What's Brú-ing

It's an all-new selection from the reborn Brú Brewery today, each part of their "Urban Jungle" series of creative recipes.

"Contemporary pils" is one of those alarm-bell brewers' descriptions, saying "we got it wrong and are trying to style it out", to me anyway. Brú's Off the Hook is so proclaimed, with Mandarina Bavaria hops being what makes it special. It looks well: a flawless golden in the glass. The hops give it a peachy fruitiness that's much more a pale ale than a lager, and the body too is full with low carbonation. There is a marked lack of crispness. I get a little of the rubbery chemical taste found in a few of Brú's beers, right at the back. Overall it's quite decent. It's easy-going and fun, and did wonders for my thirst. The absence of noble hop flavours does mean it misses the mark on being a proper pilsner, however. Contemporary is not an improvement on classic.

The actual pale ale in this set is paler still, and a little hazy. Cheep Flirt is built for the session at 3.8% ABV. The aroma, made out of Centennial, is highly floral, offering a heady mix of rose and honeysuckle. Despite oats in the grist it's a little thin, and unbalanced by the hops as a result. The opener is quite a harsh metallic bitterness with added dandelion and spinach. That takes a moment or two to fade before the perfume makes a comeback, this time more fruit chews than actual flowers. It's that lemony Skittles-and-Starburst which forms the aftertaste. Better than spinach, I guess. More than anything this resembles the drier and paler sort of northern English bitter, with some mild American overtones. It took me most of the can to get used to it but I was quite enjoying it by the end. A session on this would be an invigorating affair.

Another 3.8%-er, though quite different, to finish. Blurry Furry is a blueberry-flavoured "Berliner weisse". There's a little of the blueberry syrup in its aroma but not much else, and the flavour too is quite muted. Perhaps I should be glad it's not a roaring mass of cloying sugar. Instead it's light and smooth, with no more tartness than a Haribo jelly while the fruit side is a cherry-sherbet tang rather than full-on jam. I like blueberries but this didn't really taste like them; processed cherry and raspberry is more the mood. It's easy drinking, though I think could have done with a deal more fizz to make it properly refreshing and closer to real Berliner weisse.

Each of these had something interesting or fun going on, even if they weren't stone-cold stunners. Brú/Carrig's experience in the pub trade shows through here, creating accessible pinting beers even when they're being daring. Here's hoping they'll be enjoyed in pubs before long, but until then, the cans are good value.

Aldi beer that's fit to drink

The O'Shea's range at Aldi, brewed by Carlow Brewing, has been given a brand overhaul. Rather than pick out what's new or reformulated in the line-up I thought I'd just take all five and give them a going-over. No harm in refreshing my opinions almost a decade after I first introduced O'Shea's here.

The lager is now called To Helles & Back. Immediate plus points for the appearance here: a rich, almost amber, sunset gold. Shame the head doesn't last long, fizzing away to a thin froth shamefully quickly. Weedpatch noble hops present in the aroma and there's a decent density for only 4.4% ABV. Plenty of flavour too: cake and candy malt contrasting with sharp, slightly tinny hops. None of it is subtle so I don't think Helles is the best style designation for it -- pils would be more appropriate in my view. Sharing shelf space with both Spaten and Rheinbacher puts this in a tough position and I don't think I'd switch my preference from either. I like TH&B's moxy, though: it's bolder and louder than supermarket own-brand lager needs to be, so I absolutely wouldn't dismiss it.

Pale ales make up the bulk of the selection, of course, and we begin with Trick of the Light session IPA. No quibbles about head here: a tall stack of froth rises above the slightly hazy body. The aroma is fun: a sunny breeze of orange and lemon sherbet with a hint of something more serious and bitter behind it. Sadly, the flavour is less interesting. There's a little pithiness, and that sweetshop fruit zing hangs around in the finish, but nothing much in the middle. It's only 3.8% ABV so this shouldn't really be surprising, and what's there is good and enjoyable. I found myself wanting more, however. Nevertheless, this does fulfil the session IPA remit perfectly: a modest dose of hop fun in a beer you could drink several of in a row. Another qualified thumbs-up from me.

We're back to clarity with Pale New Dawn pale ale, promising "tropical and grapefruit flavours" from the limpid rose-gold liquid. Sherbet again in the aroma but this time more of a punch in the flavour. I had been harbouring hopes of a west-coast lime kick, and while it's along those lines it doesn't go the whole way, hampered by a mere 4.8% ABV. It is properly bitter however: dry on the palate, showing the invigorating mouth-watering effect that made American-style pale ales so popular in the first place. There's a little pine resin, a bite of crunchy fried onions, and then a mild soapy twang on the finish, the only feature I didn't like. This is OK but isn't quite the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone that I think they were pitching at. The previous one did more interesting things at a more modest strength so I don't see this as a trade up.

None of the labels tell us about the ingredients in these, but there's an intriguing clue in the name of the IPA: Summit To Say. Mind you, the soft melon and peach tastes more like Mosaic than Summit to me, but I'll take it. There's plenty of bitterness too, delivering a pithy punch of grapefruit. The two sides are complementary and make for something quite enjoyable: a fruit salad up front with a pithy kick on the end. The aroma isn't up to much -- peach nectar and a waft of marker pens -- but no matter. It's clean, nuanced and fresh-tasting. This is the strongest of the sequence at 5% ABV but it rocks the punchy complexity of something a fair bit stronger. Our hop parade is over, and I think the session IPA impressed me most, but this is a close second.

