Caribouze

Blimey! They've gone all-in for craft beer at Moosehead: an absolute plethora of "Small Batch" beers covering a whole range of styles of the sort that discerning beer drinkers demand. I'm intrigued to find out if the east Canadian industrial brewery, best known for very mainstream lager, is up to the challenge, so of course I bought all that I could get my hands on.

The one which caught my eye first was Small Batch Oatmeal Brown Ale, firstly because brown ale is such an under-represented beer style, and secondly because €2.99 for a 473ml can seemed very reasonable, especially at 5.7% ABV. This makes full use of that alcohol, smelling slightly dangerously of part-fermented summer fruit, marker pens and black herbal liqueurs from eastern European countries which no longer exist. That coalesces nicely in the flavour into a medium-sweet blend of strong coffee and fancy salted chocolate caramels which is pretty much exactly what I want from a brown ale. The oatmeal may be there to add body, and more power to it, but this beer is remarkably easy-going, showing an unexpected power to refresh aided by a fair bit of cleansing fizz. Superb work, and a high standard for the rest of the set.

From the same shop I bought Small Batch Session IPA -- this was originally supposed to be a two-beer post. There's nothing surprising in how it presents itself: a medium hazy orange with a generous but not inconvenient head. For all that it's attempting to ape craft beer, the can doesn't tell us what the hops are, only that it's 4.7% ABV. The aroma is sweetly citric, suggesting orangeade or thicker squash. That amounts to a lack of freshness; an absence of zing, and that's borne out by a flavour which presents hard candy and thick-shred marmalade. Again in defiance of craft convention, and indeed the law of this country, I have no way of knowing how fresh or otherwise the beer is: no readable date of production or minimum duration is given. However, what I'm tasting strikes me as the result of hop character fading with time. We're left with the malt and a slightly harsh bitterness. One might think that a beer this cheap would sell through more quickly. It's not offensive by any means, and I'm not going to quibble too hard given the price. I suspect there may be some playing-at-craft but not quite getting it at work by the big brewer here.

Small Batch East Coast is their take on hazy IPA: 5.9% ABV and promising melon and tropical fruit, according to the can. It's a bit pale and sickly looking, more witbier than IPA, though the stiff and lasting head is better than many small breweries can manage on these. The aroma is understated, offering nothing you wouldn't find in a bog-standard American-style pale ale. It's also disappointingly thin, offering no hazy fuzz and finishing on an unforgivable watery note. But the real surprise was the flavour. You can forget melons and mangoes; it's quite dry and has a strange woody spice quality, like cedar or cinnamon. Add to that a metallic aspirin tang for no good reason. Who tasted that and thought "Yep: East Coast. Can it and ship it"? It's not unpleasant, exactly, but it's a long way from what it purports to be. Confusion is better than distaste, I suppose. I still can't recommend this.

That's enough hops. There's a pilsner too: P.W.'s Czech Pilsner, depicting and named after the brewery's founder P.W. Moosehead (probably, I didn't read the explanation on the can). It's a middle-of-the-road 4.7% ABV and crystal clear. You can say what you like about industrial breweries trying to do craft, but when they want something to turn out transparent, it does. The aroma offers a faint hint of peppery noble hops but nothing else. And that's how the taste goes too. It's just on the side of being an acceptably characterful pils, but not far from generic boring industrial lager. There's an unwelcome vapid thinness too, of the sort which I think would be unrecognisable to a Czech drinker. I will here restate my controversial opinion that decoction really does count for something in the finished beer, and its absence here is why this doesn't feel or taste Czech. This is inoffensive fare. I appreciate that they've tried to up their game on lager, but it could stand to go up a fair bit more than this.

At the last sunset of summer, I caught Small Batch Raspberry Wheat Ale. I assumed this would be pink but it's actually a hazy orange. It definitely smells like raspberries, however, real and tart, with a little pink candy as well. The flavour reverts to sweet, and while there's a certain acidic tang within the gale-force raspberry concentrate, it's mostly just chew sweets and bubblegum. I'm not a fan, and object in particular to the way this presents as a summer beer but is far too thick and sticky to be refreshing. It's a typically clumsy attempt at being down-with-the-kids by an industrial-sized multinational.

And finally, Small Batch Blueberry Ginger: that's two of my favourite things, in beer, at once, for the first time. I'm in! The base is a 5.4% ABV blonde ale, presumably to let the fruit and spice do their thing in peace. It certainly looks a very plain yellow but smells dramatically of blueberry compote, plus a kick of ginger ale. No surprises, then. I'm still in. It's quite weighty, a substantial fizz is held back by a body which feels malt-driven but doesn't taste it. Instead it's all about the blueberries. There's no tartness, so they're not very real-tasting, but it channels blueberry desserts very well. The ginger is muted in the flavour, but hangs on in the background, the spice doing a little welcome work in balancing the sweetness. It's a very silly novelty, and seemingly designed to ensure it tastes very little like a beer. I enjoyed its particular brand of silliness, however. It's nice to get a blueberry beer that isn't all worthy about it, and actually tastes of blueberry.

So... I think the few hits on target here were lucky ones, and more to do with my personal taste than the brewery's ability to make interesting higher-end beer. Even at bargain basement prices, I think it's worth trading up past most of these.

Hot and sour

I don't know what the deal is with "Ginger & Co", purported maker of this sparsely branded Ginger Beer. They've dealt with the requirement to put an address on the label by printing a bare Eircode, which turned out to be that of Hopfully Brewery. Is Hopfully concerned about their own name appearing on a different sort of product?

