Furry beast

Sometimes a beer name just speaks to me. Trial By Wombat was one such, though it helped that it has also been garnering favourable notices. I had no qualms about plucking it from the offy fridge and giving it a blog post of its own. The brewery is Thin Man, based in Buffalo, and it's the first of their beers I've tried.

The vital statistics are that it's an IPA of 7% ABV and hopped with Galaxy. What the can doesn't tell us is that it's a hazy affair, and very New-Englandy with its fluffy mouthfeel. From that follows overtones of garlic and gritty dregs: very typical missteps in beers like this. Galaxy is a hop I associate with juicy orange and tangerine notes but you have to work to find them here. A mild juiciness lurks late in the flavour, along with a slightly harsh and waxy green bitterness.

This didn't quite do it for me. I was expecting bright and fresh — dammit, I was paying for bright and fresh — but what I got was rather dull and a lot more serious than the jokey name implied. Never trust a wombat, or a thin man.

The reboot is on the other foot

It's catch-up time with BRÚ today, a couple of brand new beers and some rejigged old ones too.

It joins the select number of Irish breweries to have released a grodziskie, with Old Times. This Polish-style smoked wheat beer is usually cloudy but it poured clear for me, a small quantity of lees having settled to the bottom of the can. There's a balanced and sweet smokiness, a little kippery but enticing nonetheless. The flavour similarly gets the balance just right. The goal here is quaffable, sessionable refreshment and 3.8% ABV has a lot to do with how it's achieved. Serving it cold as the first beer on a warm day also really optimised it. And then the clean smoke is at the centre but not any way cloying or overdone. Behind it there's a twist of zesty lemon and a complementary herbal note from the inclusion of coriander. The unusual flavour profile suggests it's not likely to become a regular part of the BRÚ line-up, but I think it deserves to become a go-to drinking beer rather than an exotic novelty.

From our savoury starter, straight to dessert. Version 1 of Blurry Furry was a Berliner weisse with added blueberry; the second is more ambitious, mixing Passion Fruit, Orange and Guava. It looks quite serious: a crystalline orange rather than the opaque smoothie effect you often get with these. The guava loses out a bit but there's plenty of the other pair: juicy and sweet passionfruit with a citrus orange spritz. The tartness is restrained and it's missing the mineral cleanness I enjoy in light sour beers, offering instead a restrained crispness. Overall it's pretty good: another clean and undemanding 3.8%-er, refreshing but with plenty of interesting things going on. 

To IPA, then, and number three in BRÚ's Hop Bomb series. This was created with the Pinks Boots Society and uses Cashmere, Ahtanum, Citra, Loral and Sabro. There's a lot happening there, but it melds together well in the glass: primarily fruity, with luscious satsuma, apricot and pineapple, then a hardy blast of coconut as Sabro makes itself felt, and then just as it begins to seem like we're taking a ride on the dessert trolley a harder dank and oily bitterness finishes it off. I found the coconut getting obnoxiously loud as the beer went on, unbalancing it a little, but at the same time what you get is all hop, as befits the name. All things considered it's a good mix of modern hop flavours, and another triumph of understated complexity from the brewery.

Finally, we take the opposite approach with single-hopper King Talus, the second collaboration with top Dublin offy Craft Central. Nelson is a tough act to follow but this does a pretty good job. It's pale and slightly hazy, 5.7% ABV, and smelling of ripe tropical fruit with a harder mineral edge, not that far from Nelson Sauvin, in fact. Pith is the hub of the flavour: an initially hard citric bitterness that softens after a moment into tangy grapefruit and lemon. There's a slight plastic twang on the finish but I think it's just a function of the intense bitterness and can't be counted as an off-flavour. Bold and uncompromising bitter beers like this are a little out of fashion at the moment, west coast revival notwithstanding. This one was rather refreshing, in every sense.

I was not expecting a clear run of four superb beers but that's what BRÚ has provided here. As an Irish micro, it may be big and established and leans well into the mainstream, but thanks to its heritage with the more innovative Carrig Brewing it can absolutely turn out specialties with the best of them.

What's the matter lagerboy?

Today I'm taking the pulse of Irish lager brewing. Or at least, I'm drinking a random selection of Irish lagers to find out what's what.

We'll start at St James's Gate, home to the only people who thought Rockshore needed a brand extension. So here's Rockshore Light, its ABV reduced from the dizzying 4% of full-fat Rockshore to a mere 3.5%. It's been getting some heavy promotion this last while, so I guess they're pitching it for the outdoor summer everyone is apparently having. In the glass it's a very pale white gold colour, crystal clear, with a frothy topping of fine white foam. There's quite a wholesome biscuit aroma, suggesting melanoidins and bigger sugars than you might expect for a 73-calorie slimmers' beer. There's a touch of that in the flavour too: spongecake and oat cookies. Said flavour doesn't last long, however, leaving behind nothing but a scorch from the overactive carbonation after a few seconds, presaging the inevitable heartburn. I looked hard for any hop character at all but couldn't find any trace. Overall this is better than I thought it would be. The tinny tang which I regard as light lager's biggest failing is absent, and likewise the fruity flaws of Rockshore Senior. The fizz is about the worst thing I can ding it for, though its lack of any other character doesn't exactly endear it to me. The others should give me a bit more to discuss.

