Content warning: some have pandemic-themed names, so if you're not into that, skip the first few.

Hope had the latest in their Innovation Series lined up for keg but it ended up getting canned with a rudimentary label instead. Plan C (19) is an American-hopped pale ale, 5% ABV and toting a heady mix of Idaho 7, El Dorado, Citra and Azacca. It certainly smells of the promised fruit candy: not juicy but definitely sweet. There's a surprise dankness in the foretaste, then Citra's lime punch before the more tropical hops add exotic vapours to the finish. The combination works incredibly well and repeats itself on every mouthful. 5% ABV gives it plenty of substance, the unfermented malt sugars carrying the hops across the palate. It's fun stuff, both fruity for the kiddies and properly bitter for the grown-ups. I only had one but a few of these would do no harm at all.

No half measures with the latest from Hopfully: Stay Safe! comes with a donation to frontline workers. This is a 6.2% ABV DDH IPA and is, of course, a murky yellow colour. The aroma is tragically savoury, like someone made a liqueur out of sesame seeds. And the same goes for the flavour: a middle eastern mix of parsley, onion, mint and garlic. This is not what IPA is supposed to taste like. The can doesn't tell us what the hops involved were, but it doesn't matter. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has tried this and thinks it's an acceptable flavour for IPA. It's not for me, though I'm happy I contributed to a good cause.

"an IPA especially for this strange and unsettling time" reads the strange and unsettling description on Lock Down from Kildare Brewing. It's brewed with American hops to 6.3% ABV and pours a slightly sickly-looking opaque yellowish orange. The aroma is sweet and a little worty, with overtones of undiluted squash and lurid fruit icepops. I was expecting something overly sweet but the flavour surprised with a nicely assertive bitterness: a pithy, pulpy sort of effect, still in the realm of oranges but more about their tangy acidity than mouthwatering juice. The effect is accentuated by a dry mineral rasp; chalky plasterboard and flint. A slight wet-cardboard twang on the end suggests that oxidation might be a factor here, so if you've got one, drink it soon as. Overall it's quite decent, if lacking polish. I wouldn't describe it as west-coast exactly, but the flavour profile is definitely pointing more towards California than Vermont.

I recently reviewed Kinnegar's collaboration with the Brewgooder project and now it turns out Wicklow Wolf did one too. I'm guessing the name -- Are You Well? -- isn't intended as topical, but as a reference to Brewgooder's work creating clean water supplies for the developing world. It's a double IPA, though of a modest 7.3% ABV. The appearance is most unorthodox, for these days anyway: it's a clear amber colour. It uses Sabro: the other coconutty hop, and boy does it smell coconutty, with a pinch of the citrus that comes with it in Sorachi Ace beers. Despite that understated ABV it's quite thick, even a little syrupy. Thankfully the hops are in control, roaring over any potential malt stickiness. Lemon rind, marmalade on brown bread and a harder aspirin twang right on the finish. It's nearly a lovely clean and bitter west-coaster, being just a little too thick. I liked the weirdness, though, and loved that it's not another by-the-numbers cloudy yellow job.

The latest DOT to come my way is Southern Living, a hazy IPA, living large at 7.2% ABV. It's pale and custardy-looking, the aroma a lovely dessertish lemon meringue effect: a spritz of citrus on a soft vanilla base. That lemon and lime kick is more assertive in the flavour than I was expecting, and that's to the beer's benefit. It's fun how it stays fresh, clean and bitter while also soft and pillowy. Mind you, there's not much else going on: the spritz fades first, then the cakey sweetness follows it. It's decent, with none of the regular flaws of hazy IPA. That's probably its most distinguishing feature, however.

Trouble badged their new 7.6%-er, Speakerbox, a double IPA. It's an opaque orange shade with a stack of loose white bubbles on top, 440ml filling out a pint glass nicely. The aroma is juice-first, though there's a crisp edge of rye cracker and caraway in there too. The "double" epithet is earned in the texture: it is thick, though with legitimate chewy malt, not sickly syrup. It feels more like a classic bock or a hefty stout than most of what gets called IPA these days; balanced and not hot. The flavor is quite serious, centred on a very old-world jaffa-pith bitterness, fading first to wax and green veg before wafting a spritz of satsuma in the very finish. This, again, is very different to the hazy IPAs currently in fashion. Despite the haze there's much more of the west coast about it, albeit without the clear cleanness; and I also found myself thinking of English strong ale too: that mix of earthy hops and a malt-driven belly-warmth. Warm enough for it to feel a percentage point or two higher than it is. Stephen says he finds it difficult to interpret my reviews as positive or negative, so for his benefit, this is a positive one. I was hoping for a bit more zesty fun from Speakerbox, but appreciated its serious and grown-up take on the double IPA. Calibrate your palate before opening.