And it is a different sort of product. Malt extract is high on the ingredients list, but no hops, of course, and added pear juice, elderberry syrup, lemon zest and botanicals. The works. It's a pale pear gold in the glass, and the malt doesn't appear to be providing enough proteins for a head. For something made from all that fermentable sugar, it's quite heavy-bodied, dampening the fizz and reducing, I think, the refreshment power. It's definitely designed to refresh, the ginger and lemon harmonising in that way they do. There's a bonus floral complexity in the finish, doubtless down to the botanicals. I expected this to be a light and refreshing number, drinking it outside on a warm and sunny day, but its density means it's not. I can see this still being suited to winter as we head that way.

Back to your regularly-scheduled Hopfully, and there's a new gose in the No Cars series: Lemonade & Coconut Gose, presumably not very different from the Lime & Coconut version they did previously. It's 4.3% ABV and a hazy pale orange shade. According to the ingredients, it doesn't have any lemon, just lime, and that's very obvious in the foretaste which gives vibes of both Rose's Lime Cordial and lime shred marmalade: lime for people who have never actually seen the green lads in real life. There's a distinct creamy coconut side too, and a certain amount of minerality, but we're a long way from classic Leipzig gose. As an al fresco quaffing beer it's excellent, however. It tastes of lemonade and coconut, and is broadly gose-esque, so there's very little to complain about.

Two IPAs serve as a coda to this pair. Secret Handshake was created for Craft Central. It's all the hazy, 6% ABV and hopped with Talus, Citra and new Kiwi kid Nectaron. It's a medium orange colour and has great head retention, all white and fluffy. The aroma is quite pithy and there's a certain amount of that bitterness in the flavour. That's better than vanilla and garlic anyway, neither of which features. Instead you get a cool and juicy mix of mandarin, apricot and honeydew melon; deliciously thirst-quenching and scarily easy to drink. A bite of lime rind finishes it off. It's an excellent example of that style which everyone makes but few excel at. Perhaps Nectaron will be the hop to save us. 

Freefall at 5.3% ABV isn't wildly different, and certainly looks similar, though has a more down-to-earth hop combo of Citra, Centennial, Chinook and Simcoe. Time was, that would be a cause for excitement, but this is quite regular material: solidly enjoyable but not doing anything we haven't all had before. I liked how the Citra resists the fluffy haze by adding that bite of lime rind again to this picture, front and centre. That does a good job of muting the vanilla, which is relegated to the tail end. In the middle there's some decent but standard peach and apricot. Hopfully really seems to be getting the hang of this haze thing, and this one balances the genre's better features with some more old-school IPA attributes.

So not quite a totally new departure for the Brazilian lads in Waterford: the lower three here are very much the type of thing they're known for. And long may it continue.

Amber gambles

The German brewing establishment haven't lasted as long as they have by being innovative, or at least what passes as innovative here in the craft age. So it's always interesting to see them doing something even slightly out of the ordinary.

Weihenstephaner, for instance, has tried its hand at a Pale Ale, which has been around for a few years now and showed up on tap at UnderDog not long after its most recent re-opening. It's a bit of an odd fish. Zingy American hop flavours aren't difficult to build into a recipe, but that's not how they've gone here. It opens on cereal and strawberry, with only a mild citrus zest towards the finish. I found it quite English in its understatedness, lacking both zing and resins, but including some dry tannin. It's a smidge on the strong side for a bitter, however, at 5.2% ABV. While it's not bad, there's not a whole of of interest, beyond the basic notion of Weihenstephaner making a pale ale. Maybe it's more fun to brew than to drink.

While I'm sure research and experimentation is all part of the set-up at academically-minded Weihenstephan, the same can't be said of Bitburger. I'm guessing that plain old commerce is the reasoning behind its previous collaborations with Sierra Nevada. Now it's gone one up and produced a beer with another west coast icon, Deschutes. This is Dry Hop'd Zwickl, so a cloudy lager, though a surprisingly dark amber one. The aroma is a surprise too, no crisp grain but warm and spicy clove. That becomes more herbal on tasting, adding eucalyptus, lemon verbena and sarsaparilla. While there's a certain amount of crispness it's mostly quite dense, chewy and un-lager-like. I enjoyed the sheer unexpected weirdness of it, and was only a little miffed I didn't get the dry and grainy pale beer I was in the mood for.

They're a strange pair, for sure: neither being quite what I expected. That's innovation, I guess. While it's heartening to see Bitburger do something other than basic commodity beer, I'm happier when Weihenstephaner sticks to the traditional German styles at which it excels.

From zero to loads

It's catch-up time for me with Wicklow Wolf. In my defence, Locavore Summer 2023 arrived late, only showing up on shelves near me in late August. This year's twist on the all-local ingredients spec is the inclusion of Kilmacanogue raspberries in a sour ale. Shame they didn't have a go at spontaneously fermenting it, for extreme local character. Regardless, it's very nice. The raspberries taste fresher and realer than they do in most raspberry beers, almost bursting on the tongue the way the fruit does. There's no sugary, syrupy jam here, just a cleanly medium-pitched tartness, again similar to what you'd get from actual raspberries, building to a slightly puckering finish. While it's only 4.2% ABV, I can't see this working well as a refreshing summer beer -- it's too intense, with lots going on it. While I definitely liked it, I'm glad I waited until a dull day in October to drink it.