To follow, The Pilgrimage, one of the beers in the Odyessy Series from the soon-to-be-rebranded White Gypsy brewery. It's actually a rebrew of Messrs Maguire Bock which I reviewed back in 2007 and which hasn't been seen since Cuilán handed over the reins of MM shortly afterwards. I wasn't a fan then but I think my tastes have broadened since. It's still a very bocky bock: a slightly murky amber and densely textured, even allowing for that full 5.8% ABV. The malt flavour is huge and intense, all rye bread, golden syrup and gooey onion relish. The noble hopping gives it a balancing black-pepper piquancy, particularly in the aroma, and some greener cabbage-leaf bitterness. Younger me found it an overwhelming mess of flavours; now I can pick out the different elements and that allows me to appreciate it more. If lager is a summer drink, this weighty warmer is perfect for the rainy days.

I expected a big contrast for the next one. Rice Rice Baby, oddly, is not a collaboration but brewed by Rascals alone. It's a return to goldenness and clarity, though it's not quite as pale as the Rockshore. In addition to rice, the ingredients include lemon and lime zest, and that's very obvious from the smell: a sort of syrupy, cordial effect dominating any lager subtleties. Crisp is the watchword on the can and crisp it is indeed. There's a lovely snap to the foretaste: melba toast and, oh, rice crackers. I see what they're doing. The citrus zest isn't long to follow, bringing that 7-Up sweetness which adds character but detracts from the cleanness. I guess it would have been a bit bland without some sort of craft gussying-up, and the zest is an OK option if you're not planning to load it up with lots of expensive Nelson Sauvin. Overall, it gets a thumbs up from me. I'd love to try the base lager, and its quality still shines through despite the "enhancements". The crispness and the perfect clean finish are all still here, even if the fruit addition is less than subtle. 4.9% ABV is maybe a little strong for a summery quaffer, but I guess we'll see about that: after I bought one to review, Rascals kindly shipped me a bunch of them for free and I'll be putting them to the test some sunny day.

Finally a beer I have been looking forward to for some time. Galway Bay's Schlenkerla Märzen clone, Märzen to the Fire, has been rocking my world consistently since it arrived last year. Now they've taken the next step in the copycat act and brewed a straight Helles but using trub from the smoky Märzen to give it a little of that character. My Bamberg Hell is the result. This one is a deep golden colour but still perfectly transparent. The carbonation is low and the aroma is mild but there's distant bacon in there. That gets more pronounced on tasting: a fairly involved phenolic edge offering dry beech smoke, shading to peat. The base lager isn't doing much of the lifting. There's a soft Helles texture but very little flavour contribution from the underlying beer. It ends up being smoke for the sake of smoke, not overpowering but not really complementary either. The dark richness of the Märzen is what makes that one work; this, while very well made, misses the mark for me. I liked it, but couldn't help thinking that either a clean Helles or a big dirty smokebomb would have been preferable.

In conclusion, lager is a land of contrasts.

Time bending

It's hard to discern what "Vintage" means on the label of Beoir Chorca Duibhne's Vintage Ale. No information is given on the label, other than it's "warm & dark" and 5.7% ABV -- not even a year, which I thought would have been an essential part of the concept of vintage. I'm fine with warmth and darkness, though. Let's see where that gets us.

The beer is ruby rather than black in the glass and smells a little roasty like a porter but with a forest fruit element, like... no I'll save that comparison. There are no sudden twists on tasting. Cocoa and coffee are the beginnings, a mix of sweet and dry, and then there's a gorgeous yet understated mix of blackberry, red cherry, pipe tobacco and liquorice. The bitterness rushes over the tongue before spreading a candyshop sweetness across the palate.

My first impression, referenced above, was that it tastes like English old ale, a beer style that's very nearly dead and unappreciated by every beer writer except me. It's drier and roastier than the classics (Theakston's Old Peculier, Arundel Old Knucker) but it does share that dark fruit and chocolate character. I love it, and I don't care that "vintage ale" is a bit of a daft name for it, though in fairness old ales are rarely old. It's wholesome, deep and complex, offering the fun bits of porter, bitter, brown ale and schwarzbier without fully committing to any of them. This is a beer to enjoy on its own terms, and I did.

Galway Bay provides us with another temporal anomaly in the form of Counting Off The Days. This is an imperial stout of 12% ABV, and although they don't say it, I assume it's the beer which goes into barrels to emerge later as Two Hundred Fathoms. Since they now make flavoured variants of Two Hundred Fathoms I guess it's only fair that they let us try a completely naked version as well. There's understandably very little of it in circulation (although...) and I have the brewery to thank for sending me an unlabelled can earlier in the year.

