The grain and the grape

Have you heard of fonio? If you haven't yet, you will, at least according to Brooklyn Brewery's Garrett Oliver who has become an advocate for this climate-resistant African grain. Its most important attribute is that you can make beer from it, which will be terribly useful once the Earth decides it can't do barley any more. Garrett had come to St James's Gate to make a fonio-based collaboration beer, although that won't be out until much later this year. He also brought over some beers of his own to share.

Showcasing fonio at Brooklyn is Fonio Rising, a pilsner, but a monstrously strong one, at 6.4% ABV. The aroma is fairly true to style, with lots of grass and only a little more of a grain quality than usual. The flavour does show that something odd is happening, however: fonio is not a neutral barley substitute, it has a character all its own. That manifested as a kind of spicy fruit, like fruitcake, where raisin and cherry mix with cinnamon and ginger. The pilsner crispness is maintained, but it's otherwise a very long way from the precise tenets of the style, even a strong one. Nevertheless, I liked it. And if it's saving the planet, then all the better.

The next one doesn't involve fonio and is a novelty beer with a lovely backstory. It's called MegaPurple after one of its ingredients: a grape concentrate which is heavily used at the cheaper end of the American wine industry, ensuring that the lowest grade of product does actually look and taste like wine. No producer would ever admit to using it, and its very existence is something of a trade secret. Brooklyn is trolling the substance's creator and its customers by making it a headline feature.

The beer certainly smells like a grape ale: slightly sharp, with rich notes of blackcurrant. There's a substantial wild component to it, involving a yeast culture supplied by Russian River and blending with a lambic-a-like before ageing in wine barrels. The result has big, tannic, red wine notes and a lot of funky farmyard Brettanomyces character. There's a fully-admitted trolling of the natural wine movement as well, in the extent to which it has borrowed their flavour profile. I thought it was excellent and very much in the style and quality of grape ale that the best of Italy make. I was never a big fan of Russian River's wild efforts, but it's been a few years, and maybe cutting them with syrupy grape gunk was what they needed all along.

A big thanks to the Guinness folk for organising the event, and Garrett for bringing the beers. I look forward to seeing how they got on brewing with fonio in Dublin.

Cloisterphobia

They've been feeling social again at Weihenstephan. Last time, they made a collaborative weissbier with Sierra Nevada. Now it's a blonde ale with the help of St Bernardus: Braupakt Blonde.

Despite being brewed in Germany, and being the clear gold of a refined Helles, it's a very Belgian 6.5% ABV and has a very Belgian aroma of spices, fruit and cake. It's definitely a Belgian-style blonde to taste, with forenotes of honey, clove and a leafy tea bitterness. Flowers and bubblegum spread across the palate later. But there's a German streak too: a crisp-linen cleanness, tolerating warm fermentation but keeping it in check, within precisely defined parameters. That's the Weihenstephan way. 

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it. I prefer the more floral and fruity sort of Belgian blonde ales, those with a softer texture and a luxurious feel. This seems a little tight and strict, like it was made in a lab rather than a brewery. Despite the happy clerics on the label, I get no feels from it: it's just an exercise. Points awarded for doing something a bit different, but both breweries generally make better beer than this by themselves.

Summer and all the beers are sour

The arrival of warmer and sunnier days, beginning in May, coincided with a steady stream of fruit beers from Irish breweries.

At the bottom end of the scale, the one I'm expecting most to be sour: Púca Tropical which, like all its many variants, is fermented with mixed yeast strains, for a more authentic bite. In the sunshine it's light and golden, but smells quite syrupy, of fruit punch and pineappleade. The flavour doesn't vary a lot from that, starting out on a hit of Lilt, which shouldn't really be surprising given that the fruits involved are pineapple, mango, guava and lime. The sugar is kept in check by a dry tartness that cuts the foretaste off abruptly and ensures a clean finish. No, it's not the most complex-tasting or grown-up of beers, and I don't think it's an improvement on the original lemon Púca, but it has a use case, like on the sunny afternoon I drank it. 3.5% ABV makes for a suitable session-starter.

I followed it with Loco, a collaboration between Dublin's Rascals and Budapest's Mad Scientist. It's a small step up from Púca, at 4.3% ABV. "A passion fruit, mango and sea buckthorn smash up!" declares the label, like it's 2009. In the glass it's murky and juice-like, the head quickly reducing to a thim skim. It smells of juice too, thankfully not of concentrate. I found it quite plain tasting after that: the fruit is present, but doesn't do much, like a meagre fruit salad. There's a savoury, possibly saline, side to it which I'm guessing is the sea buckthorn, and if so it's not a positive contribution. Even on a sunny afternoon on the patio, this didn't zing, however excited the label copy is about it.

