The lights go on again

The ground floor of the old soap factory on North King Street in Dublin's Smithfield had, as far as I know, been empty since the Dublin Brewing Company went out of business in 2004. That was a shame because it's a lovely piece of early 20th century industrial architecture, and a protected structure since 2021. I've always thought it would make an excellent visitor attraction, being in the neighbourhood of the Jameson museum and legendary Cobblestone pub. It's good news, then, that it is once again licensed as a brewery, with signage over the entrance declaring it the home of Smithfield Brewing Company.

Further information is thin on the ground, only that the owner also has a string of hospitality venues on the other side of town, along Drury Street and Fade Street, and they all sell the Smithfield range. While the brewery is legit, I wouldn't be entirely convinced that these aren't still contract brewed elsewhere for the moment. I pass by the brewery regularly and haven't seen any signs of brewing activity happening. Anyway, I called in to the newest pub in the chain, O'Regan's, to try them out.

The range seems very much geared towards standard pub styles, covering the everything-but-Guinness niche. Still, it's a sign of some level of sophistication in the mainstream Irish beer market that the lager isn't just "Lager", it's Smithfield Helles. Class-eh. I think that's just marketing, however, as it doesn't fit the standard classification of Helles. It's only 4.5% ABV, but is also quite thick-feeling and porridgey-tasting: all about the malt, but not in the light, fairy-cake way of proper Helles. Where there might be a balancing noble hop greenness there is instead a new-world kick of ripe mango and apricot. None of this is unpleasant, but it seems far more pitched at the sort of contemporary drinker for whom beer begins and ends with American-style pale ales. It barely resembles lager at all, let alone a specific Bavarian type. Perhaps the crypto-blonde-ale Hop House 13 was the pattern they were working off. Like that beer, this is fine, but disappointingly not to style.

They've called the IPA Jump Juice. Despite the name, the appearance immediately evoked the west coast, being amber and clear, not pale and/or hazed. A pithy aroma continues that Sierra Nevada theme, but there's an about-face in the flavour, where strawberry and vanilla take precedence. I think the recipe, or its execution, have missed the mark on what the bitterness should be, giving us much less than is optimal and unbalancing the beer in a sweet direction. To add to the oddness, there's a floral or herbal bath salts background flavour, which is fun, but doesn't belong in an IPA. When it's their brewery and their pubs, they can brew how they like, but this beer doesn't pass muster as a good contemporary Irish IPA.

At this stage I had given up any preconceived notion about what I would get from Smithfield Amber Ale. American? Irish? English? Czech? There's any number of options there. It's 4.2% ABV, so a little stronger than mainstream Irish red but well within the parameters for microbrewed. I liked that it's on the darker side of the spectrum, and the aroma immediately told me that it was more Irish red than American amber, missing any sense of citric or tropical American hop. Instead there's a spice which intertwines with the caramel malt to create a kind of cola sweetness, more cube-shaped candy than fizzy drink. Red lemonade is another descriptor I wrote down, for the combination of dark sugar, fizz, and something a little drier and more peppery. Still, like these soft drinks, it's thin of body and lacks aftertaste, making it not a very satisfying experience. I'd like something similar, but in a stronger, more sippable, non-pint format.

From my initial analysis, Smithfield will likely stay confined to its owner's pub estate. These are house beers, made to meet the mass market with something easily produced, safe and replicable. I will be pleasantly, but extremely, suprised if they start something like a wild fermentation project or barrel-ageing programme on North King Street. It would be nice if they considered setting up to let punters pop in to the brewery for a pint, though.

Twelve degrees of differentiation

"Oak aged lager" is the strapline. Time was, a Czech brewery wouldn't have to specify what they aged their lagers in; sure didn't we all see Michael Jackson being chased around the Pilsner Urquell cellars by a giant oak barrel? Or did I dream that? Anyway, we live in a less enlightened age and it seem that Czech lager brewers no longer all do things the proper way. Zichovec does, apparently, and here's how that turned out.

Sinker Oak is 12° plato, or 5.1% ABV in Earth money, and looks much like an unfiltered pale Czech lager: brightly golden with a modicum of haze, but not full-on cloudy. The can was a little on the elderly side, six months past packaging and a week beyond the best before, so maybe it had settled more than the brewery intended. I can't say if it was meant to have much hop, or oak, aroma, but now it smells like a pretty standard pils, of crisp grain and a hint of damp grass. The basic, salt-of-the-earth lager is still there on tasting, but over it there's what I guess is the oak, and it's not an improvement. While it's not the sickly vanilla of an ill-chosen spirit barrel, it's a kind of dry and splintery imposition that does nothing to enhance the beer. There's a sappy stickiness: pine, but in the furniture-store varnished sense, rather than California forest floor. While it's not horrible, it does take away from what the beer could have been. I'm pinning the blame on the "craft beer" need to be different or some way innovative. Even the soulless multinational-owned Czech breweries make much better beer than this. Zichovec has tried to give us something a little different but frankly shouldn't have bothered.

I thought they would be much more in their wheelhouse with an American-style pale ale. Robin is also a twelve-degree-er but the can doesn't tell us which of those degenerate un-noble American hops have been employed, doubtless at arm's length. Under the flamboyant bouffant of foam it's a pin-bright pale golden colour, looking a bit like a light lager. Is this a Czech satire on mainstream American beer?

