Casks from the Cellar

2021's doubtless plentiful sequence of DOT beers begins with this bunch, all launched in the dying days of last year. No IPAs this time -- we're going all-in with barrelly darkness.

The first is an exclusive to Blackrock Cellar, picked up on a sunny pre-Christmas spin to the coast. The big can is Taking Liberties, a barrel-aged red ale of 7.9% ABV. It needs a strong light source behind it to appear red, being otherwise stout-black. The aroma is sweet and slightly vinous: a touch of port and maybe some dark sherry. A lovely smooth texture and faint carbonation helps that sense, though the silky, creamy, milk chocolate foretaste brings us back to beer. The whiskey barrel elements are on the down-low, bringing a mild oak and toffee-pudding warmth to the second half, with a touch of sweet smouldering turf. While it's maybe a little plain given the heft and density, it can't be accused of being overdone. A nice bit of mellow winter fare.

I thought it would be interesting to compare this immediately with a more established DOT red. Rum Red Dark is now on edition number V. This is a blend of III and IV, neither of which I'd tasted, plus some fresh beer. The barrels are whiskey again, but ex-rum, of course. It's still pretty dark but a fair bit paler than the previous. And despite being stronger -- 8.6% ABV -- it's lighter and much more easy-going. There's a freshness to the flavour, a summery hum of strawberry, raspberry and sweet cherries. The age only really shows in the finish where there's a mature and musky oak spice, and that's what the aroma offers too. There's an almost sour briskness of a Flanders red in the smell. Neither whiskey nor rum make any obvious contribution to the picture, though I'm sure they play a part in a more subtle way. This wasn't what I was expecting, and I'm glad I wasn't hoping for a fireside sipper. I was quite content with some unseasonal summer sunshine in my glass, however.

It's back to Blackrock for the finisher, another annual reiteration. Joël's Barrel Aged Vietnamese Coffee Stout first appeared in these pages in 2018 when batch II was 6.9% ABV. Batch VI sees it grown to a strapping 8.95% ABV. The coffee is much more pronounced, though it's still smooth and sweet, with creamy vibes of Irish coffee and tiramisu. The wine thing is back: drier this time, more grape skin than flesh. Throw in a gin and tonic and you'd have all the drinks for a three-course meal. Again it's light-textured for the strength, and this time I would have preferred a bit more dessertish weight. Nevertheless, it's a fun beer and makes good use of both coffee and barrel ageing while still not going overboard on either.

This was a fun session, and showed lots of different things barrel-ageing can do, even in broadly similar strong dark beers. That my palate wasn't clogged with booze and vanilla by the end is a testament to DOT's skills.

Don't call it a comeback

Whatever happened to De Struise? It's not just that I haven't been swanning around the Low Countries in over a year; I haven't encountered any of their beers in the wild for nearly three. And I've been looking too: their reputation as masters of big, strong and dark beers is entirely well deserved. Am I missing a piece of the puzzle, or did they slip out of the hype bubble at some point?

Today's beer dates from the height of their pomp: a 2013 vintage of Sint Amatus 12, presumably a cheeky swipe at their neighbours St Bernardus and Sint-Sixtusabdij. It's badged in unBelgian fashion as a "quad", and is 10.5% ABV. Though there was a bit of fobbing when the cap came off, the head is thin, forming no more than a patch of bubbles on the swampy brown body.

The aroma is properly quadrupel-like: a warming mix of ruby port, sultanas and figs. The booze vapours are strong enough to suggest it has been fermenting away in its own time and it's possible that a point or two could be added to that ABV. In the flavour, the sweeter side of the fruit is more apparent, raisins in particular, with a squeeze of black cherry and a dusting of chocolate too. The texture is appropriately full which, in combination with that mild fizz, makes it very wine-like. The only nasty surprise is a mild phenolic TCP thing, lurking late in the finish. Not enough to spoil things, thankfully. For quad purists, there's a toasty dry side to the style spec which is entirely absent here, but I don't miss it at all.

This is a beautiful beer and very much the sort of thing De Struise's reputation was built on. I hope they're still producing it and its ilk, and that people are still buying them.

Witch hops?

The Union Series of single-hopped IPAs from The White Hag reaches numbers five and six with a couple of new additions late last year.