From Hopsicle, a collaboration label for the Bierhaus and Fionnbarra pubs in Cork, in collaboration with Two Sides, the beer brand of Brickyard in Dublin, brewing at Third Barrel, comes (deep breath) Two Sided Twister, a sour ale with mango and raspberry. I thought it would be pink but it's an opaque juicy orange in the glass. The ABV is 4.5% and it's a bit thin with it, though there's plenty of fruit flavour, especially the mango, coming through ripe and sweet. There's a properly tart tang, so it performs well in its role as a sunny-day thirst-quencher. The raspberry is quite quiet, a barely perceptible pink flavour in the finish. It could stand to be sourer but I was very pleased it's not a sticky syrup job.

Next it's Hope, going positively bucolic with Fruit & Flower Sour, 4.5% ABV again, and brewed with passionfruit and hibiscus. They're two quite prominent flavours in their own right; how would they play together? It's a pale translucent pink in the glass and is very lightly textured; not quite watery but with absolutely no sticky, syrupy residual sugar. There's even a trace of proper sourness, expressed as a gentle mineral tang. Fittingly, however, the fruit and the flower are the centrepiece, and it's the hibiscus that comes out on top. Hibiscus always tastes like a summer punnet of strawberry and cherry to me, and this is no exception: sweet and fleshy, with a distinct acidity. The passionfruit is more apparent in the aroma, making the beer smell gooey and sweet, even though it isn't. I liked it. It's fun. And most importantly, it's pure summer in a glass. Wait for the hottest day, cool it well down, and maybe consider some ice: your session-strength rosé in a can.

After that: Brain Freeze. This is the new limited edition from Wicklow Wolf, starting us into the stronger stuff, at 5% ABV. We've got blueberries, raspberries, lime, vanilla and lactose to contend with in this one, which I thought would be a yoghurty emulsion but is actually a clear and bright scarlet. It smells perfumed and floral, like Parma Violets candy. The texture is thick, with a genuine ice-cream effect: think whipped cone with a generous drizzle of raspberry sauce. While it's not overly sugary, thanks to a citric bite from the lime, it's hardly sour either. This is very much a novelty beer, designed to taste like an ice cream and largely succeeding. Whether that makes it any good or not is up to the drinker. For me it was just a little too much on the sticky and artificial side, not that I wasn't warned.

While I'm very much a sceptic as regards the sour-fruity styles in general, I have mostly enjoyed the ones badged as "Catharina sour". I don't know the exact specs, but there always seems to be a brighter and fresher contribution from the fruit, whether that's the placebo effect or not. Galway Bay are (I think) the only Irish brewery with experience in the style, and 5.4% ABV Magnolia is their second, following last year's Lagoma. The fruit blend is an unusual one, of pink guava, dragonfruit and strawberry, and there's a definite pinkish tint to the orange murk. It smells like a smoothie: wholesome and healthy, like it was freshly picked and pulped. There's a proper sourness right in the centre of the flavour, with a pleasing edge of peppery spice. The fruit spreads languidly across this, offering slightly jammy berries and an oily citrus tang: I would confidently have guessed there's lime in this, which there isn't. It definitely confirms my prejudice that Catharina sours are just a better class. Give me a bad one, I dare you.

Trend-chaser Lough Gill has major form at this sort of thing. I have two from them today, beginning with Kiwi Pearadise. Kiwis and pears are not typical fruits for a sour fruity. The eye-watering 9.5% ABV is also far from average. It looks innocent in the glass, a typical juice-like opaque orange, and smells primarily like crisp pear, but with some of kiwifruit's tang as well. While it's not hot, it is thick, thanks to the inevitable lactose. I think that's mostly there for texture, however, as it's not especially sweet. The fruit is real tasting: tangy and acidic like in the aroma. And since the fruits are unorthodox, the overall effect is too. I genuinely don't know if I liked it or not. It's a bit of a drama queen; a bit "look at me: I'm kooky". But at the same time it's not noisy or any way unpleasant. These beers should be all about the fun factor, and I think there's enough of that here, despite an extremely serious ABV.

It gets more serious with our finisher, the 9.7% ABV Sunrise By Night. This has a more orthodox combination of raspberry and vanilla, and looks like a strawberry smoothie in the glass. The aroma is surprisingly subtle, not honking either ingredient up the nostrils. Again, there's no heat from the high alcohol factor, and it's smooth without being thick or difficult. I don't get any of the raspberry's tartness, making it taste more like strawberry or cherry, presumably thanks to the vanilla's sweetness. It's less busy than I was expecting, which is a good thing, but with both of these I don't get why they made them so strong. It doesn't really add to the sensory experience: fruit beers still taste like this when they're several points weaker; there's none of the complexity advantage from strength which you get with, say, stout. This is fine, but no more than that: another of the not-sour "sours", and frankly not even Lough Gill's best work in the space. It was made for a market, I'm sure. I've just never met those drinkers.