The aroma is invigoratingly zesty, like having a ripe lemon peeled directly under your nose. Its flavour builds on that sharpness, adding slightly oilier lime and bergamot features. As is normal when brewers from cool-fermenting countries take on warm-fermenting styles, there's a deliciously charming clean precision about the whole thing. Your citric hops are presented beautifully wrapped in a package with crisp corners and the bare essentials of added decoration. In fact, this is a better lager than the lager was: not an element is out of place. There's a decent body, showing it is genuinely warm-fermented, and there's even a soft mattress of malt smoothness supporting those hops. But the crispness, the cleanness, is joy that you mostly only get from central European brewers, and I suspect that they're not even trying.

I did not expect the pale ale from this Czech brewery to be so much better than the lager, but that's craft for you. Zichovec, like most of Ireland's breweries, seems to be trying to carve out a space separate from what the big guys are doing. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

Odds, sods and Kiwi hops

Today's selection comes from Oddity, the Barcelona-based brewing entity which uses the facilities of Whiplash in Dublin. I'm never sure whether they count for my goal of drinking as many Irish beers as I can get my hands on, but today they do.

We start light and breezy with The Gardener, described as a "zested table beer", being 3.8% ABV and including lime zest in the ingredients. It's a murky yellow shade, as table beers usually are, with quite poor head retention despite oats appearing in the ingredients as well. Zest is definitely a feature of the aroma, and it's the intense oily sort which could only be real lime. That gets sweeter on tasting but is no less prominent. It's the concentrated citrus you get in marmalade or hard candy, sitting right up front. Alas there isn't much behind it, the brewery interpreting the table beer style in quite a bland way, offering little more than a dry crispness and some slightly earthy rustic tones. I can see why they decided it needed punching up with fruit. I'm not sure this quite works as the easy-going refresher they've intended it to be. The lime is too punchy and tacked-on, while the base beer isn't clean enough, leaving a grainy residue on the palate. Perhaps bigging up the hops would have worked better.

Oddity is no stranger to the hop, as we'll see in the next three. That begins with Golden Hour, a pale ale. Again the head is problematic, with no more than a combover of bubbles, dispersing not long after pouring. Beneath, it's a densely murky pale yellow. Motueka features in the hops alongside two Americans, and dominates the picture, giving that typical medicine-cabinet herbal effect to the aroma. The flavour is more balanced, with an even mix of tropical fruit, meadowy flowers, peppery spice and a citric zest which is very much of the hop kind. Tagging along like an annoying younger sibling is the sweet vanilla typical of hazy pale ales and which contributes nothing useful. I don't mind it, and the blousey Motueka more than makes up for unwelcome noise. This is the easy-going refresher I thought the previous one would be. My only actual criticism is the ABV which, at 5.4%, is a point or so higher than the beer tastes. I'm only drinking one, and enjoying it, but I would be discouraged from doing a full session on it.

IPA next, and we're promised west coast from Between the Dots. Of course it's hazy, though only slightly. A different Kiwi hop, Riwaka, is utilised, keeping the more typically west coast Simcoe company. That gives us dank in spades: a hard resinous aroma with sweet spices, which speaks of grass in both the literal and slang meanings. It doesn't veer too far from that in the flavour, though the malt helps balance things by adding a softening richness, turning pithy bitterness to a more smoothly juicy vibe. It's a nice mingling of savoury adult flavours and sweet youthful ones. Like the above, the complexity is allied with an easy drinkability, though you would know it's all of 6.5% ABV and it demands to be treated with a commensurate level of respect. Motueka and Riwaka occupy an overlapping space in my hop literacy so it was interesting to discover, based on these last two beers, that I'm much more a fan of the latter. This may not be as assertively bitter as a classic west coast IPA, but it's beautifully clean, allowing the hops to do their thing unimpeded.

We leave the New Zealanders behind for the double IPA, favouring an all-American mix of Mosaic, Strata and BRU-1. Deep Resonance (ommmm!) is 8% ABV and a reasonably dark and dense-looking orange. Hazy, I need not even note. It doesn't have much to say in the aroma, only a broad boiled-vegetable smell with a hint of orangeade. The flavour, too, is rather plain. The hops take a back seat while the malt drives, giving it a wholesome and chewy base. That's quite satisfying to drink, but I felt entitled to some hop fireworks and instead it's a damp squib in that department. I had to check the best-before in case I had been sold an elderly pup, but the brewery reckoned it would be fine into 2025, so it wasn't that. It's by no means a bad beer, and there's a hint of fun spice in the flavour if you look closely, but it's otherwise rather vapid and lacklustre. Quite the anticlimax, and I expected better from both Oddity and Whiplash.

I didn't expect any stinkers from this lot, and there weren't any, but the set was bookended by beers which didn't sit right with me. The middle two were great, but not enough to generate much of a halo around the whole Oddity project.

Tarted up

The summer of sour and fruited beers continues with today's pair from Bullhouse Brew Co.

