Wistful drinking

With international travel off the cards for the next while, I've found myself buying beers from places I wish I could go. Today it's Barcelona, and two from Garage Beer.

The first is their contribution to the worldwide charitable project set up by Other Half in New York: All Together. It's an IPA at 6.5% ABV and a sunny hazy orange colour with lots of foam on top. The aroma is that of a citrus icepop; cool lemon and lime beats, though more sweet than bitter. It's very juicy to taste, a real fresh-squeezed OJ effect of the sort many IPAs promise but few deliver. That does get tempered by a little savoury garlic and a chalky dryness in the finish. Overall, though, it's very enjoyable, avoiding the hot, cloying and dreggy pitfalls that beset the style. If you've been confused by the haze craze, this is a beer to show what it's supposed to be about.

To follow that, with high hopes, the imperial stout Circus Tears, a whopper at 11% ABV. Maybe it's how I've been conditioned to mega-stouts lately but there's a bang of pastry off the aroma: black forest gateau, tiramisu and raspberry coulis all present to my nostrils. Looking it up, it's nothing more involved than pistachios and vanilla, that's all. And yes, it's very sweet on the palate -- clove rock is the first impression, then a shot of espresso and some soft chewy toffee. The texture is thick but it's not hot, and definitely not difficult to drink. It finishes clean with just a smear of chocolate residue, and then the clove kicks in again down below, warming the throat and stomach like a linctus. It's probably much better suited as a winter beer but I still enjoyed it late on a summer's evening. Not sure that would still be true if I'd attempted a whole can by myself, however.

Two quality beers here, no question. I preferred the New England IPA to the imperial stout, which is an odd thing for me to say. I guess one of the two styles presented here had a lower bar to clear.

Wild about something

Two beers from De Brabandere today, their Brewmaster's Selection. As with their Petrus series, there's a feel of something primarily made for the export market.

Wild Tripel Hop is first up. The lengthy description tells us this is "an audacious combination of craftsmanship and experience" and that it's based on Petrus Tripel, hopped with Amarillo and Cascade, and infused with something sour from the brewery's foeders. It all sounds a bit involved. Something had to give and unfortunately it's the hops. This does taste like a tripel -- apricots and alcohol -- and there's a sour tang too, a bit of a brash one and slightly vinegary. A peppery spice on top adds an additional complexity. Overall though it's a lot less audacious than it claims. Messing around with this tripel adds nothing positive.

So I was a bit apprehensive coming to Wild Quadrupel. At least there's no silliness with hops this time, though it is a quadrupel with sour beer blended in. That can't have watered it down very much because it retains a stonking ABV of 10.5%. Mind you, it says on the label that a full 25% of it is foederbeer but it's barely sour at all, showing just a tiny and modest little twang, no more than you'd get from a sour cherry. What's left? A lovely rich mix of milk chocolate, raisins and plum pudding. It's better than most quadrupels, hiding the alcohol well and coming across smooth and balanced. There's a dry roasted bite on the finish which is unusal but welcome. The roasted barley is "peeled" according to the label -- I don't know what that means, and it sounds labour-intensive, but it works. Start peeling your barley, breweries.

I guess it's good that experiments like this are happening. In this case, the lacklustre results of one were more than made up for in the excellence of the other.

Birra a casa

I had been impressed by the salty Cristalli di Sale lager from Heineken that I'd found on last summer's trip to northern Italy. When I saw the flagship of the same brand, Messina, on sale in Dublin I snapped it up to see if I could use it to recreate a sunny Italian afternoon. It didn't take long for the opportunity to present itself.

It looks beautiful in the glass: a rich dark gold, topped with a handsome pillar of pure white foam, the way beer looks in classic adverts. The mouthfeel is thick, much thicker than 4.7% ABV would suggest. With the density comes a heavy malt sweetness: a flavour full of treacle and cereal, with a little banana and only the faintest hop balance; a dry mineral bite rather than actual bitterness.

Did it work as a transport to another realm? Yes -- and as a reminder that other realms are chock full of bad lager. This one is too sweet and cloying to be properly refreshing. I can see myself drinking one on a sunlit terrazzo, but also vowing thereafter to never touch it again.

Beer as comedy

They had to be having a laugh at Northern Monk when they came up with these. Two beers in collaboration with frozen roasted side-order brand, Aunt Bessie's, claiming to recreate the effect of a Sunday roast's main course and dessert.

The first is called Sunday Dinner, described as a "roast dinner brown ale", and includes roast potato and Yorkshire pudding in the ingredients. That presumably explains the ugly lumps spotted through the murky appearance. It looks like someone's overdone the gravy on this dinner. It smells good, though: a very traditional burnt caramel and banoffee air. The flavour brings bittering liquorice and a touch of smoke to that sweet caramel base. At 5.7% ABV there's plenty of body and it could pass for more: the mouthfeel smooth and the carbonation low, almost like a barley wine. This is a very decent brown ale, though much too sweet to accompany, or replace, a roast. It would work better as dessert. I'm thinking with hot apple pie and some good vanilla ice cream.