Also a bit late for summer is Raindrop 0.5, a (virtually) non-alcoholic version of their sour mixed berry beer. I dinged the original version for being a bit watery, so maybe the transition to unleaded is not such a big jump. Raspberry, blackberry and blueberry are still the fruits, and none of them really holds dominance: it's a proper foresty blend. Yes, it's very light and fizzy, and maybe a little un-beer-like, but so are the full-fat ones of these. It therefore doesn't offer anything that you wouldn't get from a similarly-flavoured soft drink, but it's perfectly pleasant for all that. I'm a little surprised to see it's part of the brewery's limited series: I'd have thought this might have enough of a niche to be permanent, or at least indefinite.

A new draught-only session stout arrived recently: Eclipse. This looks firmly pitched at the mainstream, being 4.2% ABV and not doing anything strange or startling with the ingredients. Still, it's far from bland, and like most properly good Irish stouts has a chocolate centrepiece. A basic roasted dryness is overlaid with milk chocolate specifically, with a hint of even-sweeter coconut right on the finish. It reminded me of O'Hara's Stout in particular, but could possibly pass for Murphy's either. The only slightly distinctive thing I noticed was in the mouthfeel: as well as the smooth and gummy nitro bubbles, there's a prickle of carbonation too. It's a little unsettling, no pun intended, but not upsetting, and if it helps makes it taste of more then I'm all in favour. I've no idea what the plans for this are, but like almost every microbrewed take on the style it deserves to do better than the industrial ones.
 
Before the Rugby World Cup ends on us, here's their commemorative beer, the only one I've seen from an Irish brewery. Named Tryfecta, it's a collaboration with Devil's Peak in South Africa and Fierce in Scotland, both countries being group mates to Ireland in the tournament. The beer is a 4.5% ABV hazy pale ale, hopped with Motueka, Sabro and Idaho 7. It is indeed hazy, and yellow, the aroma quite sweet with a little zest, like a pavlova. The zest is firmly built up in the flavour, where it's a juicy citrus explosion of fresh tangerine and satsuma. That finishes quickly with little malt base to support it, so it's at risk of being watery. I think we can say it's sessionable instead: there's enough diversity of flavour to make opening another seem like the best next move.

The subsequent round of releases brought us Bouquet Bandit, a double IPA, though a modest one at 7.2% ABV. Although it's hazy, it's not the fashionable beaten-egg-yellow kind, but more of a yolky orange. Not that it's oxidised or any way unfresh: a week and a day after canning the aroma was banging, shooting out juicy mandarin, pineapple and grape, with extra syrup sweetness to complete the fruit salad effect. The flavour goes just as hard, adding slices of Golden Delicious apples and squishy ripe pears. There's a proper balancing pinch of rind bitterness and a sprinkle of nutmeg spice, before it rounds back to the mandarin we came in on. I was instantly reminded that Wicklow Wolf took its initial inspiration from the beer scene in Colorado, because this channels high-end American IPA better than any Irish beer I've tasted recently. For anyone interested in the hop technicals, Yakima's experimental YCH 303 Cryo Hops x Phantasm stuff is how it's done: an experiment worth repeating.

And slightly more seasonally, Locavore Autumn 2023, a barley wine aged in Fercullen whiskey casks and beefed up to 15.2% ABV. It's a very dark brown tone, looking almost like a heavy stout, down to the beige-coloured head. The aroma opens with sweetly plump raisins and a hotter spirit note. Its texture is another way it resembles stout, being thick and creamy, with only a faint flicker of carbonation. The alcohol is well hidden in the flavour, and it begins on a bright and innocent floral taste. It turns more herbal and bitter after this, invoking vermouth or a spiced fortified wine. There's a backing of chocolate and caramel, so really it is only a shot of coffee away from being a stout. Regardless, it's very nicely done: sumptuously luxurious but quite balanced and approachable too.

And not a hint of a trace of a dud amongst them. Wicklow Wolf remains a brewery at the top of its game.

Anything but IPA

When a slew of new beers from Budapest's Horizont arrived in, I took a judicious look through what was on offer. Not deliberately, but I found myself eschewing all of the IPAs: beers that just seemed samey, offering nothing that an Irish brewery won't serve me. Instead, these are from three of the other less-endangered beer styles among microbrewers.

First up, Herr Lager, which is described as "dry hopped". It's funny that whenever I see a lager put on modern craft airs I always expect them to be very pale; darker malt being a function of old-fashioned brewing or something. Anyway, it's nonsense, and this is a wholesome looking traditional dark gold. There does seem to be a tiny bit of haze, however. And though I may have been trying to avoid IPA, this has a lot in common with your basic sort, tasting of lemon at first, and growing in intensity to lime juice and almost into the realm of the grapefruit. Just as well there's that chewy malt to balance it. That gives it a bigger body than is typical of a lager, which adds to the pale ale effect. It's fine, but think of it as a basic lager that's been hopped up, rather than any great cold-fermented masterpiece.

The fruit beer which follows is called Rebel Berry but made with the addition of simply raspberries, which isn't very rebellious. Only 4.5% ABV, it smells quite rich and yoghurty, with two kinds of tartness, and the mouthfeel matches the creamy aroma. The flavour is too sour to be jam, but is closer to a coulis, or something made from concentrated purée. It doesn't really go anywhere with this, however. Everything fades out very quickly, leaving only a dry mineral tang from the sour culture. Again, it's basic stuff: an adequate representation but not very interesting, all told.