The first, Slurp, is described as "passionfruit sour" on the can, and is depicted accurately as an opaque orange liquid. The label helpfully tells us that it's kettle soured and has passionfruit as an add-on, though fails to mention it on the list of ingredients. At 4% ABV, it's meant for quick drinking, and I was thirsty, so drained about half the glass on the first pull. That revealed it to be a light and gently sour beer, exactly the thirst-quencher I was in need of. Both the tropical fruit and the tartness are well represented, but neither is overdone. There's a hint of sorbet on a somewhat dry grain base, and a stronger aroma of tinned tropical fruit. This beer performs its designated task of summer refresher very nicely. I have no suggestions for improving it.

Budgie Smuggler is one of those cringey beer names of the sort used to satirise modern beer branding in general. This is another kettle-soured job, though a pale ale with only (unspecified) hops adding any element of fruit. Hazy orange, once again, is the colour, and the ABV is 4.5%. There's quite a strong, curdled, sourness in the aroma but strangely it's not sour to taste. Here, there's no more than a tang of mildly tart orange juice, set on a light base. It's a little saline; a little sweaty, and is missing the bitterness which I think would help give it extra punch in the absence of any significant sourness. The promise of fresh and tangy citrus hops isn't really delivered. Like the previous beer, this seems to have been designed primarily for refreshment, but doesn't go about providing it in as interesting a way.

Kettle souring gets a bit of a bad rap, as a cheap shortcut as against proper mixed fermentation. I think there's a place for it, however. I'm all in favour of anything that makes easy-drinking fruit beers more accessible. I'd be happy to see more like Slurp in these parts.

A pilgrimage

As I mentioned on Monday, I paid a flying visit to Sheffield last month. There wasn't much time for beer drinking, but there was a window in my schedule which happened to coincide with the opening hours of a celebrated local brewery: St Mars of the Desert.

I had previously encountered Dann and Martha's wares some years ago, when they worked at the Pretty Things brewery in Boston. They since moved to England where they have been taking the beer world by storm. The brewery was a must-visit as far as I was concerned.

The location is unglamourous to say the least, tucked away in a light industrial strip on the edge of town, surrounded by car tyre and bodyshops. A unit that may itself have been a garage or similar has been kitted out as a small brewery and taproom, aided on this sunny Friday afternoon by a sizeable beer garden out front. It was buzzy with locals and the staff, running a table-service-only system, were kept on their feet. Still, the service was prompt and friendly. To drink?

The place was in the midst of its SMODfest Oktoberfest-style celebrations, and there were a couple of beers created especially for it, served from Lukr taps at the underback bar. I began with SMODfest Hell, two thirds of a pint, served in a half litre mug with a huge pillar of foam on it. They say they don't believe in styles, but this was every inch a festbier: 5.7% ABV with a chewy, filling, malt heft. An intense grassy bitterness gets the flavour going, tempered somewhat by a slight peach softness. The noble hop intensity was a little too much for me, and I was disappointed that it wasn't the refresher I had been seeking after my journey. Still, there was a definite raw and rustic charm about it which was hard not to enjoy.

I recall Jack D'Or being the name of a saison by Pretty Things, and it seems they've transferred that to the new brewery. There's still not much refreshment on offer as it's 5.8% ABV. It's clear, though, which I thought unusual for a saison, and I was a little unsettled by a plasticky tang from the aroma. The flavour is clean, however, with more of the old-world bitterness I found in the festbier. Saison's earthiness is still present, but in a supporting role to the hops. It's a little unorthodox, and I'm sure that's by design, but it's enjoyable too, in quite a grown-up way. The return of that tiny echo of stonefruit is the only nod towards our current fashion for lots of fruity hops.

At this stage I was gasping for something lighter so chose Stingo: Apricot & Peach, a fruited sour ale, though a big enough one at 5% ABV. It introduces itself with an intense aroma of tinned peaches but leaves that behind in the flavour, where a mineral sourness is the central feature. Not much complexity is on offer beyond this, though I did detect a very slightly cheesy funk late on. Still, it did the job of properly quenching my thirst, and I didn't really have any other requirements of it. I think it could probably have done that just as well at a lower ABV, however.

I was intrigued by what was meant by a "koelship IPA" and Dann explained that it's a quirk of their system: they don't have a whirlpool to put late hops in, so they use a more old-fashioned shallow copper cooler and hop the IPA there. As a brewery with New England roots, this is their take on New England's IPA. Fantastico! is 6% ABV and hopped with Nectaron and Citra. It's a very pale yellow and only moderately hazy. That burnt plastic tang I got from the saison was back in the aroma here, and the juicy fruit which one might have thought would be the main flavour is dialled well back. Instead it's another quite bitter one, with concentrated grassy hop resins coating the palate, finishing on a jaw-pinching lime-peel rasp. Anyone looking for juicy haze here will be disappointed. I have to say I liked this more serious and adult take on the style, one that isn't trying to convince you it's secretly a soft drink.

A beer that caught my eye as soon as I picked up the menu was recommended as the last beer to try. This is the innocent-sounding Smoky Bock: three syllables that it turned out have a lot going on behind them, starting with the substantial 6.9% ABV. It arrived a medium amber colour with a slight haze. I think I've had more misses than hits when drinking smoked beers from non-German microbreweries, but this was an absolute hit, expressing perfectly the smooth and meaty smoke effect that the best of them do. There's a note of caramel which slides into a maple-cured bacon smoky richness. And no off-flavours: no unwelcome phenols or the kippery tang that plagues lesser examples. Once again they haven't gone for complexity, or tried to stack flavour upon flavour. It barely counts as a novelty beer, so well-composed and balanced a lager it is. Despite all the busy smoke and high gravity, it was still enormously sinkable in that Bavarian way, which I appreciated as my leaving time drew nigh.