Its companion piece gave me the proper fear. Jam Roly Poly: a pale ale brewed with plum, apricot, strawberry and custard. A pale ale! It's a pale and hazy orange colour, looking soft and New-Englandish with a loose topping of white foam. The aroma is sweet and perfumed, more candystore than jam, I thought. Sweet flavour: check. They've made good use of the plums here, as a succulent stonefruit was the first hit, followed by quite a fresh and real strawberry. I was worried that the sweet fruit would fight with the hopping, as often happens in fruited pale ales, but they have sensibly dialled the hops a long way down, and the only bitterness is supplied by the apricot -- entirely complementary with the rest of what's going on. This works, and is rather better and more integrated than the foregoing brown ale. I wouldn't call it a pale ale, but I'm not sure what it counts as, having more in common with a weissbier or Belgian fruit job than anything English or hop-driven. If the sweet and fluffy Belgian fare floats your sensory boat, this is one to take for a spin.

The gimmickry is all in the branding here. The beers themselves are both actually quite sensible, lacking the Wonka-factor I expected. That's probably for the best.

Home at last

"This beer has been brewed and canned at our brewery in To Øl City, Svinninge, Denmark." After years living the gypsy life, To Øl has found a home. And presumably enough venture capital to build an entire city. Bless. The first tranche of releases to arrive from there to here constituted six cans.

The sextet begins with 45 Days, an organic pilsner. That description will forever be associated for me with the mediocre Mill St. Organic, common in Canada. I hoped for better. Even next to a freshly-mown lawn this had a deliciously enticing grass aroma with a mild pale-malt sweetness beneath. The texture is nicely soft with just enough stimulating fizz to avoid turning gloopy. There are no silly craft twists here, no unbalancing surprises, just a steady mix of lemon-cookie malt spiced up in the end with that grass bitterness, finishing cleanly. 45 days isn't a huge amount of lagering time, but they've made good use of it. Though the body is a little hefty for proper pils crispness, it's still a very nice beer. Send a case or two to Mill St.

All the rest are pale ales, of course. First up, a micro IPA named A Little Goes A Long Way. It's modestly micro at 3.5% ABV, a bit stronger than others I've encountered. It looks unappetising: a muddy dun colour. The flavour is quite washed out -- mostly savoury dregs with a rub of garlic and horseradish. I suppose it's one way to compensate for a lack of body: fill the can with scrapings from the bottom of the tank, but it doesn't result in good beer. There's no brightness or cleanness or charm, here, and it doesn't compare at all favourably with the likes of Whiplash Northern Lights. I hoped for better things from what followed.

Session IPA follows: City at 4.5% ABV. It looks like a glass of pineapple juice, being the same hazy orange-yellow with a watery translucency around the edges. The aroma offers vague and half-hearted New England elements: a little vanilla, some citrus and a lacing of allium. None of that transforms into anything major in the flavour. There's a chalky dryness at its core, around it washed-out flavours of lemon curd, garlic oil and bergamot. I guess this is designed for people who want the New England features but in a smaller package, and I can't argue that it doesn't deliver that. It's not a great beer in its own right, however, and I would find a session on it cloying and difficult about half way down the second. Take this review as a recommendation or a warning, according to personal taste.

A straight pale ale is next, called House of Pale, and though the ABV is up to 5.5% it's another washed-out looking murky one, this time resembling coconut milk rather than pineapple juice. The aroma is better: no thick sweetness, just a mild spritz of juicy jaffa and satsuma. The flavour is quite plain -- orangeade for the most part, fizzy and simple, with a lacing of garlic on the finish. They have the audacity to use the word "crisp" on the front of the can and it is not crisp at all. The body is the usual fluffy fuzz you get from hazy pale ales, and the blurb goes on to say it's full bodied and juicy. You can't have it both ways, lads. I'm not 100% sure what this is meant to be. It doesn't have enough of the hazy-boi qualities to be dismissed as one of those, but it's definitely not a properly clean pale ale. Stylistic quibbles aside, this is another ropy one. Going into the final IPAs I'm apprehensive and already missing that pils.

Penultimately, the one I was expecting to be hazy: Whirl Domination, an IPA at 6.2% ABV. Sure enough it's typical emulsion, a bright shade of yellow. The aroma is all fresh fruit: a salad of mandarin, mango and apricot, with a spritz of lime and some softer lychee. Promising. The citric bitterness is foremost, tangy and mouthwatering, though it's followed by a less endearing dreggy earthiness. There's a trace of the juicy, fleshy fruit, but not much, and also a seam of savoury garlic. On the whole, though, it's pretty good, and much more enjoyable than the previous three. The extra alcohol and resulting extra body helps round and soften the whole picture, while the inevitable wonky traits are kept on a short leash. I complain about hazy IPA a lot, here's one that gets the formula more or less right. Hurrah!

So what happens when we go up to double IPA levels? There's something quite portentous about the name #01DIPA, like this is how the new brewery wants to be seen from now on. It's 8.5% ABV and hopped with Centennial and Ekuanot. Rye, oats and wheat all feature in the grain bill and more haziness is promised, and delivered. The pour lends itself to iceman, with virtually no head in the offing. A concentrated fruit juice -- pineapple, mango -- is the opener, followed by softer peach and lychee, then a harder dreggy bitterness. It's very jolly up to that last part. There's no heat, which is unusual given the strength. Garlic and vanilla also don't feature. I surprised myself by rather enjoying it, searching in vain for all the usual flaws I find in these. Quite a worthy flagship, all things considered.

There are signs here that To Øl does know how to brew beer when left to its own devices, and the only problem with what they've presented so far is one of fashion and the market. I will definitely be checking in with them again.