And breakfast to finish: Morning Joe, "hearty and reviving", brewed with coffee, cocoa and oatmeal to 6% ABV. It certainly looks hearty: a dense dark brown colour topped with a tan head. Closer inspection reveals the reason it's not black to be an unpleasant suspension of globules throughout the glass. The aroma gives little away, but the flavour, surprisingly, pushes the chocolate to the fore; a very sweet milk-chocolate taste, specifically. It's nicely smoothly textured, which fits the chocolate, and even allows a hint of contrasting coffee roast to appear in the finish. It's brief, though. While I've tasted it done better, this fits the bill adequately. A little more roast would have been nice.

So, they're an average sort of bunch. On this showing I very much doubt that the IPAs would have been any more thrilling.

Two harted

It's been quite a while since I've had any new 9 White Deer beer on here. Today's post was prompted by a couple of the Cork brewery's less-known beers making an appearance in Blackrock Cellar.

The first is Stag Pils, a pilsner. It's a bugger to pour, foaming excessively and annoyingly, making me fear that the bottle I got was infected. Otherwise the specs seem bang on: 4.9% ABV and a deep gold that's mostly clear. The aroma is crisp and grassy, which also seems fully style appropriate, though the flavour is sweeter than I expected. There's more than a hint of the Victoria sponge of a Helles, including the cream and the strawberry jam. A sugary malt weight comes with that, though any sickliness is offset by the fizz. This is hearty fare, made for by-the-mug beer garden quaffing more than thin Prussian sips. It may not win any points on stylistic grounds, but it's lovely drinking.

The other beer is one that I would say is harder to get wrong: Export Stout, a beast of a thing at 7.4% ABV in a full half-litre bottle. It's another fizzy one, but a bit more under control, pouring dense black with a crème caramel head. The blurb says it's based on the brewery's flagship stout, but with added cacao and vanilla, plus some barrel ageing in whisky casks from Blackwater Distillery. I'll admit, I took my first sip before learning about the whisky, and it didn't immediately taste barrel-aged to me, though there is a strong kick of vanilla oak, now that I know. Otherwise it's milk chocolate and dark toast. The high alcohol is well hidden, and in a beer like this, that's not a good thing: I would like a bit more poke; something stronger and thicker for the strength. I'm not sure the barrels are doing what they ought to, adding a tacked on flavour, rather than integrating and enriching the underlying stout. I guess it's a first go, but there's nuance needed in what it does.

I wouldn't have flagged 9 White Deer as a brewery better able to produce a pale lager than a stout, but here we are.

A cheap celebration

The Autumn Real Ale Festival at JD Wetherspoon kicked off last week, with the promise of 40 different special beers on rotation across the branches, and the usual handful of international collaborations to get excited about.

The Silver Penny was early with its festival beers, with several available on the day before the event's official start. On the downside, they no longer do third-pint measures. My first half, then, was Hoptropolis, an IPA of 6% ABV brewed at Hook Norton as a collaboration with Mitch Steele's New Realm in the US. It's on the dark side of golden, heading for amber, though quite clear. Azacca hops feature, and the aroma has its signature Skittles or Starburst effect. There's a tannic bitterness in the flavour, where the proper English ale effect kicks in, and a distinct heat from the alcohol. On the softer side, there's apricot in spades, plus a more nuanced forest fruit character. Though it's a powerhouse by the standards of such beers, the dry finish makes it successfully designed for easy pinting. Careful now.

Czech brewery Joe's Garage brought the recipe for a Bohemian Pale Ale to Shepherd Neame. It's 5% ABV, a pale shade of amber, and was designed as a showcase for Kazbek hops. They've given it an enticing perfume of fresh flowers, which I'm sure is being aided by the malt base. The flavour has a little meadowy lavender, but mainly goes for a mild lemon bitterness -- flesh first, rind in the finish -- sweetened up to cookie levels by that malt. It doesn't taste its strength, being light-bodied. This, coupled with a taste profile that's not too intense, makes it nicely sessionable. Apparently, Joe's Garage specialises in pale ale variants, and I would say that even in lagerland, one this anodyne would turn few heads. As an English bitter with Czech hops it's excellent, however, and cleaner than most of what the host brewery puts out under its own label.

The next international collaboration is Zulu Blonde, from Banks's, with Zululand as the guest brewer. Though billed as a blonde ale, it's another on the darkish side, and only yellow with a light source behind it. The aroma is grainy: a savoury sort of oat cookie character of which I am not a fan. The taste is strangely and unpleasantly chemical, like a cheap 1980s perfume or highly-scented novelty soap. Fuggles, Goldings and Saaz are the guilty parties. It's only 4.5% ABV, and quite thin and watery with that, so at least the taste doesn't stick around. I searched hard for redeeming features, and maybe there's some unobjectionable summer strawberry in here, but the chemical twang swings back in as soon as I look at it square on, ruining the effect. Nobody who enjoys this beer is thinking about it too much.

We drop the Saaz and go darker yet with Ratfink & Ripsnorter from Hogsback. This is another strong one at 5% ABV and a seriously dark ruby. It smells wholesome and wintery, of warm plum pudding and fresh-baked raisin cookies. The flavour doesn't vary much from this, adding only a backing of milk chocolate to the dark fruit, so while you don't get any bonus complexity it's also not a hot solventy mess, which can easily happen to cask beers like this. This is pleasant, balanced, flavoursome but also easy drinking: a proper comfort beer. If I wasn't rushing through halves, I could very happily settle into a pint or two of this. 