It's hella viscous, the bubbles struggling to make their up through the dense black liquid on pouring. They settled to a thick cream-textured head the colour of a nicotine-stained pub ceiling. The aroma suggests big bitterness to come: hot tar, Balkan tobacco and green veg boiled to mush. Yummy. But there's much more than that. The flavour is quite busy, with the green-hop acidity rubbing up against luxurious chocolate and a whole lot of booze. It's fun, but I can tell it's not really designed for drinking fresh. Everything going on needs to calm down and mellow out. It would be very interesting to see what happens when this ages without the barrels. If I see any for sale you can expect it on Stash Killer! in seven or eight years from now. For the moment, it's an interesting curiosity, a precursor to what will likely be a superb vintage of Two Hundred Fathoms, but not something I'm clamouring for the brewery to make into a regular release.

And that's time, everyone. Come back soon.

Broad brush strokes

It's a Canvas bonanza today. The beers come in fits and starts and can be difficult to find, so when a bunch appeared on the shelves of Redmond's and Blackrock Cellar, I grabbed one of everything. The styles and recipes are idiosyncratic in that particular Canvas way.

The first one, for example, is broadly a Lichtenhainer, though the brewery doesn't call it that, preferring to label Ramoke as "smoked sour" with added rhubarb, ginger and strawberries. It's 3% ABV and a pale Champagne-gold. The aroma is a strange but alluring savoury funk, reminding me of blue cheese, plus a jammy sweet note suggesting they haven't skimped on the strawberry. The Champagne effect isn't limited to the appearance. From the first sip it's crisp and toasty with lots of tingly sparkle. The ginger follows next, a candied effect with lots of flavour but little heat. A mildly tart tang comes next, but strangely no smoke. It's quite amazing how it smells intensely smoky but doesn't really taste of it. The finish is relatively quick and we're ready to start a new adventure in the next mouthful. The flavours don't in any way meld or complement each other, but the base is light enough for this not to be a problem. The end result is weird but fun, which is exactly what I pay my Canvas subscription for.

Last year I enjoyed the barrel-aged amber IPA called Pixel. Well, there's more where that came from. They've switched around the barrels, added Brettanomyces, and dry hopped it with a different selection of hops each time.

Pixel Barrel 2 wasn't the first I drank but I feel obliged to take them in numerical order. Like the others it's 6% ABV and here the hops are Amarillo, Ekuanot and Citra. It looks like a Flanders red in the glass: a clear shade of burnt sienna rust. There's a floral kick to the aroma -- lavender and violet -- as the hops start their dance with the wild yeast. A certain citrus side emerges on tasting, mostly bergamot with its herbal edging, but turning to Citra's signature lime later on. The carbonation is barely-there but I don't see that as a problem because of the weighty texture and a clean tannic dryness, like a nice cup of black tea. "IPA" does this beer a disservice. There are positive elements of barley wine, English bitter and American amber in here. Delicious in any language.

Moving along the line, Pixel Barrel 6 is darker and murkier. Citra sticks around and joins Mosaic in this particular buddy movie. The aroma is similarly floral like the previous, but more intense and perfumey. Here the flavour is spicier: pink peppercorns and a touch of sandalwood, turning to frankincense thanks to the greasy texture. It feels a little rougher and rawer than no. 2, with a slight touch of dreggyness. If you have one, I recommend a month or two of fridging to clean it up. Nevertheless, it's a damn fine beer, showing off Brett and American hops in matching proportions. You still get tannins and flowers like barrel 2, but a little less of the clean complexity, overall. 

There's a shocking dip in ABV to 5.8% with Pixel Barrel 7. This one is single-dry-hopped on Galaxy. It's an all-round plainer affair. More murk, and a fainter hit of medicine-cabinet herbs and flowers on a much lighter and thinner base. It's still a tasty, fruity, Bretty, blend. Galaxy usually says mandarin and the like to me, but here I get cherry and raspberry, with a little oily sage and rosemary resin on the end. It only fails to impress when compared to its brethren; on its own I would be lauding it more than I am now. There's a dreggy sharpness at the base here, suggesting again that a bit of dropping-bright in the can would be worth doing. That's not to say it's all potential: there's plenty to enjoy in the beer as it is now.

Finally we come to Pixel Barrel 9. It's a muddy Orval brown and smells a bit like that beer as well: big on floral spices, with a thick layer of horse-sweat on top. Like the above, it's 5.8% ABV so the texture is a little thinner than I'd like. Without the body to carry it, the funk seems a bit overdone: rough and unsubtle. Nuance is at least provided by those floral hops,  Amarillo, Ekuanot and Citra (again) bringing breezy violet and lavender topnotes. Scampering in last is the caramel malt, adding a cola sweetness to the finish. This is one for the hardcore Brett fans. The feral yeast absolutely dominates it, and not in a friendly gummy fruity way, but fully fetid and mulchy. If that's not your bag, move along.

I will definitely be trying to fill the gaps in the Pixel series, and chasing it as far as it goes. It's a very wothwhile experience.

A year before I first met Pixel, I first met Liminal, then an amber ale, and I wasn't a fan. Liminal Barrel 4 is badged as a Flanders red and quite strong at 6.3% ABV. This is a tough style to do well and this one is not done well. Like the original Liminal it is much too vinegary to be enjoyable. The aroma gets it off on the wrong foot with a rough and stale corn waft. Then it's thin vinegar on the palate with a side order of marker-pen phenols and inappropriate earthy mushroom. Flanders red needs a balancing fruit site, the best ones carrying notes of cherry, raspberry and red grape. This offers none of that. Maybe a higher strength or longer ageing would help, but it definitely needs remedial work.