Here comes the sweeper

My five-week, 25-post focus on Irish beer comes to an end today with this bumper round-up of items I couldn't fit in anywhere else. The usual eclectic mix of beer from all over, including here, starts again on Monday. But first, the headlines:

Dublin has a new brewery. Dublin City Brewing had a long gestation, beginning as "Dublin Beer Factory" with the contract-brewed Dublin Blue Lager. When a banner went up to announce that their future premises on Parnell Street was under construction (opening Summer 2019) it was as Dublin Beer Factory. Now with the taproom doors set to actually open they've gone for a last-minute rebrand, as Dublin City Brewing Co.

A Parnellite influence sees Dublin Blue become Liberator Irish Lager and I was kindly gifted a preview can from friends in the trade. According to the can this was "brewed and bottled (sic) by Dublin City Brewing Co" rather than their former contractors in Dundalk. It looks well -- a spotless polished gold -- while the aroma is dry, crisp and enticing. The flavour is a little bit lacking, however, being quite sweet and a little estery. Hallertau Perle hops get a billing on the description but I couldn't taste any hop character at all. I would forgive it if it had the fluffy breadiness of a Helles, but this is only 4.2% ABV and quite thin. I'm sure it's all deliberate; that this is designed as a plain and unchallenging lager for the unadventurous visitor. To this lager-drinker it's a missed opportunity to do something more interesting. Following it we will get Parnell Porter, Renegade Red and Patriot Pale Ale. As a line-up that's very '90s-looking, but if they're well-made beers you won't be hearing any complaints about fashion from me.

Staying in Dublin, the second 2020 new release from Four Provinces is Fad Lae, a 4% ABV session IPA. It's pale and hazy, the colour of pear juice. The aroma is fresh and juicy but also dank, promising stonefruit and resins. From the first mouthful I was impressed by the body: full and rounded, moreso than many stronger pale ales. There's a balance in the flavour between sweet and peachy soft fruit against a harder, drier, grapefruit which lasts into the finish. On the downside, that bitterness melds with the gritty murk creating a certain off-putting harshness which the beer would be better without. All told, though, it's pretty good, bringing a lot of punchy complexity in a small package; big enough to satisfy yet light enough to be genuinely sessionable.

And they're not the only Dublin brewery with a new hazy sessioner. Stone Barrel's latest is called Small Joys and is just 3.5% ABV. I caught it as it went on tap in 57 The Headline last Wednesday. Its aroma mixes kid-friendly orange sherbet with a more adult herbal dankness. The texture is a little thin -- no surprise there really -- but it still manages to carry plenty of flavour. Lemon meringue pie filling is front and centre, leading to a white-pepper spice and finishing dry and chalky. That dryness, while shading towards the severe, does help the drinkability so once again sessionability is not an idle boast. For all of Stone Barrel's heavy metal branding, they perform well in this category of light-but-hoppy pale ales.

Hopfully travelled to Black Donkey to brew, of course, a saison. The result is Roam Free, quite a dark example, swampy looking with little head. But while it looks mucky, the aroma is clean, giving a gentle waft of ripe apricots and hay. I was thirsty when I came to it and found the prickly scrub of bubbles delightfully refreshing. The flavour is understated, mixing hints of banana, pepper and gunpowder. There's less fruit flavour than in a typical saison, but it makes up for that in crispness and spice. I really enjoyed it, finding just the thirst-crusher I needed. And getting a whole half-litre of beer at once feels like a decadent luxury in the era of the 440ml can.

A new England IPA in a half-litre bottle with a Comic Sans label is already not true to style, but I gave Brehon's Imagine the benefit of the doubt. It rewarded my optimism by foaming up mercilessly while pouring, settling to a dun-coloured glassful. The aroma is a happy mix of lemon sherbet and lime jelly and the texture is properly New-Englandy: soft and smooth, if a little busy with the fizz. It's strong too, at 6.2% ABV. In further contravention of the style parameters it's quite bitter, opening on a harsh marmalade shred. Fruit candy follows and balances this to some extent, though the edge stays all the way through. This is a little rough, and quite different from what NEIPA usually indicates. It's passable though.

Galway Hooker initiates a new series of limited editions with a New England IPA called Mango. It's a new departure for this brewery, which was doing west-coast on the west coast before "west coast" was a thing. Pale and hazy: check. I don't get much from the aroma, though, which isn't a good sign. The flavour also is really lacking. This is odd. It's like they thought "these things shouldn't have bitterness" and knowing hops = bitterness removed all the hop character completely. I turned to the can for an explanation. Not only is it supposed to be "bursting with tropical fruit flavours and juicy hops", but they've also used raw mango pulp in the recipe to put some tropicals on the tropicals. It hasn't worked. The resulting beer has a faint butane-like ester taste, the sort of thing you might find in the background of a weiss, but no hop flavour even when I try really really hard to find it. I'm wondering if they relied too much on those silly mangoes and skimped on hops, only to find mangoes mostly just ferment out. I'm on-board with the texture -- it's properly creamy -- and I can be super-charitable and say there genuinely aren't any off-flavours. There just aren't any on-flavours either, unfortunately.

Oranmore's other brewery, Galway Bay, released the second in its Lux series of fruited sour beers. Lux Peach follows its raspberry predecessor by being 5% ABV and taking on the colour of its titular fruit. There's a little jammy fruit in the aroma but the sourness is very much in charge of the flavour. It's clean and dry with a snappy tartness, though that's about all you get. A tiny note of farmyard is the only other complexity. I liked the simplicity and loved the absence of cloying sticky syrup. Seekers after novelty may be disappointed but seekers after refreshment definitely won't be.