No surprise here that the cleaner and sourer examples were more to my taste. I also like that we have a proper genre of summer beers across the breweries, all of which could have simply made another hazy IPA instead.

Holding the course

I noted back in March that Galway Hooker had started releasing new limited edition beers after years of sticking to a core set. Now a second pair has arrived for midsummer, once again giving us styles which haven't previously been in the brewery's wheelhouse.

Mind you, I'm not sure in whose wheelhouse "Export Helles" belongs. Is there any such thing? Are they simply styling-out that they brewed a Helles and it ended up finishing at 6% ABV? I'm sure that's not the case. This pale lager, called It's Complicated, is a dark, almost reddish, shade of sunset gold. It smells quite hop-forward, but in the very noble way which gives me dried grass, crepe paper and burnt plastic: not fun. I  was apprehensive on taking my first sip. And rightly so. While it's light-bodied, it is very strongly flavoured; no smooth and easy-going lager, this. The green side of the hops is laid on thick, presenting nettles, rocket and mulchy spinach with no apologies. Bock would have been a much better descriptor, and it reminds me a lot of the Mai-Ur-Bock from Einbecker, a beer I haven't drank in over 14 years but which appears to be seared into my consciousness, with its dusty mustiness and strong malt sweetness. This has both of those. It's clean beyond that, and is almost one of those beers I respect for the sheer bigness and boldness of the taste. But I'm just not wired to enjoy this flavour profile. If you like the very in-your-face side of pale German lager, or simply want to find out what the blazes I'm going on about, you should give this a try. I doubt I'll be reaching for another myself, though.

At least the flavour didn't hang around, so I had a clean palate straight after for the follow-up, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, a double IPA at 8% ABV. I think we can probably call this west-coast style as it's a translucent amber colour. It smells slightly boozy, with strong hints of hard citrus and resin to come. I was pleasantly surprised to find it's not overly bitter. It has something in common with 2010s American double IPA, in that it's a big fellow, the flavour intensity matching that of the bruising Helles. But there's a subtlety as well. Behind the lime peel and pine oil sits a cooler, gentler citronella and mandarin zest, plus juicy wedges of real grapefruit. It's unmistakably a strong beer, a little chewy, but not difficult drinking and certainly not hot or sweaty. Galway Hooker, under the old management, was expert at imbuing its beers with balance and understated complexity. This is very much one of those. If there's a possibility of any of these specials graduating to the regular line-up, this one is a definite front runner for me.

I like how they've thrown caution to the wind with both of these, and simply produced the most flavoursome beers they could. That's what small-scale brewing is all about. Keep 'em coming, GH.

House!

I'm sure I'm not the first beer commentator to make this observation, but dark lager should be a lot more common than it is. Just like its pale counterpart, when made well it's clean, accessible and pintworthy, with the added bonus of some extra flavour complexity from the dark grains. As such, it should be reaching the same sort of audience as mainstream session-strength stouts, if it weren't for the fact that drinkers there care more about the brand than the liquid. Although Diageo did make a lacklustre effort at it some years back, there's no national brand of dark lager, which is a disgrace given how many pale ones there are.

Of course, high-end pubs can create their own solutions to this problem. Brickyard in Dundrum has, commissioning one from Third Barrel and putting it out under the Two Sides brand. It's called Black Betty. At 4.7% ABV it is appropriately pintable, although the mouthfeel is quite dense and there's loads going on in the flavour. Soft treacle forms the background, balanced by a black tea dryness plus subtle notes of beechnut and cola. A growing peppery spice effect arrives as it warms.

If I were fitting it into a specific style I would say it has more in common with chewy Czech tmavý ležák than crisp schwarzbier or herbal Munich dunkel. Regardless, it does all the things that a house dark lager should, including creating a desire for another pint of the same straight away. I hope it's selling well at Brickyard because it should be there, and everywhere else, all the time.

Just because you could...

Someone's been mulin' De Molen. The following beers were suitcased back from Amsterdam by my lovely wife, who chose them from the wide selection on offer in De Bierkoning. They're not what I would have picked, but I fully admit I was intrigued by the descriptions.

In a world of degenerate beer it's wonderful to find one called Koffie & Toffee that contains neither as an ingredient. That's especially true because it's a Baltic porter, a style which rarely benefits from craft-style dicking around. This has all the classic hallmarks: a clean lager body and a big vegetal tang of old-world hops. And yet it does manage to live up to the name. The coffee side isn't huge and is a standard feature of the style, but the toffee is a bonus sweetness, entirely complementary to the rest and adding an appreciable chewiness when the ABV is a little on the light side, at only 8.5%. A straight-up beer with novelty characteristics? We're through the looking glass here, people.

