The single Irish

Poking around in the back of the fridge for something suitable to post about on St Patrick's Day, I noticed a few long-term residents in there, standalone beers from Irish breweries that I hadn't managed to fit into a post yet. I thought it might be appropriate to bring them together for the national festivity. Of interest (possibly to nobody else but me) is that they're all on the dark and malty end of the spectrum. It sometimes seems like new Irish beer these days is an endless parade of IPAs, but these aren't.

The nearest to an IPA, in fact, is Full Power from Lough Gill, an "extra special bitter" at 5% ABV, making it the third Irish ESB in a row to do the electrical pun thing. I initially suspected some relabelling shenanigans here because the brewery released a beer in the same style, at the same strength, as an Aldi exclusive last year, called Watt. Have they simply taken it in house? Watt's signature feature was a hard bitter astringency, and I'm not getting that here. It's a soft beer, from the cask-like gentle sparkle to the biscuit malt sweetness. The tannins and English bittering hops wait their turn and appear only in the finish. Before that it's chewy and sweet, subtly blending caramel, chocolate and berries into a highly drinkable combination. Proper bitter, then. I like. If it was a deliberate attempt to improve on Watt then it worked.

The punning continues with the next one from Wicklow Wolf, though you'll need your cúpla focal to get it. Another Nut is a pastry stout, channelling the world's favourite chocolate and hazelnut spread. It's fully black though relatively light at only 5.5% ABV. The aroma really brings the nuts: not hazelnut specifically, but also overtones of peanut and coconut, oily and both savoury and sweet. I've never known a nut-flavoured beer to smell so absolutely nutty. That's present in the flavour too, though here it's joined by the chocolate, and I think of Bounty and Snickers bars ahead of spread. It's not full pastry either, delivering a more serious hop bite at the end. They've brewed this to be fun, and it absolutely is, though there's a well-crafted balance in it as well, keeping the sweetness in check in a way pastry stout brewers rarely do. Like the above there's a lot of understated excellence on display here.

The alcohol level steps up a gear with Kinnegar's Brewers At Play 28: Barleywine. They've set this at 9.5% ABV and it's the requisite deep ochre colour. Indeed, it's requisite all the way down. I sometimes worry that "At Play" can mean doing silly things with recipes in the hope of no consequences, but this is absolutely to-style for an Americanesque barley wine and bloody lovely as a result. There's the dense cakey pudding thing, sharply bittersweet red liquorice ropes and a mix of tangy herb topnotes. The body is as viscous as this requires but all the flavours are clean and distinct; the after-effect warming, not hot. It isn't quite the hop bomb that, say, Bigfoot is, but there's plenty to keep you entertained as you sip.

Last in is Valhalla, described by Wide Street as a dark sour ale. It's certainly dark: a deep black/brown shade, and strong too at 9.7% ABV. I can't think of anything from the mainstream or larger breweries designed to be like this. The aroma isn't far from Flanders red: sour with hints of cherry and raspberry. There's a bit more of a stout character on tasting -- it's still sour but there's some chocolate as well. It has a bright and brisk sparkle, so isn't one of those dense and boozy strong sour beers, and hides the alcohol extremely well. It's a subtle and easy-going affair, well balanced and classy, going to no extremes, other than the hefty €8.50 price tag. The oak ageing does its job, though I would be interested to find out how that develops after another couple of years. We'll get some interesting things when Wide Street has a cellar full of foeders.

That's all for now. Enjoy your St Patrick's Day, and any Irish beers it sends your way.