I'm glad I stopped by. St Mars of the Desert is a charming spot; a brewery that could really be anywhere in the modern beer world, doing things in its own unique way. I overheard that they're on a limited lease, so I recommend catching this incarnation some Friday or Saturday afternoon, before they move on to the next one.

Making the best of it

My regular July visit to England for work this year was Sheffield, which should have been excellent news from the beer perspective. The South Yorkshire city last hosted the conference in 2016 and I enjoyed the extensive exploring I got to do in my spare hours. Alas, the event is now a day shorter, and the venue was a little bit out of the centre, so no such epics were possible this time round. I did, however, manage to make it over to Kelham Island for a couple of swift beers there.

I wasn't a fan of the Kelham Island Tavern the first time I visited. The beer selection is excellent, but it has always been uncomfortably loud and crowded, and so it was again. I took my pint of Left Handed Giant's Dark Mild out to the alley that passes as a beer garden and sulked through it there. It added an extra layer of disappointment to the experience, looking good -- a clear dark garnet -- but tasting quite plain. Sweet cereal is the bulk of it, like honeyed porridge, and then an off-kilter tang of cork oak. Though only 3.4% ABV, it's quite heavy and took me a while to get through. There was no sign of the coffee roast I look for in mild, nor any dark fruit. A little chocolate arrived towards the end, but not enough to redeem the beer for me. I wasn't staying for another.

Happily, one only has to go around the corner to find a much better pub experience at The Fat Cat. It was a warm Thursday afternoon and there was a sizeable crowd out in the beer garden, leaving me with the lounge bar almost to myself. Why not start with the house beer?

Since the adjacent Kelham Island brewery closed in 2022, that's brewed elsewhere in Sheffield by Neepsend. Fat Cat House Ale is a big 5.2% ABV, making it the strongest beer they had on cask that day. To my palate it's very much a northern bitter: golden coloured with a waxy, zesty bitterness. The strength adds a sweetness, resulting in a kind of dessertish lemon cheesecake effect with a dusting of sherbet. While it's clean, it's chewy as well, and rewards slow sipping. Again, I don't know that I'd be on for a session on it, but it's no cheaply-made and boring house beer. The conscientious high quality fits the pub well.

Next, I was intrigued by the pumpclip for Ponte Carlo or Bust, described as a liquorice stout, by Chin Chin, a Yorkshire brewery I hadn't heard of. It turned out to be just as interesting as suggested. Though only 4.6% ABV, it has lots going on in the taste. A light toasty roast and some mild caramel is provided by the base beer and then there's a strange but delicious savoury herbal side, reminding me of Fisherman's Friend lozenges. I assume this is from the liquorice and, if so, it's the raw, unprocessed and unsweetened sort, not the candy. It's all very balanced and complementary and not the brash novelty I had been expecting. I can't imagine why they thought it would work, but it does, beautifully.

I was about to head off again when I noticed there was a black IPA on, which naturally meant staying for another half. This is Human Menagerie by Wensleydale brewery. It arrived from the cask looking nitrokegged, with a smooth and even off-white head. They've used Citra and Simcoe to great effect, bringing sharp resins and crisp red cabbage first, before the coffee roast of the dark beer takes over. Delicious, and hitting the points of the style exactly how I like them. Of course, the Americans do these bigger and brasher, which is enjoyable in its own way, but I think there's also a place for a little English subtlety in black IPA too, and this performed extremely well for a beer that's only 4.2% ABV.

That was me done there, but on the way back I noticed a micropub, called Two & Six, in the typically micropub setting of a row of shops. It's one of the more normal pub-like ones, with a proper bar and taps, selling both cask and keg on draught. I chose Rakau Pale by Blackedge Brewing of Lancashire. This is another lightweight, being only 3.9% ABV, but still has plenty of punch, delivering tartly bitter lime first, and then smoother, sweeter, lemon meringue pie afterwards. A typically Kiwi grassy bitterness builds alongside as it goes, but at no point do any of the flavours tread on each others' toes or make the beer difficult. It's all very well integrated, balanced, and above all classy. New Zealand's hops are as at home in low-strength English cask ale as they are in lagers and IPAs.

I do love a legacy bitter, and the hotel bar had one: Stones Bitter, a Victorian brand from Sheffield, these days brewed by Molson Coors and nitrokegged. I wasn't expecting much from it but it's actually quite pleasant. Smooth, of course, but with some actual flavour: floral and perfumey. There's a dry base behind this, so it doesn't taste gloopy or sticky. It's inoffensive, bordering on decent, and that's plenty for me where nitro bitter is concerned.

I left Sheffield, of course, via The Sheffield Tap in the railway station. Here the selection included another mild: Dark Masquerade, by Half Moon Brewery. This 3.4% ABV offering was far more to my taste than the earlier one, being loaded with rich milk chocolate flavours, all creamy and crumbly like a Cadbury Flake. No roast, or anything much by way of complexity, but it made up for it in richness. Simple and fabulous.