Last up is version 1.2 of Canvas Milk Stout and this time I have no previous to compare it with. It's a happily accessible 4.3% ABV and looks well: obsidian black with a head of old ivory. The roasty aroma was the first surprise and the toasty flavour the second. One normally expects a good deal of creamy sweetness from milk stouts but that's not on offer here. Instead it's quite bitter, in that old-fashioned stout sort of way. There's a marjoram and dill herbal vibe, set on dry burnt toast. Lactose is of course listed in the ingredients but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where it comes into the picture here. Maybe it's the texture: it's a mite fuller than dry stouts of this strength usually are, but not excessively so. Chocolate? Latte? Vanilla? A big nope on all of those. Luckily this is just the sort of stout I like so I have no complaints about it missing the style profile.

And that kind of sums of Canvas: there are some really glorious beers, but not a whole lot of point in trying to systematise them. Yes there's the odd clunker too, but maybe that's the cost of creativity when working at their scale.

Second chances and new beginnings

I've tried a few of the beers from Bristol brewery Lost & Grounded over the years and haven't particularly liked any of them. It has made me very aware of the near-unanimous high regard in which their core beers are held. I have form on this sort of thing: it took me a couple of goes to get the hang of other English classics such as Jaipur and Landlord and I was quite prepared to believe that Lost & Grounded was another example of that. So when they showed up locally, I took the opportunity to revisit. Today I'm giving two a second spin and trying one I've never tasted before.

First it's Keller Pils: perhaps England's best lager, or maybe just the one with most frequent favourable mentions on my Twitter timeline. My previous encounter was in the arcade bar on Bristol's King Street. My aversion to certain German hop varieties when used in quantity was strongly triggered by the beer, to the point where I found a pint difficult to finish. Let's see if it's any better by the can.

Pale yellow, slightly hazy, soft textured and a fine white head: yes, it's keller-y all right. It's sweeter than I remembered, with an almost candy sugar foretaste and an inappropriate burst of tangerine or mandarin, building to less-inappropriate lemon zest. A second or two later the hops kick in fully. Not rotten wood this time, but a weedpatch herbal kick of dandelion and nettle, finishing sharply on grass, wax and plastic: those naughty nobles again. I like a pillowy soft Helles, and can appreciate the crisp edges on a north-German pils (hello Jever!), and while this offers a big slice of both, it ends up less than the sum of its parts. I'm not repulsed by it this time, which is progress, but neither do I "get" it fully. It's too much of a mish-mash of other beers I enjoy, the flavours clashing and not working well with the texture. The best I can describe the impression it leaves is as an uncanny valley take on German lager.

Running With Sceptres I only had a thimbleful of before, at a festival where it shared my palate with about forty other beers. That's no life for a lager, even if it is of the India pale persuasion. "Cloying" and "musky" said 2017 me. I can sort of see where he was coming from. This is very strongly flavoured, set on a dense body with lots of resinous dank and incense spicing. It's complex and impactful, bringing big flavours to the picture at only 5.2% ABV, but it's too busy for me, and too busy for a lager, I think. There's a certain clean crispness in the finish but it makes you go through a lot to reach it. I've blathered before about how "India pale" and "lager" rarely combine to make anything worthwhile, and this is a prime example of why I don't like them. That dank oily thickness needs a warm-fermented base; the light crisp base it got would suit a much more subtle hop presence. By the end of it I was starting to get fed up and thinking that "cloying" was apposite after all.

Time for a clean slate and a totally new beer. Helles is a recent addition to the Lost & Grounded range and has been getting good notices. That said, I don't recall reading any detailed reviews (hardly anybody writes those any more) so had no preconceived notions when I cracked the can on a sunny early-summer afternoon. It's unfiltered and hazy, which is not something I've seen done with anything called Helles in Bavaria. Does that make it a kellerbier? The ABV is only 4.4% which seems unreasonably low. Yes, none of these things are relevant to how good the beer is, but if you're co-opting German labels you can expect variances to be noticed.

From the first sip I decided that kellerbier was a fair descriptor: it has that gentle roughness of brewpub lager; a charming absence of polish. Here the noble hops are present but understated, bringing just the requisite amount of grass and herb. The soft candyfloss malt typical of Helles follows it, and seems untarnished by a lower-than-usual gravity. The fuzz means it doesn't quite get the clean lager finish it deserves but there's a pleasing dryness in how it signs off. It's obviously a conscientiously made lager, and if it were local to me I'd doubtless be enjoying it on the regular, but for this old geezer, the Bavarians do it better, and half a litre at a time too.

I came out of the experience with a more positive feeling about Lost & Grounded, and I will definitely keep trying their beers whenever I see them. Their wares do need to be judged as English takes on German brewing, however, because I don't think they stack up well when the real thing is an alternative import.