I opened the Azacca one first. It gets busy with the fruit early on, the aroma giving off sweet clementine and apricot, exactly as I'd expect from this hop. There's a decent kick of bitterness: Azacca's tendency to make beers taste like Skittles is held in check by a pleasant pithy bite. The candy is still in there -- I'd be disappointed if it weren't -- so as a showcase for the hop it works well. There is a bit of a fuzz to it, however: a grittiness that spoils the enjoyment a little. Overall, though, it's good fun. I might have liked the hop flavour to be a bit stronger but I can also see how that would run the risk of turning it too Skittleish.

The other half of this pair is the iconic Nelson Sauvin. Does this hop still have the power to turn heads as it did a decade ago? The visuals and vital statistics are the same as the above, and the aroma is quite muted, just vaguely juicy. But the flavour: oooh, that's Nelson. Here the bitterness has been appropriately dialled back -- Nelson in quantity can be a bit severe -- and there's all the luscious cool white grape, ripe peach and canned lychee that made the hop a celebrity. You also get a little, but only a little, of the sharper pitch of pith harshness, and it serves to balance the beer well. Welcome back, Nelson. Missed you bro.

An addendum to this pair is an ESB White Hag created as a collaboration with Manchester's Cloudwater. For us Irish, that particular initialism has long signified our beloved national power company, rather than "extra special bitter", so it was inevitable that a brewery in these parts would name one Electricity Supply Board. Turns out it was White Hag. The beer is a lovely chestnut red colour, and crystal clear. It's the picture of a cask pint, though a short-poured and unsparklered one, given the 440ml can and poor head retention. The aroma has the proper mix of dark fruits, nuts and chocolate: properly and seriously beery. It's a couple of years since I last drank the Fuller's original, but this strikes me as having very similar features. Brown sugar, raisin and cinnamon spicing give it a mince-pie foretaste, and then a sharp and acrid bitterness creeps in behind. Don't be misled by the colourful can, this is serious and traditional fare, using all of its 6% ABV to deliver a malty powerhouse.

Azacca is the modern interloper here. ESB and Nelson Sauvin IPA seem strangely retro in the rapidly moving world of beer fashion. It's nice to be able to look back over one's shoulder now and again.

Bitter over sweet

A couple of quick ones from Thornbridge today.

First up is Pondera, their contribution to the west coast revival. For some proper west coast cred they've called in Firestone Walker from California to collaborate. It's a pale yellow colour with more haze than one might expect for west coast, though the aroma is a bright and zippy citrus. So I was expecting lemon zest going in, forgetting that it's a full 6.7% ABV. That extra heft means the flavour is bigger too, and a thick oily dankness is the first thing out. Citrus follows, concentrated and realistic, like lime peel. The oils give it a long finish, and there's a fun peppery spice at the fade-out. Big and chewy; strong and well-hopped with signature American flavours: this gets the west coast stamp of approval from me. Lovely stuff.

Something less serious next. Thornbridge began making an ice cream porter called Lucaria several years ago, but deeming that insufficiently silly, has released a series of ice-creamier variations, including Strawberry, Mint Choc Chip, Rocky Road, Christmas Pudding and this one: Salted Caramel, the only one sold by the can. It doesn't smell as sweet as I anticipated: there's a dry wafer effect with a little mocha but nothing daft or extreme. It's only 4.5% ABV (original Lucaria was 6%) and the thinness makes the chocolate difficult to carry, causing it to taste very sweet but also watery. I couldn't detect any salt, and the caramel just melds into a general chocolatey sweetness. Though perfectly drinkable, and not cloying, it's a bit dull overall. Maybe all the massive pastry stouts have trained me to expect a bigger hit, and maybe the market does need the candybar effect in a lighter package, but this wasn't for me. I think a slight ABV boost would have helped it enormously.

I like how different these two randomly selected Thornbridge beers were from each other. I guess that's the kind of variation you need to be putting out to stay viable these days. The occasional IPA of Pondera's quality helps too, I'm sure.

Strictly for the birds

I suppose I may throw one token post in the direction of this month and its customary abstemiousness. I have long been a fan of the Hitachino Nest beers from Kiuchi Brewery, and this 0.3% ABV one caught my eye recently. It's a ginger beer with added yuzu fruit, called Yuzu Ginger Non Ale.

