An IPA kick

Time for another cross-sectional look at the IPA and IPA-adjacent offerings from Irish breweries over the past few months. 

I'm easing myself in with the first couple, starting without any alcohol. Early Start, by Pearse Lyons for Aldi, has been around for a while and has been getting plaudits from a number of directions so I thought it was about time I tried it. The head formation and retention impressed me immediately -- it really felt like I was holding a proper glass of beer. Under it, the body is a slightly sickly looking murky orange. Props to the aroma: a spicy, peppery dank with hints of lemon and floral bouquet, reminding me of American-style pale ales when brewed by UK breweries and served on cask. That's a compliment. The spice and the citrus comes straight through to the foretaste, and I thought for a second this was going to be properly convincing, but there is, ironically, an early finish. The taste evaporates into a watery dead end, hollow with a vestigial metallic, aspirin, bitterness. It tastes, I guess, like a very weak beer. There are no horrible flaws, there is plenty of hop character, and it's actively refreshing. But it's only good by the standards of non-alcoholic IPA, not the real thing.

Still not quite the real thing, a pale ale is next: Magic Mist, new from The White Hag. This is a substantial 5% ABV, completely opaque though also surprisingly pale: a very light shade of yellow. The aroma is a lovely mix of peaches, mandarin and mango: fairly tropical but with a gentle pinch of citrus. There's a bit of a switch in the flavour, turning away from real fruit and more towards the ersatz sort: cordials and candy. There's also too much contribution from the fuzz, bringing a gritty, chalky dry bite that interrupts the hops. This is one of those beers to make one wonder what the point of haze is: it definitely doesn't enhance the flavour, nor make the beer "juicy" as claimed on the label. The profile here has potential but overall it's a near miss for me.

A final pale ale, hOPTICAL, comes from O Brother and uses Kiwi hops Nelson Sauvin and Motueka. While very murky indeed, there's limited interference from the gunk in the flavour. There's a lovely mix of Motueka's slightly medicinal herbal grass thing with Nelson's softer fruit. Both bring plenty of bitterness so it's not one of those sickly-vanilla hazy jobs, nor cursed with garlic daftness. The only thing holding back its quaffability is the thick texture. It's easy to imagine one is drinking something much stronger than 5.5% ABV, and I'm not sure if that's a plus point or not. I liked it, though. You get the big bang of hops which is O Brother's signature move, yet it's not overdone and the individual flavours are available to be enjoyed separately. At €4.60 it was maybe a bit spendy for a pale ale, but that's exotic hops for ya.

We enter the IPA zone with a jump to 6% ABV and a banishing of all haze. This is Hard Day At Sea, on the Two Sides label, brewed as usual at Third Barrel. "West Coast" they say, and deliver an almost perfectly clear golden glassful. I don't resent the faint misting still visible. The hops aren't specified, which I kinda like as it removes any expectations. It's husky on the aroma: sesame seed and a little sweaty grapefruit rind. You in there, Cascade? The malt is the first thing to make itself felt in the flavour: it's heavier than the ABV implies, with golden syrup and marmalade qualities. Then we get that grapefruit and lemon rind west-coast kick, with the base malt just about dense enough to carry the bitterness. The sesame/caraway thing returns a little in the finish, but otherwise this is a very well executed example of contemporary west coast IPA. There's all the punch you could want, balanced by big malt, and at a pleasingly modest strength. Buy two if you see it; you'll want a second.

The ABVs accelerate ever upwards, with 6.2% the next stop and Whiplash Ratio the IPA. It's another proper-haze-craze pale yellow and with a handsome, cask-like, loose-bubbled head. It smells pithily bitter with a worrying seam of alkaline chalk in there too. The texture is chewy and dense with more than a little alcohol burn. Only 6.2%? I was expecting citrus in the flavour but it's more savoury than that: breadcrusts, garlic and spinach. There's something resembling a zesty bitterness at the front but it gets squashed by the murk before it can unfold, turning to a hard waxy effect. I found it all a bit rough and serious, reminding me most of all of a sample of something very unfinished taken from the fermenter. The brewery's official description includes pineapple and bubblegum but it tasted a long way from such frivolous joys to me.