A stout to finish, and very much in the O'Hara's wheelhouse. Good things are expected. Cold Dark Heart is the ominous name, 4.5% the ABV. And it's bang on. There's a cocoa seam running all the way through it, passing burnt toast, Turkish delight and light-roast coffee on the way. On the one hand it's a boringly solid Irish stout, but on  the other, nobody makes new ones of these any more so having even a re-labelled one passing my way was downright thrilling. The texture is perfectly full, no wateriness, and nothing that flags it as a cheapie. There are no high notes; no distinguishing features; nothing, as they say, to write home about, but it's thoroughly enjoyable and more satisfying than any amount of American hop twiddling.

American hop twiddling is what you get from the next pair. Both are released under Aldi's The Hop Foundry label, and while the beer is clear, the provenance is not. I've seen Brains and Hogsback both referenced as possible parents. Let me know if you have the definitive answer.

Hop 'Til You Drop is a 4% ABV "triple hopped pale ale" made with Citra, Summit and Galena. In the glass it's a lager-yellow colour. "Triple hopped" is one of those nonsense marketing terms which should be a bit of a red flag, yet I still naively expect such beers to have a decent hop aroma. They never do, and this is no exception; just a vague cap-gun smoke chemical spice. It's dry, though thankfully not thin, and the hops are present but muted, tasting a little overcooked and certainly not fresh and zingy. There's an overall marmalade effect which puts this much more in the British Bitter category than anything American. It's OK for a cheapie but talks a much bigger game than it delivers. No, I'm not surprised.

We may as well crack on with its stablemate The Hop Stepper, which I was secretly hoping would taste of baa, na na na naaa, na na na naaa, na na na, na na na. It doesn't. It's darker: the amber colour of strong tea, with a tannic aroma to match. First Gold, Summit and Chinook are the hops to look out for so there is some English pedigree. The flavour is rather dull, however, with the biscuits-and-sick bittersweet styling of poor brown bitter. OK, that sounds worse than it is. Mostly this is just heavy and dull, and whoever put "hop forward pale ale" as the description on the can had never tasted the beer, or possibly even hops. If you're hankering after this sort of very basic bitter perhaps you could find a place for it, otherwise don't bother.

Finally for today, another one of those amusing off-brand takes on "premium" lagers that Aldi provides purely, I imagine, for my own amusement. I hope the label designers have fun with them. Moretti is the target this time, Aldi's take being Birra Mapelli. Like the other lager above, it looks the part: golden with a fluffy head, exactly like it belongs on a sun-kissed Italian terrazzo. Its ABV is modest at 4.6%. There's an alluring noble-hop greenness in the aroma while the flavour opens on a dry crunch of pale malt. There's a very slight hop tang behind this, more tinny than vegetal, bringing a modicum of balance. It's still sweet and malt-forward, though, and very much best quaffed cold. A syrupy side wasn't long emerging. Like their Peroni knock-off, this one is better than the real thing. Don't expect fireworks, but if your summer trip to Italy is going to be a virtual one you could do a lot worse than a few of these.

Carlow has the upper hand among this lot. Don't be fooled by the fancy-dan 440ml cans and their backwards-baseball-cap artwork, nor the take-offs of popular brands. Half-litre bottles of Irish is where the real hop action is at Aldi.

Three, two, one

The new releases from the Third Barrel family have been steady and regular lately. This post took a while to build, with me thinking several times it's finished until I had yet another beer to add.

I'm starting today at Third Circle, and a session IPA called No Drama, with El Dorado as the headlining hop. This is 4.8% ABV, a pale gold colour and slightly hazy. The aroma is subtly fruity, showing traces of mango and lychee, but not a frontal assault of them, more's the pity. Similarly in the flavour, the tropicals are an aftertaste and an afterthought. Up front there's quite a savoury, caraway-seed bite. This becomes less pronounced as the beer warms in the sun, though the fruit becomes more cordial than juice when that happens. Overall it's OK -- "sessionable" doesn't mean "thin" here, but it does mean somewhat muted flavours. After Third Circle's recent cherimoya sensation, I was hoping for something more intense.

After that came a dry-hopped saison called Unsocial Creatures. The can declines to tell us what it's dry hopped with, but does say it's just 4.4% ABV. It's a little on the pale side, a hazy light shade of orange. The aroma is a mix of citrus fruit and sour candy. It's light, as expected, with a palate-scrubbing fizz. The native fruity side of saison is foremost; a mix of Golden Delicious apples and ripe apricot with a kick of white pepper. The hops offer a counter-melody to this: sharper lime rind and bathroom-cabinet bergamot. It's extremely refreshing without being bland; complex but not busy. Saison tends not to be a style I'm willing to drink several of in succession but I could enjoy a few of these. You should too.

I then discovered, to my surprise, that I'd never tried Third Circle's current flagship, Third Circle Pale Ale. Remedy was swift, and I found a clear golden beer with lots of froth on top. It's lightly tangy, mixing grapefruit zest with a floral perfume. This is balanced against a very old-fashioned crystal malt caramel effect. There's a touch of English bitter in the drily tannic finish. This is very straightforward fare, and at 4.8% ABV quite easy going. I think, however, it would be better suited to pints, possibly even cask, than small cans. It's a beer for thirst-quenching and refreshment more than considered analysis.

To Stone Barrel next, and a 440ml can of Curve Ball, a "tart Simcoe pale" coming in at 5.2% ABV. Pale and hazy again, this time the fog is denser than any of the above, without going for full opacity. Hoppiness wins over tartness here; a powerful lime bite being the centrepiece of the flavour, almost at Margarita-level. The sour element is so complementary to this it almost gets lost, blending in seamlessly with the citric acidity. There is just an extra waxy twang on the end that stands out as its own thing, adding a certain lambic-like quality to the whole picture. I liked this. Part of me craved a more assertive sourness, and I think the hops could have withstood that, but I also enjoyed what's there: a classic American hop profile on a clean base with no distractions. This a a straight-talking sort of pale ale.