A beer from the in-house brewery was only polite, so my fast last glass was Tapped Brew Toha, a pale ale which was also only 3.4% ABV. This is very much a bitter before anything else, being dry and punchy, with a full texture that's almost creamy. It's designed first and foremost for drinking. Which isn't to say it's bland. The hops (Nelson Sauvin and Nectaron) have given it plenty of character, including a Germanic bite of freshly picked spinach and a twist of lime bitterness. One might have thought there would be more fruit on offer from those two varieties, but I'm not complaining. I haven't always got along with Tapped's beers but this one suited me fine.

Time didn't allow for a cheeky half on the way through Manchester so my next, and final, beer was at the airport. Seven Bro7hers is based in Salford and has one tap at Terminal 1's Bar MCR, which is otherwise AB InBev dominated. I had a pint of that: Easy IPA. This, 4.7% ABV on keg, is a good example of what other breweries might call a session IPA. Indeed, it has much in common with Ireland's own Little Fawn, being pale yellow and very slightly hazy, smelling of melon and lychee. The flavour doesn't quite live up to that promise, being a little grainy and somewhat savoury. It's still good, especially when trying to unwind in a busy airport departures area on a warm summer's day.

Then I went home. I'm not quite done with Sheffield yet, however, and next I'll tell you about the brewery I visited.

Rascalypso

Seems they're on bit of a fruity kick at Rascals: two cans of citrusy interest, released for the summer season.

I'll start on the lager: Yuzu Pilsner, a collaboration with Kaapse Brouwers and containing the titular Japanese citrus fruit. I confess that yuzu beers in the past haven't impressed me much. It doesn't seem to be a very bold flavour. The visuals here did suggest something other than a vapid lager, pouring a rich amber colour. The aroma is quite grainy, with only a vague lemon-ish tang perceptible. To taste it's clean and extremely crisp. 4.4% ABV makes it light, and it's almost oriental in its dryness. I had to check the ingredients to see if they used rice, but they haven't. The yuzu side is present but subtle. It's a complementary sort of flavour; a seasoning rather than a full-on ingredient. There's none of the foghorn syrupy fruit that plagues other novelty lagers. It's less intense than lemon or lime, but is very much in that corner of the flavour spectrum. I think this would make an excellent accompaniment to Japanese or Chinese food. It shares a lightness of touch that the familiar beers from those countries have, adding a fun but non-intrusive fruit side. Bring me sushi!

Lemon & Lime Sour is a special they've done for Aldi, following on from the Session IPA a couple of months ago. Like that one, it's 3.8% ABV, and it's a pale hazy yellow in the glass. Unsurprisingly it smells of lime, for the most part, in that slightly processed way, like shower gel or cordial. Both fruits are listed in the ingredients in both concentrate and zest forms. The sour side is not so prominent on tasting. It's no puckering enamel stripper, nor a riot of wild flavour-emitting bugs and yeast strains. It's plainly, simply soured, creating a clean cereal base with just a little soda-water acidity. That makes room for the citrus, but it's not overdone either, contributing in quite a natural and subtle way. It definitely doesn't taste like a big tub of sugary gloop was emptied into the kettle; it tastes real and, well, zesty. I mentioned that the Session IPA was the sort of budget supermarket beer you buy in bulk for summer entertaining, and this is exactly in that space too. Your non-geek party guests will get a beer that's really interesting while not out-there or scary. It's Aldi, so don't expect anything too advanced from this, but it's a quality offering, and well worth a look.

I enjoyed both of these. It's interesting how recipes which might once have been considered daring in their use of unconventional ingredients can now be fitted in as part of the normal beer landscape, of the sort you find in supermarkets. That's a sign of a healthy beer scene, I think.

Rí-freshment

I reported on Rí-Rá Lager a year ago, and now the Wicklow brewer has released a second beer. Well, sort of. Rí-Rá Lager Shandy is presumably based on the original, but cut down to 2.8% ABV with the addition of pineapple and grapefruit fizz, for a "totally tropical taste"™. There aren't many Irish radlers in circulation, so I was genuinely pleased to find this one: a very low-alcohol option that doesn't have the problems of non-alcoholic beers. Or at least shouldn't have.

However, it turned out that it's not really a substitute for proper beer any more than they are. The fruit syrup is laid on... generously, making it taste far more like the soft drink it's trying to ape than a lager. On the aroma that's rather artificial, with an almost metallic tang. This effect shows up in the aftertaste as well. The main flavour is quite tasty, as long as you have a good tolerance for sweetness. Pineapple is dominant, although there is a minor countermelody of citrus, albeit not identifiable as grapefruit specifically. I guess the colour has been affected by the additives as well: it's the pale gold of a glass of white wine, something that you just don't get from malt.

In fairness to the brewery, they make no claims for this other than it's refreshing, and it is. Drink it cold enough and the cloying syrup doesn't get a chance to kick in properly. I'd be wary of following it with a second, any more than I'd drink Lilt or Fanta by the litre. I give it a cautious welcome, but Schöfferhofer and Stiegl do this kind of thing better.

