Bread of heaven

To Longford today, and a couple of beers from Longford Town's St Mel's.

The first is a new hazy IPA called My Twist. It looks like hazy IPA from a brewery that either hasn't got the hang of it, or doesn't care how the hype breweries do it, because it's orange and translucent rather than yellow and opaque. Hüll Melon, Azacca and Amarillo hops should bring plenty of fruitiness but it smells quite dry, with an acrid aspirin bitterness. A light body is promised, and indeed delivered: no big New England fluff here, and it feels much less than its substantial 5.2% ABV. The flavours on that are clean, but quite understated. There's a pinch of limey citrus and some sweet oat cookies, but nothing really jumps out as distinctive. I found it thirst-quenching, easy-going and enjoyable. And if it enrages a few insufferable hazebros along the way, that's all to the good as well.

St. Mel's is the latest brewery to have a go at using leftover bread in its grists. There have been plenty of great examples of this, going back to the first I ever tried: Brussels Beer Project's excellent Babylone IPA. This one, SymbioBeer Project No. 1, is a Belgian-style golden ale of 8.1% ABV so natuurlijk I poured it into a Duvel glass. It didn't look like Duvel, however, being a much deeper amber shade -- barely golden at all. There are lots of sweet esters in the aroma; headachey, like clove rock or marker pens. And that's the centrepiece of the flavour too, hot above all, but sweet too: hard sugary candy mixing with cinnamon and clove, plus some slightly nasty solvent as well. The clean digestible quality of real Belgian golden ales is missing from this completely. Those brewers, famously, create the effect by using fully fermentable sugars, so it shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, that bread as an adjunct doesn't give the same results. 75cl of this was tough going. I humbly suggest giving IPA a go for No. 2 in the series.

There seems to be a new air of experimentation on the go at St. Mel's. I'm all for it, even if the beers don't always suit me.