The other recent Stone Barrel release for today is Short Change, which re-purposes the artwork and ABV (2.8%) of last year's Slammer. It looks similar too: a milky, murky orange. The hops are different, though, swapping Enigma and Hallertau Blanc for Citra and Idaho 7. I enjoyed Slammer; this not so much. It's very dreggy with bags of dry, chalky, savoury flavour, catching the throat particularly in the finish. In front of that there's a sugary, jammy, fruit tart sort of flavour, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the side. As an easy session beer it doesn't really work; the lightness from the low strength is undone by the rough rasp of proteins and yeast that should have been taken out. Short Change? Yes, actually.

Finally, Third Barrel joins the party with just one new beer, a big double IPA called These Four Walls, brewed with Citra and Mosaic hash. It's a medium hazy yellow shade and smells beautifully tropical: mango and honeydew melon with a cheeky twist of black pepper. The flavour is pleasingly clean and that spice is unexpectedly to the fore: a little bit rye grass, a little bit nutmeg. Citra's lime-rind bitterness is the next thing I noticed, then a softer Mosaic peach and apricot thing. The finish is dry and just a little hot. Despite the murk there's a lot of the west coast about this. I think it's the dryness that does it, though there's a definite resinous dank as well. It's a class act all round. Balance often isn't part of the IPA spec but I do appreciate it when I find it.

Despite all six being pale and hop-forward, there's a decent level of variety amongst this lot. The tart pale ale is the one I'd like to see more riffs on; it's an underused combination of flavours and one which is particularly welcome this time of year.

Brewing the Dew

The beers from the house brewery at The Dew Drop Inn in Kill, Co. Kildare came slowly. They first appeared back in the spring of 2016, brewed then at Kill's original brewery Trouble. There were subsequent festival appearances for the Brewing Dew brand while the standalone brewery was being established. I'm sure the primary aim was to supply the small chain of pubs (The Dew Drop, Harte's of Kildare and Ashton's in Dublin) but circumstances have meant canning has been necessary. So here they are: the first three releases.

In a pleasing continuity, the very first beer they offered in 2016, an oatmeal pale ale called '96, is still here, although it's now called Ninety Six because we're spelling everything with letters. I found this assertively piney in its original iteration but it's calmer now, or maybe my palate has adjusted. There's a lot of very herbal dankness, though more spicy than bitter. I'd almost swear there's rye in the grain bill but there isn't. At just 4.8% ABV it lands a heavier punch than many a stronger beer. The hop freshness and the resinous intensity add up to something highly enjoyable, in the very counter-cultural west coast way.

The other two are both lagers, a start-up decision which is -- ha ha -- quite refreshing. No Fury is first, a Helles, though a very light one at just 4.2% ABV. It looked a bit hazy in the glass and I stopped pouring before all the dregs went in. Helles shouldn't have dregs. The aroma is fresh and lemony, smelling cold and delicious on the warm afternoon when I drank it. That light citrus runs through the flavour as well, prefiguring the spongecake malt element, then complementing it. A mouthwatering grassy bite finishes it off. This is one of those non-German German-style beers that lacks stylistic precision but is still really enjoyable. It has the gentle sharpness of a pilsner allied with Helles's soft malt and a touch of the unfiltered roughness of kellerbier. I wonder did they decide to call it a Helles because it's just a more fashionable name at the moment. Regardless, this is an excellent and characterful quaffing lager.

Matters take a darker turn with Zither, a Vienna lager. The name is an oblique reference to The Third Man, in case you were wondering. It's quite a deep russet colour with a modicum of murk through it. The head is handsome at first but fades quickly. There's a rich bready aroma and a surprise burst of fruit in the flavour: I get summer berries in particular. That's followed by a dark-malt crispness and a gentle waft of salad-like noble hops. I think I was expecting it to be sweeter but while it's very much malt-forward it's also well balanced. The mouthfeel is excellent too: full like a Märzen at only 4.6% ABV. The colourful label suggests wacky craft while the beer inside is all calm and understated quality.

It's a promising start, and a special acknowledgement for opening on well-made well-established beer styles rather than trying to grab attention with anything silly. The brewery's roots in the pub trade may have something to do with that. Now, let's have a porter.

An experiment goes wrong

Larkin's popped out two single-hop IPAs a while back. I made the nerdy mistake of setting up a blind tasting to attempt to learn from them.

These things are often high drama, in my house anyway. This wasn't. The Larkin's Citra tasted unmistakably like a perfect expression of Citra: a herbal, funky, urinal-cake aroma leading on to lime shred and grapefruit juice. Zingy and resinous in equal measure; assertive yet friendly; I wished I'd just drank it instead of playing with it.

And the same, more-or-less, goes for Larkin's Mosaic: an aroma of spiced apricot then a smooth cantaloupe flavour backed by bitterer peach skin and a twist of white pepper. Comparison with Little Fawn is inevitable, and this is no Little Fawn -- it's bigger, and harder work, but still really good.

Both of these are superb showcases for their titular hops, pitched well in the middle at 5.5% ABV. Try to ignore the coldly technical names, and the urge to do experiments. They're built for enjoyment so do that, somewhere sunny.

Hope for some of us

The Hope Limited Edition series dropped another brace of cans recently, the first being No. 19: American Pale Ale. The USP here is that it's a collaboration with BrewDog's Dublin brewery, which as far as I know never got round to releasing any beer of its own in the few short months it traded.

