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.