Snoep & Spin is the unlikely offer of candyfloss-flavoured barley wine. The good news is that they've got one part of this right: it has the artificial pink-tasting sweetness of candyfloss. I checked the ingredients to see how they did it. The answer: candyfloss. There's not much else, though, just a very characterless base beer, thick and hot as befits 10% ABV. Hops? Malt? No, it all gets buried under the sugar and suchlike nonsense. Nobody wants candyfloss flavoured beer, and if you don't believe me, drink this one to find out that you don't either.

Today's first imperial stout is called Kiev & Mule, being as it's brewed with ginger, lime and mint: an unusual approach to the style, but that's De Molen for you. In the glass it's a very dark brown and proves to be as thick as it looks. The base stout may be 10% ABV but it takes a back seat in the flavour, putting spicy ginger, spritzy lime and, to a lesser extent, aromatic mint, in first. The first two give almost a feel of sushi, which is not what one expects from big strong stout. Big strong stout arrives later, and there's a solid heavy roast and a kick of vegetal hops in the finish. It's tremendous fun: mostly a gimmick that tastes more like ginger beer than imperial stout, but which also has the goods for anyone looking for classical attributes. Good times.

Cocktail hour concludes with Rozekoek & Pinklady for which a helpful gloss tells us means "Glaced cake & Pinklady". OK, but I'm none the wiser for that. It purports to be another barley wine, at 10.5% ABV, and the only unorthodox things on the ingredients list are apple juice and squashed cochineal beetles. We're very much on the same page as we were with the candyfloss one: it's monstrously sweet, with the aroma suggesting a sticky raspberry or cherry candy that's never been near real fruit. I don't think I would have picked out the apple from the flavour without knowing it was there, but yes, it does taste of apples, and cake, and fake cherries. It's not very beery though: something this strength should at least have some malt heft or heat, but it doesn't. What happens when you take a gimmick beer and remove the beer? You get this weird mess of a thing that has no resemblance to real barley wine. It is bright pink, though, so at least the beetle employees did their jobs competently.

A rare mononymous beer follows to finish. Balcones is another imperial stout, this one named after the Texas distillery which supplied the barrels it was aged in. So definitely not bourbon then? It smells and tastes a lot like a bourbon-aged imperial stout, very big on the vanilla, leaving the stout's chocolate unsure as to whether it's sweet milk or bitter dark: there are elements of both. This is the fresh 2024 edition, and I think it's an advertisement for letting it mature a while, or buying an older bottle, as it's a little hot and harsh, with more splintery dry oak than is ideal. There's some good fruit complexity in the background -- raisin and plum -- and I think that will come out more after the beer has been allowed to mellow. As is, it's decent stuff if barrel-aged stouts of 11.7% ABV are your thing. I think I hold De Molen to a higher standard, however.

By and large, these are gimmicks, and should be understood as such. All of them are completely honest and upfront about their nature, and they deliver what's suggested. If candyfloss barley wine is what you feel the beer scene has been missing up until now, I heartily recommend them all; if not then you probably needn't have read this far.

Big dig energy

Martin's of Fairview is one of the top-tier beer shops of Dublin, and though it's quite far out of my way, I do make occasional trips there. That stopped when a major roadworks project made getting to and from it an ordeal. The arrival of an exclusive beer, however, was enough to make me brave the trenches and fences of the North Strand, finding the shop thoroughly caged in as the pavement outside is being ripped up and reconstructed.

The beer, brewed by Hopfully, references all this, and is called Business As Usual, with cans displayed in the window around decorative traffic cones and roadworks signs. For all the upsetting disruption, it's a jolly beer: a juicy pale ale of 5% ABV, brewed with Azacca, Strata and Comet. They're a fruity bunch of hops, and the beer tastes of Skittles, icepops and fizzy pop: all the luridly-coloured sweet things kids love. Don't expect a whole lot beyond this, however. The texture is quite thin, almost watery, and doubtless that has a knock-on deleterious effect on the flavour intensity. The finish is rapid, leaving only an echo of dry fizz as the aftertaste. It didn't take me long getting through it: this is easy drinking and undemanding. After each mouthful's short flavour party there's nothing much to do but take another sip. While there's nothing wrong with it, I expected more at that strength with those hops.

Also in the shop at the time was another new Hopfully beer, Eyecatcher. This doesn't seem terribly different: a similar hazy orange/yellow, 4.6% ABV, and this time the hops are Azacca, Mosaic and Ekuanot, which suggests more fruit-forwardness. It's a danker and bitterer affair, however: resinous and herbal on the nose, tasting slightly savoury, of raw white onion and cornbread, with a hint of grapefruit peel. Again, none of that hangs around long on the palate, not that it would be terribly welcome to do so. An echo of garlic does build as it goes, unfortunately. It's another basic and unexciting one, doing the things many other beers have done before, and not in an exceptional way. But for 440ml, it's fine.