Hope's latest limited edition is a Raspberry and Gooseberry Sour, 4.7% ABV, a deep cloudy red and headless. Raspberry + Gooseberry turns out to = Watermelon, it seems. This has that light yet tropical crisp fruit flavour, and even a sense of its fibrous texture. There's a tartness too, which may be from the souring yeast but adds an unmistakable fresh and real raspberry flavour. As a fruited sour beer of no specific sub-style it's rather good. Too many of this sort pile in the sweetness and thickness; this is light, sharp, brisk and refreshing -- if it were a cocktail it would be a Sea Breeze. It's not a classic beer but it's not a contrived artificial mess either.

More New England IPA? Sorry, you don't have a choice. YellowBelly is next, with Around the World in an 80's Haze, 6.9% ABV and brewed with Amarillo, Belma, Cascade and Meridian, the latter I don't think I've encountered before. It's another orangey-brown one but has a fresh and juicy aroma of mixed fruit. That fruit punch effect is central to the flavour, the strawberry overtones of Belma loud and clear. However, there are some slight unpleasantries circulating in there as well, including a harsh alcoholic heat, some earthy yeast dregs and a savoury note of sesame seed. I'll call it a draw. This is no classic of the style but works OK while avoiding all the major pitfalls.

Strata is one of the hops-of-the-moment but, as part of that, tends to get used in super-saturated double IPA monsters which end up making the hop's essential characteristics difficult to ascertain. Thankfully Larkin's single-hop series has our back, with the 5.5% ABV Larkin's Strata. Like the superb Mosaic and Citra ones before it, it's a hazy orange colour. The aroma is all bright and fresh mandarin, and that goes right through into the flavour: tangy tangerine beefed up with a squeeze of grapefruit zest and just a twist of black pepper. Now I know what Strata is and I approve. There's a beautiful, effortless smoothness here; a juiciness that's not overly sweet or pumped full of vanilla. For the third time in a row the Larkin's single hop series has produced near-perfection. I was very pleased to discover that it's going to keep running. Stand by for Idaho 7.

The latest offering from Carlow Brewing is a 7.2% ABV whopper called Tropical IPA. Tangerine, mango and papaya are all promised by the label, purely from the hops as no fruit additions are listed in the ingredients. It's a foamy beast, that huge candyfloss head well retained throughout proceedings, topping an opaque yellow-orange body. The light citrus of tangerine is present in the aroma, fair enough, but the flavour was a complete surprise. The fruit it tastes of primarily is tomato, a warm savoury quality, like soup or purée. There's maybe a hint of tropical fruit -- mango and pineapple -- in the finish, but also quite a harsh solvent burn. This is a bit all over the place and I found it hard to relax with.

Just when everything is looking irredeemably hazy, Brú steps forward with King Nelson, a single hop IPA created for Dublin off licence Craft Central. It's a deep orange colour and pretty much completely clear. Both sides of Nelson Sauvin's personality come through in the aroma: cool white grape and a harder diesel minerality. The flavour is big and blousey, starting on a bitter jolt with a slight rubbery harshness. It settles down quickly, however, fading out on notes of mango and passionfruit. Low carbonation and a heavy, almost sticky, mouthfeel help boost the hop impact. Like with many single hopped beers there's a certain lack of complexity, but it does show well what Nelson Sauvin is and does. I've missed it since it fell out of fashion.

At Whiplash lately they've mostly been bringing back former one-offs but did release one brand new beer. It's a hazy IPA of 8% ABV, so maybe only sort of a new beer. Apocalypse Dreams is single-hopped with retro hop Amarillo. It's pale yellow and fully opaque with an aroma of sticky pineapple juice and orange cordial. Oats, wheat and the high gravity give it a big density but there's no discernible alcohol heat. It's not easy drinking by any means, but that's not because of the booze. To describe the flavour I need to work backwards. The finish is quite gritty, a harsh rasp of murk at the back of the throat. Before this there's a dusting of savoury garlic and onion while the sweet fruit concentrate rides up front: oranges in particular but with a little guava and passionfruit if you look closely. It's a chewer; one to savour, and I think on balance I enjoyed it. The flavour plods along stickily rather than exploding in a burst of exotic fruit, and that's OK. Take your time to get the best out of it.

Upping the ante from there is O Brother with Neon Twisted Love, this double IPA being 8.1% ABV and hopped with on-trend varieties Azacca and Strata. It smells concentrated and sweet, like pineapple juice, and despite all the bubbles is a little flat and lifeless in the mouth. Azacca's trademark colourful-candy flavour is there, rendered even more Skittle-like by the heavy, chewy texture. Then there's a savoury side too; a dry buzz of poppyseed in the finish. And that's it really. There's a lack of zing, of zest, of juice, and all you're left with is the weighty booze. There aren't any off flavours but nothing about it endeared it to me either. Double IPAs should be thrilling but neither of this final pair did that for me.

The rate at which Ireland's breweries have been turning out new beers lately has been impressive. If they want to keep that up then I'm absolutely game. For now though, I have a queue of other stuff to get through.

