Fashion-proof

Lest there be any doubt about Grand Cru's superior ability to source excellent beer, a modest selection from The Kernel is now available in Ireland. Not having been to London for a while, I was behind on what the Bermondsey brewery has been up to, and was pleased to find they're still doing things very much their own way: no cans, no milkshake IPAs and no swirly colourful artwork. And how is the beer shaping up?

I started with London Brick, a red rye ale of 6.5% ABV, catching it just inside its four-month best-before window. It poured quite fizzily, forming a thick pillow of foam above the slightly swampy ochre body. It smells of candy and citrus; green Starburst and white lemonade. There's a brown-bread malt base, almost savoury, and then a marked contrast in the hoppy top-notes, which are light and fruity: cantaloupe, passionfruit and mango. Simcoe and Mosaic are the varieities employed, and I'm surprised by the former, there being none of its signature heavy dank. A mild balancing bitterness arrives in the finish, perhaps derived more from the rye than the hops. It's very enjoyable and a lot less serious than rye ales tend to be. You'd never guess the strength, either. 

Next: a Brown Ale with Mandarina Bavaria? Was this going to taste like a Terry's Chocolate Orange? Yes. Yes it was. Not in any daft pastry-stout way; this is a pretty serious well-made brown ale to its core. It's 5.6% ABV and full-bodied with a gorgeous cask-like smoothness. Milky coffee and creamy milk chocolate form the base, the flavour's richness complementing the body perfectly. With all the dark malt effects, it shouldn't be a suitable jumping-off point for hop character but the Mandarina is very prominent, avoiding any interrupting bitterness but bringing bags of sweet orangey flavour. That does lessen the traditional feel of it in favour of a more modern construction. I'll take it, though. This is gorgeous stuff; different to anything I've had from The Kernel before but with absolutely the same high level of quality.

Kernel still got it.

A Kurt nod

An oatmeal stout from Rascals today, to which they've added chocolate as well as coffee from local roastery Imbibe. They've grandiosely named it The Breakfast of Champions though I had it in the evening and am far from a champion.

It looks great in the glass: a shiny black with a full and lasting head. I could have sat and admired it for hours were it not for the enticing aroma: lots of freshly brewed coffee, turning increasingly chocolatey the closer it got to my nose. 6.1% ABV helps boost the richness, but I'm sure the oatmeal, coffee and chocolate all played their part. It's properly sumptuous, smooth and creamy like a latte. Not that it's all sweetness and milk: there's a punchy roasted bitterness, and even a slight jangle of green hops. A certain grainy dryness is present too, which I'm guessing is the oats, but could be just my imagination trying to round out the set.

Either way, this is the complete picture and I don't know what else one could want from the spec. Stout purists might complain that the coffee is overdone, but if you come at it as a novelty beer it's incredibly well balanced and pleasingly dry by modern standards of fancy stout.

Some IPAs

I'm trying really hard to avoid doing big round-up posts at the moment. They're almost as much of a slog to write as they are to read. Please excuse today's thin end of that particular wedge: four recent releases from Irish breweries in the up-and-coming speciality style called India pale ale.

It's a good job that "double dry hopped" doesn't actually mean anything, or I'd be worried about Larkin's giving the treatment to a beer that's only 4% ABV. Their new session IPA is called Revolver and is a hazy middling orange-yellow. Centennial, Citra and Idaho 7 represents a kind of cross-section of the cool hops of the last 15 years or so. It smells of orange concentrate first, with a heavier herbal dank behind -- pleasingly assertive. There's none of the thinness I feared, and no unbalanced hop sharpness. It's rounded and with plenty of malt sweetness to buoy up the fruity side of the hops. I fully expected oats to be listed as an ingredient, but it achieves this with barley alone. That fruit side is tropical, juicy, and a little spicy too: a sprinkling of cinnamon on your slice of roasted pineapple. Where the low strength helps out is in the quick finish, no cloying sugar or syrup. "Session IPA" is a bit of a hackneyed term, but this really does have the depth and complexity of a proper IPA with a wonderful easy-going drinkability. I'm not sure if this is going to be permanent but it would make for a very worthy flagship.

