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.