Take four

It's rare that one gets to see the inside of 57 the Headline on a Monday. This occasion was a charity tap takeover by Trouble Brewing, bringing a bunch of new releases as well as several old favourites.

Super Hans is in the Kölsch style, an infrequent occurrence in Irish brewing, now that everyone has their temperature control sorted out. I'm a big fan of the real thing but find that clones rarely measure up, too often used as a shorthand for basic lager for unfussy drinkers. This one seemed altogether more conscientiously designed, beginning with the precision crispness and dry mineral bite. The malt base gives it a breadcrust wholesomeness onto which is grafted a sharp and peppery pinch from rocket-like noble hops. It's quite fizzy from the keg so is no substitute for the soft cask variety you get in Cologne, but as a palate-cleansing thirst-quencher, by the pint rather than the stange, it's perfect.

You've got to have a complementary pair in any set like this, and of course you've got to have a mild. Trouble's new mild, their first since 2017 by my reckoning, is Silver Lining. This is only 3.4% ABV so it wasn't surprising to find it a bit thin and fizzy. There's chocolate, light caramel and a tiny, tinny bite of English hops plus some equally understated blackcurrant. It's OK, but very, y'know, mild. I do think this has the potential to be spectacular on cask, however. Hint hint.

The companion piece, as I'm sure you can guess, is called Every Cloud. It's an imperial stout at 9.1% ABV, and it does have chocolate in common with the other, though here it's very dark and bitter. Mwah ha haa! For balance you get a much more cheery red-fruit complexity -- raspberry and strawberry fondant. The strength isn't exactly modest, but there's a light touch on the alcohol heat and it's not as dense as one might expect. A little unexciting by the standards of modern microbrewed imperial stout, perhaps, but think of it as a friendly, neighbourhood, Monday-night sort of version instead.

The inevitable IPA has rye in it. As such ones tend to be, Trick of Light is a hazy carrot colour. The initial impression was a surprising sweet and fluffy effect and it took a moment for the bite to kick in. Two bites, actually: citric lemon and grapefruit and rye's pepper, though not the grass bitterness that often comes with that. The twist here is the use of Azacca, a hop which offsets any bitter excesses by bringing juicy tropical fruit in at the finish. The end result is a lovely interplay of bitter and sweet. You get the assertiveness of rye IPA with a happy ray of softer sunshine alongside. Nice.

All of that leaves me hankering for the days when Trouble was a new-beer-every-month brewery. They're clearly not short of recipe ideas. I hope to see more like these on rotating taps and in cans in the near future.

I learned the truth

The blog's birthday rolls around again. Today I'm marking 17 years of writing about beers, and wondering if this was the plan. Regardless, I haven't yet run out of beers to write about so we continue.

As always, it's an excuse to open something special, and this one is accidentally special, having been stashed away in 2018, wrapped in its LCBO paper bag, and forgotten about. And what a fine bottle too: that lovely ship's decanter look that shrieks class. It's from the fancy brewery in Niagra-on-the-Lake, The Exchange, and is called ∞: Peppercorn Rye Saison, one of a number of variants in the Infinity barrel-aged series. Wine barrels have been employed, though only for two months, and it's 7.2% ABV.

In the glass it's a handsome honey colour, dropped completely bright after almost four years of benevolent neglect, and retains a jolly, jaunty fine white head. The wine is immediately apparent from the aroma, with lots of soft and sweet white grape. I get that it's a dry beer beneath that, but don't get much indication of saison spice or the peppercorns.

White wine forms the bulk of the flavour too, and the high strength adds to an overall Chardonnay effect. A slightly rough dryness pokes through, with an added grass bitterness I'm assigning to the rye. The pepper is... subtle. It adds a very slight piquancy but I think you need to know it's there in order to taste it. I like peppercorns to be a bit more in my face.

Wine-barrel-aged saisons are very much my thing, but this one isn't quite in the top tier. I loved the wine side of the equation -- it's luscious and bubbly and fun -- but there's a lack of complexity which my 17-year trained palate was a little disappointed by. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I'd quit this blog years ago.

Darkest Romania

Two strong and dark yokes from Romanian funsters Hop Hooligans today. The brewery was a highlight of my visit to Bucharest a few years back so it was a cheery reunion when they arrived in Dublin.

I enjoyed the Chupacabra spiced imperial stout back then so was well up for Imperial Chupacabra, even if it's only slightly stronger than the original at 9.5% ABV. Empires come cheap these days. Chocolate is still the main feature, occupying all of the aroma and a good portion of the foretaste. It's a tiny bit thin on that, given the strength: I would have liked some more heat from what must be a substantial malt base. Heat arrives a little later via the added chilli. This sparks late in the flavour, flaming the palate a little before setting the belly aglow after swallowing. It's a tingle more than a full burn and works beautifully with the dark malt characteristics. I like an assertive chilli stout and this hits the sweet spot just right. 