Blue can, 5.7% ABV, misty yellow pour. Is this Punk? The aroma is a mix of tropical fruit and dank -- this IS Punk --- but the flavour is drier and more mineral-like. There's no sign of that initial fruitiness, replaced by chalk and grass; bitter to the core. It's a little unbalanced that way, rough and enamel-stripping, with a hard, Germanic, herbal bite on the end. Chinook, Citra and Centennial says the label: no Cascade, but this shows an earthiness I associate with that hop. I'm still thinking of Punk, but more the 2007 6% ABV Jaipur clone than the current iteration. Aaanyway, comparisons aside, this is a hard and pointy IPA of the sort nobody makes any more. Maybe you hanker after this kind of thing; I found it quite tough going now as much as I did a decade ago.

Meanwhile, as a two-finger salute to the anal-retentives out there, 19 in the sequence is followed by No. 1516: Unfiltered Lager. It's a nod to the Reinheitsgebot, of course, and the second unfiltered lager in the series, following no. 2. While that one was a burst of summer sunshine, this is darker and more serious. It looks awful, a muddy orange with little head. The carbonation is low, as is the aroma; only a medium-sweet syrup smell. That all gels together better on tasting when the hops kick in. It's still a bit flat and there's a burnt sugar aftertaste, but before that a buzz of spicy noble hops, bringing white pepper and rocket special effects. It's a kellerbier, then. Fresh, and a little unrefined, but with a raw and rustic charm. I could imagine drinking this in a German basement brewpub and that's something I could really use about now.

Finally, Hope's seasonal beer guy is back for Summer 2020, staying socially distanced on the beach. "An old-school American pale ale" says the can, and also "4.9% ABV", which doesn't sound like any American IPA I remember. It's also hazy and yellow. Lads, if you mean "bitter", just say "bitter". Chinook, Citra and Centennial are your hosts once again, this time bringing you a surprising amount of dank resins, building in intensity to a full-on grass and wax finish. OK now I get the "old-school" bit: there's earthy pine in a very Sierra Nevada way, and an oily jaffa-skin bite too. That said, the modern haze brings a softer side, with tropical mango, smoothie vanilla and maybe even a brush of garlic. Far from a relaxing summer sessioner, it's a beer I ended up arguing with myself over. My conclusion is that it's a modern hazy pale ale with the bitterness ramped up and as such doesn't really work. It ends up jarring and awkward. Where American-style IPA is concerned you need to pick a side: clear, amber and grapefruity or the soft yellow tropical dessert. There is no in-between.

That blip aside, I'm pleased to see special editions with no silly twists or weird ingredients. Hope might present as quirky and playful but I'm very glad that there's reliable brewing talent at the tiller, steering a course away from daft recipes. For now.

Midsummer mixtape

Round-up time! Here's a small sample of what the Irish breweries have been throwing my way lately.

There's another classically quirky Kinnegar can label on DL - Donegal Lager. The description is short on technicals, just that it's "light, refreshing and crushable" -- the sort of thing you might put on tap in the pub in happier times. It's a pure and bright golden colour and keeps its head well. Sweet golden syrup is the centre of the flavour, with just a mild lacing of Saaz-y green herb. If I had to label it with a lager sub-style I'd go with Czech světlý ležák: it has that balance of smoothness and hop bitters at a very reasonable 4.5% ABV, drinking more like 12° despite being closer to 10° in gravity. If such nit-picking doesn't interest you, all you need to know is that this is a clean, crisp and well-made lager with all the essential qualities though lacking a little in distinctive features. Independent Irish breweries tend not to package beers like this because the industrials have the market sewn up between them. It's good to see one of them taking on the challenge, and if easy-drinking lager is your thing, buy this one.

Shaka canned is next, an east coast pale ale from Lough Gill. Amarillo and Azacca, says the label, for "tropical aromas and an orange citrus flavour". I will give it the first part, though the tropicality is definitely more from the candy aisle than fresh produce: Skittles and bubblegum, not actual fruit. I expected a burst of flavour to follow from this but it turned out very plain, offering a buzz of mineral fizz with very little hop or malt character behind. Eventually a little of that candy emerges, but only enough to make it taste like an off-brand tropical fruit soft drink. "Lalt". When the half-hearted sweetness subsides, a dreggy savoury yeast aftertaste remains. Yes it's only 4.6% ABV but there should be enough room in that to make a decent fist of a fruity pale ale. This has a fun and intriguing aroma but somehow completely fails to deliver in the flavour afterwards.

Usually one of the country's busiest breweries, O Brother had been worryingly quiet during The Unpleasantness. They came back with a new hazy yellow American IPA, because apparently they're quite popular these days. On Reflection is the name; 6.4% the ABV. It's the colour of a beaten egg, with a meringue of foam on top. Booze is first in the flavour, then a kind of concentrated oily orange, the combination like neat triple sec. Notorious fruit-bomb hops Azacca and El Dorado have been used, and I guess that their usual cheery Starburst effect has been amped up to something sticky lurking at the back of the cocktail cabinet. Maybe it's because there's an echo of Terry's Chocolate Orange in all this, but I get a not-unpleasant note of dark chocolate and coffee too. A slightly harsh medicinal factor creeps in late, before a gritty dry finish. It's quite a workout, and very unusual, but enjoyable with it. A lot is packed in here. Think of it as a session double IPA.