The quarter master

This was a surprise. I've been watching on the socials how busy Limerick's Treaty City brewery has been with its limited-edition and special-occasion beers. It seems to have graduated beyond just making a core range for a conservative local market, which is pleasing to see. "Local" has always been of paramount importance, and the latest set pays tribute to four of Limerick city's quarters -- it has a fifth: Market Quarter was a Treaty City beer I enjoyed in Limerick a few years ago. That's not the surprise; the surprise was a box of the new set being sent over to me by the brewery -- much appreciated!

Culture Quarter is first up, a blonde ale and lightest of the bunch at 4.1% ABV. It was looking a bit flat at first but eventually formed a very fine white head over a pale golden body. From the aroma it's obvious that they're trying to hit lager style points: it's clean and lightly biscuity, but also a little lacking in character. Ale yeast to the rescue, and the flavour brings more fruit: cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwi: all the water-filled ones you eat cold from the fridge for refreshment. Not that the beer is watery -- there's enough substance, while staying clean. Microbrewed blonde ale is always a bit of a gamble. There's a lot of space for off-flavours to creep in, while also running the risk of creating something bland and flavourless. This deftly dodges both obstacles. It's a hearty, wholesome and characterful bottle-conditioned ale, while also crisp, clean and easy drinking. Earlier this week I was impressed by Heaney's efforts in this space. This doesn't have the complexity of their effort but still does a good job of being accessible yet interesting.

I liked having an excuse to break out my Hoegaarden bucket: witbier by the half-litre is too rare. Georgian Quarter is the name, a bit of a pounder at 5.3% ABV. It's the right shade of hazy, sunny yellow, though the head formation was a little lacklustre. A farmyard-funky aroma harks back to witbier's origins as a wild-fermented style while an added hint of lemon reminds us how the big corporations have tamed it since. Those two sides fight it out in the flavour. There's a pristine citrus zest with a candied-peel sweetness, and then a rougher, funkier element; spicy gunpowder but also a harsh burnt-rubber effect. I imagine it's quite a divisive beer. A lot is going on and not all of it is good. Happily it all fades quickly with a minimal aftertaste, so it's still enjoyable even if some of the details are not to your taste. As well as that funk, I would ding it for the carbonation too, which is lacking. A beer like this needs proper spritz; flatness is fatal. On balance, I'm glad to see an Irish brewery offering a witbier, but at the same time this style has been perfected by The Establishment so it needs more of polish to compete on those terms.

The pale ale is called River Quarter and is 4.6% ABV. It's what I regard as the standard hazy orange shade of bottle-conditioned Irish small-batch pale ales. The aroma is dank, shading to funky: a little bit growhouse, a little bit pub cellar in need of a good scrub. That set me up to expect a powerful flavour but it's actually rather gentle with a clean pale-grain sweetness backed by mild root vegetables and a mug of sweet tea. This is easy-going and unchallenging to the point of being a smidge boring. I guess it's pub fare and ill-suited to a time without pubs. Unless you were expecting fireworks it's hard to complain about, being rock-solid and completely without brewing faults. Needs more hops, perhaps, but nobody will take offence from the way it is.

Stout is not neglected amongst all this. Medieval Quarter claims to be "US style", raising immediate hopes it'll be like Sierra Nevada's hopped-up classic. It certainly has similar substance, a full 5.6% ABV and pouring out thickly with a classic deep-tan head. Proper old-man stuff, in the best possible way. The case for it being American-ish is overstated. Yes there's a hop profile, but it's quite traditionally bitter and vegetal, not bursting with citrus. The hop side complements well a different sort of bitterness from dark-chocolate and espresso roast. Though nicely weighty on the palate, it's very much a dry beer, hitting that sweet spot of being both filling and refreshing. An echo of the hopping survives into the aftertaste and calls perennial favourite Porterhouse XXXX to mind. It doesn't have quite the same wallop but is constructed along similar lines. This is a magnificent beer and I wish more Irish breweries tackled this sort of thing.

I'm pleased with this bunch, while very aware I got them for free. I can assure you if there were actual stinkers in the set I would say so. The stout is a stand-out and pushed my 20th century buttons in a big way. The brewery gives us a rare glimpse behind the scenes by saying this could have been part of their core range. It should have been.

First out of the box

This Saturday would have been the fourth Hagstravaganza festival at the White Hag brewery in Sligo, arguably the high point of the Irish beer calendar. Instead they've moved it online, putting together a box of 24 beers from the sort of high-calibre breweries usually found at the gig. All will be documented in due course, but since I'm currently on an Irish beer kick, I thought I'd take the locals out for a spin first.

Kinnegar became the latest brewery to let distributor Grand Cru Beers in to tinker with their gear, the result being No. 7 in the Brewers at Play series: Hazy Session IPA. "Hazy" is an understatement: it's an opalescent yellowy-grey, saturated with murk. It's a decision which pays off, beginning with the banging fresh aroma of damp grass, weedy resins and luscious mangoes. There's a full-on pithy bitterness -- no soft and sweet vanilla here -- and it's aided by gritty murky bits. That might be a problem were it not for all the hop flavour. A concentrated oily lupulin quality dominates the scene, a residue that coats the mouth in a mixture of lime and garlic backed by softer peach and mango. There's a lot going on here, and while it isn't all enjoyable it adds up to something fun, bold and assertive. Murk-sceptics will probably find all the usual things to dislike; for my part I found it rough but thrilling.