Chilli is easy; beetroot is hard. The next beer is called Bloody Koschei, and check out that head! It's properly dramatic, being a deep blood red colour on top of the dense black body. The beer is an imperial stout at 11% ABV. It smells broadly vegetal, the sweetness all about those wintery roots. Sweetness of the malt kind dominates the flavour, all Parma Violets and caramel chews with a shot of espresso in the finish. The beetroot is nothing more than a savoury buzz running in parallel. While the previous beer was subtle about the alcohol, this one wears it loud and proud: it is hot, and gets a bit cloying as a result. Sticky chocolate sauce and real deep-purple beetroot bitterness team up in the flavour that's briefly fun but gets a little difficult before you're a few sips in. This doesn't have the cleansing sharpness of the previous beer. I deem it OK, but not brilliant and not fun. Damn you, beetroot!

It looks like Hop Hooligans are still as creative and quality-focused as ever. And if any other brewer wants to increase the variety of chilli stouts on the Irish market, I'll be very happy to assist in consuming them.

Where you been?

It's almost three months since I last did a pale ale roundup, and with an even ten candidates in the backlog it's time to get a new one published. Here's what a selection of the busiest Irish brewers having been doing in this space.

The session begins, appropriately, with the latest from Kinnegar: Brewers At Play 22: Hazy Session IPA. There's a look of table beer about this one -- an anaemic yellow colour -- though it's the full 4.5% ABV so if anything on the strong side for the style. It smells sweet and chewy, channelling the fluffy candy vibes of big New England IPA, with a hint of pithy bitterness in the background. That pith, or maybe rind, is the main feature of the flavour, wasting no time in delivering a bitter happyslap to the palate. This settles after a second to a calmer meringue-pie tart sweetness with some interesting garlic and herb savoury notes. The finish brings us back to table beer with a dry and gritty rawness. There's a lot going on in this small package, and it won't be for everyone, but I think it works. They've clearly charged it heftily with an indecent amount of hops. 

Dublin airport's on-again off-again relationship with decent beer reached a new high point with the opening of Tap + Brew in Terminal 1 airside, a spacious bar where The White Hag is the principal beer supplier. Five of their beers are on tap, including an exclusive pale ale called Altitude. Though only 4.8% ABV it's quite weighty looking, a deep shade of amber. The flavour is a very straightforward mandarin-segment juiciness, finishing quickly and plainly with a carbonic bite. There are similarities with Little Fawn in the accessible fruitiness and the hops doing one thing and doing it well. Either is excellently suited as a gulp-and-go airport beer.

The O'Hara's Hop Adventure series, running since 2015, rumbles on. The latest variety getting the treatment is Talus. As usual it's 5% ABV and a pale golden in colour with a medium haze. It smells a little sickly: a hard-candy or cordial sort of sweetness. Worrying. Luckily the flavour is much cleaner, with a crisp fizz clearing away any sugar or resin excesses. The central character is delightfully pithy, the cordial calmed into more of a posh squash, tasting of real oranges and lemons. I think this shows off the hop very well, but perhaps more importantly it's wonderfully refreshing, arriving just in time for the warm weather.

Just like Hope's Summer Seasonal 2022. They've gone back to American pale ale like in 2020, except they've upped the ABV to 5.5% and cut the bitterness down to a paltry 17.6 IBUs. Behind the number there's a stated intent of making it juicy with El Dorado, Azacca and Idaho 7, with a bit of Citra because why not? The result is a darker amber than easy-going summer beer would normally be, and quite weightily textured. I didn't think it juicy as such, but it's very sweet, with dominant notes of strawberry and vanilla. It's almost cloying, though a mineral rasp in the finish offsets the sweetness a bit. Regardless, I'm not at all sure that this would be suitably refreshing on a hot day. It could substitute for an ice cream though, so there's that.

You'll Pay With Your Souls intones O Brother. No, I'll pay with my debit card: €5.25 for a 5.3% ABV Simcoe pale ale, which is a bit steep to be honest. It's a wan and hazy yellow and smells lightly lemony; pleasant, but not over-a-fiver pleasant. The flavour has some happier extra dimensions: dank resins, candied lemons, dill, rosemary and tumeric. That's a lot going on for a single-hopper. It's a bit of a time-tunnel beer, bringing me right back to when Simcoe was the cutting edge of hopping. I didn't like it then, finding it harsh and threatening. Now this old grizzled palate is much more able to deal, and it seems charming and retro. Retro really doesn't take long in the IPA world. On balance this is fun and enjoyable, and nowhere near as serious as the daft name implies.

Supermarket own-brand beers aren't known for getting the detail of higher-end styles right, but Dundalk Bay seems to have managed it with their new one for Aldi: Sailor Sam's Hazy IPA. It's the proper shade of pale custard yellow and smells of vanilla and garlic: not pleasant, but exactly what the €7-a-can mob do too. Fair play. The texture is a little thinner than the super-premium stuff, but then it is only 5.5% ABV. Flavourwise, the garlic is pervasive, laced with a slightly harsh butane note, though there's a happier tropical mango in the mix as well, plus the vanilla sweetness. All told it didn't really suit me: it's one of those beers that has everything I don't like about hazy IPA. But I respect the hustle, and somebody out there will appreciate it.