Keeping it hazy but retreating to a 5% ABV pale ale is Hopfully and Indoor Yoga, continuing with Metalman as their host brewery. It's very hazy indeed, so points off, or in favour, depending on your preference. No arguing with that aroma, full of mandarin and mango, a brush of garlic and heavier alcohol than I'd have expected. Juice to the fore on tasting, real fresh-squeezed OJ, before it turns lighter and spritzier, like a soluble vitamin C tablet. There's a small kick of grit and a faint savoury scallion quality, but really this is genuine juice through and through. There's even a balancing citrus bitterness in the finish, a more refreshing conclusion than the big bag of vanilla you get more often. The texture is weighty and satisfying, without it turning overly thick. This is really nicely done: an excellent balance between mouthwatering tang and creamy roundness. Accessible, yet special. It would be well worth their while making this a core beer.

Kildare Brewing did a re-up of their charity IPA Lock Down, called Lock Down Extended. This time I made no contribution to the good cause as the brewery kindly sent me samples for free. The ABV is down slightly to 5.8% from 6.3% and it's still a hazy and juicy job. The aroma is much better this time, bringing a real tropical power play: concentrated passionfruit and pineapple. That echoes in the finish too, which is nice, but there's something wrong in the middle. It's a twang, subtle at first but but becoming more prominent as the beer warms. Burnt rubber, lemon washing-up liquid and some damp cardboard. It runs across the palate quickly and then it's back to happy fruit, but something has gone awry in the technicals here, I think.

Trouble, too, has taken the hazy route with its new micro IPA Love Below. It's only 2.6% ABV and uses wheat, rye and oats, presumably to bulk up the body. And it works quite well: there's no unpleasant thinness here. There's not much of an aroma, just a slight citrus buzz. The flavour is quite sweet: ripe peach and tangerine. Its bitter side arrives late, bringing quite a harsh tang, like aspirin. That doesn't last long and the whole thing finishes up quickly. For a very low-strength beer it does a great job, tasting convincingly like a proper pale ale, if not a very exciting one. That aspirin harshness spoiled my enjoyment a little, but it's otherwise decent.

Clancy's Cans is the new limited edition series from Ballykilcavan, beginning with Raspberry Vice. Despite the informal naming convention around the v-word, and the use of raspberries, it is not in the Berliner weisse style, but an "American raspberry wheat beer". The colour is striking: the pinkish-grey hue of real summer fruit in a blender. The aroma is mostly sweet, though with a tart edge as well: again, very real. The flavour less so. "Jammy" says the can, and it is, but more the jelly-like candy jam in a Jammy Dodger than actual jam jam. From that first impression it gets bitterer; a mix of the tart fruit and an unusually assertive hop bitterness. It might have turned out harsh were it not for the texture: a soft and mellow pillowy effect making great use of that wheat. Overall it's a bit silly, a bit novelty-driven, but that's perfectly fair, especially when there's nothing really like it on the market at the moment. Porterhouse goers who enjoyed the occasional pint of Früli will likely welcome this.

Meanwhile Rye River rebooted its own limited series with Intergalactic Yuzu, a fruited gose brewed in (remote) collaboration with Yeastie Boys. Although yuzu is the title fruit, there's also lime, lemon, mandarin, and something called sudachi which I'm certain they made up as a joke. It's a light 3.9% ABV and a pale orange colour with just a slight misting of haze. A gentle mineral tartness is the opening gambit, followed by the citrus where of course lime is dominant. There's the concentrated lime oil of a cordial as well as spritzier juice. The blurb suggests a margarita but it's too sweet for that; more like the fresh squeeze of a wedge in a gin and tonic. That sweetness does start to cloy a little as it warms in the sun. I found myself craving the cool tartness more and more as it went. It's a decent sort, all-in-all, though doesn't quite deliver on its highly-involved premise.

Galway Bay also talks a big game on this new one, Oregon Grown: all about going to the Pacific North West and selecting only the finest, like an actor in an instant coffee ad, then adding the hand-picked cones every ten minutes for the duration of brewing. What we've got is a pale and hazy IPA of 6.6% ABV brewed with Idaho 7, El Dorado and Strata. It smells dank and weedy, but there's also the pissy tinge of beer left on hops too long. It's a thick beast, with a concentrated tropical effect, like a mango and apricot cordial, the sort of taste you usually find congealed on the neck of a brightly-coloured cocktail syrup bottle. Maybe it's because it tastes like cocktail cordial, but it's hot as well, tasting like an 8%+ double IPA. The finish brings the grassy piss thing back, just when you think you're done. This will have its fans, and I respect the effort that went into it, but it tastes over-egged to me: too much, too hard and completely lacking in balance. Those of a sensitive disposition should approach with caution; hop bros who think Oranmore should be more like Orange County, this is your moment.

Possibly the strangest offering in today's line-up is YellowBelly's Mad Hatters Tea Party, purporting to be an IPA with matcha green tea and lactose. It pours a pale and hazy orange-yellow colour and smells a little of sticky candy. The flavour expands on that, offering a lurid tropical wonderland of brightly-coloured sweets: Skittles were my first thought, but there's Starburst and lemon drops in here too. Yes it's sweet -- thanks a bunch, lactose -- but it's not overdone. Furthermore, I think the hops are making a real contribution, like in a proper IPA. Kazbek I'm not familiar with, but Hüll Melon's signature juicy grape is definitely making a contribution here. Not much sign of the tea, mind, maybe just a leafy papery effect on the end, but I'm quite prepared to believe I imagined that. My preference would be for something drier, maybe ditching the lactose, but on balance I regard this as one of those crazy experiments that actually worked.

Not an experiment but a new addition to YellowBelly's core range is Pirate Bay session IPA. I shouldn't have read the hops in advance -- Centennial, Hallertau Blanc, El Dorado and Idaho 7 -- because I spent too much of my time drinking it trying to pick them out. There's a solid, classic American citrus base, so that'll be the Centennial. And then a big fruit-candy chew thing which says El Dorado to me. The sweetness dominates the whole picture, coupled with a heavy texture, bigger than I'd expect for 4.5% ABV, to the point where I question the beer's sessionability. Murk plays a role too, from the distressing grey colour, to a rough grittiness in the mouthfeel, to a meaty umami taste behind the fruit. Overall I'm not a fan. The limes and oranges are promising but they need a vigorous polishing up.