It's a deep amber colour in the glass, with just a very faint misting of haze. The aroma gave little away, though I thought I could detect a pinch of dry ginger. The ingredients include hops and yeast, so it is a beer beer, but it tastes like one of those ginger beers that are cultured rather than brewed. For one thing it's as thin as a ginger ale mixer, and brimming with sugar, even though that's not a separate ingredient. I can't say I picked up on the yuzu -- there's no bitterness to speak of -- but the ginger is there, in a sweet and candied way, rather than spicy.

This isn't really a substitute for real beer if you're not drinking. It's a bit of a fun novelty, and might work well in the summertime, over ice with a slice of lime. Otherwise there are better beerier alternatives out there.

Voodoo strangers

Through the latter half of last year I found myself accumulating an array of beers from New Belgium and then omitting to actually drink them. When the multiple Voodoo Ranger variants arrived, this began looking more like a challenge than a leisure activity. It was only towards the end of the Christmas break, with stocks running down in the beer fridge, that I eventually began tackling them.

First up, a Sour IPA. I was intrigued by the method here: rather than simply souring an IPA mash, this is a blend of finished IPA with a "wood-aged golden sour ale". It doesn't say if that was a mixed-fermentation creation, but it's New Belgium so let's guess it was. It's a hazy dark orange in the glass, with a floral and tangy aroma. I wonder if I've left it sitting too long to get the benefit of the hops. There is a decent amount of hop flavour left, however: a floral orange-blossom effect, turned sweet by a surprisingly heavy malt base. 7% ABV is a lot for these, which tend to work best when light and refreshing. This is more of a chewer, and the sourness level reflects that too. Its dominant feature is quite a punchy lactic tartness, landing right from the first sip and only subsiding when the sticky malt sweetness takes over. This isn't what I was expecting, and different from most any take on sour IPA that I've tried, but it's well made and has its place; perhaps more as a digestif than aperitif.

And with that, bring on the Rangers! Four of them, starting back in time with Voodoo Ranger 1985. It's 6.7% ABV and hazy, like IPAs in 1985 weren't, and my heart sank a little when I read "mango flavor & spice" on the side of the can. It smells like a witbier, which is a perfectly acceptable use of spice in beer, I guess, and with that idea planted, I realised it looked like one too: pale yellow with a fine and fluffy froth on top. First impressions on tasting were, well, unimpressed. The spices are muted, and there's no IPA hop kick. The fluffy creamy texture is pleasant, but there's a gap where the foretaste should be. After a while, the mango emerges, sweet and syrupy, and then a trace of the Belgian herbs and spices: coriander, cardamom and ginger. But that's your lot. It's underwhelming as an IPA, as a gimmick, and as a beer. I will admit it was a couple of weeks past the best before, but if I've missed anything through neglect it must have been damn subtle in the first place. A big nope on 1985, then. What were they thinking?

"American Haze" is the codename on the next Ranger, this one a mere 5% ABV and lacking daft ingredients. It is hazy as promised, an opaque pale orange. I didn't get much of an aroma from it -- elderly can problems again? -- but what was there seemed quite savoury, and a little dreggy. With haze comes sweetness, and this tastes like orangeade, nicely zingy and refreshing; sweet but light with it. In contrast to that half-aroma, it's perfectly clean-tasting with no murky twangs. Any issues with freshness have not affected the flavour unduly because it's still absolutely vibrant. It's an accessible and fun number, unlikely to impress any Heady Topper fans, but none of them have much of a sense of fun anyway.

More haze please, but bigger! That lands me Higher Plane, an 8.5% ABV "hazy imperial IPA". It looks a little deeper-coloured in the glass, with an almost Tequila Sunrise effect: red at the base and bright orange towards the top. Again not much aroma, and this one is a couple of months fresher than the previous. There's a mineral dryness on the nose, but little else. The first sip brought booze, and lots of it. I got a sort of Duvel sense at the outset: that alcoholic grain-and-honey vibe. Fruity peach and apricot liqueur chase that, before a hot and slightly acrid bitterness escort it down the throat. It's a bit odd, and quite extreme, though not without charm. Overall, I found it a smidge too hot and sickly to be properly enjoyable. I'm beginning to think these Voodoo Rangers have little in common with each other, beyond their totemic can skeleton.