When the history of the haze craze is written, I doubt either of these will have a chapter to itself. As a way of passing an hour, however, there are many worse alternatives.

The Thing from outer space

Is it a drugs reference? I don't get the reason for the latest in Sierra Nevada's Little Thing series of beers being called Cosmic Little Thing. Is it, like, "woah, cosmic, maaan"? I don't know. On the front of the pint can we are promised "an interstellar wave of tropical flavor". Uh-oh. 

For once, the promise is kept. The aroma doesn't give us much tropicality, just a pithy, zesty, citrus tang. The flavour, however, raids the sweetshop for everything flavoured as pineapple, passionfruit, mango and guava. It's not real fruit and there's no juiciness, going instead for candy chews or jellies: perfumed, chemical, and extremely sweet to the point of turning bitter. There's a little bonus complexity too; some sharper resins and a welcome peppery spice.

Doubtless the 8% ABV helps provide a generous platform for all the hop goings-on. It's a full-bodied double IPA, with the fun pillowy texture typical of hazy IPAs. Despite its general bigness, it's not boozy and slips back a little too easily, perhaps. I level no criticism at the very tall boy packaging format.

This is a good ramping-up of the things that make the flagship Hazy Little Thing IPA a good beer, while incorporating features from the Big Little Thing west-coast double IPA. I still don't know what makes it "cosmic", but it's a nice little big thing.

Oak or nope?

Time for a regular check-in with what DOT Brew has been sending my way lately. As usual, it's a varied bunch: some going big on the barrels and blending; some not.

Barrel-aged beers at 3.8% ABV are rare, but trust the DOT/Teeling collaboration arrangement to come up with one. This is Hoppy-Go-Lucky, a light pale ale aged in the distillery's whiskey barrels. It's the bright gold of a glass of white wine and smells of freshly pressed white grape with some bonus pineapple. The low strength makes itself felt in the texture and flavour: thin and short-lived, respectively. I get a tang of grapefruit, turning bitterer, ending up as the sort of metallic aspirin effect I often find in non-alcoholic beers. That's not a good sign. On the one hand, it's good that it's not overwrought and that the barrel element is done subtly, but it's just weak tea, lacking character and, frankly, in need of a boost in booze and body. €5.50 was a lot for this small tin.

A milk stout follows; a strong one at 7.5% ABV and named Dark Stuff, which it is. It's quite light-bodied for all that it's strong and contains lactose, avoiding any accusation of cloying, but running the risk of wateriness at the same time. I let it warm up a bit before tackling it head-on. It rounds out a little, and the flavour becomes altogether more multidimensional. So what have we got? There's milk chocolate for sure, the lactose doing its job well, in a calm and understated manner. Next to it there's a bitter element, composed of roasted grain and a mild vegetal hop tang. Taking us out, there's a pink fruit and flowers effect, bringing raspberry and hibiscus. It's really nicely done: sweet, but not overblown; classic, but unusual. I took my time over the 440ml and enjoyed every minute of it.

DOT says the latest edition of Rum Red Dark (XVIII) is the "boldest" so far. It looks to be the strongest: 12% ABV up from the usual 8.6% or so. There was a squash to the can when I picked it out of the fridge, and sure enough the beer poured headless and flat. DOT's relationship with the Teeling peated single malt project is still going strong, and this has a powerful peaty aroma, along with a suggestion of toffee sweetness. To taste, it's full-on Scotch whisky to begin, softening quickly to caramel and fudge, but returning to TCP phenols in the finish. The flatness isn't a problem: this is full-bodied and feels more like a fortified wine than a beer; smooth and slick, with a sizeable quantity of boozy heat. As a smoked beer fan, I liked it, and I present that as both a recommendation and a warning, depending on your predilections. It's loud, brash, and utterly lacking in nuance, but it works, combining smooth and sweet red ale with a very specific whisky, and ramping up the volume to palate-pounding levels. This isn't an everyday beer, but I certainly have a place for it.

The Spin Off Series that DOT makes for Aldi has had four new additions this year, and I'm beginning with K.2, an IPA brewed with Norwegian yeast, presumably kveik. I think maybe it's time that Aldi customers learned what kveik is. We don't need to hide it from them any longer. It's a bright golden colour and plenty hazy. The aroma is gently juicy, suggesting high-end lemonade with a slightly sulphurous mineral bite. Though 5.2% ABV, it's light-bodied, so presumably finished on a very low gravity. That makes it pleasingly thirst-quenching, like lemon barley water. Don't expect too much other complexity, just a little ripe-fruit funk and a dry, soda water or soluble vitamin, minerality. An explosion of flavour it is not, but as a very decent hazy IPA to throw in the basket on your way through Aldi it's hard to criticise.

