Fully on board

A couple of recent-ish releases from Hopfully today, both featuring the brewery's signature eye-catching artwork on the cans.

With a beer called Ár gCairde the Brazilians have gone fully native. This was created for the Mo Chara bar and restaurant in Dundalk and describes itself in less typically Irish terms as a margarita passionfruit gose. I thought it would be hazy but it's actually quite clear, just a slightly fuzzed-up golden colour with no head. Not that it's flat, as there's a pleasant sparkle on a light body, reflecting the mere 4% ABV. Passionfruit leaps out of the aroma and forms the bulk of the flavour too. I don't think I would have known it was a sour style without having been told in advance. The clean base could easily be a lager. Citrus zest and salt are added to the passionfruit, and I think the missing herbal side is why it doesn't really taste like gose. Leaving aside the stylistic noodling, this is a very decent fruity thirst-quencher, and I hope Mo Chara serves it by the pint. The specs and description may be high-falutin' but the beer itself is nothing fancy and all the better for it. A little extra tartness wouldn't have gone amiss, however.

Next it's an IPA, called Stark. I was expecting hazy and I got full-on hazy: opaque yellow, topped by a fine mousse. The expected vanilla in the aroma is interrupted by a grassy mineral note suggesting a kiwi hop is involved, and sure enough there's Motueka named on the label. The texture is smooth, as these tend to be, and the flavour is typically sweet. So where are the points of difference with run-of-the-mill New England-style IPA? Well, there's that flinty minerality which appears in the foretaste but doesn't last long, fading to make way for a much more ordinary meringue pie and orange icepop. It's... fine. Haze enthusiasts won't find anything to upset them; haze sceptics would be best steering clear. Still, there's no garlic burn and no mucky sludginess: not always a guarantee with this sort of thing. I can think of better uses for Motueka but I don't object to this.

Two pretty decent beers, then. There are so many fruited sour ones and hazy hoppy ones that it's difficult to make ones which stand out. I'm sure both of these will find their fans.