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!