Next, as I hope will become a tradition for these posts, there's a black IPA. Lineman claims that Nagelbett is a "cold" BIPA, jumping on board the cold IPA bandwagon, although it's not actually cold fermented. Shenanigans! The description/confession is on the brewery website here. Photographing it in direct sunlight I discovered that it's more a dark brown than actual black. The tarry roast of good black IPA is present in the aroma, though I also get a definite sense of the dry burnt toast found in schwarzbier, so maybe the "cold" description isn't pure fakery after all. Against that, the texture is rich and creamy -- definitely more ale than lager -- while the flavour is subtle. Bitter dark chocolate smooshes into boiled veg. I waited for the fun peppery spice that normally arrives next, but it's missing, and with it goes one of the joys of black IPA. The finish is clean and quite quick, being another point where the "cold" epithet is earned, but this isn't black IPA as I like it. I'm especially concerned at how it's a substantial 6.4% ABV but doesn't have the depth, warmth or complexity that should come with it. It's fine, and new black IPA is always welcome. This one does get the basics right. However, the novelty factor that the brewery has aimed for didn't really pay off, I reckon.

Stronger still is Krush Groove, an IPA from Rascals, collaboratively brewed with Yeastie Boys. It's an IPA at 7% ABV, promising both New Zealand hops and tropical and citrus flavours. In the glass it's a medium hazy orange colour and smells of sweet cordial with an edge of harder diesel fumes, suggesting Nelson Sauvin is in the house. Both of those are present in the flavour, but on top of them is a hard bitterness, pithy and grassy, making it a clean-edged and uncompromising IPA. The words "west coast" spring to mind, but naww, this shouldn't be reduced to a sub-genre; this is what IPA once was, in its entirety, back when terminology mattered (2011). There's enough fruit fun on offer for this one to stay entertaining, but there's an old-fashioned roughness too, which doesn't pull punches and doesn't care if you enjoy it or not. I did.

"Oat cream IPA" continues to insist it's a thing, and the latest is Lough Gill's I'll Be Late, a powerful iteration at 7.2% ABV. It's pale for all that; an innocent sunny yellow emulsion. Citra, Galaxy and Idaho 7 are the hops, and I think it's the Fanta sweetness of Galaxy that I get most of in the aroma. Sweetness is a built-in feature, of course, and the lactose gives the flavour a definite milkshake stickiness without actually bulking out the body. The hop bitterness -- Citra in force -- clashes with this, the resins bringing an unwelcome second stickiness. I don't get it. The hopping here belongs in a clean and bright IPA and gains nothing from being rendered creamy. I'm all for innovation, but this has been tried before and it's not an improvement on the basics of IPA. Clean it up. Thank you.

We climb aboard the DIPA train, finally, with a new one from Third Barrel: And Dance The Blues. It's a mucky looking one, an unattractive earwax beige, with bonus points for a soupy unevenness of colour. The aroma is cleaner, though, with a strong and uncompromising vegetal, savoury bang of hops, all cabbage and pepper. You get more of that on tasting, in with some gritty, earthy murk notes. Yes: it's one of those, aimed at the more masochistic sort of haze purist. On the plus side, it conceals its 8% ABV well, so there's no nasty burn, a considerable compensation. Overall it's not my sort of thing though just like with Sailor Sam's above, I'm sure it will have fans, all of whom have tasted this sort of thing before and know what they like.

The rate at which new IPAs are being turned out by Irish brewers may indeed be slowing, but there's still plenty of choice on offer.

Play to your strengths

Wicklow Wolf has got right into gear for 2022 with a bunch of new releases: permanent, seasonal and one-offs. The full-spectrum craft beer experience is what we come to them for.

First up is a new core range beer, hazy and hoppy, called Tundra. It's badged as a "tropical" IPA, though the label doesn't tell us what hops they've used, only that they're "tropical". Since it's joining the core range I guess they want to be able to swap those tropicals as and when they need to. I got a significant kick of alcohol heat from the aroma, more than I would have thought for 5.6% ABV. The flavour is much more accessible, however, with a light orangeade sweet side beefed up by dank and resinous hopping. Tropical not so much. There's an altogether more serious savoury element, some fun peppery spice and a pinch of proper citric bittering. In combination that's quite enjoyable, but I think "tropical" is overstating it a little, given some of the roaring juice-bombs currently on the market.

This is, I guess, what qualifies as mainstream these days: built to be repeatable and cost effective, unlike some of the uneconomical art-piece special editions you get. As such, and what with the blue can, it puts itself squarely in the same category as Trouble Ambush, and I don't think it quite measures up, needing more softness and sweet fruit. But if you like Ambush and aren't fervently loyal to it, here's something else to try.

Latest in the Endangered Species series is an IPA hopped with New Zealand varieties Nelson Sauvin and Moteuka. This sort of thing has been around for yonks but that's no reason to stop brewing them. Far Far Away is 6% ABV and a standard hazy orange. There must be an IPA template these guys are working from. I get nothing especially kiwi from the aroma, smelling much more American, with citrus dominant. Nelson's diesel mineral side is apparent from the foretaste in a most enjoyable way, softened by orange pith and juice. I get a little herbal grass from the Motueka but it's mostly restrained. In fact, that's true for the beer in general: although it's heavily bodied and built for sipping, the hops aren't very loud and it's up to you whether that's a point in favour or not. I would have preferred a bit more welly, especially in a one-off, but couldn't help enjoying the balance. If it really is built around an IPA template, it's one that works. 