My jaded old palate still gets a bit of tingle when a beer label promises southern hemisphere hops. Nova IPA does, though doesn't tell us what they are. It's very slightly hazy and a rich shade of marmalade orange. The aroma is as zesty as the beer looks, more suggesting American hops than antipodean. On the flavour I didn't really get much of either: it's all quite muted, slightly orangey (Galaxy?) with a pinch of dry white wine (Nelson?), but that's your lot. OK, it's a low-cost can from Aldi, but it's also 5.8% ABV which should provide enough of a platform for some big hop fun. This is a very short celebration, though clean and inoffensive. Were it not so strong I'd be recommending it for the ice bucket at summer parties. While I enjoyed the broad sketch of the flavour profile, I would have liked it coloured in a bit more.

A second tranche of Spin Offs in just the past week yielded Fruit Sour, a generic name for a beer with the unusual choice of white peach as the add-in. It's 4% ABV and a fruit-squash shade of opaque yellow-orange. It smells kinda spicy, with hints of pink peppercorn and matchheads. Could we actually in for a sour fruited sour beer? Not really. It almost gets there but the sour effect is stymied by an overall low level of flavour, rather than one which is too sweet. It's thin and quickly headless, oppressively fizzy with no more than a smear of sweet peach flesh and a tiny tinny tart tang. The promising spice from the aroma does reappear late on in the background, but I would need a lot more of it to consider the beer properly good. I can say I got my €2.50's worth in Aldi, but no more than that.

That arrived alongside US Wheat, another busily fizzy one. It doesn't get in the way so much here, as there's plenty of soft and pillowy malt to cushion its bite. The beer is brightly golden and only slightly hazed, with not great head retention, but better than the previous. There's a portent of dryness in the aroma, with elements of spun wheat and black tea, but a promise of fruit as well: soft cantaloupe and apricot. The hops are to the fore in the flavour, and deliciously so, leaning in to the sweetly smooth melon notes with only a token bitterness, similar to the profile of the mighty Little Fawn. I don't know if Mosaic was involved, but the profile is quite similar. The label does tell us that the hops came in CGX cryo-pellet form, and for once the minutiae of the processed hop market does interest me: this stuff is great, at least when used as DOT's contract brewer has here. Even though it's the stronger of the pair at 5.2% ABV, US Wheat is the one I'd like to have several of to hand on a sunny afternoon.

Time for some more stout, I think. The second-newest in the collaboration series with Redmonds off licence in Ranelagh is Marsala Imperial Stout, the second Redmonds joint to use ex-Marsala whiskey barrels. The aroma is very much whiskey -- hot and honeyish -- with just a slight hint of raisin to suggest the wine's involvement. The foretaste is quite sharp: this is no big chocolate or vanilla imperial stout but one where 10.5% ABV means it has been attenuated quite far down. The mouthfeel is light and maybe even a shade too thin. I get a little of the oak spice and sour cherry of Flanders red ale, which is enjoyable but not what I was expecting. A more typically stout-like roasted espresso bitterness arrives later, but doesn't hang around, and then the finish brings us back to the fruit, this time a long echo of macerated red grapes. It's an interesting, left-field, take on imperial stout, but properly enjoyable too. The Marsala-whiskey combination brings us places we otherwise wouldn't get to visit.  

The Redmonds partnership has also, more recently, yielded a bock. A barrel-aged bock. In fact, a Barrel Aged Brett Bock, the only one of its kind I've ever encountered. The base beer is a doppelbock, giving us 8% ABV and a dark chestnut colour, while the barrel is once again ex-Marsala. It smells sour and quite funky, with similar cherry aromas to, again, Flanders red. The texture is surprisingly light, a demonstration perhaps that neither lager yeast nor Brettanomyces leave much sugar in their hungry wake. There's a small remainder of the dark caramel flavour of doppelbock, but mostly the oak and Brett are in charge of the taste: lots of port-like wine notes, tangy oak sap, finishing on a strong farmyard funk. Although it's an unlikely combination, every element here plays its part. It's an audacious experiment, but one which paid off handsomely. And at €6 for a 375ml bottle, it's a steal.

A double IPA to end on: 3-Way Idaho [7], the second in a series of hop showcases which began with Simcoe last winter. That one was a failure of a New England-style IPA, and all the better for the resulting clarity and bitterness. They've fixed it for round two and I'm not happy. It's one of those hazy IPAs which shows off their regular problems. Not much aroma I can live with, but the grittiness; the earthy, chalky, savoury crunch from saturated haze particles is plain nasty. A harsh alcoholic burn comes with it, and even though it's 8% ABV, there's simply too much booze. It does have a good side -- I could still detect apricot, peach and lychee notes under all the unpleasantness, but they were too soft and subtle to stand up to it properly. Maybe the small draught measure didn't suit it, as it did mellow a little as it warmed. I certainly wasn't drinking it fast. I'm not sure I'd be willing to take a chance on a retry, though. Let's have another 3 Way instead.

