Bull market

Belfast's Bullhouse is a brewery on the up. After a couple of years off the shelves Down Here they made a triumphant return in the spring with a host of new beers and a tap takeover at UnderDog. Here's my account of their recent offerings.

Pie Face is badged as a west coast pale ale and mirable dictu is actually clear. At 3.8% ABV it's not especially American, spec-wise. Dank and funky resins greet the nose although there's nothing similarly greasy about the mouthfeel, which is thin. Too thin for the hops, I think, as there's a harsh metallic tang in the centre of the flavour and none of the balanced richness of proper American pale ale. Points, I guess, for being refreshing in an English bitter sort of way, but this didn't work for me.

There was a plethora of hazy options at the tap takeover. My first foray into that was Exhale, a 6.5% ABV IPA. And... nope, not for me. It's dirty and dreggy, backed by garlic and scallions. The bitterness is strong and punchy but neither clean nor refreshing. It improved a little as it warmed, smoothing out and becoming somewhat fruitier thanks to Belma's strawberry character, but not to any great extent. This was a struggle to get through a half of. Plenty of breweries turn out beers exactly like this, so they must sell, but this isn't how I want my haze.

Much as I generally enjoy sour IPAs, I was sceptical about a double version, but that's what Double Dip is, all of 8% ABV. It's a very sickly yellow colour and completely opaque. I was expecting hot 'n' gritty so was very pleasantly surprised to find it clean and tart with very little sign of the alcohol. The flavour is a blend of lemon juice and pine resin, a little basic-kettle-sour, but nice with it. I guess the question is why make it so strong? One could consider a refreshing powerhouse IPA to be a daft idea but I'm not objecting because I enjoyed drinking this one. 

For home drinking I picked up a can of their table beer, Yeast Belfast. At 2.5% ABV it's weak even for this weakest of common craft styles. It looks like your classic London murky of old: orange and dense with barely an effort at a head. The aroma is alluring, however, bringing fresh jaffa zest and a pinch of dessertish coconut. Both of those accelerate in the flavour, though the coconut much more than the zest. There's a fun creamy side to the mouthfeel, which I suspect the coconut taste may be contributing to, and then a raw hop-leaf bitterness in the finish, which is understandable in a super low-strength, heavily-hopped beer, and is nowhere near as bad as it could be. In fact, I think this is the best of today's bunch -- lots going on and pretty much all of it good. 

Another hazy IPA for good measure? G'wan then. This is Rolling Papers, at a modest 5.2% ABV. Custard yellow? Yep, that. The aroma is a kind of warm peach pie effect while the flavour leans nicely into the fruit side, a summer basket of strawberry, raspberry and sweet black cherry. It's not quite juice but it's sweet and succulent and, for the most part, clean, which is a big plus and some distance away from the dreggy earthy bitterness of this kind of beer done wrong (see above). This is no master of complexity, but perhaps that's in its favour: no dregs, no garlic is a good rule for IPA in general.

I gather from this that Bullhouse isn't especially interested in making beer for my precise tastes and I won't hold my breath for their first Schwarzbier. Still, this haze business must be nearing the end of its shelf life by now, right?