Their new stout is a 6.6% ABV export-style job called After Midnight. Taking a sip without bothering to read the label I thought "Oh, they've done another coconut stout. Fair enough." They haven't, though. This uses an experimental variety (HBC 472), a close relative of Sabro. And boy is it Sabro-like, with an even realer dry coconut-husk rasp. It takes moment before any further complexities emerge. That takes the form of a plum and raisin fruit side and an old-fashioned green-cabbage hop bite. That last bit is a reminder that beyond the cutting-edge experimentation, this is really a very traditional stout, of the kind mainstream brewers have long since stopped making. It's dense and smooth, pure black and topped with a beige head. The texture is silky enough to have me seeking oats in the ingredients, but there aren't any. Yes, I would prefer this sort of thing without the experimental element, but I don't resent it either: the stout's intrinsic quality shines through.

As the brewery's new pattern of Locavore single-estate beers settles into an annual cycle, I detect an intensification of the process. This time last year, the spring Locavore was garnet coloured and 9.8% ABV. For Locavore Spring 2022 we're looking at something jet black and all of 11.9% ABV. Approach with caution. Officially it's still a barrel aged farmhouse ale with Brettanomyces, and like last year's it pours quite flat. The aroma suggests autolysis: that sweet/savoury point where melty chocolate meets soy sauce. The flavour veers away from the savoury, with raisins, quince and sage all featuring. There's a general medieval vibe, of spiced wine and roasted meat. I like it. While it's not hot as such, you know you're drinking something strong. Approach with caution, but enjoy: there's a lot to have fun with here.

I'm sure I've said this before, but Wicklow Wolf is building a very decent reputation for itself as a stout brewer. There's enough hazy IPA coming out of the Garden County already so I wouldn't object if this became even more of a specialism for them.

There's no IPA in team

It's fun how several Irish microbreweries have now adopted local League of Ireland football clubs. Galway Bay is the latest, pulling on the jersey of second-division strivers Galway United. The tie-in beer is a Czech-style pils, punningly called Triból. 4.5% ABV makes it a 10° lager in Czech terms, designed for easy quaffing. And it works for that -- nothing challenging or upsetting is to be found in here, and absolutely no off flavours. That's not to say it's boring. Peppery Mittelfrüh hops sit on a full malt base, one which suggests decoction to me. Textbook stuff, then. I was about to say that Galway Bay's streak of great lagers continues, but it's not a streak, it's just how they make them.

The next one isn't a football tie-in, but given Hope's Dutch connections, the orange livery had me thinking it might be. This is Amber Lager: number 26 in their series of limited editions. It's very amber indeed, a dark shade of honey, and there's a density that goes with that, reflected in the 5.5% ABV. They're up front about the decoction mashing, and it shows. The flavour starts sweet, with strawberries and red liquorice, the latter growing in influence, bringing a herbal bitterness for balance. That doesn't last long and the finish is quick and dry with no lingering traces of the fruit or herbs. This one is decent though unexciting. It doesn't push my buttons the same way as the pils does. The observation here, I guess, is that lager doesn't necessarily become more characterful when brewed darker.

1-0 to the pale stuff, then.

The browns and the blues

It's a new set of Whiplash cans today, all be it slightly fewer than the last tranche, and some smaller cans too.

Loud Places is a pale ale, presented in the typical hazy Whiplash fashion. With that comes the typical Whiplash cleanness and the typical Whiplash juice: it goes big on the soft and mouthwatering mandarin and satsuma first, tempering it with a slightly hard lemon citrus later on, for an extremely thirst-quenching Rock Shandy effect. The aroma more or less matches that, perhaps suggesting a little more bitterness than is actually delivered, but you know what you're getting. I would ding it a little on the texture: though it's light-bodied and extremely easy to drink, it's a full 5% ABV. I expect something a little more rounded at the strength, or for such a lightweight to be appropriately lower in alcohol. It's hard to be too critical of this one, though: an unfussy and perfectly tasty pale ale.

Its fraternal twin, or possibly arch-nemesis, is also 5% ABV but otherwise quite different. The label describes Quiet Crowd as a "robust brown [ale]" and boy is it robust. No sneaky thinness here. The hefty, thick, creamy body carries an almost harsh coffee bitterness, one which takes a few sips to adjust to. At that point the complexities emerge, including summer fruit, melty milk chocolate and gooey caramel. A scorching burnt dry roast arrives in the finish, lest you begin taking it for a softie. This is no easy drinker but it's just as much fun as the one above; possibly even more so as brown ales aren't as commonplace as hazy pale ales, despite something of a recent resurgence. Of course, Whiplash has played a big part in that resurgence, and they're not done yet.