Who knows what treasure we'll get next from the magical kingdom in the lock-up behind Dolphin's Barn Tesco. But there's a reasonable likelihood you'll find a review of it here.

Lodger and badger

I picked up today's beers together and, other than that, the only thing they have in common is that they're black.

We have an oatmeal stout to begin, a gentle affair at only 4% ABV. This is Bearded Badger from Kildare brewery Farringtons. It's a nice and shiny vinyl-black, though the tan-coloured head doesn't last long. Cereal and coffee is the aroma, orthodox for an oatmeal stout, which is good, as I worried a bit about the low strength. Sure enough, it's thin of body, missing the pleasing smoothness the style ought to have and coming across as a bit watery. The flavour is quite the curate's egg: clanging metallic notes and a distressing chlorophenol twang, but also a happy dark roast arabica and a fresh old-world hop bitterness. On balance, the good side wins out, making it a decent beer, just not what ideal oatmeal stout -- silky and nourishing -- ought to be. I recommend adding a bag or two more oats to the recipe, stuck mash be damned.

West Kerry's Leann Láidir echoes the names of two superb dark Irish beers: Carlow's Leann Folláin and Four Provinces's late lamented Láidir. For those who weren't paying attention in Irish class, the name translates as "Heavy Ale" and it's badged as a "strong barrel aged rye porter", strong meaning 8.5% ABV in this instance. The pour resulted in a loose-bubbled head, a reminder that this brewery is no stranger to the wonders of cask dispense. The aroma is pure chocolate, smelling sweet and creamy, with maybe a soft caramel filling. We're definitely in dessert territory. It's as heavy as the name suggests, requiring a real effort to pull from the glass. As expected, the carbonation is exceedingly gentle and, ignoring it, it's quite a wine-like experience behind it: big and fruity, mixing plum, raisin and black cherry jam with an oaky seasoning and a sharper raspberry tang. That's as involved as the oak gets, making for a very subtle barrel-aged effect. Underlying the top notes is a solidly sweet base of toffee and treacle. I don't really get where the rye fits in, though there's a certain balancing dryness in the background that could be attributed to it. Overall, though, it's not a beer to pick apart into component aspects, it's a beer to enjoy as a single harmonious experience. It would be perfectly suited to deepest winter, when rib-sticking calorific beers are a requirement. I had absolutely no problem sipping through it on a summer evening just the same.

How very basic of me to conclude that big and weighty dark beers are great while weaker ones aren't as good. I know that's not the rule, but it's pretty much what I've found today. What I need now is a pint of good Irish dark mild to restore my faith in that genre. Hint hint, brewers.

The missing link

I hadn't even twigged that I missed it. The Toer de Geuze didn't happen as planned in 2021 but there was still a commemorative Megablend by the participating brewers for that year (and very good it was too). But the event continued without me in 2022 and, while I had been beer shopping in Belgium last year, I hadn't been looking for Megablend 2022, so was serendipitously surprised when I noticed it for sale at the Lindemans brewery shop during the 2024 Toer.

Opening it back home, I was armed with the knowledge that the 2019 and 2021 versions were two of my all-time favourite beers, but also that the 2024 one wasn't quite up to the same standard. Peering at the list of contributing breweries, I see that Eylenbosch and Kestemont, who were part of the 2024 edition, did not contribute in '22. How has that skewed things?

It's a very very nice beer. The keynote is cleanness. There's no funk, and a restrained earthy minerality. A twist of lemon juice makes for a natural-tasting sourness while the bricky nitre spice flashes briefly like olde worlde photographic apparatus before fading out of the picture. Nothing hangs around on the palate for long, and that's despite the untrifling 7% ABV. "Bland" isn't a word I should use around beers like this, but compared to other recent vintages, it's the washed-out grey sheep of the family. 

For me, this does represent the middle phase between 2021 and 2024 which I had been expecting: extremely tasty, well worth getting hold of, but not quiiite up with the best of the best. I don't for a minute want to seem like one of those nothing's-too-good-for-me elite-calibre geuze blowhards, but Megablend may be the one pin on whose head I'll happily dance. I hope they pull things back together for the 2026. They owe me.

And we're back

After an extended winter hiatus and the third major refurbishment in nine years, the Guinness Open Gate Brewery re-opened to the public last month. I detect a change in more than just the furniture; it all seems much more casual and pub-like than before. The requirement to book was gone with the last iteration, but now they've also dispensed with the host who would show you to a table and inform you that your welcome would last for two hours maximum. Now you can simply walk in off the street and sit anywhere, including at the bar where the stools have been reinstated.