Teeny Tiny is a micro-IPA (3.3% ABV) originally brewed by Dead Centre to celebrate the first anniversary of their pub in Athlone a couple of months ago. The style is one where a high bar has been set locally by Whiplash's Northern Lights. The can doesn't state the location of production, though I understand from a recent Irish Beer Snob podcast that Dead Centre beers are now being brewed at 12 Acres. Anyway, it's a bright and hazy orange colour and smells both fruity and spicy: a traditional Christmas mix of satsumas and nutmeg. There's nothing teeny or tiny about the flavour. It's starts with a big citrus tang, almost verging on sour, and behind this are savoury herbs (dill, marjoram) and a rich layer of vanilla. A waft of garlic finishes it off. It's convincing. The features here are very much those of modern IPA and are uncompromised by the low strength. My only complaint is that I'd like the hop flavours to be brighter and fruitier: not an unreasonable request when Citra and El Dorado are involved. Nevertheless, just like Northern Lights, this is an impressive trick of the brewer's art.

Speaking of which, there's a new Whiplash out and they've gone for something hazy and hoppy this time: an IPA called Reckoner. Though a full 6.3% ABV it smells light and casual, a gentle fruit salad with pineapple, mango and mandarin segments. The texture is smooth -- thanks oats! -- and the flavour is... a surprise. The first thing I got wasn't fruit but garlic, chased by mild vanilla and a bite of earthy yeast sharpness. As IPA flavours go, it's the group of death for me but there's a kick of juice right at the finish that saves it. Not overly sweet, not overly savoury and barely dreggy with no heat. While I'm not bowled over by it I enjoyed my time in its company. It's solid, steady and perhaps deserving of a place in the regular lineup.

Just before the end of life-as-we-knew-it, White Gypsy released a pair of continental-style lagers which I've been seeking ever since. I'll keep looking for the Vienna*, but meanwhile here is White Gypsy Munich Lager. The appearance doesn't give the full München Bierkeller experience, there being a slight haze adding a greyish tint to the otherwise golden liquid. It's incredibly rich: full-bodied and teaming with golden-syrup malt flavours. I had been blithely assuming this was a Helles, that being the workaday beer style of Munich, but it's much more Märzen-tasting. 5.8% ABV should probably have been a clue there. To the initial golden syrup you can add spongecake, cut grass and a slightly off-putting kick of banana. This isn't a summer beer garden lager. It's one to hunker down with when the rain is pelting outside and you're debating lighting the fire. No easy drinking here, but if you're after süffig, this has it in spades.

(*Derp! I've already had it. Review here.)

Staying on lager, Dundalk Bay has released a Brewmaster Maibock. Bit of an unfashionable style, but that's no harm, especially now that it's apparently May. It's a lovely rose-gold colour and smells sweetly of honeyish malt with an air of fresh-mown grass behind. Both texture and flavour are absolutely on point for the style, and it's not even a style I particularly enjoy, normally. Though a whopping 6.5% ABV it's smooth rather than sticky, keeping the sweetness on the down-low. Its noble hops are a peppery seasoning on the base, with none of the burnt plastic or busy cabbage that German hops can impart if they're not kept under control. The whole picture -- and this is very much a whole-picture beer -- is clean and distinctive: Maibock done precisely according to the guidelines and indistinguishable from a really good German example. Well played, Dundalk Bay.

From the bay on the opposite coast, Galway Bay, comes Lux Raspberry, a fruited sour ale. It's very pink: a hazy rose-coloured body topped by cerise foam. Obviously I expected this to be one of those jammy sugarbombs that everyone makes these days, but it's not: there's a proper sourness here. It's no Belgian framboise, being too candy-flavoured and doesn't taste of real raspberries, macerated or otherwise. It's far from unpleasant, however. No trace of jam or lactose here but perfume, sherbet and a splash of classy balsamic. These can be a little thin, but a full 5% ABV gives this decent substance, while there's a neat and clean finish. Both complex and undemanding, this is a fun and only slightly silly little number.

Brú has pushed ahead with the roll-out of its revamped line-up, including an "American Red IPA" called Atlantic Odyssey. It's not very red and, at just 5.5% ABV, not terribly American either. Can't argue with the aroma, though: fresh and peachy, with an underlying promise of refreshing lemon tea. On tasting it goes heavier on the malt: a chewy sort of cake and fudge. I probably should have expected this to taste more like an American amber ale and I'm not at all complaining that it does. The IPA boost comes in a harder bitter twang in the finish, turning a little vegetal or even metallic, but it's of the balancing-complexity sort and not at all a flaw. This is good. Classically styled and accessible; making good use of dark malts and C-hops in modest quantities while staying interesting and engaging. At first I thought the relatively low strength was a mistake but by then end I was wishing they had made it more sessionable.