I had to go out for the next small can: Chimes, brewed for the Bunsen burger chain and only available in their restaurants. The official description is that it's a "lime zest pale ale" and it's 5% ABV. Served to me cold in a chilled glass it tasted of very little at first and I had to wait for it to warm up and present itself properly. It was worth waiting for. First off, there's a pleasingly full and soft fluffy texture, more like a wheat beer than a pale ale. I didn't get much by way of hop, but the lime plays things interestingly, bringing a spicy and spritzy quality, all bergamot and lavender: much more complex than simply a base beer dosed with syrup. There's a tighter zest in the finish for anyone who thinks a lime beer should taste of actual limes. I liked the rounded fullness of it, making this great for matching with food. It has been thought through, well designed and executed: streets ahead of the usual approach of slapping the restaurant's name on whatever a nearby brewery makes cheaply and isn't too precious about.

Today's third pale ale is called Got To Keep On and is a smidge stronger than the others at 5.3% ABV. The can didn't need to tell me there were oats in the grist: it's very apparent from the appearance, a dull beige emulsion. The hops are an intriguing combination of Vic Secret, Azacca and El Dorado, the latter two giving it that fruit-chew candy sweetness they tend to remind me of. There's a bitterness behind this which is in part the herbal side of Vic Secret, but there's a nastier murky grit element too, something that Whiplash usually manages to avoid, despite turning out endless varieties of very hazy beer. The payoff is a lovely smooth creamy texture which almost makes it worthwhile. Half way down I realised I had no more to say about this one. There are no hidden underlying complexities and the flavour doesn't evolve as it goes. It's simple and drinkable, doing the basics for a pale ale quite well, but not as good as Loud Places above.

Moving, on, seeming like a leftover from the big drop of German-style beers late last year, next it's Melted, a roggenbier, so centred on rye malt and hopped with Magnum and Hersbrucker. As one might expect from a rye beer, it's a dark orange-amber in colour, looking stronger and denser than 5.4% ABV. There's Vienna malt in the mix as well, and that comes through strongly on the aroma: lots of biscuit, at the expense of any rye or hop bitterness. It doesn't get much bitterer on tasting, the rye is restrained -- a little bit grassy and very slightly peppery -- and I couldn't detect anything much from the hops. At this point I checked the yeast variety listed and discovered that it is a lager, which makes total sense. Despite quite a busy mix of ingredients, this is a lager first and foremost: immaculate in the cleanness of its flavour, approachable and refreshing, with the rye serving to add a pinch of additional character, not dominate the whole picture. Malted barley reigns supreme here: smooth and a little bit caramelised, but not fully sweet. I came to it expecting something challenging and busy, so was very pleasantly surprised to be given a beer to relax into, one which makes few demands on the drinker while also being far from boring.

Released at the same time as Got To Keep On was a double IPA named Temporary Pleasure and it's a similarly extreme sort of beige colour. Vic Secret and Azacca return too, joined by BRU-1, and oats, of course. But while that was innocent and easy going, this is a hot beast of a thing, laying on the alcohol alongside that grit again and a low level of sweetly tropical fruit, almost an afterthought. It's difficult drinking, even at 8% ABV. This is not how Whiplash normally makes double IPAs. It's how a lot of breweries make them, but not Whiplash. With the heat and grit, all that's missing is the garlic for a clear run of wrong. Fingers crossed this is just a temporary phase.

Presenting, penultimately, Smoke Stack Lightnin', a biiig brown ale of 8.5% ABV with smoked malt and barrel aged. Compared to Quiet Crowd they've gone big with the can too, upgrading to 440ml. It's on the red side of brown -- ruby coloured when held to the light -- and is topped by a thick cream-coloured head. The aroma is a strange mix of coffee, caramel and ham. Strange, but not unpleasant. That ham effect is the first part of the flavour to hit the palate, and also the part which lingers longest in the finish. In the middle, just like with the aroma, there's sweet and chewy caramel and rich oily coffee. Despite the strength, a considerable density, and the full-on flavours, it's clean and surprisingly drinkable, with no heat or esters to disturb the experience. It made for a highly satisfying nightcap: better than any mug of cocoa.

There's a triple IPA to bring us home: Sound of Silver, with Strata, Azacca and Sultana which should be quite a fruity proposition. It's hella murky, and eggy yellow with visible gritty silt in the glass. The aroma is lightly tropical and there's no sign of the looming 11% ABV. It is indeed very clean and quite warming, with a softly comforting texture and tropical cordial flavours. No grit, and no especially strong heat. At the same time, the hops are a bit of a mush, all smudged in together with nothing in particular standing out. I get that's it's very much going for the New England thing, but a bit of a bitter edge would be a big improvement. As is, this doesn't really deliver the excitement that "triple IPA" ought to elicit. It's too calm and too balanced. Make extreme beer extreme again.

While I'm all in favour of style diversity and hope Whiplash continues to keep things original and interesting, I would not at all mind a few more in the brown ale genre if the quality is as good as this latest pair.

Kraft & Kromme

Three beers from two Dutch brewers today. First up is De Kromme Haring of Utrecht and their black IPA Inktvis. By saying it's "black IPA as we think they are meant to be" they make big claims for this one, and at 6% ABV and a sleek obsidian black it looks like they've got the basics down. The aroma is slighter than I would normally like, offering only a mild and subtle hop spice on a chocolate base. Mild and subtle is how the flavour continues. The chocolate is at the centre of things, with a floral rosewater effect, making it taste more like a jolly porter than a proper black IPA. There's only a faint resinous bitterness, arriving in the finish, and none of the spice promised in the aroma. It's fine: very drinkable and nicely balanced. But I like black IPAs to have more bite and more complexity than what's on offer here.