A second chance

There's hope for us all, I like to think. Today's beers aren't the first to come from a brewery premises whose earliest wares I didn't care for and thought poorly made, but under new management seem to have been turned around. Investment in better equipment? Less corner-cutting? Or just a more highly skilled brewer? I don't know. I do know that the beers from the Hillstown brewery in Co. Antrim were usually a raft of off-flavours, of the homebrew rookie sort. It seems that there's a new broom about the place now, going by the friendly and approachable name of Modest Beer.

It's hard to guess where on the label the name of the product, as against the description, is. For the first, I'm going with Fruit Salad, the can label also would like us to know it's "tart & refreshing" and "mango & strawberry". That's plenty to tell me what to expect. In the glass it's a densely opaque orange, looking like mixed tropical juice. Is it tart and refreshing? Not really. There is a decent kick of tartness, I will grant it that, but even though it's only 4.8% ABV it's not light bodied and the mild sourness does not translate to palate-scrubbing cleanness. It's a bit gloopy; a bit fruit-concentrate. Not sweet, but thick and chewy. More fizz would be welcome, instead of the slightly soupy effect we get instead. I couldn't taste either fruit distinctly, the mango lost in a fleshy mish-mash that could be anything; the strawberry arriving late and easily missed by drinkers who weren't looking for it. This doesn't work for me. It's a bit rough: sharp and difficult. As fruit beers go, it's not the classy sort.

My standard way to judge any unfamiliar brewery is with their pilsner, and Modest gave me two of them. The simplest offer is Fragrant & Refreshing, which is 5% ABV -- generous for an Irish take on the style. In the glass it's almost totally transparent, with just a tiny level of acceptable haze. Despite Magnum, Saaz and Hallertau Mittelfrüh, the aroma is more malt-forward than hop: crisp cracker, with only the faintest of damp vegetation in the background. The fireworks begin with the mouthfeel: gorgeously smooth and creamy, taking full advantage of that above-average ABV and doing a superb impression of how top-tier German breweries do the style. The flavour they've set on it is also beautiful, the hops to the fore, at once tangy and spicy: a squeeze of citrus, a smear of stonefruit flesh and then Saaz's warm damp grass effect. Yet it's not busy or any way weird. All is balanced and integrated, again, just like the Germans do it. It's maybe a bit strong to quaff litres and litres of it in one sitting but... I think I might like to give that a go. Great Irish pils does not come along very often and I'm delighted to have found this one.

That had me expecting great things from Sweet As: Pilsner. It looks to be a similar deal: a pale and slightly cloudy 5% ABV pils, except here the hops are Motueka and Riwaka. For all that these are German-derived varieties, the experience is quite different. The aroma is massively fruitsome, giving off mango and cantaloupe to beat the band. Its flavour is a little more restrained: still tropical, but bringing back the crispness and a clean dry finish, to remind you it's definitely a proper pilsner and not simply another IPA. While tasty, it's somewhat simpler than its stablemate, and I don't think that's only because there's one fewer hops in it.

My learnings from trying these two side-by-side is that the Kiwis may have better PR in the Anglophone beer world, but the Germans still absolutely bring the quality. Regardless, these are two excellent beers, whatever one's hop predilections.

When testing a new brewery, I often don't bother with an IPA, but again it was the promise of New Zealand hops which made one irresistable. This is Complex Notes: 6% ABV and hopped with two processed forms of Nelson Sauvin. It's a bright and dense hazy yellow, smelling sweetly tropical, of mango and pineapple. Nelson can go this way, or a harder mineral-oil bitterness, and the flavour is mostly fruit driven too. I got pleasant sorbet-like orange and lemon, with softer honeydew melon and juicy mandarin. There's a token pinch of bitterness in the finish, but not Nelson's heavy-dank herbal effect, which I found I missed. It's a good hazy IPA, and that's never a given for the style. However, there's nothing especially distinctive about it. Good is good enough.

OK, there may have been something of a bias in my choices, because the next one is New Zealand-hopped too. Sweet As: NZ Brown Ale utilises Nelson with Motueka and is 4.8% ABV. It looks a bit muddy in the glass, a pale-ish chocolate brown and completely opaque. The aroma is crisp and bready, and a little stale with it, while the flavour opens on a sharp and slightly vinegary tang. Maybe this is what happens when you put pungent Kiwi hops in a sweet and smooth brown ale, but if so, it creates an effect like a beer which is not quite right. It's a clash, basically: the hop acidity burning into rich and coffeeish brown and chocolate malt. I don't think either of them gets a benefit from it. As well as the flavour clash, the texture is a bit thin, reducing the malt richness further. The Munich/Chocolate/Brown/Oats bill promises a great deal which isn't really delivered. It says on the can that this is an experiment, and if the brewery is considering another brown ale, I suggest going normcore with the hops and giving the gravity a boost.

And a stout to finish off. Deep & Toasty is a standard session strength of 4.3% ABV. It looks a little brown and murky in the glass, though the old-ivory head is classical. It smells heady and rich, far stronger than it is, with enticing notes of tiramisu and Irish coffee: definitely roast rather than toast, with vanilla and liqueur for extra luxury. The flavour is drier than that was all leading me to expect. Coffee is still at the centre, but it's a morning's espresso, not an evening's dessert. There's quite a busy sparkle, adding to the dryness, and a quick finish which does show a few sparks of flinty burnt toast. It's a simple flavour profile, and makes for quite a refreshing light-bodied stout, yet still with enough character to be worthwhile. Modest, you might say.