Bear back

The Bear Republic clock rolled around again, as it does every year or so, and a bunch of their beers became available in Ireland. There were two new ones for me.

This included an opportunity to see how the brewery handles sourness. Sonoma Tart, in its retro 12oz bottle, is a sour ale of no predetermined style, with added guava and passionfruit. I expected big sweetness out of those two, but it's nicely balanced. Passionfruit is, as usual, the loudest aspect, but it's placed on a crisply tart base so you get the flavour without the sugar, reminiscent of a sorbet. The guava adds a different sort of fleshy tropical fruit flavour. It's all very easy going, and at 5.2% ABV could probably do with more complexity. I would certainly like the sourness turned up a notch or two. But I'm sure it's meant as nothing fancier than a warm-day refresher, and it works as that.

The brewery established in 1995 has also tried its hand at something cloudy and hoppy. The result is Thru The Haze IPA, a sunny orange-yellow in the glass though hiding a substantial 6.4% ABV. It smells floral rather than fruity: a fresh burst of lavender and rosewater. The flavour centres on juicy mandarin, with a peppery spice on top. On the tail end is a gently bitter mix of lemon and grapefruit. It's definitely not a fuzzy New England clone, being much cleaner and more polished tasting. How it ought to be done, in short. Yes it's hazy, but there's a lot of west-coast sensibility about this chap. It's a shame how many potential fans will be put off by the name.

Racer 5 remains the brewery's classic offering, and very much what they do best. It was nice to get a peep at what else is going on, however. Maybe we'll get something more ambitious next time.

The sweet, the sour and the smoky

DOT has all the bases covered in today's selection, from light and breezy IPA to the densest, darkest, double-digit barrel-aged blend. I suppose we may begin at the beginning.

A micro IPA called Catches starts us off at 2.5% ABV. This is a clear gold and smells deliciously fruitsome with peach and apricot. Oats and wheat are there to offset any wateriness but don't quite cover the beer's nakedness as it's still rather skinny on the palate. Those juicy aromas fade to a pithy and metallic sort of bitterness on tasting: watery grapefruit juice and a little damp paper. Naturally it fades quickly and, pleasingly, the peaches come back in the finish, albeit briefly. This isn't a great example of the super-low-strength IPA, but it is at least easy-drinking and thirst-quenching. I guess it's my own fault for trying to analyse it too much.

DOT pays tribute to new wave bad boys The Stranglers with a peach-laden sour ale. No skimping on the fruit here: it's a dense breakfast juice orange and has a huge tinned-peach effect, in both the aroma and flavour. They've added a modicum of passionfruit as well, which contributes a tropicality that increases the impression of a blended breakfast juice concoction. For all the pulp that must be in there, it's quite light of body, though the ABV is a substantial 4.8%. That helps it be refreshing rather than sticky, as does a significant tartness which has an almost funky, smoky side. I'm guessing there's some serious mixed fermentation action going on under here. This is the very essence of summer. For maximum impact, wait for the very hottest of days before opening it.

There's even more of a fruit vibe to Sour Ballad: 15g of cherry per litre, boasts the can. The result is a deep dark blood red, pouring thick and flat. Ripe and squashed cherries are the aroma, unsurprisingly: real and tart rather than sweet and, er, cherry flavoured. There's a little bit of a sparkle on the tongue and the body is much lighter than it appears, especially given 6.4% ABV. It is extremely sour, but not in a harsh sour-beer way. It's the sourness of a black cherry, or a fistful of them: there's a certain juicy aspect as well, but no sugar. As with the aroma, there's no cherryish flavours, it's much too intense for that. Instead it's dry, tannic and even a little savoury or herbal. I quite enjoyed the punchy extremeness of it but couldn't shake the impression that this is merely the first stage of something else. I hope there's a quantity of it mellowing in barrels somewhere. Mellowing would do it good.

The first of today's barrel-aged pale ales is From the Vine, 6.2% ABV and aged in a Sauternes barrel. While it's another fruit-forward one, I'm not sure it got the full benefit of the wine, lacking the rounded lusciousness I associate with Sauternes and Sauternes-derived products. It's quite hot, with pear drops in the aroma and a slightly rough solvent character in the flavour. Thankfully this is offset by a clean acidic pinch which the label calls gooseberry with which I wouldn't disagree, and would add lemon zest and whitecurrant to the descriptors. The texture is very thick, which doesn't suit it, taking away any possibility of crispness and adding a woody muddyness. This is another where a little more time, in the tank or in the can, might be beneficial.

31 words are used in the description of Farmhouse Limoncello and three of them are "zingy", which sets expectations before the tab is pulled. We also learn that this is a pale ale, aged in white wine barrels before further ageing on "limoncello chestnut cubes", something neither I nor Google Image Search can picture. It's 7% ABV and a hazy ochre colour, smelling quite heavy and dense with oak and syrup. The wine is first into the foretaste, followed by a slick and oily coconut effect. The lemon is something of an afterthought, but it's present and I will even accord it a certain amount of zing. This isn't the spritzy refresher I was expecting, but a much heavier, more involved glassful. It's inarguably good though: the succulent white grape vibe mixed with vanilla oak is quite quite delicious. The name is gimmicky but the beer is not.

