It's my party

This year was the first time I attended the Happy Days festival held at Rascals in west Dublin. It's a bijou affair, three rows of stalls gathered around the yard behind the brewery where invited guest breweries plied their wares. But I'll get to them in the next post. Rascals itself had a wide range of new and recent special edition beers to offer so I'll take a look at those first.

Something light and sour to start with, sort of. I was intrigued by the idea of the Lemon, Lime & Coconut Sour served nitrogenated, and I was charmed by the result. Due to the gas, the texture has a lot in common with lactose-laden pastry jobs but without any of the residual sticky sweetness. Clever. The flavour doesn't seem to be dulled by it either, opening with a sharp lime sorbet effect with lighter lemon zest following behind. There's no discernible coconut and not much sourness beyond the citric, and I could criticise it for being a smidge too strong for what it is, at 5.3% ABV. As the opening beer at a sunny beer festival it gets nodded through with approval, however.

Next it was something in the Kölsch style, with Sabro, called Sabro Kölsch. Brewer Josh admitted that this didn't turn out as planned when I remarked on the absence of coconut, pith or other Sabro character in it. Seems that got inadvertently stripped out in the effort to clear the beer. It's not the first time a brewer at a festival told me I should have tasted it from the tank. What's left is a decent but uneventful 4.8% ABV blonde ale with light orangeade notes on a crisp, cracker-dry base. Had I known in advance I would have saved this as a palate-cleanser for later in the day.

In the reverse of my normal pattern at festivals, I dropped the strength even further for my third beer, the 4.7% ABV Session IPA '23. Josh was very keen to show off his use of the next generation of hop products: Mosaic in "Incognito" form and Eclipse as "Spectrum". I don't know if there's meant to be any appreciable difference for the drinker but I didn't get anything unusual, good or bad, from this. Maybe it's just easier to use than those messy leaves or pellets. The beer is lightly hazy, its mouthfeel starting soft but finishing dry, so incorporating elements of both schools of American IPA thought. There's bags of resinous, oily dankness, and maybe that's a benefit of the extract. I got a strong hit of garlic and red onion too, telling me that Mosaic can misbehave, even when it arrives at the brewery in a bottle. So, the complexity and depth of flavour were enjoyable, but a bit busy. This is definitely better suited as a one-off for taproom and festival rather than anything more regular. A session on it would be hard going.

There's yet more Spectrum involved in Rascals's Cold IPA, and although I can't see a reference to Mosaic in any available documentation, it's very oniony again, though fried rather than raw this time. The ABV is 5.6% and it's warm fermented, giving it a bigger and smoother texture than most other cold IPAs I've had. To balance that with the required lighter crispness they've included rice as an adjunct. I guess that's meant to dull the fruity side but I still found some pleasant nectarine in with the onion. I enjoyed it overall but it is a bit intense, shading to harsh at times. I reckon that fancy new hop juice is meant for bigger-flavoured beers than either of these recipes were designed to be.

It was back to the silly stuff later, with a Strawberry Lime Gose, just like they make in Leipzig -- a orangey-pink emulsion at 3.9% ABV. It tastes of yoghurt, with strawberries, but in a sharp way at first, leading to a pink-tasting candy-sweet finish. I found it a bit basic, all told, with no fun twists. Only a mildly savoury tang in the middle provides any callback to the gose specification. I can't help thinking this was brought to the festival with a particular drinking audience in mind, which wasn't me.

With things winding up for the day at 9pm, my finishing beer was Rascals Oatmeal Stout. Rather like the Coffee & Oatmeal Stout I had on my last visit, this is quite intensely flavoured, the strong coffee and high-cocoa dark chocolate being a surprise after only a gentle coffee roast in the aroma. The oatmeal serves its purpose of bulking up the body well, and there's lots of satisfying substance for just 4.4% ABV. That helps sweeten things as well, so after an initial bitter jolt there's a gentler cake and cookie middle. It took me a while to make my peace with the contrasting sides but I was enjoying it by the end. I wouldn't call it a worthy successor to the stout, necessarily, but I like that they seem to have decided they must have something like this on tap at all times. Everyone should.

In between all of that, I drank beers from the visiting guest breweries. The next post covers what they served me.