Pale in the sun

Time for a summer round-up of new Irish pale ales and IPAs. Here's what I've been drinking when the hop mood takes me.

First, a brand new brand: Sesh Beers, the brainchild of Brian of Craic Beer Community and brewed at Hope. Release one is Sesh IPA in its highly distinctive lifeboat-orange can. It's a predictably modern pale and hazy yellow colour, and lives up to its billing at just 3.8% ABV. And yet it doesn't taste compromised, being without any noticeable thinness. The flavour is typical for the style, offering sweet vanilla and a crisply refreshing hint of tropical honeydew melon. A token pinch of citric bitterness finishes it off. I detected a tiny bit of grittiness but otherwise it's largely free of off flavours. This is decent and unfussy fare, and if that's what Sesh is meant to be then mission accomplished.

Lineman next, and Ponder sees them jumping on the cold IPA badwagon with an example that's 6% ABV. The haze was the first unusual thing about it: these are generally fairly clear, but this one is properly opaque. It's also full-bodied, which is odd. Whatever way a brewery has chosen to do the "cold" bit, the result tends to be quite dry and crisp, where this is almost chewy, much like a typical hazy IPA. Still, the flavour can't be faulted, offering a fun mix of sweet and bitter, like peach skin and lemonade. One point where they have hit the cold IPA attributes dead on is with the small tang of white onion in the finish. Still, it doesn't spoil the rest, and the overall result is very tasty, if not exactly what I suspect drinkers of cold IPA want.

They've also put out Electric Avenue #5, the latest in Lineman's occasional IPA series. This one is 6% ABV and hopped with Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic and new-comer Nectaron. I expected fruity, and fruity I got: the aroma veritably spilling out mandarin, canteloupe, apricot and guava. The flavour isn't as sweet as I expected, though it's heavily textured again, with a bit of New England fluffiness. The most distinctive feature is the Nelson, bringing a mix of diesel fumes and grappa. The tropical and stonefruit elements found in the aroma line up behind this, contributing their own richness to a beer that's no warm-day sessioner but one which needs time taken with. The combination works really well, regardless: the low bitterness of typical hazy IPA yet without the vanilla sweetness which can make them overwrought. Another triumph of balance from Lineman.

I followed it with something lighter and more appropriate to that particular afternoon: Pocket Dial, a session IPA that's the latest in the Wicklow Wolf Endangered Species series of one-offs. Despite being only 4.2% ABV, it's a bit dense and serious in the glass. The body is mostly quite light but the haze fuzzes it up a little, adding some extra weight to the mouthfeel. They describe it as juicy but it's more of an orange cordial vibe to me, verging on sickly. Citra, Centennial and Idaho 7 are the hops though they're a little low-key, bringing no bitterness of note and only a modest amount of citric and tropical flavour. Overall it's fine but unspectacular. The balance tilts a little too far into sweetness for my liking. They've aimed for juice but I don't think they've quite hit it.

The crazy diamonds at Wide Street have a new New England IPA called Any Colour You Like. It's adapted from a local homebrewer's recipe which impressed the executive board enough for them to appropriate it, with credit on the label, of course. Haze and juice are the intention and there's certainly plenty of the former: it's very opaque pale yellow. The aroma is full-on tropical: it says pineapple on the can and the syrupy tinned version is exactly how it smells. Alas that doesn't quite follow through into the flavour. For one thing it's let down a little by a thin and watery texture, which was a surprise given the dense-looking murk and non-insubstantial 5.1% ABV. The foretaste is quite savoury, presenting green cabbage, damp grass and heady, almost smoky, sulphurous kick. There should be soft fruit here and I tried in vain to find any. It could be that I over-poured the can and ended up with too much of the dregs in the glass, though I also think that that's a flaw in the beer if so. I finished up with a definite sense that the beer I drank is not the beer the brewery is describing on the label, nor what the recipe designer intended. By all means give this a go, but pour it carefully, and do it soon: a beer like this which was canned in April won't be at its best for much longer. This is a problem you don't have with wild-fermented sour beers, though I can understand that a supply of willing paying customers is more of an issue there.

Colourforms is the new pale ale from Outer Place, brewing at Lineman. It's 5.2% ABV and a very pale yellow. Mosaic and Cryo Pop should be enough to make it a potential fruitbomb, and the aroma certainly bears that out, smelling concentrated and sweet, like Skittles. The first flavour hit I get is of Mosaic but in a more savoury mood, tasting of poppyseed and white onion. A much more pleasant honeydew melon note follows and leads us to a clean and unfussy finish. It's a tasty if unspectacular beer; good, but not quite worth the premium €4.65 being charged for it.