It's almost a year since the last edition of the O'Hara's single hop IPA series. And now here's Hop Adventure: Strata, the eighth variety by my count. It's the by-now standard medium hazy golden colour and 5% ABV. The aroma is strongly weedy: not your typical dankness, but the piquant peppery spice of an Amsterdam coffeeshop doorway on a cold winter's day. The flavour is soft and sweet with notes of vanilla pod, frangipane and apple pie. A tannic dryness completes the tea-and-a-pastry picture. It's not at all what I'd expect from something presenting as an American-style IPA, but it's absolutely gorgeous. That's two IPAs in a row I would happily quaff serially. But this blog isn't about making me happy. Moving on...

I've been a fan of all the core range from Heaney Farmhouse Brewery. The Blond, Red and Stout have been very well-made and to-style examples of balanced loveliness. So I was attracted to what appeared to be a new one, simply badged India Pale Ale, even though it was packaged in a 440ml can instead of the usual half-litre bottle. The wording "A classic West Coast IPA" attracted me further, though at only 5.5% ABV I had to wonder how "classic" it could be. In the glass it's slightly hazy, but not excessively so, and a lovely sunset amber colour. The aroma is sweet; old skool crystal malt getting straight to work. The texture is light, as befits the ABV, and the flavour is also a bit of a shrinking violet. I think they're going for something closer to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale than Sculpin. There's a very old-world taste of flowers and vegetables from the hops, with no more than a lacing of citrus. It's not unpleasant but I was hoping for more of a kick. This offers the same simple understated enjoyment as the rest of the core; the wording they chose for the can is the only part I could possibly object to.

Finally for today, Galway Bay Brewery has been revisiting the log books and resurrected a short-lived IPA from 2013. The original Voyager NZ was 6% ABV and brewed with Pacifica and Pacific Jade. This one is half a percent stronger and uses Kiwi classics Nelson Sauvin and Motueka, so they didn't look too closely at the previous recipe. It's a thoroughly modern eggy yellow with the poor head retention that seems par for the course in this degenerate age. Nelson's gooseberries-dipped-in-diesel is apparent from the aroma. The flavour is gentler, however. It's rounded and soft fruit for the most part: peach, lychee, a little pineapple; and then a sharper tart bitterness arrives in the finish, bringing Motueka's dry grass and aniseed. That makes for quite a contrast between fore- and aftertaste, but it's a best of both worlds situation. I love the luscious tropical fleshiness, and the harder hop kick. Amazing that it was all done with only two hops. Not too hot for the strength and with no dreggy murky yuck, this is a superb example of the art of IPA.

Plenty of variety in this set, whatever your IPA predilections may be. There's a sub-style for everyone.

Don't be careful what you wish for

In my previous Whiplash post I hankered after more dark beers from the brewery. And the brewery has swiftly obliged with today's four. Be assured that I am very aware of my influencer superpowers and promise to only use them, as in this instance, for good.

The first one, Dark Steering, is in the criminally under-represented style of schwarzbier. There's a properly German tall stack of foam on pouring, at least at first. That collapses disappointingly quickly. The body is appropriately black, with auburn highlights, while the aroma offers hints of sweet cola and bitter liquorice. A sip didn't give me anything to write about, so the main observation here is that it's one for gulping. With a hearty mouthful on board, I was struck first by the beefy texture and low carbonation, closer to a doppelbock than a lager of just 5.2% ABV. The style's hallmark herbal bitterness is present but plays second fiddle to a toasty roasty dryness that forms the second half, after the big malt departs. I think I'd prefer it lighter and crisper: it's a little too heavy for my taste. That's a mere quibble of preference, however. It's very well made and I welcome any and all schwarzbier to the Irish market, however idiosyncratic.

Getting heavier and more serious is an export stout of 9% ABV called <cue Brando> The Horror. It got off on the wrong foot with a lively and sticky pour, the nicotine-stained foam overflowing the glass. Then the aroma is a little off-putting. It's brewed with smoked malt, and phenols are present in the aroma, but there's also a thin and slightly vinegary sharpness. I'm sure it's merely a coincidence of features, but it smells a little infected. Thankfully the flavour sets us straight. It's big and rich all the way through with no nasty over-attenuation or sourness. Instead, rich dark chocolate forms the base, the sweet side balanced deftly with a shot of heavy-roast espresso. And then the peat is layered on top of that: real turf fires and a tot of Laphroaig for a different kind of warmth. I've had plenty of supposedly smoked big stouts where the weight of dark malt has suffocated the too-subtle smoke; and others that have gone overboard and end up like drinking TCP. This treads a middle path and is enjoyable as both a high-quality near-imperial stout, and a smoked beer. Fans of similar things from Dutch masters like De Molen, Kees! and Emelisse can expect that sort of quality from this. If smoke isn't your thing, however, this is not the beer to convince you otherwise.