New from Trouble, in collaboration with White Hag, is a 3% ABV table beer called Bright Eyes. It's darker than I expected: a deep translucent shade of orange. The aroma is pithy and oily, redolent of heavy jaffa oranges with a lacing of dark chocolate. They've deftly avoided any thinness, the body being round and quite full. Orange pith is the principal flavour -- a mix of bitterness and juice -- though there's also a harsh aspirin twang, the sort I particularly associate with highly hopped alcohol-free beers. That leads into a dry and chalky finish. I was impressed by the first few sips, loving the juicy citrus, but the bitterness overpowers the palate by the end and left me wishing for something softer.

Shockingly there was just one stout in the entire box, a new one from the White Hag herself. It seems that The Dark Druid is now a series of sweet stouts, and the second one, following the salted caramel original, is Chocolate Coconut, retaining the modest 5.5% ABV. And... yep! That's what it smells like, in a big big way, on both counts. Bounty galore. The mouthfeel is as silky-smooth as something like this demands, and the sweetness almost veers into being cloying but stops just short, thankfully. They've kept the sea salt in here and perhaps that's the miracle ingredient. Besides the headline flavours I get a certain summer fruit quality: cherries and raspberries, plus an understated milkshake vanilla from the use of lactose. This is very much as advertised: a candybar of a stout, albeit one with a lightness of touch that most others actively eschew. I thoroughly enjoyed the silliness and reckoned I could have managed another.

The remaining beers in the box will have to wait until after I resume international reviews next week. Best of luck to all my fellow Boxtravaganzers: may all the duds be in small cans.

Pale writer

Further explorations of the Heaney Farmhouse Brewery today, a company with two faces, it seems.

Big Little IPA self-describes as a session IPA and is 4.2% ABV. Lots of busy foam on pouring falls away almost immediately, leaving it looking like a glass of pure orange juice. Such is the modern way. The aroma is quite sharp: a citrus acidity leaning towards harsher mineral aspirin. There's a bit of dreggy fuzz in the background of the flavour but it's much better up front: jaffa pith, a brush of zest and a surprise nutmeg spicing. The use of oats has given it the full body of a much stronger beer, and I think of this not so much as one to drink repeatedly through a session, but for having one when you want a big flavour hit without lots of alcohol. On the one hand it's not as clean as I'd like and is a tad harsh, but on the other these are acceptable compromises for something this boldly flavoured.

To follow, a 7% ABV IPA that's also a knowing comment on the state of beer today: Style Over Everything. There are the same head retention problems but the body looks good, a bright and warming sunset orange. It smells a little sickly, of undiluted cordial and children's medicine. Enigma is the hop they've used to achieve the effect. The flavour is along similar lines: a big concentrated orange taste, accentuated by considerable alcohol heat and a very thick mouthfeel. Enigma is the hop they've done it with. Like the previous beer, this too could pass for much stronger, only this time that's not in its favour. Another tough drinker here, and there's just not enough fun happening to make that OK.

In my last Heaney rundown I said that dark beers seemed to be what they do best. I hope we get more along those lines from them soon.

As well as all these fancy-dan cans, the brewery also has a core range of bottles in safe traditional styles. The stout I was impressed by, the red I have not yet seen, but two others came my way lately. I imagined myself in a Bellaghy pub, a long way from any high-fashion beer, in order to give them a fair airing.

Heaney Irish Blonde is what they offer in lieu of a lager. It's 4.3% ABV and the hazy yellow of a witbier. A yeast-driven gunpowder spice is the aroma, plus a peachy ester effect: all par for the course when it comes to rural bottle-conditioned blonde ale. Time for a deep pull... It passes the quaff test: zero off-flavours; no twangs or oddness. That mineral spice dominates the foretaste, followed by a mouth-searing pale-malt dryness. In the background that's softened by a little cantaloupe and honeydew, fading out on an English-style wax-and-metal bitterness. This is absolutely built for the purpose I expected: to sit on the shelves of a rural pub, unloved until someone wants something other than Harp or Tennent's. And it fills the role wonderfully: massively complex if you're given to analysis; but also clean and simple drinking for when you're just out to be social. Perfect pitch.

Pale ale is a tough one in this milieu. It's not a traditional style -- Irish microbreweries didn't make any until 2006 -- so what should a traditionally-aimed one taste like? Heaney Irish Pale Ale at least looks like the archetype, Galway Hooker: a relaxed medium amber. The ABV is substantially higher, however, being the full 5%. Grapefruit and candy says the aroma, followed by a flavour mixing old-school American citrus with older-school British tannins. It's a winning combination: a base of bitter overlaid with fresh new-world zing. It's familiar but different, bringing the excitement of the first American-style beer brewed here with a totally unique flavour combination, including echoes of that nice cask bitter you had in that lovely pub in Yorkshire that time.

Conclusion? I think I'm the discerning older gentleman that the bottled Heaney's beers are pitched at. And I'm absolutely down with that. They're just better beers. This post wasn't meant to be a new local front in the beer culture wars but here we are. Don't let the multicoloured cans deceive you.

Another bit of normality

The Open Gate taproom at St James's Gate has re-opened with some changes to the layout to aid social distancing. It's all-seated, of course, and they've made good use of the yard outside, installing colourful and comfortable pods for groups of various sizes. I was invited along for the soft launch and was pleased to see the high turnover of special edition beers is still rolling along.

