More of the similar

Seems like forever since I last had Larkin's on here, though it was only August. They've been hella busy since and I have much to tell you about.

Sour has never really been their milieu, but I was extremely impressed by Chardonnay, a sour ale aged in French white wine barrels with added mango and passionfruit. And yes, I will state up front that even though your saisons and wild ales given the vin blanc treatment is one of my favourite things to encounter here in the beer world, I still approached this with the cold sarcastic cynicism I bring to every glass served me. At 7% ABV it's a heavy one, and hazy with it, but it uses that heft, and the fruit additions, to pile clean peach and cantaloupe flavours onto the palate in a way that's more Riesling than Chardonnay, but I have no objections. Likewise, the sourness is buried a little under the sugar, with a peppery spice more part of what it does. Not sour; not Chardonnay but I adored it. I tend to prefer beers like this to be refreshing and invigorating, but a sippable ponderable, once in a while, floats my boat too. I drank it on draught in UnderDog and will be giving a can or two a spin as well, for as long as it's around.

Regarding double IPAs, they've gone all-in with the thiols, yet another way of mechanically extracting the good bits of hops from the rest to maximise flavour and aroma. The first example I have for you is Citra Thiol DIPA at 7.8% ABV. It's strangely flat, with no hiss on popping the can and no head on the beer. The body is an opaque sludgey yellow and there's not much aroma, possibly also a factor of the poor conditioning. There is a very faint sparkle in the mouthfeel but far from proper fizz. There's nothing special or distinctive about the flavour either. It's broadly tropical with some juicy ripe tangerine and a teeny whiff of savoury onion on the end. It's fine. To its credit it's perfectly clean tasting with none of that murk bringing anything unpleasant. There's a light touch on the alcohol too, and I don't think I would have guessed the strength. This is one of those beers where you have to make up your own mind on whether it's accessible or boring. I certainly couldn't taste any new hop tech being showcased.

They've done something similar as part of the McHugh's Roadtrip series, of which the north Dublin offy kindly sent me a couple of cans. Here we go then: Road Trip Explorer 5: Thiol Double IPA, a little ballsier than the previous at 8% ABV. It's not as murky either, and there's a decent head on pouring. Tropicals are back but far more pronounced in the aroma, leading with a quite intense pineapple effect. That's the flavour too, pineapple first, dusted with a little cinnamon and finishing dry and a little chalky, like a soluble vitamin tablet. Here I think can detect something different going on; the hop profile of this beer is unusual. I don't know that it's an improvement on just hopping something to hell and back in the traditional way, but maybe it's cheaper, so hurrah for that. Overall, you get a very decent and just as clean hazy double IPA. Good enough.

In late November Larkin's dropped a sequence of single hop hazy IPAs, all hip and urban with their branding, in a way that just screams smalltown Co. Wicklow. First is the 6.2% ABV Jagged Sky, showcasing Sabro. It does so with aplomb, providing all the orange pith and coconut that one comes to this hop for, set on a beautifully soft and fluffy base. No bitterness, but no need for it. As a single hopper there's a lack of complexity but I don't think it matters: the two dimensions this hop provides are plenty, and all is bright and fresh. And educational too.

So that had me all geared up for Staylo, a little bit stronger at 6.5% ABV and the single hop is the always-fun El Dorado. Again the texture is all pillowy and the bitterness is understated but the hop just isn't as bold and interesting this time round. I expected sweet and tropical, which is what El Dorado does best, but instead it's quite dry and minerally; flinty sparks and zesty rind. It's fine as a drinking beer, and the not unsubstantial strength is well hidden. It does suffer from a lack of complexity with a less intense hop, however. Sabro has you covered, El Dorado on its own leaves you hanging. There are no flaws here, just a lack of any wow factor. Let's call it a worthy experiment and leave matters there.

Next under the microscope is Simcoe, via the 6.6% ABV Après. It looks pretty much the same as the others and smells fabulously juicy, in a way I don't associate with this hop. That's what it does on the flavour: freshly-squeezed orange juice, mildly pithy and slightly zesty with nothing else at all going on. In a hazy IPA I will absolutely take that and consider myself lucky. There are none of the common off flavours, and a surprising lack of heat making it very easy to down. Even the body is lighter than the previous ones despite the ascending strength. Maybe it gets oniony or something as it warms but my glass never got the chance. This was one of those rare occasions where I immediately wanted another can of the same right away.