A second set of dark beers followed this pair, first to hit the shops being the Fungie-tribute brown ale The Ocean Wide, brewed with the famous Kerry dolphin's favourite maple syrup. It pours as though nitrogenated: the tight head of tiny bubbles taking a while to settle. I don't know that I'd pick maple syrup specifically from the aroma but it does smell very sweet -- some sort of syrup is involved for sure. 6.8% ABV is much stronger than these usually are, and makes itself felt here in a stout-like density. The flavour is a bit pastry-stout too: jam and toffee, and that sort of intense sweetness that's almost harshly bitter, like saccharine. The core elements of brown ale are there -- chocolate, caramel and milky coffee -- but they're masked by everything else going on. The brown malt doesn't really get the chance to shine that it deserves. Overall, I enjoyed it, but would prefer something calmer and more balanced. I guess grief does funny things.

Lastly for now, a dubbel they've called Saunter. I thought it was a little overkill to include real dates in a style of beer which often has dates in the flavour profile anyway. It's also an almost quadrupel-esque 8.3% ABV. The pour looked well at first, though the head faded quite quickly. The body is the garnet colour of a lighter dubbel, rather than full-on brown. I started thinking quadrupel again when I tasted it, however. It's dense and quite boozy, with sticky sherry or port being the first impression. A more typical dubbel-like plum-pudding breadiness forms the middle, and there's a slightly odd sour berry tang, which I guess is the date. Other complexities you might find in the mix here are cola nut, burnt toast, aniseed and black pepper. Or you might not. There's plenty to explore anyway; if you don't like it at first -- and I was hesitant -- keep sipping and you'll find something worthwhile. While it's fun and interesting, describing itself as "Belgian" is a bit cheeky as the Belgians don't make them like this, and I think I prefer the classic examples. Irish dubbel is an easy field in which to excel.

All four of these were worth waiting for, and I hope they find their market out there on the crowded shelves. Perhaps some of Whiplash's haze-loving followers will discover the brewery has other strengths.

A culture clash

Two American IPAs today, from different sides of the admittedly broad genre. I thought it would be fun to try them side-by-side, since they were there.

The modernist wing is represented by Ska's Tropical The Hazy. If the name sounds wrong, it might help to know this is a tropical variant on their The Hazy IPA, one I reviewed, and didn't particularly like, last summer. We're not told on the rough-and-ready labelled can what it is that makes it tropical, though I note going in how different it looks compared to the original, being a friendlier, warmer orange rather than stark yellow. There's a clear fruit aroma: mandarin and apricot, so not really tropical, but suggesting lots of mouth-watering juice. The flavour is less subtle. No suggestions here, but a big and sticky cordial sweetness; perfume and Fruit Salad chews. While very artificial tasting, it's not unpleasant. That could be because it's quite atypical for a hazy IPA, being clean, for one thing, and lacking grit, garlic and caraway. There's even a little hop bitterness; a green pinch at the finish. Rather than a serious take on New England IPA, this is more a novelty fruit beer, and as such it's fine. It doesn't go overboard on the syrup and is easy but satisfying to drink. It's an IPA with a delightfully cheery disposition.

But enough of that. The counterpoint is Sierra Nevada's Dankful, a "resinous West Coast IPA" brewed with Columbus, Chinook, Mosaic, Ekuanot, Nelson Sauvin, Zappa, Idaho 7 and whatever you're having yourself. It's 7.4% ABV, a mostly-clear amber colour and does indeed smell very pine-like, if not especially dank. So it goes with the flavour: a big ol' smack of floor cleaner and wood sap, without the more aromatic grassy feel that I count as "dank". It is pretty good, though, and does offer a fun contrast to the beer I drank just before it. No soft fruit here but plenty of hard and punchy bitterness, with enough oiliness to make it linger for ages on the tongue. There's a very retro feel, harking back to the days when brewers compared their willy sizes using IBU numbers. If you miss those days, Sierra Nevada has you covered. I'm actually reminded a little of Sierra's old old IPA, discontinued around 2007 and replaced by Torpedo. It's certainly not what's understood as West Coast IPA these days and offers more retro action than I bargained for. And sure why not?