Rum Red Dark VII is the *counts on fingers* seventh outing for the iterative barrel-aged red ale, this one blending the previous three. Like VI, which I didn't get to try, this takes advantage of the Teeling Distillery's recent interest in peated single malt whiskey, and the spare barrels which result. It pours quite flat, and the aroma suffers as a result: not much going on here but a plain roasted malt vibe. The turf really leaps out on tasting however, bringing a lovely comforting phenolic warmth, buzzy and cosy, not harsh or antiseptic. It's flanked by gentler caramel and aniseed balls. The flatness doesn't bother me as the resulting smoothness suits it well. It's a beautiful and mellow mature sipper, perfectly suited as a sundowner on the unseasonably chilly evening I drank it. If that huvvy Scotch vibe is to your taste, don't miss this.

And once you're in a boggy hole, keep digging. Next is Stacked, a stout of 8.2% ABV making serious use of those peat barrels. I would be quite prepared to believe that they used peated malt directly in the grist, but apparently not. My reasoning is the big, almost fresh, phenolic twang at the front. And the middle. And the finish. Balancing the busy peat, to a certain extent, there's a chocolate and coffee richness, imparting a complementary sweet side. I tend to like some hop bitterness and dry roast in export-style stout, but I don't miss them here: there'd be too much danger of ashen acridity. You really do need to like your stouts peated to enjoy this as the barrels have added much more than a seasoning. It's almost, but not quite, one-dimensional, but I certainly liked the way it goes about its business, for one small can anyway.

DOT's advancing age -- five years now -- means its birthday cake is getting weaker. Barrel Aged Birthday Cake on its second outing is down to 10.5% ABV from 10.7%. The formula seems pretty much the same as last year -- an imperial milk stout aged in cognac, sherry and single malt barrels, with cocoa nibs and coffee -- but the result is quite different. Gone is the heat and acidity of the 2020 vintage and instead, as I'm sure was intended all along, it actually tastes like cake. There's a little bit of spirit, but it's entirely in keeping with those desserts that have a glug of brandy or whiskey in them; likewise the coffee is real and roasty, but is no more involved than what you'd find in a high-end coffee-flavoured sponge. It's creamily textured, filling and warming, yet clean and not cloying. I mentioned barrels-as-seasoning above and that's what you get here, adding a fun extra dimension to a tasty imperial stout without pushing it to any extremes.

Doubtless there will be eyes rolled at DOT's new found love of peaty barrels. Me, I'm excited to find out where it will take us next.

Pukka puckerers

A new tranche of offerings from Otterbank begins with Mates Rates, a beer in one of my favourite underrepresented styles, sour IPA. They've brewed this at Third Barrel for reasons best known to themselves, though I appreciate the provenance being clearly stated on the can. At 4.9% ABV it's presented as the session sort of IPA, and the hops are Pacifica and Sabro. The aroma is striking from the get-go: a beautiful mix of spritzy citrus with a harder acidic tartness. The hops are in control of the flavour, and Sabro is on its best behaviour. Pith and coconut is absent while instead you get mandarin juice, zesty grapefruit and a squirt of lime on the finish. My preference would be for a little more tartness; this doesn't really taste like it has been deliberately soured and the hops could be doing all the work. Still, it's very tasty and if the intention is to make it Otterbank's first core beer, I'm very on board with that. Nobody else is making this sort of thing, so why not? Let me simply note that there's room for extra sourness.

Next it's the first in a Single Barrel Series, titled Brandy, No Ice Please. As hinted in the name it (a sour ale) has been aged in a cognac cask (Rémy Martin) and it's been turned a pink hue with the addition of redcurrants. As a result of all that it smells tart in two ways: the currant juice is present and distinct, and then there's the slight nosehair singe from the wild yeast. Although it's 6.1% ABV, and I'm often wary of strong-and-sour, it's light-bodied and clean tasting. I hope it's not an insult to describe the opening savoury souriness as almost like a gose, but that refreshing cleansing zing is the main impression I get. You need to wait a moment for the barrel, and it's only faint, but there's an old oak mustiness at the back adding a contrasting character that tastes more of heavy red wine than full-on brandy to me, but it still makes for an interesting complexity. This is enjoyable stuff: bright, summery and very drinkable, though containing hidden depths which make it worth taking time over. I would have liked to have heard more from the barrel however. Maybe we'll get that in a later one.

And second in the series is Damn Son, this one aged in a white wine barrel with added damsons, of course. It's a muddy red-brown colour and 5.6% ABV. There's an intriguing spice in the aroma, alongside the plummy fruit and tangy sour elements. On tasting, the wine side of the equation is on the downlow, with perhaps just a slight sweetening slickness hinting at it, although the spice I detected on sniffing seems to have come from the oak. Otherwise the flavour is big on the sourness: a clean and refreshing tang that bears more than a passing resemblance to mature geuze. The damsons aren't as pronounced as they are in the aroma but they do make a softening contribution to the taste. I enjoyed this a lot, finding my lambic itch well and truly scratched.