Six beers from a brewery I was suspicious of was a gamble, but I think it paid off. Nothing here was badly made, even if I didn't always appreciate the brewer's intention. For all the headline modesty, there is plenty of daring in the recipes. I will definitely be back for more from this outfit.

... and friends

They're a collaborative bunch at Hopfully. Today's three were co-created with a diverse set of co-conspirators.

For the first one, they're the guests. Jonah was brewed at Bullhouse, and when these two breweries got together, they chose to defy our expectations of both with... a hazy IPA. Ah lads. It's an opaque eggy yellow colour with a milkshake froth on top. The New Zealand hops bring a lovely tropical fruit character to the aroma: ripe, sweet and fleshy. The foretaste opens on vanilla, but that's brief. Afterwards it's incredibly juicy, pushing cool mandarin segments, moist coconut and a rub of tropical lime. If the fruit side of New Zealand hops is more appealing than the harder mineral bitterness then this is the hazy IPA for you. Impressively, too, it's only 5% ABV and there's no excess heat, as well as no savoury garlic or caraway. This just works. I was sceptical up top, but it really is the coming together of two breweries who have proven track records of great hazy IPA, sharing their expertise for the drinkers' benefit.

And now for something completely different... from anything else. Hopfully teamed up with Waterford distillery Blackwater to create Farmland, badged as a "farmhouse ale blend" but really defying classification. They don't tell us much about the base beer(s), only that pear and elderflower were added to it and it was aged separately in cherry brandy and rye whiskey barrels before blending. The finished piece is 10.1% ABV, a pale shade of amber and fizzes noisily in the glass when poured. From all the ingredients and process aids, it's the pear that shines brightest in the flavour. Behind it, there's a rough and headachey solvent twang, all nail varnish remover and whiteboard markers. Although the texture is light, there's no doubt as to the alcohol, with a palate-scorching heat in effect. There should be all manner of complexity here, given the production method, but even the aroma has nothing to offer above booze and pears. I had no choice but to drink the 440ml can slowly, and I can safely say that at no point did I detect anything resembling cherry brandy, elderflower, or even the basics of saison, assuming that's what the recipe started out as. I'm all for daring experimentation and taking beer to places it hasn't been before, but here it just didn't work. Maybe some Brettanomyces in the mix would have added what it needs.

I like a sour IPA, though I don't think I've had a double one before. This is Horseman, created in collaboration with To Øl. It's 8.3% ABV and hopped with Citra, Riwaka and Motueka, and smells much as you'd expect: intensely herbal with lots of bitter citric zest. The addition of actual lemon probably helps with that. I get a strong sense of the souring culture as well, adding a sharp flinty mineral edge to the aroma. It's a mostly opaque orange colour, with a fine foam initially, but which faded away indecently quickly. Also in the ingredients is vanilla, and while I couldn't smell it, it's very prominent in the foretaste, making it sweet and dessertish to begin; quite the opposite of sour. The flinty tang I got in the aroma is there too, but the edge has been knocked off it, while the fruit, and fruity hops, are sweet and cordial-like. What were they thinking with that vanilla? This could have been delightfully tart and zesty, and the alcohol is well hidden, but instead it's a chewy confection -- colourful, but a bit silly. At least the label is appropriate, then.

Collaboration beers should quite rightly be about doing daring and different things, and that's certainly the case for the latter two beers here. That neither of them were quite to my taste is immaterial. Keep experimenting and maybe I'll like the next one more. Or the one after that.

Lough around

It's a little surprising that, in today's cosmopolitan beer environment, we still cling to the notion of types of beer deriving from specific places. It's cute. Hazy IPA belongs to the world, for good or ill, but we still connect it to New England, and probably always will.

An upshot is that you can get a taste of the whole planet without leaving, for example, suburban Sligo. Here are two new beers from Lough Gill, channelling specific places.

Pine Road is a west coast (of the United States) IPA. That accords it a golden clarity, though it should also include alcoholic heft and significant bitterness. Unfortunately it's only 4.5% ABV and is sweetly tropical, thanks to Azacca and Comet hops. I doubt anyone visiting from the western US would find it an accurate representation of the beer their home territory is known for. It is, however, absolutely delicious. Once you get past the misnomer and misrepresentation of style, there's a fresh, bright and fun session beer, full of melon, mango and summer meadows. It finishes a bit quick due to the low gravity, so approach it as a thirst-quencher rather than a considered sipper. Every healthy beer scene needs both.

With the exception of Belgian theme-brewery Mescan, few Irish producers bother with the Belgian blond style. It's not that difficult to find it at discount prices in the supermarkets, I guess, so why try and make a premium version? Lough Gill did anyway, and here's Irish Abbey: 6.7% ABV and including candy sugar and coriander. For me, the style ought to taste of honey, and this does, with only a mild buzz of banana behind it. There's a certain botanic layer floating over this, which may be from the Belgian yeast, but I'm certain the coriander is adding a modicum of savouriness too. Throw in some fun clove and almond as it warms. I wouldn't say it tastes authentically Belgian: breweries there add the digestible lightness of touch to their blonde ales; this is no 8%+ madman, but still tastes and feels hefty.