I went into this expecting typical examples of the beers' sub-styles and came out pleased by how off-kilter they both were. We may be saturated in IPA these days but those three letters still have the power to surprise.

Kasteel katch-up

Beers from Van Honsebrouck's Kasteel range have come and gone on this blog over the years, so I passed by the core-looking set when I saw it in the local supermarket. But it turns out I've never tried any of these so had to make a purchase on a subsequent visit. Let's see what we've got here.

Kastell Blond is a whole 7% ABV, putting it a step ahead of the likes of Leffe Blond. I still wasn't expecting it to be anything other than a plain Belgian blonde ale. To be honest, it isn't really, but I've been so starved of Belgian delight over the past year that I was still very happy with it. While maybe a little sweeter than the norm, packed with tinned-fruit-in-syrup flavours, it manages also to stay light and unsticky. There's an almost lager-like clean grain in the finish. It's a no-fuss sort of quality that -- on another day, in a different mood -- I might dismiss as bland. Right now, I'll take it.

I thought Kasteel Rouge was going to be something like a dubbel, maybe as a Chimay parallel. In fact, it's a fruit beer. Out with the kriek glass, so. And it's very krieky -- an assault of sweet cherry juice, right from the start. I found it hard to believe this candyboy is all of 8% ABV. Normally one would expect a buzz of hot cough syrup, but it stays light and clean, just like the blond. The blended recipe includes a certain proportion of Kasteel Brune, and if you look closely there is a little of the caramel and toffee one would expect from that style. Really, however, the cherry conquers all. I like cherry flavours so wasn't bothered by the lack of complexity here.

The sun comes up and the world still turns, and Van H now has a Belgian IPA in the range, looking like it's been there forever. Kasteel Hoppy is the lightest of today's bunch, being just 6.5% ABV. It's a bright polished gold in the glass. "Hoppy" does not describe the aroma. It smells like Duvel: that subtle mix of honey and grains with a little waxy dryness. I lazily assumed that it would be American-hopped, so would smell of grapefruit and perfume, but the label wears the "Belgische Hop" badge. And why not? I still have a right to expect it to be hop-forward though. The flavour has hops, but I don't know if I'd say it's all-caps hoppy. Under the honey and rye cracker there's a meadowy floral thing, and a mildly metallic tang. None of this is beyond the remit of a standard Belgian blonde, however. The shout-out to locally sourced hops was nice, but I was underwhelmed by the resulting taste.

There are plenty of better Belgian options out there at the moment, and these aren't going to replace them. I will draw the sweet kriek fans' attention to the Rouge and leave it at that.

Pack animals

BrewDog has had visitors. Two collaborations from US-based breweries today, in very different styles.

I liked the name they chose for the west coast IPA: Future Proof. It's nice to think all the classic beer styles will be around forever, even though it's patently not true. Anyway, San Diego's Modern Times was the collaborator on this, and it's a little light for proper west coast vibes at just 6.2% ABV. It's a pale sunset-gold, infused with a fine misting of craft floaty bits. Another check goes in the "smells of grapefruit" box, though there's a sweet aspect too. Is candied grapefruit a thing? The flavour is incredibly grapefruity, but again a sweetness softens it. The can's text begs us to think mango and lychee; I wouldn't go that far but satsuma and hazy lemonade are perfectly apt, the latter with a jaunty sprig of rosemary in the jug to add resins. This is delightful sunny fun, and while I suspect it may be more a recreation of someone's memory of west coast IPA than any real example from the olden days, the clean and bittersweet deliciousness can't be argued with.