The blurb on Lineman's Vesper is a little confusing: "tropical and citrus". Well which is it? Sweet or bitter; east-coast or west-coast; fashionable or good? It's a pale ale of 5.4% ABV, mostly quite clear and the golden orange colour of sunsets and tartrazine. The aroma is juicy: mandarin and pineapple. The citrus comes in early in the flavour: a gentle spritz of fresh lemon and grapefruit. When that fades there's a softer jaffa and honeydew melon, and a little candy chew, on a crumbly biscuit base. It's nicely balanced -- accessible but complex too -- and thoroughly clean and precise. Just the sort of perfectly-honed understated excellence that has become Lineman's signature.

That was followed a few weeks later by a dark lager called Undertone. It's a deep amber colour and quite murky with it. The aroma is beautifully rich and sweet, all fresh-baked cookies and old-style candystore. The latter is down to a liquorice quality that forms the centre of the flavour. Around this are crisp and slightly roasty dark malts -- rye bread and fruitcake. I noticed it poured quite thickly and there's certainly a big mouthfeel, especially at just 4.2% ABV. Still, it's a lager through and through, refreshing and sinkable with a quick clean finish. I'm not usually a fan of these medium-dark amber lagers but there's enough going on in this one to hold my interest.

Wicklow Wolf's dismissal of the daft rule that stouts don't belong in summer gives us a big finish. Imperial Four Bean Apex is a variant of their excellent Apex oatmeal stout, with the ABV raised to 9.5% ABV and the inclusion of vanilla, cocoa, coffee and tonka. Tonka beans don't mess about, and unsurprisingly they're the main feature in this concoction, beginning with an aroma of mince pies. That Christmassy cinnamon saturates the flavour, with the roasted coffee being the only other bean effect I could pick out. And the stout beneath? Forget about it, it's tonka town. This is quite an enjoyable beer, smooth and easy drinking despite the strength. But considering all the convolutions of the recipe it's just not very complex: an example of the one-good-dimension genre. A square of dark chocolate alongside helped round it out. If you're a tonka fan, or just tonka-curious, this is where you apply.

After a fairly sedate couple of months, the Irish breweries have really sprung to life in a big way. I've developed quite a backlog of reviews so I'll be picking up the pace for the next while. Stand by...

Divide by three

I experienced the mild disappointment of "aww, I've already had it" when I set about writing a review of this can of Great Divide Denver Pale Ale. It showed up previously in this post back in 2011. But! Further research indicates that they changed the recipe in 2016 so I think it's fair game to call it a new beer.

The original tasted of honey, biscuits and fresh fruit, according to me. The new one doesn't. There's a lot of candy in both the aroma and taste: chew sweets, and Refreshers in particular. Throw in some frangipane spongecake as well. Despite this, the texture is light and crisp, feeling less than its 5% ABV and with a pleasingly sharp bite of classic American-hop grapefruit. It's contrast more than balance, but it still works. The can was over six months old by the time I opened it, and it retained an impressive amount of freshness. This is a fun beer, packed with flavour yet accessible and sessionable. Can't say fairer than.

The next one is a bit of a comedy of errors. Hop Disciples is an IPA of 6.2% ABV, part of a "rotating hop project" "featuring a different hop variety every year". Nowhere on the can does it say which hop is actually featuring. *shrug*. The point may be moot, however. I knew this had been in my fridge a while, but not indecently long. However, I may have purchased an antique when I bought it in Stephen Street News as it had clocked up fourteen months in the can by the time I opened it. Ooops. Fermentation may have been chuntering on during that as I got a lot of foam when I poured it. The body is a dark and hazy orange. There's a vague aroma of nondescript diluted citrus drink. The flavour is still good, though. A big malt base stands it in good stead: orange jelly and apricot jam come to mind. Any airier hop high-notes have departed but there's a fun clove or nutmeg spicing. I feared a harsh bitterness but that's not present and it remains balanced. This is no longer an American hop explosion, if ever it was, but it's not too far from a pale English or Belgian strong ale, and as such still very decent drinking.

Sticking with IPA but bringing the ABV up to 8% we have Hopnaut, described in a suspiciously on-trend way as a "double juicy IPA". Let's see about that. It's funny how "juicy" has led to an expectation of haze, even though it doesn't imply that and there's barely any here. The aroma is passably juicy, however, if shading a little to sticky boiled sweets. It definitely doesn't taste like a modern hazeboi: there's real old-fashioned crystal malt sweetness, with a generous squeeze of contrasting lime citrus and a balancing tannic dryness. This is how I remember American double IPAs tasting, back when I first started tasting them. And because my tastes have changed, if not necessarily in the direction of beer fashion, I really quite like it. There's a sizeable booze quotient too, as well as a thick texture, which together make this one to sip and savour. It's not easy going and I'm sure it isn't meant to be. I'm all on board for sneaking ballsy C-hop bitterness into the diet of juice-bomb aficionados, and while I enjoyed that practical joke, I enjoyed drinking this beer even more. Big hops as your grandpappy drank them, in 2008.

Some solid work by Great Divide here, and a nice demolition of the notion that hoppy beer has to be brewery-fresh to be worth drinking.

