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.