Of course, knowingly retro takes on west coast IPA are as much a part of the current craft landscape as silly stouts, which brings us neatly to Roaster Coaster. This is a 9% ABV job, created in collaboration with Evil Twin and made with Vietnamese coffee. It's nitrogenated, and after a flurry of activity on pouring it settles to a thick off-white head neatly delineated over a jet black body. The aroma is milky chocolate more than coffee, suggesting a sweet time to come. The flavour bears that out somewhat. While it's not as sickly as I feared, the coffee, and indeed the dark-malt roast, is on the back foot, with creamy chocolate candy worn up front. The alcohol is well hidden, or maybe that's how they've avoided the usual nitro blandness: by pumping up the strength. Only in the finish does it turn to latte or mocha. While fine, it's not really what I'm looking for in an imperial stout, or a coffee stout. It lacks depth and complexity, and as usual I'm going to blame the nitro for that. It has more going for it than a lot of other nitro beers, though, so if you're OK with the format you're likely to enjoy this example.

Conclusions? BrewDog continues to turn out mostly reliable and enjoyable beer. It's the one thing that keeps me broadly in the "pro" camp for this divisive company. While I don't go rushing for every new release, it's nice to check in with them now and again, and I'm rarely disappointed.

Out of the house

Home Brew of the Year 2020 is a hell of a name to put on a can, but if nobody else is claiming it, why not? This is a saison, designed by home brewer Niall Clinton, which impressed Western Herd enough for them to scale it up into a commercial batch. The competition has been running for several years and usually the winners don't make it far from the brewery, so we have The Pivot to thank for a small-pack version being available this time round.

If you're interested in the technicals, Magnum and Bramling Cross are the hops and 5.9% the ABV. What I can tell you is that it really tastes like saison. There's that shouldn't-work-but-does mix of grain husk, white pepper and ripe apricot, set on a rounded and slightly greasy ester-soaked texture with a busy prickle of fizz. Dry, yet fruity, yet spicy, in short.

I tend to find strong saisons cloying while low-ABV ones can seem sharp and harsh: this steers a middle course away from both. For anyone judging to style, I can see how it got high marks, but it's an overall enjoyable and complex drinking experience too. Well done to everyone involved.

North coastin'

Given how eagerly I had been anticipating the arrival of Lacada's beers to Dublin it took me a stupidly long time to get around to buying any, and came close to missing one of the range by the time I did. Anyway, here's the first set of (official) down-south exports from Portrush's finest.

A Citra pale ale of 4.6% ABV starts us off: West Bay. It's misty in the glass; not full on hazy but far from pin-bright either. The zesty aroma is just what one would expect, though there's little carbonation to propel it. In the mouth, then, it feels like a cask beer. That might not be to the taste of some when it comes to American-style pale ale but for your cask-starved correspondent it was a lovely piece of nostalgia. The flavour behind it is clean and simple, and more sweet than bitter. Satsuma or mandarin pith is about as citric as it gets. Though light-bodied there's a decent malt balance too, enhancing the juicy side of the hops. A smidge more bitterness might be nice, but as-is it's a perfectly acceptable fruity quaffer and hard to fault.

I'm curious as to why they have two US-style IPAs of 6% ABV in the range. Let's see how they differ. The brewery describes East the Beast as the fruity one so I started there. It's another hazy orange job, this time properly foggy. There's a very assertive juice aroma: mandarin and apricot, with a gentle cedar spicing as well. That spicing is the first hint that things are about to turn savoury, and they really do. A sort of fried potato effect is at the centre of the flavour, followed quickly by sulphurous rubber and a twang of zinc. A twist of jaffa rind, faint in the finish, is the only trace of the promised fruit that I could taste. I can't pick out any common technical flaw here; I suspect the recipe just didn't get on with my palate. I wish you better luck should you try it.

Although Malin is also 6% and also US-style (Strata hops), we're on the west coast of the north coast here. It's an almost-pure clear amber colour, showing only a faint mist. Juice appears again in the aroma, this time a bright and sunny pineapple with ripe mango and tinned peach. There's a fair bit of that fruit salad in the flavour, especially in the long finish, but the foretaste has a savoury side too: tannins, rye cracker and a little of whatever that burnt rubber thing in the previous one was. So it's not perfect, but the summery tropical aspect comes through strongly enough to counter any downsides. A little bit of cleaning up and it would be a beaut.