Lancaster Harlequin is a very pale one, looking like a cheapie lager. I guess the name is a reference to its use of Jester hops (although a hop called Harlequin does exist), in there with fellow modern British variety Godiva, retro-revival Keyworth, plus some First Gold for good measure. The combination is surprisingly dank, with a hint of greasy resin on the nose and then a flavour that goes full on weedy, being bitter and spicy all at once. It works extremely well. I don't know the hops well enough to pick out what each is doing, and whatever they do individually is nicely integrated into an overall grassy picture. As an English golden ale it successfully achieves the goal of being crisp and refreshing as a pilsner, and as bitter as a good one, while also bringing the casual depth of flavour that's unique to cask ale. You might have to be careful given that it's 5.2% ABV, but I recommend it for cheeky pints in multiple servings.

Hook Norton's own contribution to the list is Autumn Ways, a 4.2% ABV best bitter, or possibly a red ale, depending on which version of the pumpclip you believe. It's certainly red; a very deep ruby, in fact. They've imparted a lot of coffee in the flavour, suggesting that brown malt might be involved. It's not good coffee, being sweet and little powdery, like instant granules. After the initial hit it all tails off quite quickly, turning a bit watery by the end, leaving only a slightly sweaty and unpleasant tang. This needs to be bigger, rounder and richer to succeed at what I think it's trying to do.

I like cherries much more than I do plums. So, Titanic Cherry Porter, then? Definitely. They've certainly laid the cherry on thick, moreso than in Plum Porter, I think. That gives it sweet Belgian kriek vibes from the first sip. And through the subsequent ones. The porter gets a bit lost under the jammy onslaught. There's a substantial tang in the background which is a little bit toasty, but quite metallic as well. What it needs, I think, is a different sort of complementary sweetness; a bit of milk chocolate or mocha to express the porter element in a more complementary way with the fruit. As is, it just misses the mark, seemingly trying to be a serious novelty beer, and that's just not going to work.

A few days later, the refreshed line-up included Rudgate Vanilla Mild. The company is famous for its mild so it seemed a bit strange that they would attempt to enhance it. Like its award-winning stablemate, this is ruby coloured, brown even, though is weaker at only 3.6% ABV. The vanilla essence begins to make its presence felt in the aroma and then goes full tilt in the flavour. Luckily, the very light and almost watery body prevents the sweetness from getting too intense, and the added flavouring is almost complementary to the base of milk chocolate and coffee cake. While it's acceptable as a sweet dessert beer, it doesn't really deliver what I want from a mild. The novelty ingredient is entirely unnecessary.

I enjoyed how dark-orientated the line-up was: I had never noticed such seasonality before. But there have to be pale ones, so here's Maxim Slovenian Pale Ale. "Styrian Goldings", thought I. Yes, and Dana and Eureka, returns the brewery. It's an innocent looking pale yellow, and only 4.3% ABV, but packs one hell of a hop punch, beginning on a strong wax bitterness in the aroma. That's right there in the flavour too, where it's joined by a raw vegetal asparagus kick, plus an intense orange pith of the sort you get from Sorachi Ace and her relatives. I wasn't certain at first, finding the extreme harsh bitterness a bit difficult to take. But, as powerhouse beers often do, it grew on me, and I was properly appreciating the wallop my palate was getting by the end; an extensive tour of the Slovenian hop fields over very bumpy roads. You might want a taster of it first, all the same.

Another international collaboration comes in the form of Dos Perros, an amber ale brewed at Adnams, based on an original by Yazoo in Tennessee. The American beer its based on is a brown ale, and this is certainly brown in colour, very much on the garnet end of the amber spectrum. It's light and smooth, with notes of cork, plum and red grape, seasoned with a generous layer of diacetyl. That's your lot, though: the finish is quick, and there's a surprising lack of depth for something that's all of 4.8% ABV. The signature Adnams tannins are here, but I don't know that they make this particular beer any better.

From Conwy comes Kashmir, a "traditional IPA" not brewed with Cashmere hops but an unspecified mix of British ones. It's a bit hazy on it, a translucent dark orange. Perhaps unusually for a British bitter, the fuzz actually helps it out, adding a roundness and a grainy bite to a hop-dominated profile. Jaffa orange, spritzy grapefruit and a harder oily lime all give it a fun new-world feel, so while it feels a lot lighter than "IPA" as commonly understood these days, it absolutely delivers the requisite hop impact; more than the hazy stuff tends to, anyway. I guess "traditional" here can be read as a synonym of "west coast". Regardless, it's very nicely done: assertive and invigorating. 

The haze in that one came without a warning. Quiet Shadows, a hazy pale ale from Fyne Ales, flagged its haze in advance on the clip, which I neglected to take a photo of. I always like to see Fyne in the festival line-up and this didn't disappoint. Though it's only a little hazy, it has the lovely luxurious silky juiciness that the best of these do. Orange sorbet, clove spice and a harder lime bitterness all feature: something for everyone. Behind these, there's a genuine soft New England juiciness, something that I've rarely if ever encountered in the cask ales from next door, but which proves it absolutely can be done. 

Also hazy, we have Bunny Hop from Purity: not exactly a tail-end-of-the-year sort of name, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. It's light and spritzy and, very impressively, is only 3.5% ABV. There's not an ounce of watery thinness in here. Instead you get bags of zest plus a softer melon and peach sweetness. This has that easy-drinking complexity that English cask ale does so uniquely well: you could quaff pint after pint of it, while it absolutely stands up as a sip-and-explore job. I ordered a half and was served a pint, so did both. Recommended, tbh.