The next one is from an unfamiliar brewery: KraftBier in Tilburg. It's an autumn beer, but seemingly not in the typical Dutch herftsbok style. Rather than crystalline red, Goej Klèts is a muddy brown colour, and a bit stronger than the norm at 7.3% ABV. It's pretty sweet, with a mix of milk chocolate and raisins forming the main flavour. It finishes drier, with notes of stewed tea and a crisp green grassiness. These two contrasting opposites take a bit of getting used to, but it's enjoyable once that kicks in. I couldn't tell you whether it's warm or cool fermented, showing as it does the richness of the former with the crisp edge of the latter. I doubt it's for everyone but I liked what it offers.

It was the description "Champagne Brut" on the can that attracted me to Op d'n oewe!. That, and the 11% ABV -- phwoar! I expected something clear and clean and sparkling, and I even got my flute out for the occasion. I was nonplussed, then, when it poured a soupy ochre colour. The aroma is an equally unsettling mash-up of sticky candy or bubblegum and sharp malt vinegar. I find it hard to believe that's the first impression the brewer wanted. The sweetness completely dominates the flavour, utterly unlike champagne. With the soft and sticky sugar there's lots of flabby booze heat, a little like dark and cheap sherry. There is a bright side, with a fun mint and aniseed herbal quality which goes some way to clean and sharpen it. It's still a mess, though, more brute than brut.

Dutch brewers keep bringing the surprises, and nothing here was what I thought it would be. I'm not one for rigid adherence to predetermined style guidelines so let's celebrate the diversity.

You don't know what you're getting

It was inevitable, with the rise in fashion of beers badged as west coast IPA, that we'd get a lot of variation within those supposed parameters. BRÚ illustrates the point for us today.

They've called Howling At The Sun a west coast IPA but it's quite hazy and reeks, deliciously, of freshly squeezed orange juice. The flavour is full-on bitter, though: a dry citric pith, scorching the palate. It's almost too much for my delicate gob, though thankfully settles down towards the end, introducing a little of the sweet fruit promised in the aroma. There are oats in the ingredients list, making me think they haven't taken the west coast spec completely seriously, but it's close enough for me. This is clean, refreshing and very assertive, and all done at a modest 5.7% ABV. Commendable.

The companion piece, Echoes, is also a west coast IPA with oats; slightly stronger than the previous, though noticeably paler and clearer. The aroma is milder and softer with a distinctly tropical side, even though Citra and Motueka are involved, neither of which I would place in that bracket. It must be the Strata. It suffers quite a reversal of fortune on tasting, where I got no tropical fruit and no citrus either. There's a touch of dry grass and oily herbs, which I'm guessing is the Motueka, but otherwise it's husky savoury caraway and sesame seed. There's not much of that either: this is disappointingly characterless. Clean, I guess, but very much the point at which that meets bland.

It's fascinating how two beers, in the same style, released from the same brewery at the same time, can be so different.

Switching it up

Friday's post was about DOT Brew's recent collaborations with Larkin's. Today we find out some of what they've been up to on their own time.

Barrel-aged pilsner is something that will always raise my eyebrow, but DOT did one, in collaboration with Teeling's, so it would be remiss of me to pass it by when it's on my doorstep. It was a St Patrick's Day/Festival special so you'll have to put up with the name Paint The Town Green. I blame the Americans. It looks innocent enough, a properly clear golden. The aroma is all crisp cream crackers with no sign of whiskey. So far, so pilsner. It does arrive in the flavour, though. Hitting the hops, the honeyed whiskey creates a kind of light bourbon effect: sour mash and oaky vanilla. It's far from unpleasant but not an improvement on unadorned pils. Bonus notes of coconut and fennel creep in late. It does manage to keep a lid on too much novelty, and although it's a full 5.4% ABV it's nicely gulpable and even refreshing. However it's not a patch on DOT's usual barrel-aged pale ales. Pilsner just isn't the best format for this kind of thing.

From tweaked pils to plain gose. When The Going Gets Gose is refreshingly unaugmented and 4% ABV. On the downside, it's almost totally flat, and that doesn't suit a beer that's designed to be light and refreshing. It looked completely dead as it poured, but a tiny and shortlived head did form and there was a faint sparkle in the texture. Not enough, though. It's a shame because it's on the money otherwise: a crunchy Golden Delicious fruit side, lightly sprinkled with sea salt, finishing quickly and cleanly. Just what you'd want from a beer like this, but not this one: the lack of condition is a fatal flaw.

The sour theme continues with Tart Boysenberry, a beer where expectations are set by the name even though I don't know what a boysenberry tastes like and have no intentions of looking it up. It pours clear and golden and smells very jammy, of blueberry and blackberry; all autumnal and harvest-y. That had me thinking it would be pure fruit on tasting, but the first sip brings a gose-like clean sour bite before the fruit -- blueberries again -- swings in behind. It's very nicely done, combining berries and tartness in a melodious way. The two sides aren't integrated but they play their respective parts without clashing or interfering with each other, and neither seeking to dominate. The end result is a harmonious balance of sharp Brussels-style tartness with soft and juicy berries. It's the sort of thing that Mort Subite and Lindemans wish they could produce but haven't quite managed.