The only kind of flight I'm likely to take any time soon involved four tasters from the six new ones on the board. Following the house-mandated drinking order, working from left to right, I begin with Triple G Sour. Ginger and gooseberry are advertised; the third G is left to our imaginations. I pray it's something wholesome. The beer itself is a pale golden colour, its citrus and herb effect creating a bathsalts sensation. There's lots of zesty lemon though the bitterness stays low and the tartness arrives late, leaving it quite a sweet affair. There's ginger flavour, as in a ginger ale, but alas no spice. At 4.5% ABV it does the job as a summer refresher while being just complex enough to be interesting. Let's call it a good start.

A 6% ABV stout as the second beer? I double checked, and yes: this was indeed the sensible drinking order. It's called Black Forest so I'm assuming cherries and chocolate were involved, though that's not how it tasted to me. A peppery foretaste is followed by a broad roastiness set on a thick creamy texture, and while there's a touch of bitter dark chocolate in the aroma, it's not the dessertish concoction I was expecting. That was a little disappointing, but it's an unarguably well-made stout and by the time I'd figured it out I had finished my sample so no harm done.

Tropical Pale Ale is beer number three. This is a big-hitter at 6.3% ABV yet appears, and tastes, a lot like a lager. It's a misty gold colour and the flavour centres on a clean pale grain taste. You have to hunt a bit for the fruit, and yes, if your mind is focused the right way you can just about pick up hints of mango and lychee but it's very subtle. Also subtle is the alcohol: I would never have guessed the strength. A powerhouse novelty beer wearing the clothes of a session lager? I'll take it. I'd be disappointed if I'd bought a whole can of this though. There's just not enough happening in it.

On the end is something called Smoothie IPA. Is this supposed to be a milkshake sort of thing? Well, it's not hazy, it's amber rather than yellow and it's assertively bitter, so if milkshake was the goal it has missed the mark considerably. The texture does fit the bill, however: it's thick and smooth, with plenty of heft at 6.6% ABV. There's a powerful floral perfume foretaste, contrasting and complementing that bitterness. This fades out to fruit chews and a sharp lingering pith. Maybe if you like the idea of milkshake IPA but find them all too sweet, this might be the beer for you. I certainly have never tasted this combination before and I think it kind-of works. Let's put this in the "interesting" category and move on.

I picked two beers for larger measures, beginning with Summer Pilsner. This hit all the style points for the German variety bang on: 4.8% ABV, perfectly clear, superb head retention and a faultless grass and nettle aroma. It faltered just a little in the flavour, with a mildly soapy fabric-softener twang, but it's far from disastrous. The house reckoned it might have been a little young. Clearly lockdown wasn't long enough for some. Nevertheless the flavour pulls back to a clean and crisp finish. It lags a little behind the many excellent lagers Open Gate has turned out over the years but is still better than many small Irish brewers manage in this space.

One of my all-time favourite Open Gate beers was the Botanical Ale they did for Taste of Dublin back in 2016. The copper-coloured herb-fest appears to have been appropriated by one member of staff as it returned as Pete's Botanical Ale. I didn't see a list of what went into it, but I think a lot did. There's a warming ginger aroma and then a flavour which offers a unsubtle mix of basil, sage, rosemary and all of that sort of thing. I'm guessing the hopping is minimal, if present at all, because it's quite sweet and got a little cloying towards the end, even though it's only 4.5% ABV. Still, it delivers everything it promises and I enjoyed what I got.

So at least on the brewing front it's business as usual at Open Gate, and there were some intriguing coming attractions marked on the fermenter blackboards. Cheers to Padraig and the team for giving us a much-appreciated evening out at a time when such things were in short supply.

A second helping of thirds

As another week in my current marathon of Irish beers comes to a close, Third Barrel is the second brewer to feature twice. Hot on the heels of the last set comes these three, as usual across some nicely diverse styles.

I think Trinity is both the first lager released under the Third Circle marque, and the first 440ml can. "Irish pilsner" is the made-up style designation, and there's not a thing wrong with either of those elements. It is a little rough looking: a sickly yellow and misted slightly. The aroma is mild though a little fruity -- a touch of banana, maybe -- they haven't gone overboard with the aroma hops. There's a certain crispness in the flavour, and a solid pilsner bitterness but the flavour doesn't sit well with me. It's not a big flavour, but there's a harshly acidic quality, on the extreme end of grass stalks and soggy boiled cabbage, heading full steam for burnt plastic and perished rubber. My initial impression was that this had something wrong with it but I'm perfectly prepared to accept it's just my longstanding problem with certain noble hop combinations. I disliked Lost & Grounded's Keller Pils for the same reason, so if you liked that you might like this too.

Back to the usual dinky cans for the next one, a sour and hazy 3.7% ABV beer with pineapple and grapefruit, called Reality Sucks. There's a lot of both fruits in the aroma, with the astringent grapefruit ascendant over the sugary pineapple. And similarly on tasting, it's like fizzy grapefruit juice sweetened with heaps of sugar. Sourness? Beerness? Beery sourness? There's none of that; this is pure fruit punch, though punch that comes with a kick, from the pithy citrus. It has a fair bit in common with the cherimoya and mango one they did a while back -- I assume the base recipe is more or less the same -- but it's not as bold or interesting. As an easy-drinking summer refresher it's better than White Claw, and perhaps that's good enough these days.