And I thought I'd get another half in that round and it too arrived as a full pint. This is Cracklewick, a pleasingly Dickensian name for a dark ale by Shepherd Neame. The pint I got was a murky dark ruby colour and tasted a bit dreggy, so this may be what remained in the bottom of the barrel, though I find it hard to believe that casks in Dublin 1 ever get that far down before being discarded. So, I got a red wine or red grape sweetness up front, plus a hot port-like alcohol, which was a surprise as it's only 4.8% ABV.  There's a disturbing solvent heat, which I didn't care for, as well as a sharp vinegar tang. The latter suggests beer-gone-off to me, but I'd been attendant in the pub long enough to know that this hadn't been on for very long and must have come from the brewery like this. While it's interesting, the pint I drank is not what I want from a dark Kentish ale. The uncertainty around English cask beer is why I'm glad that the pint only cost me €1.25.

Early on a bright and cold Saturday afternoon I headed down the Grand Canal to the lesser-Wetherspoon, The South Strand, not one that normally puts a lot of effort into its cask offering. Conditions were perfect for a warming pint of stout, and they had Inveralmond's Ossian Oatmeal on tap. I was a bit confused when I saw this on the list: Ossian is a golden ale and it seems weird that they would re-use the name. Anyway, this is 4.1% ABV, and bulked out nicely by the oatmeal so it tastes and feels bigger, rounder, and more nutritious. The texture is beautifully smooth and there's a balanced flavour of filter coffee and dark chocolate with a hint of herbal spearmint, wearing its bitterness lightly. Just the job, and an occasion to remind everyone that stout works brilliantly on cask and there should be much more of it.

As fortune would have it, there was another stout on the line-up: Easy, one of the international collaborations, this time Bateman's with Steel & Oak in British Columbia. It looks identically lovely, black with a thin off-white head; none of your domey bollocksology. "Tropical" it says on the badge, and there's a definite suggestion of sweet fruit in the aroma. That gets much louder in the flavour, a full-on tang of grapefruit, alongside a slightly rough roasted bitterness: you would certainly miss the oatmeal. I was left wondering if the texture is actually annoyingly thin, or if that's just by comparison. Overall, it's OK: the inclusion of Amarillo and El Dorado gives it character, but there's a reason these don't often feature in stout. They kind of interrupt the flow here, adding intrusive black IPA vibes, which normally I'd be fine with, but the effect is strong enough to be unsatisfactory. I still give this the cask stout thumbs-up, but at the same time would prefer a simpler proposition.

I finished on a Krafty Kiwi, from Brewsters. New Zealand hops are great, though the ones they've used here -- Pacific Jade and Pacific Gem -- aren't the most assertive. The result is a beer that lacks punch, though I suppose as a 4% ABV sessioner, punch is optional. It's a golden ale, almost completely clear, showing just a very faint haze. There is a certain amount of slightly exotic tropical fruit flesh and zesty citrus in the flavour, but at heart it's quite a plain example of the style, allowing crisp and biscuity malt to do most of the talking. It should therefore be easy drinking, but I found it getting a bit cloying by the half way point: the malt sweetness building on the palate while the fruit turns spiky and acidic. For me this just misses the mark, failing to bring the assertive hop fun and letting the worst aspects of musty malt and harsh hops take control. Oddly, more malt and more hops may be the solution. They usually are.

The festival runs across the estate of pubs until the end of this week. See the app for some version of what they might be serving at any given time.

Marking time

Landmark Dublin pub The Palace, one of the few reasons to ever venture into Temple Bar, is celebrating 200 years in business. Like most such drinks-related anniversaries it requires an asterisk or two, but it's hard to begrudge one of the city's few genuinely charming old bars.

Presumably as a nod from its main supplier, it has marked the occasion with the arrival of a new Guinness beer: Palace Porter. It's not branded as coming from the Open Gate pilot kit, but one assumes it does. The ABV of 4.9% indicates it's not a straightforward rebadge of something else, as would normally be the case in such circumstances.

Diageo launched, and quickly withdrew, a new porter in 2014. Though over a percentage point stronger, this has a lot in common with it. Someone up at James's Gate seems to have decided that "porter" means carbonated rather than nitrogenated like Guinness Draught stout. So the first surprise was a pleasant one: proper bubbles, proper flavour, no deadening creamy gak.

It smells of Guinness stout, mind: that signature mix of dark toast and a tangy brisk acidity, familiar to aficionados of the Large Bottle. The body is beefed up a little, but it still finishes quite thinly, the busy carbonation scrubbing away everything beery before it. Complexity is not part of the deal, and a lack of any chocolate flavour feels like what's most conspicuously absent. I welcome a new non-nitro dark beer, but this is missing some key features.

Once again, then, a new dark Guinness beer doesn't move the needle very far from the flagship's specs. As such I would be surprised if this went any further than the walls of The Palace. Go there if you want to try a pint and have €6.60 in your pocket.

Edit: there's a short video about the beer's creation here.

New-trecht

My short stay in Utrecht in September provided an opportunity to explore some beer venues I hadn't been to before. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon I set off down the canal to the city's southern reaches.

I didn't get far before I was at the Brothers In Law Taproom, which is in a modern building just outside the edge of the Old Town. As far as I could see, this isn't the location of the brewery. I was immediately drawn, as ever, to the black IPA on the menu, even though it was a Black NE IPA. Uh-oh! It arrived a distressing murky brown, looking like the absolute dregs of something else. The taste is largely sharp and raw leaf hops, highly bitter in a way New-England-style beers famously aren't. There was more nettle and dandelion in the profile than I was expecting, and no roast or fruit. It's a bit of a disaster, failing to channel any of the good features of dark beer or IPA, hazy or otherwise.