Also continuing business as usual is Eight Degrees. Beer number two in their Irish Munro series is Glen of Imaal, an oatmeal pale ale. It's a handsome clear golden colour and smells sweetly fruity, with a Starburst effect from Vic Secret and Amarillo hops. Alongside them are Mandarina Bavaria and HBC-692, a Sabro variant. Sure enough there's that pith-and-coconut effect, low on the latter but tasting strongly of real jaffa. The oatmeal gives it a body and an intensity worthy of something much stronger, those pithy hops staying constant through the finish and into the aftertaste. One could accuse this of being a little one-dimensional but I really enjoyed what it does: there's nothing plain or boring about its big punchiness. Galway Bay's Goodbye Blue Monday has long been the byword for hop-intense oatmeal pale ale in these parts. This gives it some serious competition.

Reel Deel's Winter Ale is out of season, but such details hardly matter any more: sometimes you just need something strong, dark and comforting to hold you from the inside. It's 6.5% ABV so not rocket fuel, a rich chestnut brown colour and sustains a layer of ivory foam all the way down. The comfort factor is unfortunately quite low. Yes there's a big chocolate flavour but not the body to back it up. The special ingredients are ginger and star anise and it's the latter that stands out: a strong punch of aniseed, rendered sharper by a tangy sourness in the base beer. I think the fundamental problem here is over-attenuation. The richness has fermented out of it leaving just the pointy bits, laced with mild vinegar. It may have been better in actual winter; now it's something of a challenge to get through.

So that's what's happening at the moment, broadly speaking. The virus doesn't seem to have dampened anyone's appetite for IPA.

Very new, very normal

The latest pandemic-related comeback is The Session, the monthly beer blogging jamboree that ran from 2007 until it sputtered out in 2018. Session enthusiast (in all senses) Al has resurrected it and asked how we're all getting on in the age of Covid-19 and how it has affected our beer-drinking lives.

To be honest mine hasn't changed hugely, other than missing the handful of times a week I would be in the pub, and spending much less time hunting down beers in the off licences of Dublin. It's a bit weird not to be planning a trip somewhere too, but the less said about that the better.

No longer doing the daily commute has changed one thing, though. I found myself still needing the border between work and home life that my twenty minute cycle provided without my realising it. I have filled the gap with beer, making a habit of drinking just one serving of something undemanding immediately after closing the laptop for the day. In the beginning this was Manislav, Tesco's very decent and very cheap Czech-style lager. On a subsequent supply run to Aldi I substituted Rheinbacher, though they only had bottles. I found I just didn't enjoy them as much as the canned Rheinbacher I remember. The working hypothesis is that twist-off cap: I suspect it's not as good as it needs to be to keep oxygen out. When the first six-pack ran low I staged a blind test against Manislav and was quite surprised to find bottled Rheinbacher my favourite of the pair. And so it was back to Aldi, where I was ecstatic to discover the cans were back. So that's me committed to a daily Rheinbacher for as long as this whole thing lasts.

I'm still getting ticks in, of course. It's very strange to be trying a new Porterhouse beer at home rather than in in one of their pubs, but here's two of them.

Session Pale Ale has inherited the branding palette of the late Hop Head IPA. There's a certain resemblance in the liquid too: a clear amber colour, not quite as dark as Hop Head but darker than its replacement, Yippy. A sharp grapefruit bitterness is the centre of the flavour, with a slightly soapy lemon twang after it. Belma has been used, alongside Amarillo and Centennial, but I couldn't detect its signature strawberry flavour. It's light but not thin, and after that initial jolt of bitterness there's very little follow-through. This is simple and straightforward, and perhaps a little old-fashioned with its west-coast sensibilities. The name isn't an affectation: it is very much built for the session; easy-drinking without being bland, and only €3 for the half-litre bottle. There's absolutely nothing to stop you from opening another bottle if you are so minded.

But I had another Porterhouse beer to tackle, their pandemic theme beer Stay Home, badged as an "isolation IPA". Juice is promised here, via El Dorado, Enigma and Ekuanot. It's only slightly hazy and again a dark orange colour. The aroma isn't juicy but it is sweet, with a fair whack of vanilla in there. The flavour is better: tangerine and satsuma in the foretaste, buoyed up by the big texture. It gets a little sickly in the finish -- the revenge of that vanilla effect -- but it's only 4.6% ABV so once again the finish is quick and it doesn't get cloying. It's an interesting counterpoint to the previous one: a similar strength but lacking the pointy C-hop edges. I don't know that it's better, though. I found myself craving a bitterness kick that was never part of the deal.

Yeah, pale ale is fun and all, but neither of these are candidates for my every day beer. I fully intend to surf out the crisis on a wave of Rheinbacher.