Kinnegar tries its hand at Cold IPA with Brewers At Play 32, one that's fermented with a lager yeast. It's 5.3% ABV and a very clear pale gold, looking more like a cider than a beer. The aroma is citrus in both bitter and sweet modes; zesty like a lemon meringue pie. Although the body is full, there's still a perfect lager crispness, bringing a dry aspect which makes it very drinkable. It makes sense that a cold-fermented IPA at Helles gravity would have a bit of Helles's chewy-yet-easygoing character about it. The hops have more than a hint of the west coast going on, offering tart grapefruit and slick pine sap. And joyously there's none of the savoury onion that tends to plague this style. Kinnegar have done a great job here of combining the positive attributes of lager and IPA.

As usual, there's a new summer IPA from Hope. This year, topless deckchair guy is presiding over a Juicy IPA. The surprise here is that this one is golden and almost completely clear. Don't they know there's a haze craze on? There's a fun spritz of lime in the aroma, which doesn't say modern and juicy to me, but I'll take a west-coast switcheroo any time of the year. The body is nicely full, suggesting more than its 5.5% ABV, and it's chewy rather than fluffy, again in quite a west-coast way. On the other hand it is indeed sweet, and the promised pineapple makes an appearance, with guava and cantaloupe, though subtle and muted, not loud. A bit of citrus kick on the end would have been the perfect finisher, but it's absent, and instead the understated tropical taste simply fades off the palate, a little faster than I'd like. If the intention was an easy-going sunny refresher then I think they've safely nailed that: it's enjoyable to drink and, since it doesn't hang around, it would be perfectly possible to open another straight after. The brewery's advice is to enjoy outdoors with friends, and I can see why. Hunched over a laptop writing tasting notes about it is completely the wrong approach.

WhiteField is one of those rural Irish breweries we don't see much of in the Big Smoke, though I have it on good authority that we'll be able to go to them soon enough, when their taproom in Templemore opens next year. They did a bit of a rebrand on their beers when they rebranded the brewery but I think Eastwood pale ale is completely new, or at least is a significant variation on something from the old days. It's a dense, dark, red-amber colour, topped with lots of off-white froth. I'm guessing juiciness is not part of the proposition here. It smells like it looks, of caramel and forest spices. The body is big and smooth, reflecting all of its 5.8% ABV. There's a very English tannic buzz and then unusual strawberry and plum flavours, more like you'd find in a red ale. It's a pale ale in the way they aren't really made in the modern era, though would likely have been a perfect fit for the style a century or so ago. Style aside, it's nicely satisfying to drink, though perhaps better suited to colder days.

All or Nothing was the first summer release from Crafty Bear, an IPA setting out to showcase Citra in cryo form and Styrian Wolf. And it does it without being too hazy: my pints (I had two) were both minimally murked, and while it could maybe have done a better job with the head retention, it tasted crisp and clean the way IPA used to. I'm not so sure about what Styrian Wolf brought to the party but the Citra is instantly recognisable, all grapefruit and lime zest; an assertive and uncompromised bitterness. The malt serves the principal purpose of letting the hops sing, and while it's a strong lad at 6.3% ABV it's dangerously easy to get through one pint and order another straight after.

That was followed a few weeks later with something altogether more hazy called Cosmic Wonder. This is one of those beers that absolutely gets the whole point of haze, being softly textured, brightly flavoured and most importantly, clean tasting, with none of the dreggy grit or hot garlic which makes too many of these taste like concentrated fermenter scrapings. There is vanilla, though, but it's not oppressive, joining with a pleasantly sweet lemon zest and tropical fruit character. Four hops have gone into it: the usually-bitter Chinook and Centennial take a back seat while the more colourful and fruity El Dorado and Hüll Melon do the driving. The result is lots of delicious complexity at only 5% ABV, equal parts something to sip and study, and also a very accessible, unfussy, drinker's beer. Nicely done.

We finish in triple time with Irish Wolfhound by Western Herd, a 10.5% ABV animal with an international mix of eight different high-alpha hops. Triple IPAs tend to be quite pale so I was surprised by the murky amber colour of this one. The aroma is warm and resiny, with strong hints of toffee and banana. The flavour is sweet at first, intensely so, mixing marmalade, gingerbread, chocolate and candied orange peel, finishing on a dry piney sap. It's not unpleasantly hot, but the alcohol lets you know it's there. This is a beer to sip through, to chew through, and it's enjoyable to do it. No rush.

That's all for now, but I have many more pale ales on the way, in upcoming posts about Whiplash, O Brother, Third Barrel and more. It's a genre that's going nowhere.