Continuing south, we reached Taplokaal Gist, a grand bar and restaurant in a converted industrial complex by the canal. They have 30 taps, and they don't fill them end-to-end with hazy IPAs. My first beer was Westfälisch-Alt from Rolinck in Steinfurt, north of Münster. It has the specs of a Düsseldorf Altbier, being 4.8% ABV and a clear copper colour, with an aroma of oaty crackers and fresh-mown grass. The flavour is pristinely clean -- lager grain first, then a background of chocolate and coffee. You sometimes get an unwelcome metallic twang from these, but not this one, which is very well designed for consumption in quantity.

That's an imperial milk stout sitting next to it, called Traveler, by White Dog from Dordrecht. It's 12% ABV and uses that well, to express a rich, sweet and warming chocolate-driven aroma and flavour, set on a sumptuously soft and creamy body. Add to this a touch of rosewater, a mild roasted bitterness and a whole heap of liqueur spirit and you have a near perfect example of the style. Superb stuff.

The next round brought two very similar beers. On the left, for me, something called RUIG Brettanosaurus, from Oproer. Batch 124, for anyone keeping count. It's 7.4% ABV and hazy orange. They've made it with the spicy sort of Brettanomyces, because it smells brightly floral and herbal, like bathsalts. The flavour includes pink peppercorns with a fruitier side, tasting of peach nectar. On the downside, none of this lasts long, and I thought it would have more legs given the strength, but the watery finish is quite abrupt and impertinent. It's tremendous fun up until then.

On the right, an American. This is the 12.8% ABV 2017 vintage of Helldorado, described as a blonde barley wine, from Firestone Walker. It has a strong oaky vanilla aroma, to the point of smelling a bit sickly to me. The flavour is better: well smoothed-out and balancing the booze, wood and fruit, creating something like an Old Fashioned cocktail, with added caramel and coconut. It's not amazing, and I don't know that it justified a €10 price tag on 250ml, but it's a very decent sipper.

That gave me the chance to squeeze in one more: Struik, a bière de garde from Duits & Lauret. This is dark for the style, a mahogany red, and a little hazy as well, which is out of character. At 7.5% ABV it's thick and savoury-tasting, dominated by dry balsa wood and oily cedar. After this came a succession of herbs and spices, including dill, pepper, fennel and marjoram, making for a delicious Mediterranean fish garnish of a beer. It came across to me as a kind of foeder-aged Flemish red, only without the sourness. It's beautiful however you look at it.

Our final venue for this trip was one we caught as it opened for the week on our final day. I don't recall vandeStreek brewery having any retail premises on previous visits, but there's now a drink-in brewery out of town, and a pub on the Oudegracht right in the middle. It was at the latter that we had our last drinks.

A few days earlier, Dublin's own DOT Brew had been taking over vandeStreek's taps, and Turn-Around was a remnant from that. It's a blend of honey ale and a Belgian-style pale ale, aged in Rivesaltes wine barrels and finishing at 8.2% ABV. It's a misty gold colour, and shows a touch of wholesome beeswax plus a whole load of luridly sweet cordial. The concentrated honey is sufficiently offset by the zesty hops, and there's a lovely long finish which may have tasted like Rivesaltes (I wouldn't know) but was Sauternes or Muscat to me. The whole thing is creatively different and very enjoyable.

Beside it, one of vandeStreek's own: an 11.8% ABV imperial stout called We Want S'more. One assumes from the name that this contains chocolate and marshmallow, and while it has the standard overly-sweet aroma, the flavour is a bit more serious, dominated by a hard treacle bitterness, with some drying smoke as well. That doesn't make it easier drinking, however, and it's a beer which needs to be chomped through slowly. Not really my sort of thing.

My sort of thing is Indian Blonde, a bright and clear blonde ale of 6.2% ABV. What sets it apart is the list of Indian-style added ingredients: turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, coriander, chilli and clove. There isn't much aroma from all this, and my first impression of the flavour was that it's a mess, tasting busy and musty, like the ghost of a Georgian-era cosmetics shop. Things separate out in the aftertaste, and I get peppery aftershave with definite clove and something I've written down as nutmeg but might be the chilli. This last phase makes all the rest worthwhile. Yes, it's a total gimmick beer, but a fun one.

The Utrecht Film Festival was starting shortly and vandeStreek brewed the official beer, called Kalf, after the festival's mascot. It's pretty basic stuff, as might be expected: a 4% ABV golden ale in broadly a Belgian style, with notes of bubblegum and apricots. There's nothing here to distract from either the film you're watching, or the distribution executive you're trying to schmooze.

An all-pale final round has Hazy Weekend on the left of the picture. This 6.6%-er is something of a flagship for vandeStreek, and is a little on the darker side for New England-style IPA. It's a straightforward and familiar formula, putting pithy citrus fruit onto quite a full and fluffy base. It's no juice bomb, but it's well-balanced and polite; a reminder that IPA doesn't have to be clear and west-coast designated to be decent. Simple, balanced quality is just what a flagship IPA ought to be.

The one next to it is their Fruit IPA: Peach & Apricot, a big finish at 8.5% ABV. I tasted mostly a soft melony vibe, with a harder acridity in the background. I thought at first that this was simply the hopping, but when it turned fully harsh I realised it was more likely to be an oxidation issue. While not totally ruined, this never really recovers, tasting like an IPA that's lost its zing. If found, please return to Oudegracht.

I'm not sure I'd like to live in Utrecht, but it strikes me as an excellent party town; somewhere to go of a weekend for an excellent selection of food and drink. I'm sure I'll be back for more of that before long.

Seems familiar

From Riga, I flew to the Netherlands, for just a brief stopover on the way home. Utrecht was chosen solely because it's so convenient to Schiphol. And it has several favourite pubs to return to.

