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.