Top that, you say? This subsection tops out with Scenes, the one that's 6.7% ABV and hopped solely with Hüll Melon. The aroma goes for a burton here, offering nothing beyond a vague green-leaf herb. The flavour too is extremely muted. What happens if you remove the hop flavour from a New England-style IPA? You get custard: a soft and sweet vanilla effect. As with all of these it's incredibly clean, without booze burn, garlic or grit, but unlike the others the hops have not shown up for work. It's bland in a way beer like this should never be. A very gentle curry-leaf spicing is all I could find when I really went searching. It's not enough. I suppose if you're into haze more for the texture than the flavour then this works, but otherwise it's skippable. Buy more Après instead.

We enter the imperial stout phase of this round up with Coco Loco, a simple rum barrel aged toasted coconut job at a light and brisk 8.3% ABV. It's a foamy beast, taking a little time to settle, even in a wide glass. Nothing leaps out in the aroma, just a little sugared coffee; no coconut or rum, neither of which are usually shy. I thought it would be sweet but there's a surprising, and refreshingly different dry and bitter aspect in charge here. Oak and coconut do feature but both are very definitely toasted. I can't detect any rum and frankly I'm relieved: the sickliness it too often adds is not to my taste. Only in the finish, as it warms, is there a subtle echo of the rum. This is very good. The name and description suggests brash and gimmicky but really it's all smooth, mature, balanced and integrated. Coconut/rum imperial stout has grown up.

November saw a trilogy of barrel aged imperial stouts, or "Triple Impy" as they've cringingly written on the cans. First to come my way was That's Not A Stout, This Is A Stout, complementing the reference to Australia with... maple syrup? It's a sizeable 13% ABV but dresses well for a big lad, having a mature and mellow texture; soft and smooth. The flavour is complex but very nicely blended together, sweet coconut meeting dry cola and making off with bitter liquorice. The finish offers a more sober sense of treacle-infused brown bread. It looks to be pitched as a daft novelty but it's quality through and through. Anyone looking for a one-dimensional whack of boozy maple syrup should move along. And yes, it distracted me sufficiently that I neglected to take a photo in UnderDog, but take my word that it was black and came in a TeKu.

"One to warm you on a cold night" says the can of Quit Your Jibber Jabber Fool! and I put that to the test on the first properly cold evening of the year. Again it's 13% ABV and this time there's cacao, lactose and vanilla in the mix. It looked at first to be pouring quite flat but a proper head did form eventually. Strangely, given the ingredients, there's a blip of grassy green hops on the aroma. The flavour is a slow build, starting a little watery, then gradually adding in marzipan, cherry syrup, espresso and finally dark chocolate. That's fun, but it's quite thin for what it is. For possibly the first time ever I'm annoyed that the lactose isn't more prominent. This gets better and fuller as it warms, and I strongly recommend allowing it to do so. Do that and you get a decent but unspectacular imperial stout, treading nimbly between bitter roasty tradition and contemporary candy-coated whimsy.

And speaking of candy-coated whimsy, we finish on Both Barrels, the same strength but brewed using marshmallow. "Actually not overly sweet" promises the label. I'll be the judge of that. Reader, it is overly sweet. The very real and sticky marshmallow makes this both taste and smell pink. There's a certain coffee roast bitterness, which might be how they've attempted to balance it but it hasn't worked very well. The thinness which plagued the first one is back again up front, before the lactose and marshmallow take charge, clogging up the palate by the end and leaving a thick residue behind in the mouth. And yet there's no proper warmth either. This is a difficult beer to like, especially if like me you think marshmallow has no place in a beer glass.

Larkin's isn't really a brewery that goes in for style diversity in a big way. You need to be into IPA or strong stout to like them -- I find that a little sad for a company that set out to specialise in lager but I'm sure there are sound commercial reasons behind the decision. And generally they're quite good at making what's trendy.