Last up, no haze, just Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, presumably one of the earlier brand extensions. This one is the full 9% ABV and resembles American double IPAs when I first drank them: that perfect clear amber colour with a rich aroma, full of alcohol and citrus. That said it's surprisingly unbitter. In keeping with the style specs, there's lots of malt, and the hop side isn't quite strong enough to balance the sticky sugar from that. What you get instead is a gentle buzz of non-shred marmalade or orange jelly. It finishes quickly and unobtrusively, which I'm taking as a good thing. I doubt even 2008-me would be all that impressed with this. While inoffensive, it's lacking that loud American punch that made beers of this sort so exciting in the first place.

I didn't think I'd ever say it, but haze seems to be the way to go where IPA is concerned, at New Belgium anyway.

Not so scaldy

There was a late rush of beers from Whiplash at the tail end of 2020. Of particular interest to me were the darker ones as this is an area where the brewery excels, even though most of its output is crowd-pleasing hazy pale ales. I am not the crowd, so let's see how much they pleased me.

We start light, at 7.1% ABV. Heart of Chambers is a "coffee and oatmeal double porter" created in collaboration with fancy-pants coffee merchants 3FE. I picked up an early growler at UnderDog. My jibe about the lightness is shredded by the texture: it's extremely thick and creamy in a beautifully silky-smooth way. A fair whack of warming booze comes with that. The coffee isn't subtle, beginning with a raw-grounds roastiness that lasts all the way from the aroma to the finish. It would have been better without that, but it doesn't ruin the party, because everything else is spectacular. I love when coffee contributes that cherry and rosewater quality and this has it in spades. A more orthodox latte flavour follows, combining with creamy vanilla to create a kind of coffee cake effect. It intensifies on the palate, passing Tia Maria and finishing back at the sharp burnt roast that started in the aroma. Malt? Hops? Nahhh, this is all coffee, and if you don't like coffee in beer stay well clear of it. I enjoyed its uncompromising boldness and the complexity. Half a litre was plenty, mind.

Second-weakest of the dark ones is a 7.2% ABV Baltic porter called Melody Noir. Other than a strength that's perhaps lower than the 8-9% norm, there's no messing with the style parameters here. It's a bit softer than a Baltic porter might typically be, lacking the dry lager crispness in favour of a velvety milk chocolate cream. It would be at risk of getting cloying were it not for quite a hard liquorice bitterness: if you're going to provide balance in a beer this weighty there's no point doing it by half. The mission is successful and the whole thing is very satisfying to drink. Despite its popularity, Whiplash is no novelty brewery. When they make beer I don't like, it was meant to be like that; when they get it right for me, however, it's just the way I want. Melody Noir is that, for Baltic porter.

Something more Whiplashy follows: Disco Mystic, a straight, hazy yellow double IPA, 8% ABV and using Strata and Citra. A properly punchy blend of heavy dank resins and lighter citrus zest forms the aroma, with a little hint of savoury garlic at the edge. Nothing too disturbing, however. It's mostly quite sweet, with the juice element balanced against bitterer pith. Though the texture matches the ABV -- full and rounded -- it's clean and not cloying or sticky. This is well-balanced and easy-going fare, for a big IPA. While not offering any unusual complexity, it does its thing well, demonstrating Whiplash's polished expertise at this kind of beer. Very much a fan-service piece, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A triple IPA of 10.5% ABV is next, and we're still not finished. Headlines is a three-way collaboration with Garage, Naparbier and Barrier. It's a very savoury guy, pouring thick and soupy into the glass: pale orange with a strong aroma of garlic and sesame paste. That oily, acidic garlic twang is where the flavour begins, and forms the bulk of it, to be honest. A generous sprinkling of white pepper is the only other complexity. It's far too rough and gritty for tropical sweetness, and I can't find any citrus pinch either. Ooof. You'll love it or hate it, I guess. As a true-to-style traditional hazy triple IPA, it's bang on style. The way you react to the description is likely what you'll think of the beer. 