End-to-end quality from Otterbank there. The Single Barrel jobs are exactly what I was hoping the brewery would be turning its hand to. Keep 'em coming!

Tropical New Brunswick

I've written before about how much I enjoy the beers from Hop City. For the fakeout arm of macro lager brewer Moosehead they make some good stuff. There was one in the fridges of Dublin offies that I hadn't got round to yet, and that needed to be resolved. So step up Big Tiki, described as a "tropical punch blonde". It's not blonde, though, pouring a bright red shade. I didn't have any cocktail umbrellas to hand but feel that one would have been appropriate.

It's sweet, of course, almost janglingly so, with a strawberry ice lolly foretaste. There's not much beyond that. The can promises pineapple, cherry, passionfruit, mango, guava and papaya, but if they're really there they've been mulched into an amorphous blob of generic fruity sweetness. At least it's not cloying: after the initial hit, the candy goes away respectfully quickly, as the brewery's lager chops kick in.

Overall, this is quite an artificial alcopoppy job, albeit not the worst of that sort. It promises a lot more fun and complexity than it ends up delivering. "Limited release" says the can. Good.

What's indie box?

Indie Beer Week was back! After a one-year hiatus for obvious reasons, the independent brewers' annual profile raising celebration returned in May, centred around a series of online meet-the-brewer events hosted by the boundlessly energetic Brian of Craic Beer Community. To give his liver some respite, I co-hosted one of the evenings, which got me the accompanying tasting pack, including a few that were new to me.

Pre-event, I popped open Hope's Summer Seasonal 2021: Hazy Session IPA. This is a teeny 3.6% ABV, and I think the lack of substance may have affected the head retention, as there's none really. It's wanly, waterishly hazy under the level top and seems rather lifeless by appearance. The aroma is good, though: brightly tropical lychee and passionfruit. While yes it's a bit thin and a bit flat, it has plenty of flavour too. There's less of the real fruit in the taste but it's replaced by a jolly Skittles-and-Starburst candy vibe up front, with an oilier dank bitterness arriving late and providing a finish that's far from watery and even gives a little burn in the back of the throat. I don't want to overstate things, and it is a long time since I last had any cask beer, but this has a bit of a cask ale vibe, with that level of complexity on a low-strength base. Hyperbole aside, easy-drinking summer quaffer? Yes, job very much done.

My other sneaky preliminary came from the opposite end of the scale. Golden Ticket is a purported 90 IBU double IPA from Black's of Kinsale, 8.2% ABV and claiming pineapple flavours but doing it with hops rather than fruit. It's quite a deep orange colour in the glass, with an aroma that says pineapple candy or syrup to me rather than the real thing. It's reasonably thick without turning cloying and the heat is minimal considering the strength. Hopping dominates the flavour, as one might expect, although it's bitterness first: a tongue-numbing aniseed or fennel effect. The sweeter pineapple arrives late and is respectful of what went before. This double IPA is no silly Wonka confection but serious and well put-together: one to sip and appreciate.

At the event itself there was the first Dead Centre beer I'd had in ages: Across the Pond. The brewery describes this as an "American wheat ale", something that used to mean something like a weissbier but with neutral-tasting American yeast but now signifies lots of hops in quantity and, in this case, a neutral-tasting American yeast as well. Citra, Amarillo and Mandarina Bavaria are the hops, bringing a classic grapefruit pithiness with a long finish of oily citronella. The wheatiness is minimal and I felt it could have benefitted from a fuller texture and better head retention. The pay-off is that it's only 4.5% ABV, placing it in the sunny-refresher category where it has an edge on many others, thanks to that generous hopload. A few pints of this on the Dead Centre taproom deck would be very decent.

The last new one for me came courtesy of Trouble Brewing. The house IPA they brew for P. Mac's, Vietnow, is a perennial favourite. It got a bigger brother called Bombtrack in 2017 but it wasn't around long and I didn't get to try it. Now they've brought it back in a slightly more modest form, reducing the ABV from 8.7% to 6.9%. It still packs a punch, however, being a dark amber colour and quite heavy-set. A red strawberry sweetness combines with drier tannins to form the base, assisted by a sprinkling of peppery rye. The hops add a different sort of dryness: earthy and a little vegetal, in that old-fashioned west-coast way. Sierra Nevada's Torpedo and Kinnegar's Rustbucket both came to mind as I drank it, and I'm sure the brewers won't be offended by such comparisons.

A big thanks to Elisabeth from the ICBI, and Brian, for including me in this year's Indie Beer Week festivities, and not least to Liam and the BeerCloud.ie team who shipped me the beers. Until next year then!

Beers in the imperative

O Brother is giving the orders today. All the beers have an instruction for you.