On to Call of Juicy next, the latest in Wicklow Wolf's Endangered Species series. This one is 6.5% ABV and hopped with Citra, Sultana and Strata. It's another pale and murky job, smelling not so much juicy as fetid, like rotting tropical fruit. It's very thick and quite bitter with it, almost acrid. The promised juice only arrives at the end: satsuma and mandarin. Before that it's lime rind, carvery cabbage and vanilla. The hard bite in the finish, I suspect, is from the yeasty murk, something I shouldn't be able to taste. Very much not for me, this. It has good points, but not enough of them.

Something similar from Hopfully follows. Quicksand is the same sub-style, the same strength and more or less the same colour, maybe a little darker. The hops include Azacca and Amarillo so I'm expecting a bit more sweetness, though Citra also features. The aroma is worryingly savoury, with Mediterranean hints of garlic and sesame. There's certainly no burst of fruit on tasting, and it's the garlic which is most prominent. Other than that the foretaste is quite plain, and there's only a faint tang of orange candy in the finish. Very underwhelming, overall.

We go back to Whiplash at the 7% ABV mark, for Breaking Glass. This one is cloudy again, a bright orange yellow shade. It smells nicely juicy, of fresh-squeezed jaffa with just a hint of more serious citrus behind. The texture is beautifully smooth, in that New England style we expect from Whiplash but which they never bother to tell us about on the can (they should). The flavour is quite muted, given the strength. I find myself brought on a gentle journey through peach, coconut, mandarin and mango, with merely a seasoning of tart lime jelly. It's all rather jolly, but at this strength and this price, I had hoped for more. Haze fans will like it; haze sceptics can probably learn from its clean hoppiness. Me? I enjoyed the complex simplicity -- it is a good beer, no question -- but part of me wanted more oomph, more kick. I complain about Whiplash churning out an endless supply of 8% ABV hazy IPAs so feel silly for wanting this to be one of those.

It's over a year since 12 Acres last graced these pages. They're back with a double New England IPA called A Bit Further. This is only modestly double, being 7.8% ABV. It's hazy without going fully opaque and a deep shade of sunset orange. Speaking of orange, mandarin and jaffa feature in the aroma, though more the skin than pulp or juice: a promise of bitterness comes with the fruit. The body is very full and there's a considerable kick of alcohol, so it's no lightweight, despite that ABV. The flavour brings the orange flesh promised in the aroma, with a nice balance of sweetness against acidity -- it's not one of your vanilla-laden NEIPAs. The finish is quite quick for such a big beer and there's a tiny buzz of garlic in with the booze on the end. This is pretty decent overall, though maybe better suited to those who like their IPAs hot and heavy, rather than the strict hop purists.

Like anyone with an ounce of taste, I'm a big fan of Kinnegar's rye IPA Rustbucket, as well as its dark offshoot Black Bucket. They're both big, assertively bitter beers so I was a little apprehensive on opening the new doubled version: Shuttle Bucket. Mind you, the appearance would make anyone relax. It's a gorgeous amber shade and perfectly limpid-clear, topped by a generous just-off-white head. I didn't get much aroma at first, though further down the glass, once I could get my schnozz in, there was crisp rye bread and a grassy dankness. I don't think they've upped the hops sufficiently to match the gravity here. While it's big and sticky, with oodles of rich golden syrup and treacle -- every inch of 8% ABV -- the hopping is quite muted, with no more than a pinch of bitterness, and nothing I could pin directly on hops as against the bittering effects of rye. If you like your double IPAs heavy and malt-forward, in that California c.2010 sort of way, this'll bring you back. It left me wanting more citrus, more spice, more topnotes in general, however. Rustbucket remains a beer often expanded upon but never bettered.

And finally, dropping just last week: Big Feelings from Galway Bay. This one is 8.5% and single-hopped, or at least headline-hopped, with Citra. It's a slightly hazy amber in the glass and has quite a muted aroma: no big citrus or booze vapours, only gentle marmalade and toast. Obviously there's no such thing as English-style double IPA -- the very idea! -- but if there were, it might smell like this. The malt also carries the flag in the flavour. There's a smooth, golden syrup and oat cookies base, leading to still-sweet lime jelly, and only gradually growing in bitterness to the pithy finish. The density is palpable, but it's not hot nor heavy, just warming enough. This is one of those beers that's likely to annoy the extremophiles, but I liked the accessibility and ease of drinking.

Very much a mixed bag here, with considerable negative effects from all that haze. Those two west-coasters were my picks of the bunch.