Next up, taking a break from the big booze, is a mere 5% ABV pale ale called Hot Pursuit. This is hella hazy: pale yellow and full-on foggy in the glass. The aroma is fresh and fruity: OJ straight from the squeezy machine; a bit of apricot or nectarine, early in the morning at a continental market. You get a more intense acidity on tasting: your American style grapefruit job primarily, with an aftertaste of tangerine and satsuma first, then dry cotton and chalk dust. Yes, it's one of those hazy ones. On balance... yeah, I suppose my thirst did get quenched. It's an unexciting pale ale, the sort of thing haze enthusiasts keep in stock for everyday use. A can of the flagship Rollover session IPA shortly afterwards hit the same spots much more satisfactorily. Still, I'm sure Hot Pursuit will find an audience. 

A dark and double-figured beer to conclude: Fatal Deviation, Barrel Aged. The original version of this massive imperial stout tasted of "a decadent mix of espresso and gallic cigarettes" when I reviewed it in 2017. The new batch has had over a year in bourbon barrels, bringing the ABV up to 11%. The only remnant of the tobacco effect is a nicotine-coloured head. The aroma goes light on sweet American whiskey and big on sappy wood with just faint coffee and chocolate behind. The flavour, too, wears those oak resins at the front, and there wasn't much else at first, when I opened it cold. Given time to warm up, there's an affogato effect, of vanilla mixed with strong espresso. The bitterness level is low, but at the same time it's not a sugary, sticky mess. The alcohol is there to boost the flavours and succeeds without getting in the way. Overall, it is mellow and slow going: entirely appropriate for something costing €15 a can. You can bet I made the most of it.

A pretty decent showing here, on balance. I would really like if more strong porters like Heart of Chambers and Melody Noir were part of the brewery's regular throughput. Hold the French toast.

Dundark

I was always a bit disappointed that Dundalk Bay Brewery had not included a stout in their Brewmaster core range, opting instead for lager, red and IPA. Their special edition imperial stout, Romanov, showed they definitely had the ability in-house. Happily, they have now fully embraced the dark side, with this new pair.

First up, the long-awaited straightforward dry stout: the sort of thing foreigners think every Irish brewery makes but very few do. It's a tough sell. Brewmaster Black deserves a fair chance. It gets the visuals spot on, a fine creamy head forming and lasting, without the aid of nasty flavour-killing nitrogen. That translates into a silky texture as soon as it hits the palate. Oily dark-roasted coffee beans and dark chocolate make up the aroma, and that roast is central to the flavour. There's a burnt-toast dryness at its heart, with the chocolate, less dark here, forming a sweeter balance around it. A bonus floral complexity enhances that, bringing hints of rosewater and hibiscus. Before it goes all silly, a harder old-world metallic hop kick finishes things off. Normally this level of complexity takes a bit of backing from the alcohol. DBB achieves it at just 4.2% ABV.

This beer deserves to sell in quantity but I fear that the mainstream stout drinkers are too set in their ways to switch, while the craft-curious have too much choice of other beers in more fashionable styles with arty labels to bother with this oulfellas' stout which isn't even in a can. The difficulty in getting Irish people to drink stouts is our beer scene's principal national tragedy. And if you agree with me to any extent about that, make sure you get yourself some of this.

On to something a bit more involved: Barrel Aged Irish Stout, this one a special edition. The label gives us the standard spiel about the brewery's ethos, and some anodyne tasting notes, but no description of how the beer was actually made, which is disappointing. I can tell you it's 9% ABV and smells a bit vinous but also a bit vinegary, with a sharp balsamic twang that puts me on edge. That settles a little in the flavour, and thankfully it doesn't taste of vinegar. I would hazard, however, that the barrels it was aged in previously held wine, and may have continued to do so when the stout went in. There's lots of red grape here, and it doesn't sit terribly well with the espresso and cocoa powder of the base beer. I also get a slight phenolic aftertaste, which adds nothing positive to the mix of flavours. I'll throw in my usual cop-out criticism here and say that maybe it will improve with age, allowing the different sides to integrate better with each other. Consumed fresh, it's a bit of a clashing mess of fruit, roast and booze.

And yet it'll probably sell more than Brewmaster Black. Sigh.