The finisher is Blue Pool. My tardiness meant this was a little harder to track down than the others. I trust that its popularity with the Dublin drinking public is more to do with the taste than it simply being the strongest, at 6.4% ABV. "NEIPA" is the style designation, though it doesn't look especially different from the others -- a similar pale orangey shade. It took a few sniffs to get a handle on the aroma as it's quite subtle: a little vanilla, some candied orange peel, and a worrying note of that burnt savoury quality that ruined East the Beast on me. In the flavour that translates to a mild fried-onion edge, but nothing severe or off-putting. Although it's sweet, with vanilla ice cream and sherbet, there's a generous squeeze of citrus too; a lemon juice acidity that brings a modicum of balance. The most striking feature is its texture: huge and chewy, feeling like a higher strength than it actually is. There's a significant warmth as well, giving the whole thing an air of double IPA at a relatively modest ABV. That's an achievement. 

As much as I enjoyed three out of four here, I don't know that we really needed a slew of new IPAs on the shelves. Here's hoping the initial set gives Lacada enough of a foothold to send something more exciting our way.

Irish for lager

Ahh, The Pivot. With no sign of pubs re-opening any time soon, the breweries who relied on the draught trade have had to small-pack their beers in order to sell them. It's entirely understandable and much better than the alternative. Today's post is three lagers, at least two of which, I suspect, owe their existence to The Pivot.

Barrelhead, the side-project of JW Sweetman's head brewer, has bottled a Helles called HopburgH. The label gives us lots of detail on its creation, down to the schedule of the brewday. There would have been no rush on tank space in the pub, allowing for four months of lagering in the cellars below Burgh Quay. It emerged with a €4.50 price tag on the 500ml bottle, or two-and-a-half Spatens. Though unfiltered it's a pure clear golden. The aroma is an attractive mix of honeycomb, flower bouquets and lemon zest. There's a dry crispness which is a little atypical for Helles, but absolutely beautiful. The floral/citrus hop mix from the aroma is there too, making for something mouthwatering and refreshing while also complex and interesting enough to explore slowly. To my mind it's as much a Czech světlý ležák as a Bavarian Helles, with a side of modern IPL for good measure. Regardless of the classification it's quite beautiful and the work which went into it is very apparent. I hope there are some other slow-matured delights waiting in the basement of 1-2 Burgh Quay.

Meanwhile, over in Smithfield, the shutters are also down at Dublin's retro arcade bar Token. I had never tried their eponymous house lager, brewed by Trouble, so picked up a can when I saw it. Cynically, I thought this would be the same beer as Park Life, the one Trouble does for Taphouse (also now out in cans) but the ABVs are different, this one 4.6%. It's very pale in the glass, with a little haze. The aroma is plain and a little grainy, which is fine and in keeping with a house lager. Similarly, the flavour is understated. There's an air of unspecified tropical fruit candy and a dry finish with a touch of Germanic asparagus or celery, but that's your lot. This is very much designed not be distracting from the games and whatnot. While unexciting it's also flawless and I could happily chug a few of them.

The pandemic influenced Wicklow Wolf's first 2021 release in a different way. Somewhere Far Away is a tribute to all of us missing the possibility of travel. Hops still get to traverse the planet, however, and this is an India pale lager with Motueka and Nelson Sauvin from New Zealand. It's another mildly hazy one and a similar deep gold to the first beer. That medicinal quality you often get with Motueka is very apparent in the aroma: eucalyptus throat sweets, aniseed and wet grass. Even though the hops get top billing, it's sweet in the foretaste, a stickiness that suggests warm fermentation to me, though I'm sure it's a proper lager if the brewery says so. The white grape of Nelson is more prominent here, though there's plenty of the tarry-medicinal thing, buoyed up by the malt. And all of that lasts long in the finish. While I enjoyed this, it didn't deliver what I want from a lager, specifically, and may as well be a pale ale. Maybe the big 6% ABV has something to do with that: IPL's are usually lighter. But then, with everything else going on, we could all benefit from the boost in alcohol.

Personally, I'm delighted that Irish lager is still a thing, even when convivial pints and the venues for them remain out of bounds. I hope this is one of the things that will continue when we are free once more.

Nuts to that

Peanuts in beer. It's a phenomenon that seems to have come from nowhere in recent months and this is the third one to come my way since December. This one is called Peanut Butter Milk Stout, from milk stout maestros Left Hand.