Fruity little number

A familiar and reputable brand, a beer I'd never had before, and cheap: the tumblers fell into place as I picked this bottle of Rodenbach Fruitage off the shelf at Fresh in Smithfield. Mind you, I didn't think the 3.9% ABV non-specified fruit arrangement in a 25cl bottle would be any good. These rarely are, though must go a bomb in Belgium as lots of otherwise-respectable sour beer breweries make them.

It looked classy, at least: a deep ruby red. The aroma is pure candy, all cherry lips and raspberry chews. Tastewise it's more like a soft drink than a sticky sweet. There's lots of fizz, reminding me of highly carbonated cherryade from my childhood, a substance that doubtless involved no real cherries. This does, I'm sure, and after the initial sugar-and-fizz hit there's an air of cyanide bitterness in the background.

If the sweetness doesn't put you straight off, this is quite enjoyable. It's a long way from plain Rodenbach -- still the best beer in the portfolio -- and it's not completely ruined by the enhancements in the way that too many Rodenbach variants are. There's a little complexity here, and by not being a total tooth-rotting nerve-jangler it gets a pass from me.

Noli temere

A few cans from the Heaney Farmhouse Brewery have leaked down to the south in recent weeks. My only previous experience with the Bellaghy brewer was a positive one, back in November, on draught. Surely the cans would be nothing to be afraid of. When I took them from the fridge I was surprised and pleased to discover that two of the three were dark styles. That hardly ever happens.

Let's get the IPA out of the way first. Digital Leash isn't a very farmhouse name, and IPA dry-hopped with Galaxy and Amarillo not a typically farmhouse product, but howanever. It's 6% ABV, a sunny yellow colour with lots of haze and has the soft texture of the New England style. The flavour is something else though. In place of vanilla or garlic there's a strong citrus pith, a rasp of chalky dryness and some sharp dregs on the finish. The aroma is funky, sweaty and maybe a little cheesy too. It all takes a bit of getting used to but adds up to something much better than the sum of its parts. The other features are a mere sideshow to those pithy hops, and the assertive hit of lemon and bergamot is invigorating and refreshing. This is a beer best enjoyed on the superficial level, without going into too much detail on what makes it tick, as I've just done.

Porter next, one called Long Shadows, brewed as a winter special last year. From the pour I would nearly swear it's nitrogenated: no bubbles at first, then a rush of them towards the end, forming a thick tan-coloured pillow. The beer beneath is ruby-garnet rather than black. The aroma is a mix of dark chocolate and soot. I think we're going old-school here. The flavour is sweeter, however. In the middle there's cocoa and cookies with a little floral rosewater. This is flanked by bitterness: the dark chocolate going in, and an English hop bitterness on the finish, bringing green veg and zinc. Again, this beer works best outside of the analysis. It's just a good sinking porter, satisfyingly chewy at 6% ABV and well balanced by being restrained on the sweetness while just bitter enough. It may have been brewed for winter nights but worked great on a sunny summery afternoon outside.

To conclude, then: I Can See The Stars, an imperial stout in collaboration with Boundary. They offer 11% ABV and a four hour boil to claim the proper credentials here. A nip bottle might have been more appropriate than a 440ml can. It's very thick, something immediately obvious from the pour. A head the waxen yellow of corpse flesh swells up as it pours. The aroma is thick and sugary, curling up from what smells like a pit of molasses and treacle. The mouthfeel bears that out: very unctuous indeed. Sugar isn't to the fore in the taste. I get a meaty umami first and then it turns sweet -- an olde worlde candy store of clove rock, humbugs and liquorice sticks with a coating of melty milk chocolate. There's a bitter tang on the finish, but I wanted more of that. It's just a little too sweet and sticky for me. I'll be basic and suggest that some time ageing in spirit barrels might be good for this, but really I'd just prefer it dried out a little.

Beer of the set is definitely that porter, but for a new brewery Heaney really has its game together: I detected no technical flaws in any of this. That farmhouse is one tight ship.

Surprise Vocation

My little local Tesco serves me well for the basics. Emergency Manislav and 4-for-€10 Leann Folláin and I consider my needs met. It was very surprising, then, to find a couple of high-end Yorkshire IPAs warming themselves on the ambient shelves, both canned less than a month previous. It wasn't beer shopping, it was a rescue mission.

First up, a splash of summer colour on a collaboration can between Vocation and Marble. Hop, Skip & Juice "hazy pale ale" nails its style credentials to the mast. If you don't get full New England vibes from this you deserve a refund, is the implication. It looks correct: the lemon-curd yellow of such beers, regardless of their strength -- this one a modest 5.7% ABV. It smells of custard vanilla first, backed by a sharper mix of lime jelly and fresh garlic. Again, bang in the centre of those inexplicable style parameters. The flavour, let it be noted, is not a mess. It's certainly dessertish: that mix of sweetness and lemon giving it an overarching meringue pie effect, with the garlic entering the picture as a savoury twang on the end; a two-course meal in reverse. But it's light, undemanding and fluffily textured, with none of the unpleasant extreme aspects that beers like this show too often. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "juicy", though. There's too much fuzz on the tongue for that. I guess it's a supermarket take on New England pale ale, and if that means it's balanced and accessible then I will absolutely take that, and commend it to you.

The ABV goes up to 7.2% for Love & Hate, badged as a New England IPA and following Vocation's standard branding and binomial nomenclature. Still hazy yellow, though it does look denser and more opaque than the previous. Here the garlic dominates the aroma and there's a worrying heat in the nostrils too. Is this the style reverting to its usual naughty ways? Yes. Yes it it. A rub of raw garlic across the palate, a scorch of hard alcohol and then a spike of dreggy yeast bite in the finish. This is both extreme and entirely normal for modern IPA fashion, and I despair for anyone who considers this a good beer or somehow progress. I've had worse, for sure, but here's a deliberately poor and unfinished-tasting beer getting into Tesco Express, where innocent civilians might find it. Hopefully the €4.40 price tag will keep them away when Manislav, Leann Folláin and Francis' Big Bangin' IPA are all on the same shelf and better value in every sense. Not forgetting the Hop, Skip & Juice too. Let's pray that punters are drawn to the colourful can first.