Three faces of IPA

Wild Beer used to be that upmarket English brewery whose beer came in the fancy painted bottles. Now, there's loads of them, and they're in cans. I gathered up a handful to tell you about them.

The first to catch my attention was Wild IPA. I like it when hops and sour cultures get together, and who better than mixed fermentation specialists Wild? The first alarm bell was when the can didn't mention the hop varieties involved: surely that's material information in a beer like this? Secondly, it was kinda dark when it poured: an orangey amber, where most of these are bright and yellow because malt is not their friend. Nevertheless I loved the aroma -- it's spicy citric bathsalts with loads of lavender and bergamot. 5.2% ABV is a sizeable strength for this sort of thing, and the mouthfeel is even bigger than that. It's chewy, which is not necessarily what I want from a spritzy hopped-up sour ale.

Things made more sense on tasting, where I realised this is not the beer I expected it to be. It is fuller and slower, and requires a bit of deliberation. Resins are the heart of it: cedar, sandalwood, incense. There's a meadowy floral topnote and a base of heavier citronella and coconut oil. I'm glad I poured it into a goblet because it's one to swirl, savour and explore. Also, I should make it clear that this is not sour. There's a certain fruity funk, but nothing so simple as refreshing tartness. Once I recognised what it was, I could relax with it. It does an amazing job at the strength, tasting several percentage points higher than it is. While it's enjoyable, I don't know that I'd go for more than one: the resins do tend to stick to the palate somewhat. Onwards!

Unsurprisingly given their name and remit, Wild Beer has been getting busy with the kveik, results including this Simcoe/Vic Secret IPA called Vivo. It's a middling 4.9% ABV and filled out a 4-for-€10, so keenly priced. It pours hazy, a pale shade of orange, and smells bright and juicy, promising fun, but the undemanding sort. Sure enough it's light and refreshing, the foretaste bringing happy satsumas and tangerines, somewhat out of keeping, given the serious hop varieties employed. It gets bigger and danker later on, making for a very enjoyable complexity. Vic Secret's liquorice kick arrives in the finish. This is a lovely sessioner brimming with new world hop joy. Lively, fresh and zippy, it is well named.

Last up is another IPA, Freestone, promising stonefruit flavours from its use of New Zealand hops Wai-iti, Rakau and Nectaron. They've New Englanded it by making it hazy and adding oats, as well as buckwheat, for some reason. It certainly doesn't smell fruity. There's a dry and savoury, almost acrid, aroma, like salted popcorn, or all the husky detritus left at the bottom when the popcorn is gone. Not attractive. And, sadly, the flavour is largely a variation on that. I certainly wouldn't have trusted  Saaz-derived Rakau to deliver stonefruit, whatever about the others. It's very savoury, mixing tahini paste with mint, garlic and parsley to create something I'd rather dip a lamb kofta in than drink. I'm not sure what's worse: that it failed to deliver on the description, or that it actively tastes unpleasant. At least it's only 5.8% ABV, so there isn't a gut punch of cloying heat to go with the sesame. It's a clean sort of horrible.

A mere three beers, but something of a rollercoaster from Wild here. Much as I love the variety, I would prefer twists that aren't so unexpected and disorientating. 

The fifth column

Some new haze from Lough Gill today, beginning with Speckled Stone IPA. It's 5% ABV and quite a dark one: amber-orange rather than the de rigueur custard yellow. Still, it smells properly juicy, a mandarin segment replete with a juicy middle and pithy exterior. I get a strange side-aroma of chocolate too. Turns out the aroma is the most interesting part of it. The taste is good, but quite plain; no juicebombs or hop explosions, just a smooth and clean orangeiness. This also means there's no yeast bite, vanilla or garlic mess either, and for that I give thanks. The big and fluffy New England texture is there too, helping the whole package slip back with ease. This is unfussy and understated quality. I'll take that over more adventurous takes any day of the week.

