Back in the game

My summer of beer festivals began in Cork, with the return of the Franciscan Well's Easter gig, delayed a month or so. It was a wise choice as the weather was beautiful.

I started in Rising Sons, for a pre-gig look at their new offerings, the first being Shield Maiden, a kviek-fermented orange ale. I thought it was going to be sour but it's not. This 5.1% ABV pale amber coloured beer is rather sweet, tasting of orangeade with a mild cinnamon spicing. There's a little old-fashioned hop bitterness in the finish but not much. It's light bodied and that gives the overall impression of a lager with a dash of fruit syrup in it. Kveik yeast may be exciting to use, but the beer it created here is rather bland.

Beside it was pouring The Dark One, a porter. This is also 5.1% ABV and cola-coloured. There's a huge amount of roast in the aroma, and the flavour is fully bitter, with smoke and tar in the ascendant, plus an edge of cherry with side notes of beech nut and aniseed. The mouthfeel is quite thin and fizzy, but for me that made an incredibly complex beer accessible and refreshing. This is pretty much exactly how I like porter to be.

Across the Lee at Franciscan Well, proceedings were in full swing when I arrived at 1.30. Rising Sons was pouring here too, and I went with Heartbreaker, an IPA. Although it's only 5.3% ABV, this manages to squeeze in a lot of the attributes of much stronger American IPA, and in particular the heavy and resinous pine flavours. It's slightly hazy, so not completely west coast, but close enough for me. And while it doesn't do anything fancy or complex, it's very decent.

West Cork Brewing was over from Baltimore, represented by new head brewer Tara, and with three beers all new to me. First there's Spice Island Red, a red ale with ginger, which is not something I'd seen before. It doesn't really work, however. While the ginger is perfectly pitched and gives it a beautiful summery zing, there's a slightly sweaty staleness caused, I think, by its interaction with the toffee-flavoured malt. It doesn't ruin the experience completely but it's not ideal. Perhaps choosing a different style to give the spice treatment to would work better.

The pale ale is called Beacon of Hops and is 4.1% ABV. This is fresh, light and lemony; softly textured so resembling somewhat a witbier. Though fruity and not very bitter, it finishes dry, which makes it delightfully moreish. Just what you want from a brewpub pale ale.

Finally, a west coast IPA given the faux-amis name Cape Haze. It is a little hazy, in fairness, but that's not a principal feature. It's a dark gold colour and very dank in both aroma and flavour, piling on the oily resin. There's a strange but not unpleasant sulphurous burnt-rubber note, and a crisply dry finish. Much like Heartbreaker above, this channels the main points of the style well, and this time at an even lower ABV of 4.7%. You'd never know it was that light from drinking it.

Lineman was in town for a tap takeover at Bierhaus and had two new beers at the 'Well. First there's Stopover, a blond ale broadly in the English tradition -- 5.1% ABV with flavours of vanilla, honey and cereal. The finish is crisp, though not in a lagerish way. This is quite plain fare and made an excellent palate cleanser when served cold from the tap on the warm day it was. I'm not sure what I'd make of it canned at home.

And there was a new IPA as well. No trying to give a false impression of strength here: Green Light is the full 7% ABV and a clear golden colour. It's bright and fresh and clean, and while perhaps a little low on bitterness -- no teeth-squeaking acidity here -- the flavour is absolutely full-on with all the pine and grapefruit you could want. I think I'd prefer it to be a little more challenging and assertive, but it's still lovely as-is.

I missed one of the new Wicklow Wolf beers but caught the other: You Can't Handle The Fruit. This is sour and contains apricot, blood orange, passionfruit and pineapple. I'm not sure there's much point adding lots of other things once there's passionfruit, because it's only going to taste of passionfruit and this absolutely does. A small citric bite in the finish is the only place where anything else gets a word in. Nevertheless, it's very tasty, with a good pinch of sourness and a lovely soft texture. Absolutely what summer days are made for.

Whiplash too was selling rapidly through the beers and all that was left for me was their Stigbergets collaboration To Evil. It's a medium hazy yellow, looking light and innocent but is all of 7.5% ABV. That brings a density and an oily flavour, with coconut prominent in the foretaste before it settles out to mango and lemon zest with a hint of vanilla. It's fine, but for something close to double IPA strength I think I'd like more going on.

The final brewery is WhiteField, their first outing since rebranding from White Gypsy. They had a lager they brew for the Cashel Palace Hotel, a 5.2% ABV job called Sunset. It's quite a fruity one with a peach and apricot sweetness and just a lightly bitter herbal grassy side. The body is full and there's a lovely pale-toast crispness too, giving it a bit of a Champagne vibe. This definitely isn't a by-the-numbers lager and shows bags of character.

Sticking with lager, the brewery has also brewed one as a fundraiser for Ukraine. It's called Resolve and I brought a bottle home with me. It's a kellerbier, which means it's fully murky, an opaque amber colour. The carbonation is high so there was plenty of head, which lasted. A sweet aroma starts us off, with notes of flowers and honey. The flavour goes in a different direction, offering savoury brown bread and a spicy herbal bitterness: rosemary, aniseed and cloves. That's all set on a heavy, chewy body, for the full wholesome and rustic effect. It's quality stuff, an on-point and characterful take on the kellerbier style. Its humanitarian credentials are a bonus.

And that was it for the festival. It was a fantastic day out, and great to catch up with folk I haven't seen since the Before Times. I imagine there'll be a lot of that this summer.