It smells intriguing, and not really of peanut butter, though that's not something I eat much of. Instead I get chocolate wafers and caramel, with a pinch of salt. A further surprise arrives on tasting: strawberry, raspberry and a little peach juice, before we're back to milk chocolate and crisp wafer. It's a strange and random combination, but it works. And despite the sweetness, the busyness and 6.2% ABV, it's remarkably easy to drink.

As daft novelty beers go, this is one of the better ones. I guess it's Left Hand's skills with milk stout shining through. Give it a go. At €2.50 a can, what could go wrong?

Salty hops

One pleasant discovery for me from the summer's Boxtravaganza virtual festival was Yorkshire's Salt brewery. Their beers started to make an appearance on the shelves here later in 2020, beginning with today's first three pale ales.

A dinky little 4%-er starts us off: Calico. Its modern sensibilities spread beyond the clean branding to the opaque yellow liquid inside. With that sort of full-on haze and oats in the grist, I'm a little surprised it's not formally classed as New England-style. That could be because of the bitterness, mind. The aroma gives the first suggestion of it: the peel and pith of a big jaffa orange. The citrus is even more concentrated in the flavour, a tight pinch of grapefruit and lime juice. While it doesn't have New England's vanilla side, there is a balancing sweetness here, of orangeade and sherbet. Though the profile is from a new world playbook, the English ability to squeeze lots of flavour and a full body into a low-strength package is well demonstrated. This is enjoyable, happy stuff.

Jute is next, a session IPA at 4.2% ABV. It looks pretty similar to the previous one; maybe a little less hazy, though there was a lot of silty gunk in the bottom of the can, so it might have turned out identical if homogenised. The aroma is also similarly citric but the taste is a lot less impressive. There's a great deal less of it, for one thing, and there's a slightly hollow and watery quality. I'm perhaps being a little unfair. A few sips in I realised it wasn't really bland, just not as much of a flavour-bomb as the one previous. I should have changed the drinking order. Fuzzy meringue pie meets lemon zest here, which is fine and simple. There's a touch of off-putting grit from the lees and a slightly garlicky acidity. Middling to fair, all in all, I'd say.

A self-described New England IPA completes the initial trilogy. Huckaback is 5.5% ABV and a deeper colour than the others; more orange than yellow. The sensory intensity takes another dive, as this had almost no aroma at all; maybe a slight hint of mandarin, but nothing assertive or distinctive. Not a good sign. The texture is nice: it's fluffy without being dreg-ridden and there are no off-flavours. "Intensely fruity" said the label when I went looking for a clue as to how it should taste. Reader, it is not. Again there's a very mild mandarin and maybe some orange and vanilla icepop, but it was hard work to find anything on which to latch a tasting note. Is that a soda-water minerality in the finish? Perhaps. This was the blandest of the lot, doing nothing much interesting with its extra bandwidth of alcohol.

This initial set was followed later by a further pair. Bonneville is another 4%-er and self-describes as hazy. How many of these does one brewery need? The standard sweet and zesty lemon meringue aroma starts us off in a predictable way. The flavour is rather more off-kilter. It's intensely bitter in a vegetal, asparagus and chicory, sort of way. Then it finishes on a palate-scraping chalky dryness. I can't accuse this one of being bland, but I didn't enjoy it either, and was glad of the small can.

The final shot at redemption is Crash, this one 5% ABV but we're still in Hazy Town during yellow season. "Tropical aromas" declares the label. Lemons can be tropical, I suppose, maybe. It smells very lemony, with more of that dry gritty chalk, for a sort of soluble vitamin C tablet effect. That's pretty much what the flavour offers too, though it's softer than the previous one, the alcohol taking the edge off the severity. While not brilliant, it is palatable, the malt background adding a drizzle-cake dimension to the lemon, and there's a funky dank complexity to the hops. A sprinkling of coconut adds an extra seasoning, and reminds me of the Sabro session IPA that was my first Salt beer back in July. I found this off-putting to begin with, but even with a 33cl serve I was able to adjust to it and came to enjoy it by the end. This is an IPA to tackle when you're up for a challenge rather than refreshment.

Easy, tasty Calico set me up for a fall here. I thought I was in for a mid-strength riot of hazy hop joy but the switch came swiftly after the bait. I look forward to sinking a draught pint or three of Calico at some point in the future though. Otherwise, I think Salt's range may be a bit of an acquired taste, at best.