And speaking of which, that was followed by Stranger's Leap, in that increasingly fashionable style "oat cream IPA", brewed with oats and lactose. This one looks more like your typical NEIPA: pale and yellow, with a thin combover of bubbles on top. The mandarin aroma is back, accompanied by a clean mineral sharpness. Nothing here suggests the milkshakey mess I feared. There's a certain creaminess in the texture, and a slight hint of the lactose vanilla in the finish, but the hops are bold enough to prevent that being the central feature. Instead, the Citra, Mosaic, Cashmere and Meridian bring a kick of citrus juice, an oily dankness and a little savoury garlic. The end result is a punchy, zesty and clean IPA, with only a cursory nod to New England custardy fluff. I liked how it goes about its business. There's probably enough to keep haze fashionistas happy, but it's secretly playing for the west coast.

An oatmeal stout is our dessert today. With chocolate flavours and a silky mouthfeel promised, the brewery is aiming for the fundamentals with Arethusa. In the age of brewing silliness, that's fair and welcome. It looks beautiful in a classic straight-sided glass: purest black, topped with thick tan-coloured foam. The chocolate character is dark and bitter and there's an edge of green veg from old-world hops. There's also a wheaty cereal character which I'm guessing is the oatmeal's doing. Are oatmeal stouts supposed to taste of actual oatmeal? The texture, meanwhile, is far from thin, but not exceptionally smooth, well within the bounds of what might be expected from any 5.4% ABV stout. It's decent stuff. Unexciting, but reliable and enjoyable. A perfect antidote to novelty beers.

An old-fashioned twist on modern beer might be one way of looking at this bunch: a valid market segment, and it's good to see somebody looking after it.

Hop and sour soup

It's destination Colorado once again today, and some (hopefully) tangy delights from the Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project.

We start sessionably with Double Dry-Hop Sour, 4.5% ABV and offering an intriguing Americo-Kiwi combination of Citra, Mosaic and Motueka. In contravention of the DDH designation, it poured a bright and sunny yellow, clear until the last few drops which carried some cloudy muck into the glass. Citra's uncompromising lime juice and Motueka's apothecary herbs set out their competing stalls in the aroma. The citrus wins in the flavour, but is magnanimous in victory, just lightly spritzy and allowing the base sourness to come through. That too is present but not overdone, and the balance of hops and tartness in a modest-ABV package is perfect. Some funky and peachy Brett notes bring an extra classiness to the finish. It'll be a while before summer al fresco drinking rolls around again, but this is worth having to hand for when it does.

I thought from the name that Do You Even Zest?! would be another sour job but it's just a double IPA with unspecified citrus fruit added. Awww. It's not even all that double at just 7.5% ABV. In appearance it's a completely opaque lemon-curd yellow, with a fine and persistent foam on top. The texture is appropriately dense for a DIPA, though the aroma is severely lacking: vague dankness with an unpleasant pinch of caraway. The flavour is also rather behind the door. The promised zest is just about discernible, but is no more than a parsimonious squeeze. There's a little resin too, but any edge from either of the previous elements is muffled by a thick layer of custardy vanilla. This is a disappointment from top to tail. The name is genuinely what I found myself thinking while staring into the remaining half glass. They should sell it with a sachet of Brett for adding to taste.

Hoppy and sour trumps fruited IPA yet again. No surprise over here.

Slow burner

I gather from their socials that only a fraction of Boundary's output gets exported for sale south of the border, but there's a hell of a lot. Trying to keep up is probably not an option so here's a bunch of random stuff instead, collected over the last few months of 2020.

At the low end of the ABV scale is Virtual Times: just 3.5%. It's the opaque yellow of pineapple juice and the head disappears instantly. Officially it's a session IPA, with added lemon and coconut, which is a new one on me. The lemon scent of the aroma could be entirely hop-derived, and there's a touch of vegetal bitterness and some murky fuzz too. The texture is thinner than I think is entirely acceptable and the yeast bite dominates the picture in an unpleasant way. The hops, too, are overly harsh and extreme. Trying to overlook these two things was hard work, and there's not a whole lot else to find. The coconut is shy (wahey!) and there's a fun lemon cookie thing in the aftertaste, but otherwise it's all burn and bite and no fun. Not the worst thing 2020 gave us, but a long way from Boundary's best work.

