Wild journey

Today's beer is a collaboration in the truest sense. It started life several years ago in Bagenalstown as O'Hara's Red Ale and was then shipped to Firestone Walker in California to be refermented in oak foeders with Brettanomyces and finished with late stage additions of thyme and honey. Then it came back across continental North America and the Atlantic Ocean, which I'd say makes some contribution to the €12 price tag on my 375ml bottle. It's called Fiáin.

The coppery colour of the base beer has survived everything it's been through, and the head stays put in a way that's unusual for wild fermented beer. It smells quite sharp, with the mild balsamic vinegar and tart cherry of a Flanders red ale. The texture is light, verging on thin, with little malt left behind by the Brett as it boosted the ABV to 6.5%. That's not a problem; it's not watery, and there's a pleasantly clean and refreshing sourness right at the front, not quite as full-on as with a geuze but subtly oaked in a similar way. That would be enough to make it a decent beer, but towards the end there's a bonus contribution of real thyme, still tasting bright and fresh after almost three years in the bottle. That flashes briefly, leaving the Brettanomyces to end proceedings with a peach or melon gumminess.

I don't know that it's a €12 beer exactly -- you can get 75cl bottles of beers as good and better for only a little extra -- but it's extremely well made, and has held up beautifully in its time abandoned on the shelves of the Mace on the South Circular Road. There's still some there if you want to try it.