Causes for celebration

Wicklow Wolf has never needed a reason to put out a beer before, but the latest pair both seem to have been the result of special occasions.

Marking one year since the move into their new brewery in Newtownmountkennedy, they've released a new beer, NTMK, a New England IPA with kveik yeast and Mosaic, Citra and El Dorado hops. It looks like a glass of orange juice and has that characteristic blend of vanilla, garlic and stonefruit in the aroma.  The ABV is 6.4% but it seems hotter, feeling thick and having a butane or kerosene heat at the front. There's a dry yeasty grit in the finish and both of these off-notes would be forgivable if the hop fruit were more pronounced. It's not, though. I get a faint echo of grapefruit as the aftertaste while the middle offers a smoothie-like combination of ripe banana, vanilla and sharp kiwi. It doesn't hold together very well, the various negative aspects outweighing the positive. One for the haze-at-all-costs brigade, perhaps, but not for me.

More haze? More haze. YellowBelly came round to help create Sunshine & Showers, a NEIPA based on their their previous joint effort, last year's Super Soaker, but with the ABV inverted, going from 2.7% to 7.2%. It looks very juicy, opaque yellow with a sunset tint of blood orange. The aroma is a little harsh: gritty chalk and hot vodka. Its flavour works much better, centred around a real pithy and juicy ripe citrus. The heat is still there, but it's perfectly complementary. The best part is the bitterness, an invigorating tang that's too often missing from beers of this sort. It's not an easy drinking fellow but there's plenty to enjoy while working slowly through it. Definitely a cut above, as this sort of thing goes.

I don't know if the next occasion will be the 2020 hop harvest and the resulting Locavore beers, but that must be coming up soon. And I was pleased to see that their excellent 5th-birthday stout will be out again next week to mark their 6th. Cause for celebration indeed.