The other Bay Brewery

Dundalk Bay Brewery, the beer-making offshoot of metal fabricator Spectac, cut its teeth on straightforward traditional recipes for the pub trade, and I'm sure that's still what keeps the lights on. They've had a playful side since fairly early on, however, and that has definitely shifted up a gear since they appointed Dave Guilfoyle as head brewer. He seems to have brought the same level of creativity here as to his previous jobs at Pearse Lyons, Trouble and Bo Bristle.

That observation was prompted by pouring Brewmaster Tropical Hazy IPA. Breweries who don't specialise in trend-chasing haze but try and chase it anyway tend to turn out examples that are orange and, too often, clear. I had Dundalk Bay down as one of those breweries but this lad is properly yellow and opaque, looking just like the cool kids made it. The aroma is a pleasant mix of vanilla and meringue meeting citrus zing. There's a nice blend of creaminess and lightness, so I was surprised to find it's a very full 6.8% ABV. That should have guaranteed me a big flavour but I found it a bit limp in that department. The vanilla is still there, and there's a savoury kick from the hops, but it's lacking fruit analogues: no citrus, no juice. While it looks the part, it fails to walk the walk. I blame the hopping: it needs much much more than what it got. This is a great beer if you want an easy buzz: it slips back beautifully smoothly. It won't please the insufferable hopped-up hazeheads, though. While I have no particular quibble, I think it just misses what it set out to be.

Another beer was released at the same time, and can you believe it's taken this long for an Irish brewery to produce a Nitro Imperial Stout? I'm happy it was Dundalk Bay who eventually got round to it because I'm a longstanding fan of their imperial stout. Let's hope they didn't ruin it, eh? The widget rushes, the beer surges, but it doesn't look like they've gone overboard with the nitro: a slim and trim layer of cream sits over the jet-black base and from it emerges a proper aroma of caramel wafers and milky coffee. I thought I was in for sweetness but BOOM there's a blast of green vegetal bitterness right up front and I love it. It's creamily textured, of course, but there's a little prickle of cleansing carbon dioxide too. Once the hops have calmed down you get still-bitter tarry black coffee and a mildly sweet vanilla for a modicum of frankly unnecessary balance. The gas is the only gimmick here and it's a respectful one. The rest is simply a gorgeous, classically constructed, 8% ABV imperial stout. A round of applause for this from me.

It's cool if DBB wants to hone its haze into something more fashionable, but do not touch that imperial stout recipe. We need this sort of antidote to all the pastry everyone else is churning out.