A gose next: light and sessionable, right? Wrong! For Boundary's first take on the style they've ramped it up to 6% ABV and added blood orange and lime, calling it Bloody Chancer. I'll say. It looks like a glass of carrot juice: murky orange with no head soon after pouring. It smells sour and juicy, though more like freshly squeezed OJ than a beer. There's lots of juice in the flavour, and it starts sweet before the lactic sourness kicks in. That's just enough to make the beer zingy and refreshing in the middle, and it fades quite quickly. The finish is sweet again, with a fruit flesh effect. I missed the lime on the first few passes, but it's there, melding a little with the sour culture though providing a little bitter greenness. This isn't half bad. It delivers the things I like about fruited gose and is nicely refreshing. It's very easy to forget that ABV while quaffing through it.

Boundary's is the third contribution to the international charitable haze project, All Together, to come my way, following Whiplash and Garage. The others were 6.5% ABV but this one has been downgraded to 4.5%. It still smells great: roaring with jaffa pulp plus a cheeky smattering of garlic. The texture too is that of a stronger beer, thick and smooth as New England IPA tends to be. It's not sweet though, at least not in the vanilla-pudding sort of way these often are. I mentioned orange pulp with regard to the aroma, and that's how it tastes: fruit that has been not so much juiced as mashed, leaving the pith intact. That garlic is still there in the background, and I detect a pinch of nutmeg spice too. It's a lovely effort, as all these All Togethers have been. I don't miss those two ABV points at all.

Staying hazy, a double IPA with the unnecessary name of I Was Never Sure How Much Of You I Could Let In. An arm? Three toes? It's a mystery. What's not is the blend of Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin advertised on the label, dry-hopped at a substantial 22g per litre. The aroma from the deep orange 8%-er is very resinous, a heady mix of kerosene and fetid tropical fruit. No punches pulled, then. Or so I thought. The texture is of course smooth, but so is the flavour. No heat, no mad hop antics. That tropical thing is the centrepiece: gently sweet and juicy, like... well... an actual piece of pineapple or mango. The dank and grassy resins arrive in the finish, but with no sharp edges, just all smooth and mellow maaaan. This is a delight of a double IPA. It's a sipper, but effortless drinking at the same time. As a New Englander it's atypical, missing the sugary vanilla. As a demonstration of how to do New England DIPA well, it's exemplary. More of this sort of thing, haze brewers, if you please.

The final offering is, appropriately, called Eschatology: a name to gladden the heart of this sometime theology student. Even more gladdening, it's an imperial stout, 9.5% ABV, and they've included coffee and salted caramel. It poured very fizzily, piling up a mass of big-bubbled brown foam over the dense obsidian body. The aroma is more peanut shells than coffee or caramel, which is odd, but not off-putting. There's a powerful jolt of coffee at the front of the flavour, a proper wrap-both-hands-around-the-mug as it's thick and warming, thanks to 9.5% ABV and I suspect a high finishing gravity. After the coffee and liqueur there's hazelnut, churro sauce, and just a sprinkle of salt. It's not complex, but then it doesn't need to be, going for the comforting smoothness instead. Some cherry would be nice, mind.

There are some indications here that Boundary is one of our island's better brewers of New England IPA: they seem to have mastered getting the juiciness out of the hops without too much of the other nasty off-flavours that spoil haze's reputation. As a brewery they don't have quite the vocal international following of, say, Whiplash, but I think they're in that league. If you've not tried their wares lately, pick up something hefty and murky next time you can.

Away we go

It feels weird not to be abroad for New Year's -- the first time in two decades. The nearest I'm getting to a jolly jaunt in some chilly European city is a frosty German winter lager.

Der Hirschbräu Winter-Festbier is one of a range commonly available in these parts, but I had not noticed this one before. The festivity is limited to just 5.6% ABV, though the colour is a warming chestnut amber: we're at the darker end of the Märzen spectrum here.

A gentle waft of weedy noble hops is all it shows for an aroma, and the texture is full and smooth, verging on sticky but staying drinkable. The dark malt leads the flavour, with mild notes of treacle and toast. The hops add a peppery seasoning, like rocket, balancing the sweetness. Balance is really the theme here, to the point of the beer being a little boring. Everything runs like Teutonic clockwork, with no drama or distinguishing features.

This was far from an exciting or intense experience, but it did provide a sense of drinking ordinary central European lager in central Europe, and for that I was appreciative.