It's an IPA to finish, called Let It Run. This is 6% ABV and has a lovely amber colour, and crystal clear with it. "Bags of tropical fruit" says the label and it's not joking: the aroma is intense, and leaps into action as soon as the tab is pulled. The mangoes and pineapples in the bag are a bit beyond ripe, with almost a transgressive funk to them, which I really enjoyed. Idaho-7 and Vic Secret are the culprits, and there's a touch of the latter's signature aniseed. That bitterness is at the centre of the flavour: an early bite in the foretaste and an almost-harsh tang in the finish. Between these two elements there's mango, peach and apricot, though only briefly. This isn't as much of a palate thumper as the aroma suggested but it works. Cleanly bitter IPA is always welcome, and that it came in a can marked "DDH" was an extra surprise.

A nice reminder here that not everything DOT produces is some kind of dark and barrel-aged blend. I'm all in favour of more from the light and sour side of the house.

Serious pastry

When DOT went to Larkins, strong sweet stout was on the agenda. Three collaborative ones arrived simultaneously in cans last month.

They're all 8.5% ABV which made it tricky to pick a running order, so let's start with breakfast, specifically American Breakfast Stout, made with oats, coffee, lactose, maple syrup and vanilla. That sounds like a lot of sweet and by golly it smells it too, an instantly nerve-jangling amount of processed sugar triggers a deep-seated warning system behind my nostrils. Humans were not meant to ingest this concentration of liquid sugar in one go. There is a little bit of dry coffee roast too, but balance left the building as soon as the tab was popped. Pleasingly, however, that roast is the main feature in the flavour, drying the foretaste and bringing a certain burnt crispness to the finish. In the middle it's all about the maple syrup. That tends to disappear from beers once the yeast get to work on it, but here there's a definite woody quality suggesting they haven't managed to digest it completely. It's a big sticky stout but it's not a mess. You're promised coffee and maple syrup and that's exactly what it delivers. It's hard to argue with what's advertised on the label.

Judge Fudge isn't the first Irish beer to feature some sort of non-proprietary futuristic policeman on it, only the first to pass my way. The description in full says it's "A spiced salted maple fudge brownie imperial stout", while the ingredients list fills us in that "spiced" means nutmeg. Once again the maple is bringing those charred wood vibes at the centre of the flavour. Salt? Chocolate? A little, but not so much. The coffee is a big absence here: without its drying influence it gets a bit sticky and cloying. The nutmeg is not sufficient compensation, being barely detectable. This promises a lot but doesn't pull it off and ends up as an amorphous sugary lump. Dial back the chocolate, drop the maple and up the spices, is my recommendation for the next batch.

The finale is Chocolate Passion, a chocolate stout with lactose, vanilla and... passionfruit? OK then. The aroma is pure passionfruit: the sort of thing you get as a between-course palate cleanser in fancy restaurants. Not a stout. That's still there in the flavour but it's drowned out by the big and unsubtle chocolate: the very sweet and creamy milk variety (hello lactose!) and it doesn't blend well. I've tasted dark chocolate with passionfruit jam in it, and the contrast there is superb, but that's not what they've done with this beer. Two kinds of sweetness rub up against each other and it almost works but doesn't. I blame the lactose. The passionfruit syrup gives it enough of a sweet side without needing to embellish it further. This needs more edge, in my opinion, but if sweet and smooth and tropical is your thing, here's your beer. Full marks for the daring recipe.

I would not recommend these three in a single sitting. They're very much built for occasional drinking and can be fun to close a session, or a meal, with. Dropping three on me in one go was unkind.

One and one

There's something quite cute about how many of O Brother's beers are hazy pale ales of one kind or another. They must genuinely like the genre; I refuse to believe it's solely a commercial decision. And there must be plenty of room within it to get creative because they're not samey, and today's is a case in point.

This is Singularity, an IPA of 6.3% ABV and brewed with Mosiac, Sabro and Talus. It's quite dark: orange rather than yellow, and there's a weightiness to the aroma, giving concentrated tropical cordial and Sabro's unmistakable coconut oil. This all takes a pleasing about-face on tasting, where it's light and sunny with very little sign of the alcohol. The first impression is fresh mandarin, equal parts juicy and pithy. The coconut is back for the middle part before the arrival of pineapple and mango in the finish. It's a tremendously fun combination of tastes, each clean and distinct, and it's not something I recall encountering before. This makes me glad the brewery is still putting IPA recipes together, and that they happen to be very good at it.

So that's the IPA. Barrel-aged imperial stout is much less of an O Brother thing, but here's one: Opus One, the first of a series perhaps? The barrels are single malt ones, supplied by one of the local distilleries, Ferncullen at Powerscourt. They've done the whiskey justice by making it a big beer to start with, totalling 12.5% ABV by the time it went into the can. There's a significant bite of sappy oak in the aroma, which isn't very subtle. But big stout to the rescue and that gets thoroughly buried in the flavour. It's beautifully smooth, with a mixture of sumptuous chocolate sauce and Irish-whiskey honey. Vanilla cream and a dusting of chopped hazelnuts completes the impression of something that usually comes as a dessert, in a cute little glass with a tiny spoon. Happily also, the hops are still there, adding a herbal bite that's different, but fully complementary to the rest of the picture. This is an all-round class act. If you're generally unconvinced by barrel-aged imperial stouts, or just how Irish breweries do them, here's one to change your mind. When's Opus Two out?

