Mellowing with age

Since its very beginning, The White Hag has made its name primarily on big, bold and strong beers. At first glance, today's three recent releases don't seem like they're in the same race at all. Let's get them open and find out. 

Low-alcohol beer is not really the brewery's area of specialism so Not Being Televised, at 3.5% ABV, is something of an outlier. The name references the collaborating kiwi hop merchants, The Hop Revolution, of Nelson. Indeed, Nelson Sauvin is one of the hops, joined by Motueka and Pacific Sunrise in this session IPA. It's pale but not watery looking, fully hazed up and all. The aroma shows two aspects: a typical New-England orangey juiciness and the harder grass bitterness that I associate with New Zealand hops generally and Motueka specifically. The murk gets a little bit in the way of the flavour and the earthy grit caught my attention before the hopping did. It is a touch light on the latter front, offering only a quick burst of soft citrus and sharp cabbage leaf, before it all tails off. I think it would be unfair to say it's watery, but it's not far from it, and you'd know it's a low-strength job. So it's fine for what it is but it's not one to get excited about. The hops are good, however I think it would benefit from more of them.

A stout comes next, in collaboration with Italian brewery Brewfist. It's called Gola Secca and is a modest 4.8% ABV. It looks well: black on first impressions though ruby red when held to the light, and topped by a fine off-white head. The aroma leads on roast though adds a leafy green bitterness to the background. That bitterness comes right to the fore on tasting, unfolding into fresh cabbage leaf and a pepper or nutmeg spicing. There's some cocoa for balance of a sort -- a less severe bitterness than the veg -- and then a long herbal buzz for an aftertaste, suggesting aniseed and spearmint to me. They advertise it as "dry", and while it starts there it goes off in a number of interesting directions, none of them passing close to pastry. I liked it, and particularly how it demonstrates that you don't need a high ABV for a stout to be interesting.

The White Hag's first beer, back in 2014, was a red IPA called Fleadh. They've re-used the name for a similar-but-different red ale of 5.5% ABV. The pour seems flat at first then settles with a loose head, the way a much stronger barley wine or the like might. It's definitely red, or amber, translucent with even a pinkish tint. Fruit candy is suggested, softly, by the aroma, while the flavour isn't much louder. There's a surprising watery thinness and a broadly sweet taste of strawberry jelly and glacé cherry. I get a savoury rosemary and oregano element as well. The can suggests I should be interpreting this as grapefruit and juniper, and the latter is fair but it definitely doesn't have the classic American citrus flavours, despite the application of Centennial and Simcoe. What it's really lacking is the malt body to hold this all together and give the hops a platform to work from. As is, it doesn't live up to its party inspired name.

The stout wins, out of this lot. Otherwise, I think the brewery does better at stronger beer styles overall.