Passing clouds

The first Cloudwater tap takeover in Dublin happened in 2016, at The Beer Market, as was. I braved inclement weather to get to it and try some beers from this young fêted Manchester brewery. The fickle hype train rolls on, of course, and Cloudwater is now Just Another Brewery. When they had a tap takeover last month at UnderDog I simply happened to be there in search of something else. It was only polite to try a couple of their beers too.

The list was heavy on pale ales and I choose one representative one: SoCal, charmed by the promise of west-coast clarity. And my pint did indeed arrive clear, so full marks there. I have to taste it as well? OK, here it's not quite what I expected. Instead of spritzy, zesty, grapefruit and lime, I got an altogether sweeter fruit character, a summery blend of red cherries, strawberries and raspberry ripple ice cream, with some bonus floral honey in the end. That's delicious but it doesn't say southern California to me. The sweet side is enhanced by a thick mouthfeel, suggesting more than its 4.8% ABV. A more appropriate dank and vegetal greenness does creep in as it's allowed to warm, which is good, though I feel that west-coast should be more about the punch than the creeping.

One more, but it's a small one: Zitruskitzel, billed as a citrus-flavoured Berliner weisse at 3% ABV. I guess I was hoping that Berliner weisse, as practised by the wider craft brewing world, would return to its authentic roots as a mixed-fermentation style, but there's no sign of that here. And despite the inclusion of exotic produce like kabosu and Shiranui orange it's a very basic sour fruity, tasting of lemon sherbet and little else. It may be the first beer I've tasted which contains passionfruit but doesn't absolutely honk of it. On the plus side, it's not thin despite the low gravity, helped out by a sizeable amount of residual sugar. It's fine; the very essence of sour and fruity fine.

There's not really enough here to reach a judgment on how Cloudwater is doing these days. These were both good beers, but nothing really special. Hype is over-rated anyway.