Otherwise the ethos is the same: Diageo Ireland's core beers are permanent fixtures, but there is also a range of one-off experiments created by the Guinness brewers primarily for the place, though they occasionally show up at the Smithwick's museum in Kilkenny too. A few hours after the doors opened I wasn't expecting many customers nor much on the menu, so was surprised to find the place packed with tourists and off-duty staff, and a full set of new beers to try. Better get the flights in, so.

One definite retrograde step is the loss of the big screen menu, which provided useful information on the beers. Now there's a sparse retro split-flap display board and a printed menu, which weren't in agreement on details like what the beers were called and how strong they were. It's all very well to dream in beer but occasionally you need to wake up and do your proofreading.

Watermelon Spritz, for example, was a lager on the board and sour on the menu. It didn't really have much in common with either, being a lurid pink colour and tasting strongly of artificial watermelon candy. No surprise there, really. I also got a very generic raspberryesque pink flavour, ramping up the sweetness to the level of bubblegum or fruit chews. There's very little sign of the base beer -- sour or lager -- under this and it seems to be largely a syrup delivery system. Finding Peter the head brewer a few stools down from me, I learned that it is brewed with real watermelon and fermented on champagne yeast, no less. I'm not sure they got their money's worth out of that process. There are plans to serve it with sparkling wine, hence the name. I had a certain appreciation of its silliness, and it's fine if it's taken in the unserious way it's presented.

To the left of it on my initial flight, Crane Street, the first indicator of a new effort at giving meaningful names to Open Gate beers, Crane Street being one that runs through the St James's Gate complex. It's either a pale ale or a New England IPA, depending on which source you believe; 5% ABV on the printed menu and 6% online. And it's clear. I got a raw and leafy hop effect from the flavour, a hint of fried onion and then a rasp of what I think may have been oxidation. It has a modicum of refreshment power when cold, but otherwise is a bit of a lacklustre performance, as is generally the case with Open Gate's IPAs. And yet they persist. This was listed among the "Dublin Classics". Reader, it is not one.

On the end of the paddle is Rye Reserve Stout, an 8% ABV job made with chocolate rye malt and aged nine months in an Irish whiskey barrel. It has the wheaty chocolate aroma of a delicious but unhealthy breakfast cereal, then the foretaste is an epic struggle for supremacy between raw sappy oak and a kick of bitter hops. I was enjoying that spectacle when the warring parties were suddenly joined by a little smooth chocolate and a steaming great mug of fresh coffee. None of the aspects dominate the beer in the end, and the result is beautifully balanced while also loud and bold: exactly how a stout like this should be.

I began in the middle for my second flight too. That hazy yellow chap is Brewers Table, a non-alcoholic IPA. Those are usually bad enough generally, but in the hands of Open Gate's IPA brewers? Eech. So I was absolutely astounded to find it's really rather good. The trick seems to be piling in the hops, and those make themselves felt right from the start with a gorgeous mandarin and fresh lemon aroma. To taste it's a little harsh, and Peter agreed that the bitterness could stand to be dialled back, but there's bags of more subtle hop flavour too: a herbal dankness and zest for days. This delivers something that I don't think I've had from a non-alcoholic IPA before: a taste of real beer.

The clear amber beer on the left is Narrow Gauge, described as an American amber lager, but I'm not sure about that, as it's not especially hoppy. To me, it tasted like a straight-up Vienna lager, and a very very good one at that. It's exceedingly crisp, with only a tiny caramelised edge to the dryness. There's just enough of a green-vegetable noble hop character to complete the picture. This is the sort of understated beauty that Open Gate has always excelled at, and I'm very happy to see that the standards are still being kept up as regards classic lager.

And lastly for this flight, an unattractive murky brown fellow down the end. That's Royal Mess, a wheat beer brewed with yeast from the old Guinness brewery at Park Royal in London. They don't give specifics or intentions, but I would call this a dunkelweiss, with its banana and toffee aroma, smooth texture and brown banana flavour. I'm not normally a fan of the style but this, if it is one, is a better example, balancing the sweet ripe fruit against a degree of roasted-grain dryness. It's not very exciting, but maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I knew the full story behind its creation. Guinness weren't telling.

I almost didn't have the Open Gate Nitro IPA, which completed the new season line-up. I'm very much not a fan of the normal Nitro IPA that Guinness makes for foreign parts, and needed assurance that this isn't the same beer. It's not, and is a percentage point stronger, for one thing, at 6.8% ABV. It's paler in the glass too: golden rather than amber, and doesn't have the dreadful artificial perfume effect. Instead, it's lightly lemony, like a jolly piece of hard candy; mostly quite sweet, with enough of a bitter tang to taste close to real lemon. The nitrogen still has a deadening effect on the flavour so there's not much else to say about it, only that it's inoffensive-tasting, quite approachable, and rather dangerous given the sizeable strength.

It feels a bit like order has been restored to the universe with this fixture re-opening. I will continue to stop in at Open Gate whenever I'm passing and check what's new. Until next time, then.