Top of the list is DeRat, of course, which was having a quiet mid-week afternoon. Nothing on tap took my fancy so I choose Espiga Berliner Weisse from the canned specials. Although they've added peach, it's a proper mixed-fermentation version. I think that's helping double down on the fruit side, as there's lots of jammy ripe peach coming in after an initial sharpness. The long tail is a broad summery floral effect, all jasmine and elderflower perfume. There's a lot packed in for only 3.5% ABV, though it's tart enough to work as a refresher too.

The stout beside it is an unlikely collaboration between the brewery with the colourful cans and sugarful stouts, Kees, and the austere and dignified farm brewery De Dochter van de Korenaar. It's called Orange Trempée and is 7.9% ABV. The sticky fingerprints of Kees are all over it, beginning with the intense hot fudge of the aroma. The flavour is more like chocolate-coated wafer biscuits, with only a light touch on the orange. It's barely two-dimensional, and I feel that something of this strength ought to be more characterful. While it smells like indulgent fun, it's let down by a much plainer taste.

Not far away is Café Belgie, which is a generally-reliable supplier of interesting beers. I found a double black IPA called Dåble Dæte, brewed by Poesiat & Kater as a collaboration with Mikkeller. It's another strong but light-bodied beer, at 7.5% ABV. The bitterness has been dialled up, with lime and grapefruit in the ascendant, but with a little dark chocolate and espresso trailing in the background. I will grant that this is sufficiently IPA-like to pull off the conceit, but I would still like some of the gentler fruit and dark grain that the best black ones show.

I'll cover more of my new bar finds in the next post, but one place new to me, right in the town centre, was Taphuys. I will admit I didn't know the format when I went in: it's one of those self-service bars, with 148 different beers on tap. You're issued with a card at the door, which you top up with credit to spend at the taps. I've known these to come and go quite quickly wherever they appear, unsurprisingly because it's a terrible system, and particularly unsuited to high-foaming low-countries beer. I put a minimal amount on my card and ran it down with:

Moretti Sale di Mare, for one. I had seen this on restaurant menus but this was the first it was actually available. Several years ago I enjoyed a different salted Italian lager from Heineken: Messina Cristalli Di Sale. I was hoping they'd brought a bit of that to the Moretti brand. Sadly, they haven't. This is very dull fare, with an aroma and flavour of dry grain and little else. Salty zing is entirely absent. There's not even a decent malt body, although it's 5.5% ABV. At least I didn't have much of it.

The more generous pour on the right is Dark Sky Porter from Edinburgh's Bellfield brewery. There was a marked difference in the amount of flavour between the two beers, because this one goes in all kinds of wild directions, beginning on a strangely sour and vinous aroma, and then weird herbal resins in the flavour, making it taste like Fernet Stock or Jägermeister. I got some dusty stale chocolate in the finish, and more of that vinegary twang I got from the aroma. I have no idea if this is supposed to taste like it does, or if it's what happens when you unsuccessfully try to manage 148 beer taps. Either way, I didn't like it.

This wasn't going well. I had enough for a dribble of something else before leaving hurredly, and I thought Uiltje would be a safe bet, with their BeBop A ReBop rhubarb sour ale. The sweet strawberry aroma made me wary, but it ending up tasting much cleaner than expected, although not very sour, and not of rhubarb. It's more like rhubarb-and-custard candy, predominantly sweet and vaguely fruity, in an artificial way. Even though it's only 3.4% ABV, there's a sticky sugar residue left behind on the palate. It's not great, but compared to the previous two it was excellent.

Oh, my card is empty. Would I like to top it up? No, that won't be necessary, thank you. Good day.

Beer of the Month at the gorgeous Café Olivier was Gladjanus, a 5.2% ABV white IPA from De Eeuwige Jeugd. A hazy pale yellow with a fine-bubbled head, it looks like an innocent witbier, and smells like one too: bright, fresh and lemony. The flavour is only marginally more intense than you would find from a wit, and I think that's the right way to go with this style. There's none of the overdone bitterness or soapy twang that can often be white IPA's undoing. Instead, there's lots of welcome sherbet zing. Not everyone would be happy with a white IPA that comes across more like a witbier, but I am.

Local brewer Oproer brews a Helles for the German restaurant on Utrecht's quays, Kartoffel. This looks the part when poured into an appropriate mug, but the flavour profile is way off for a Helles, it being dry and quite acrid. The noble hopping is beyond pilsner level and makes it taste of raw nettles. So it's a Dutch take on a Bavarian beer that misses the key smoothness and balance. It's nice that the restaurant has commissioned a local beer option, but Helles is a style often best left to the experts.

I'm sure I must have been in Florin in Utrecht before, but I have no record of it. Like The Fiddler in The Hague, this is a former member of the English Firkin pub chain, and still retains the (adapted) signage on the outside and a lot of the original '90s chain pub interior. Unlike The Fiddler, it doesn't still have a working brewery. There is a house beer, though, courtesy of another local brewer, vandeStreek.

Florin is a pale ale of just 4.5% ABV. It's a hazy orange colour and smells quite like a Belgian IPA, with sharp zest coming before a rounder sweetness. The flavour puts the sugar first, however: the classic travel-sweets sweet orange of Belgian IPA. That tails off quickly, leaving only bland barley sugar in the finish. It's inoffensive, unchallenging fare. Pretty much what you might expect under the name of a pub which probably stopped being interesting for beers two decades ago.

VandeStreek seems to have built up a mini empire in Utrecht. We'll find out more about that next.