Moaning about fashion aside, a shout-out to the Tesco operative who decided that my neighbourhood store was worthy of these. There's a certain optimism -- especially when commerce is so heavily emphasising The Essentials -- in taking a chance on high-risk beer trends. Throw us another couple of randomers and I'll sure as hell buy them.

Spaghetti lambic

Beershop Venezia is a sparsely stocked little boutique on a heavily trafficked street near the Rialto bridge in Venice. The wares are expensive and nothing really grabbed me from perusing the shelves. At the same time it would have felt wrong to leave empty-handed so I ended up dropping €15 on this half litre of Italian sour beer, Lambiclegni, by Birrificio Oldo.

Its claim to be "lambic style" is what intrigued me. How faithful to the uniquely Belgian brewing vernacular would it be, assuming that the method of spontaneous fermentation and barrel-ageing was followed? The first impression was: not very. It poured out almost completely flat, looking like a still cider in the glass. The nose has a certain oaky spice, but muted, presumably because there's no fizz pushing it up. The cider comparisons continue in the flavour: it's smooth and tannic with a sour pinch but missing the nitre and saltpetre that, for me, is the key attribute of lambic. The flatness again makes it seem rather lifeless and there's also a slightly unpleasant gastric twang in the finish.

Following the method won't necessarily get you a lambic, then. I'm not a subscriber to the notion that the Senne valley has a unique biome which ensures lambic can only be brewed there. Really what we taste when we drink good lambic is the skill of the brewer, as much in the maturation and blending as in the production. That's what missing from this Italian attempt. That, and carbonation.

Rooski brewskis

Today's first beer is something of a Russian invasion of Germany: a "Helles Schankbier" from Carlsberg-owned Baltika in St. Petersburg, called Жигулевское (Zhigulyovskoye). I assume it's named after the majestic mountains rather than the boxy Soviet motorcar.

It's darker than one might expect from a Helles: a golden amber rather than yellow. The aroma is very pleasant: a fresh light meadowy quality, all authentic noble hops but done gently. I found the texture quite watery, causing me to check the strength. Russians aren't likely to be happy with the 4% ABV here; turns out schankbier was a legally mandated beer style in Germany until 1993, an equivalent to the sessionable Czech výčepní, I guess. This one further unravels on tasting. The hops are still noble but they take on a plasticky tang, finishing on a weird detergent or disinfectant note. It's not powerful enough to be actively unpleasant, but apart from the faux amis aroma this is quite a bland affair. Presumably there are Russians resident in Ireland who desperately miss this taste of the motherland. I can't imagine any other reason Polonez on Mary Street would stock it.

That did pique my interest in Russian beers (other than Baltika) available in Ireland. I was next in Polonez Rathmines where I picked up another few. Three Hills from Moscow Brewing caught my attention with its cutesy handled 450ml bottle. It's a pale ale of 4.9% ABV, a Lucozade-amber colour in the glass. The head retention isn't up to much. It smells a little sweet and grainy, being quite lager-like in that; bock in particular. The flavour is definitely an ale, however. It's full-bodied and sweet, with a considerable dose of crystal malt. The hops add a mere tang rather than real bitterness, and a certain candy-chew sweetness which is not currently in vogue but reminds me of American pale ales from a decade ago. It worked then and it still works now. The picture gets its finishing touch from a dry tannic quality, bringing in a certain English-bitter element and turning what might be quite a sticky beer into something more refreshing and drinkable. I don't know that I'd go running back to this, but I enjoyed the experience and will be looking out for what else comes in the adorable flask.

OK fine, I'm a sucker for weird bottles. Look at this leggy beauty. Mind you, I wish Moscow Brewing didn't make them from green glass as I got a waft of skunking when I popped the cap on Хамовники Венское (Chamovniki Vienna), a Vienna lager. It looks like Vienna lager as I understand the style: a clear golden-russet colour. But while it looks rich, and feels nicely rounded in the mouth, it's very bland to taste. I was looking for that lovely bread-and-biscuits malt characteristic, and while there's a certain amount of that here it's very muted. My bottle was fairly fresh too -- less than five months, which shouldn't cause much of a change in a beer like this. A dry crispness echoes in the finish, and a hint of celery-like noble hops. I did my best to find the good parts, but this misses the mark right in the centre where it counts. I shouldn't have to search for flavour in a Vienna lager. Give it a miss.

The final Moscow Brewing offering is a bit of a mystery. There's no non-Russian text at all on the label of Эль Мохнатый Шмель (Mochnaty Shmel ale) but I guessed it might be a honey beer. It's not though. Turns out the name means "Shaggy Bumblebee" and it's broadly an American-style pale ale, hopped with Citra and Cascade and 5% ABV. Still at least we're back in half-litre bottles made of brown glass.

Expectations of American hop features were dashed quite rapidly. There's no zing here, and virtually no bitterness. It tastes very similar to the Three Hills above, actually: the same sort of candy malt balanced by dry tannin. It's maybe a little more floral in the finish, enhancing the overall English effect. While fine, easy drinking and undemanding, I felt I had already had this beer today and didn't need another.

The most enjoyable part of all this was buying them in the first place: Polonez really helps scratch my itch for shopping in foreign supermarkets. Expect more random picks from points east soon.