Just a quick one

Prolific Dublin brewery Third Barrel tends to warrant big long posts as I try to keep up with everything they've put out. It's a much more manageable handful today, however.

The first, under the main brand with collaborative input from Berlin brewpub BräuGier, is a cold IPA called #Verboten. This is the first cold IPA I've featured here and you'll need to go somewhere else to learn why some nerd thinks it's genuinely innovative while a different dork considers it the same as India pale lager. Regardless, it's 7.5% ABV and a rich golden colour in the glass with a slight haze. Strata, Idaho 7 and Cryo Pop all feature in the hop charge, with a promise of juiciness to come. It smells like your basic American IPA, with more modern candy-chew sweetness favoured over citric bitterness. The body is quite heavy, fully reflecting the ABV but not the promise of cool fermentation: no lager crispness here. Mind you, going back to the label it says it's brewed like a lager and "fermented like a West Coast" suggesting, as the mouthfeel definitely does, that it's an ale after all. I am confused. The flavour offers much of what the aroma does, being fruit candy again, plus an added savoury dimension: fried onion and peppers. The very ale-ish texture gives that a long and slightly sticky finish. Overall, it's fine. I'm not wowed by this amazing new style of beer, nor by a superior American-style IPA, but it's nice. Third Barrel does IPA well, and this is one of those, no more, no less.

New for TwoSides is Hazy Train, an IPA which does what it promises: an opaque orange-yellow with a fine meringue topping. I was expecting sweet but it's very nicely balanced, delivering a tang and a spice with the juice and eschewing any vanilla or other confection. I was happily horsing through my pint at The Headline before I thought to check the ABV: it seemed light but the complexity hinted at hidden alcohol. Thankfully it's only 4.5% ABV and thereby fully horseable. I was reminded a little of the past TwoSides classic Two Yards: it has the same bright and summery freshness. On a dismal midwinter afternoon it was exactly the ray of sunshine I needed.

Dessert is breakfast: a coffee and oatmeal stout from Third Circle called A Shot in the Dark. Coffee and cereal is exactly what the aroma delivers, and the flavour is strikingly bitter. They may as well have added a couple of Gauloise to this, because it's extremely grown-up and not even remotely creamy. 5.2% ABV is low for something of this nature, but the lightness it provides accentuates the powerful roastiness. To ding it, the coffee side is a little overdone and I can't help feeling there's a good stout buried under it. Also, isn't oatmeal meant to make it smooth? It really doesn't here. That's me being persnickity, though. On its own terms, this is lovely: one of those boldly flavoured beers where the boldness is a reward in itself. If you've yet to find a coffee stout that delivers sufficiently on the coffee front, here you go.

Three quite different beers here, all showing off the talents of the Third Barrel team. Dublin's brewing scene would be a lot duller without them. I'll have a different brewer's very different take on cold IPA in a post coming soon.