O Brother have really hit their stride with these two very different beers. Long may that continue.

The big shop

For some years now, Lidl has ruled supreme in the own-brand beer space. Its "Crafty Brewing" range by Rye River runs from damn-decent to exceptional, largely depending on one's opinion of the styles produced. Quality is built in. Now Tesco looks to be taking a challenge to them with its own "Hop Seekers" line-up. There's no saison or American-style brown ale yet, but five mainstream styles form the vanguard, all brewed at Pearse Lyons Brewery in Dundalk.

First is Wild West pilsner and on opening it I was suddenly reminded that the brewery also brews Manislav pilsner for Tesco (and Strana for Aldi) from the aroma: a big damp grass funk which speaks of Saaz in quantity. The body is nicely full. I was worried about that as it's weaker than the aforementioned beers at 4.5% ABV, but I've no complaints about the soft, authentically Czech, texture. The flavour does let it down a little. It's quite bland, with only a faint hint left of that fresh green hopping. The beefy malt offers some compensation, giving it wholesome seedcake and oat cookies. This is pleasant drinking, even if it's more fun to sniff than to sip. Further proof that all of Ireland's best pilsners are supermarket own brands -- although Lidl hasn't managed a decent one yet, curiously.

At the same strength, a pale ale is next: Crooked Creek. There's plenty of citrus in the aroma, but a sweetness too; a suggestion of juice in line with contemporary fashion. It is mostly clear though, with just a faint haze to indicate that all the life hasn't been filtered out of it. And it hasn't. It wears a properly bitter lime rind and grapefruit juice up front, in a pure and unfussy 1990s American-craft way. And then later there's that modern twist, giving a slightly sweet and spicy lemon sherbet buzz. I can't pick any holes in what it offers: a clean, stimulating, mouth-watering taste, in a generous measure at an approachable strength for a reasonable price. A proper fridge-filler, then.

What remains is IPA, and we move up to a High Peak next, at 5.1% ABV. This is a warm golden colour, and slightly hazy but still within the parameters of the west coast sub-style. It's nowhere near as punchy as the pale ale, however. The aroma is a juicy kind of citrus, with mild notes of mandarin, while the flavour is soft and warm, offering orange cookies rather than actual fruit. It's fine, but a bit bland, tasting much more like a compromised supermarket cheapie than either of the other two. The branding suggests America but perhaps they should have gone for a landscape closer to home as this has most in common with restrained English-style IPA, though it's not an especially good example of that either. It's inoffensive though, so I guess if you want to drink IPA but have an aversion to hops, here's the beer for you.

After that, I didn't get my hopes up when it came to the professed "juicy IPA" Tropical Shore. By rights this 6%-er should be an opaque yellow emulsion with sweet and fruity hop aromas and flavours. But supermarket bottles have to sit in the warm for a year or more, so that would have been a poor idea from the start. Instead, to no surprise on my part, it's a mostly clear copper colour and predominantly dry and bitter: a rasp of metal and a squeak of dried lemon peel, against a background of highly tannic stewed tea. Any sweetness is malt-derived, though there isn't much of it: fruitcake and cereal bars. This is even more English-tasting than the last one. The description on the label does mention the malt and citrus character, but the all-caps "Juicy" on the front still makes it misleading. It left a bad taste in my mouth which had very little to do with the recipe.

That was such a shock that I need to digress for a moment. As well as this set for Tesco, Pearse Lyons also brews the "Journeyman" own-brand beers for Musgraves. And a recent addition to these was one labelled as "Juicy IPA". It's 5.9% ABV which would suggest it must at least have something in common with the beer above, and could even be identical. Did they make the same mistake again? I got hold of a bottle at the earliest opportunity, and sure enough it's another clear copper job, despite the label telling us it's "hazy and bursting with fruit flavours". It is not. Tea and lemon peel; fruitcake and zinc, and that's your lot. To have one pseudo-juicy IPA out in the mainstream is unfortuate. To have two looks like cruelty.

But back to Tesco. The Hop Seekers range tops out on Deep Sea double IPA, just about meeting the spec at 7.5% ABV. It's a dark orange colour and smells sweet and sticky, like cordial or hard candy. There's quite an about face in the flavour, then: it's fully bitter, at the expense of everything else. It's a harsh and waxy sort of bitterness, and it's hard work to find anything else behind it. There's a certain breadcrust chewiness from the malt, but no softness or warmth. The hop flavour is still orangey, but all pith and peel, without any sweetness. All things considered it's a bit of a chore to drink, and unless you enjoy having your palate bruised, I don't see much to like about it.

This sequence really lost its way in the later beers. I genuinely thought we had a new range of accessible classics on our hands after the first two. Still, we must look to the positives, and both the pilsner and pale ale are well worth your time and your €3. Now about that brown ale...