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.