When reality sucks what can you do but Keep Smiling and drink 8% ABV double IPA. This is the new one from Third Barrel. The aroma certainly raises a smile: a candy mix of Skittles and Starburst, fun if quite unbeery. There's a more serious switch when it comes to the flavour, turning seriously savoury. I get smoky hummous and baba ganoush. There's a slight syrup behind this, and lots of thick spirituous alcohol, finishing on dry cotton and chalk. Hazy double IPAs are far from rare in these parts -- I know their ins and outs, the good ones from the bad ones -- but I've never experienced quite as much of a contrast as there is between the smell and taste of this lad. I'm going to put it down as a beer I wouldn't have liked anyway that happened to have a fun aroma, rather than one which failed to live up to its promise. This combination of Centennial, Citra and Sabro is maybe one to avoid in future.

Not the brewery's best work, overall, but with an output rate as high as theirs at least the next round won't be long coming.

Rickey and thickey

I have never had a lime rickey so I can't tell you how successful Hopfully has been in creating one in beer form with Legswap. From Google Images, however, I can see that they're not usually pink and frothy, which this most definitely is. It is zesty and refreshing, though, and I'm sure that's a big part of the effect. The inclusion of raspberries of course makes it taste of raspberry, but that doesn't dominate the other subtleties. The lime here imparts its flavour well, being more than just the bitterness but not tasting like a sticky cordial. The tartness is dialled back and I would suggest it's more crisp than tart, aided by a cleansing fizz. 5% ABV is a little strong for something this easy going so be careful. It's highly enjoyable, though, and well ahead of most sour fruit beers.

Shortly after that landed it was followed by a mango IPA called Kneesocks. This one looks exactly like a smoothie, being a dense eggy yellow with even a yellowish tint to the loose bubbles on top. The aroma is properly beery, though: tropical fruit that's all about hops and not puree. It's 7% ABV so quite heavy, but again that's just because it's a strong beer, not because it has been bulked out artificially. At the core of the flavour is an assertive bitterness in the classic American fashion -- grapefruit and lemon rind. Idaho 7 and Azacca are the hops, and it's the latter's fruity fun that wraps around the bitterness and I think has melded with the mango, integrating it fully into the flavour. Novelty-seekers won't get much of a kick from it but if your requirements are nothing other than a well-made full-flavoured IPA in a broadly New England style then this fits the bill.

Two quality offerings from Hopfully here. The move to brewing at Metalman seems to be working out well for them.

Take DOT and party

DOT marks four years of brewing and blending with a brace of barrelled specials. The first is the catchily-named A Bit of a Barrel Aged Birthday Blend. Well at least you know what you're getting, and why. It pulls together amber ale, red ale and stout and puts them through Irish and American whiskey barrels, with a spell in virgin oak too. The end result is 9.4% ABV and dark brown, shading to black. It smells a little like marker pens and a lot like bourbon. Full-bodied and smooth goes the mouthfeel, which shouldn't be surprising, while the flavour is remarkably well-integrated. There's a cola sweetness and a herbal vermouth seasoning; oaky vanilla and splashes of caramel and coffee, all of which sounds busy, but isn't really. It is thick, though, and can get a little cloying if you try to drink it too fast. I was glad I put it in a tumbler and took my time relaxing into it. This is definitely a beer to explore slowly, sip by sip.

That hors d'oeuvre is followed by, well, dessert, I guess: Barrel Aged Birthday Cake. It's just an imperial milk stout. Aged in rum, sherry and single malt whiskey casks. With added cocoa nibs and coffee. Simples. The roast is big in the aroma, and there's a distinct sourness too, which is a surprise for a purported "chocolate cake in a glass". Sure enough on tasting it's very thin for 10.7% ABV, with almost a vinegar tang: the balsamic quality of highly attenuated dark beers. The chocolate is there to an extent, and the coffee less so; the whole thing is quite spirituous and burny. Cake it is not. Stout it is barely. This doesn't taste very celebratory to me, and certainly not when compared to the previous. One for the hardcore barrel-fans only, perhaps.

Happy birthday DOT. Keep those busy yeasties under control, eh?

Hut sweet

I'm looking north for today's post. Beer Hut from Co. Down presents two hacked-about IPAs.

The first goes with the jaunty name If You Like Pina Colada's and is of course brewed using pineapple puree and coconut shavings. It's 5.3% ABV and a bright pale orange colour with a medium haze. I get coconut in the aroma but the accompaniment is more bitter citrus than sweet pineapple. Sure enough in the flavour there's a heavy concentration of orange... well... concentrate, pushing everything else out of the way with its stickiness. The coconut is relegated to an afterthought, and you can forget about hops. This fruit cocktail is undeserving of the title IPA. If you happen to like sweet fruit beers then here's one in a 44cl can instead of a 25cl bottle, but a serious IPA for serious drinkers it is not.

Fruit in IPA is par for the course, but what about sea salt? I am sceptical. Step forward Ahoy Captain, "sea salted IPA", a bruiser at 7.2% ABV. It took an age to pour, the head sticking up every time I thought I had it under control. Columbus, Chinook and Citra are the hops though there's not much sign of them or anything else in the aroma. The texture is thick and fluffy -- you'd expect a certain crispness from salt -- and the flavour is a mish-mash of generic hop features: a little citrus, a little stonefruit, a touch of dankness, with nothing really standing out. There's a lack of novelty which I can't believe I'm calling the beer out for. The sea salt does nothing!

I'm sure Beer Hut knows what it's doing. These are well-made and flawless beers, just not to my taste. I see enough on social media to know their audience is out there and doesn't mind dropping a fiver on a can.