Speak No Evil bears the idiosyncratic style of "DH [dry hopped] kveik pilsner". Is there a point when you've twiddled with the hopping and yeast where it stops being a pilsner? It looks like an unfiltered one. Very unfiltered, to the point of opalescent opacity, topped by a dandelion clock of foam. The aroma is not that of a pils either: mixing a rough caraway savouriness with sweet fruit candy, leaving just a background lemon effect which might pass muster in a classic lager. Its flavour made me tone down the snark, however. The hop is Meridian, an American variety with a complex pedigree, but it mimics nobility very well: there's a pleasing hard bitterness, waxy and grassy with added celery and asparagus. And then the finish is clean, leaving just a hum of that green waxy thing after it. While not especially crisp, the mouthfeel does have an acceptable level of fluff for an unfiltered pils. Having grumbled about the specs I'm now upset about how much I liked it. Pilsner purists will find much to enjoy here if they leave their preconceptions behind.

It's a big leap from pilsner to double IPA, but that's where we're taken, with Hear No Evil. It's a clear and sunny sort, 8.3% ABV and brewed with Ekuanot, Citra and BRU-1. The aroma is fruity and oddly sour: cherries and gooseberries, with no malt or alcohol elements. Very unusual. It's a more typical DIPA on tasting. For one thing it's seriously thick, requiring effort to draw it from the glass. It's not hot but it doesn't hide its strength, showing a clean but powerful malt weight: you know from the first sip that this is a Big Beer. The flavour is quite understated for what it is. Nothing leaps out immediately; one needs a moment to locate the concentrated mango, grapefruit and honeydew melon lurking within. Beyond the subtle hopping, it's all a bit syrupy: not in a bad way, but heavy and sweet, lacking a little in bittering balance. And on balance I liked it. It's nothing fancy, the hops don't try to overpower the whole thing, and there are no off-flavours. This may not be how double IPA is normally brewed in the New England era, but there's a place for its gentle and comforting warmth.

I genuinely thought the brewery was going to leave me hanging with those two, so almost accidentally passed by See No Evil when it arrived a few days later. This really belongs in the middle of the set, being an IPA of 6.7% ABV. It's a hazy fellow, unsurprisingly, and a medium orange colour in the glass. Simcoe and Mosaic are the sum of the hops but they do a great deal with them, starting at the powerful tropical aroma, roaring out peach and passionfruit, with a slightly more serious dank grass in behind. The dankness doesn't really materialise in the flavour, nor any bitterness: a fluffy vanilla sweetness buries them, which is a bit of a shame, but that's just the sort of beer it is. The fruit hangs around though, leaving plenty of mango, apricot and cantaloupe to enjoy. It's a little hot in the finish, but otherwise none of the standard haze flaws are manifest and I rather enjoyed it as a result. They could have called it "Taste No Evil".

Lastly, the long-awaited collaboration between O Brother and the Sugababes is a triple IPA called Push the Button. It's a mostly clear affair, amber coloured with only the faintest of misting. 10.2% ABV means it shouldn't be surprising that it pours thickly and smells syrupy. Galaxy and Eclipse are the hops, and they take a while to make themselves heard over the heavy caramel malt foretaste. When they do they bring marmalade and orange jelly, mainly to the finish and aftertaste. I'm not averse to the clean and sharp heat that one normally finds with triple IPAs; this one, however, is stickier and I made slow work of it. By the half-way point it had warmed unacceptably and was now actively difficult to drink. I can understand why these are usually fermented out drier. They don't work otherwise.

This set was highly educational, hop wise. O Brother really makes excellent use of their ingredients and everything they put in is right there to be tasted. Not every brewery does that.

Are we the baddies?

There's no shortage of Star Wars theme beers out there. I guess that's just the age that people who run microbreweries are. Few are as explicit as the Original Stormtrooper set, though the licensed nod here is to the costume designer at Shepperton Studios rather than any of the work of Mr Lucas. Something must be keeping the Disney lawyers at bay. Yorkshire brewery Vocation is the source, and we have a pale ale and an IPA.

The relative strengths are the converse of the usual order, with Situation Normal IPA the lighter of the pair at 4.4% ABV. Tropical fruit courtesy of US hops is promised on the can, and it's a bright clear golden colour. The aroma is quite citrus, suggesting zesty lemon and grapefruit rather than juice or flesh -- that's fine with me. I expected something basic and a bit old-fashioned, flavourwise, but it delivered more than than just bitterness. Gooseberry and blueberry were first, then damp grass and fresh spinach. More than anything American, the hop character reminds me of some of the newer German varieties. Either way, it's very tasty stuff. The carbonation is maybe a little high and spiky, but it's not thin. Plenty of good clean hop fun here.

Pale ale Galactic brings the ABV up to 4.8%. You get a slightly deeper shade of gold for that, though the aroma is plainer too: meadow flowers laced with harder lime. An earthy, funky dank flavour is the opening gambit on the palate, suggesting Cascade to me. There are overtones of Sierra Nevada's iconic pale ale here, albeit a little lighter of texture. To balance the slightly rough hopping there's a smoother honey and peach sweetness on the very end. The aftertaste is back to waxy and bitter, however. This is classically styled in the American pale ale way, and very enjoyable, though not as interesting as the previous one.

Solid work here by the Empire and its minions in Hebden Bridge. These can be got locally for as little as €2.50 a pop, so even if the branding puts you off, you can let the pricetag bring you back onside. Both are excellent unfussy value, Yorkshire style.