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.