For all their sense of place, then, neither of these really offers a channel to somewhere else. The one up top certainly isn't the kind of beer I'd expect to find other than on this island, or the one next door. And that perhaps demonstrates an even more fun fact about beer: for all the place-based style strictures, individual variety is always present, and makes hunting out new takes an endlessly rewarding experience.

Beach bunny

Today's beers were a bit of a new departure for Kinnegar. They created a mixed four-pack of summer specials, keenly priced, I thought, at €13 in Molloy's. I presume that Kinnegar's regular "Brewers At Play" small-batch series fed into the development of these ones, as some of the styles have shown up once or twice in that sequence.

First out of the box, however, was one they haven't done before: Raspberry Grisette, a farmhouse ale, the orange-pink colour of rhubarb pie filling. Grisettes aren't usually sour, but here the fruit has added a tartness which makes the aroma seem a little like something more wild-fermented. I thought there would be a bit more of a funky, flowery, farmhouse flavour, but the raspberries reign in the taste. It's very real; not sweetly jammy or candy-like, but still juicy with an assertive acidity. The finish is quick, though it's not watery, having a soft and pillowy wheat-enhanced body.  As a summer refresher with something different going on, it works well. If the character were sustainable at ABVs below its 3.8%, it could even be an excellent upgrade on a radler. There was only one in the box, but a couple more would have gone down well straight after.

A Pilsner was in order before we hit the hops. Kinnegar generally knows its way around lager, so I wasn't expecting anything untoward here. It's a pale one, despite a substantial 5% ABV, and very slightly hazed. There's a surprisingly new-world-smelling lemony aroma, and this takes a strange but fun turn on tasting. The hop profile is... strong... and I always like that in a pilsner. Although, usually, the hops bring familiar zaps of grassy Saaz or herbal Hallertau. This one suggested to me those modern German hops which are aimed at copying the Americans: Saphir, Mandarina Bavaria, Hüll Melon, and the like. A glance at the label tells me it's done with non-specified New Zealand hops, which makes sense. There's definite citrus zest, bitter to the point of pithy, and then something altogether more earthy and vegetal. The Sorachi Ace taste-a-likes seem to have gone out of hop fashion recently, but I got a little of that vibe here. Which is to say, this is a somewhat odd but very tasty pilsner.

Inevitably there was haze in the box, represented by a 4.5% ABV Hazy Pale Ale. Oats in the grist make it another full-bodied one, with a properly fluffy body. On this there's typical vanilla and zesty yellow chew sweets, but a balancing citric bitterness too, making it all seem much more grown up. There's enough of haze's good points and few enough of its downsides to give this broad appeal. Those who are generally well-disposed to what cloudy pale ale brings will find much to enjoy in it. Haze sceptics, however, should also appreciate this as a well-honed example, showing none of the really unpleasant features the genre sometimes, too often, evokes. If the thought of a hazy pale ale puts you off committing to the box, it shouldn't.

After this, a theory was emerging about the theme here. The last beer would settle it.

This is a Cold IPA, still not breaking the bank on ABV at 5.3%. Lots of foam on this one, and it's a clear pale golden. The theory is holding. There's not much aroma, so for a lager/IPA hybrid it's doing a poor job on the IPA front. The flavour doesn't quite gel either. Where I expected a big up-front kick of hops, there's nothing really. It's only in the finish — too late, frankly — that there's an echo of fading zest. A tiny burst of white onion acidity ensures compliance with the broad cold IPA specifications. In front of that it's very plain, having a decent heft in the mouthfeel but without even the grainy foretaste of most bland lagers. It's the refined blandness of a highly processed industrial beer, which is not what it is, and I'm sure not what it's meant to be. I think that an attempt to make it lager-clean has malfunctioned, Incredible Hulk style.

My theory, and it's not an especially insightful one, is that all four are drrrrrrinkin' beers. You're meant to have this box in your cooler box, outdoors, possibly in one of the handful of public spaces in this country where it's legal to drink alcohol. They're fire-and-forget thirst-quenchers, and if I'm correct that that's what they're meant to be, then big applause for making them so interesting. Accessible beer does not have to be bland. The Cold IPA didn't suit me as much, but I still finished it happy.

An addendum is another Kinnegar summer beer, one that has been making appearances on draught around the country recently. It's a ginger beer called Jackrabbit: 4% ABV and, when I ordered it in The Back Page, it came served with a wedge of lime and a couple of shakes of Angostura Bitters. It's a murky orange colour in the glass, and mildly spicy, like a cola. Thirst-quenching and fizzy is about all I can say about it. The flavour doesn't offer much ginger, which is a little disappointing, though perhaps explains the pub's desire to garnish it. I see this more as a mixer than a standalone drink.

As a brewery named after a beach, it's very much on-brand for Kinnegar to lean into the summer beers like this. It would be nice to have a counterpart 4-pack for winter, though.

Dry Sierra

It takes a lot of prompting to get me to try any non-alcoholic beer. Choice has never been greater, but by and large they just don't taste like real beer. That goes especially for the lager and pale ale versions, which seem to make up the bulk of the segment. Anyway, I've heard good things about today's pair, enough to make me go out and buy them. Both are from trustworthy US stalwart Sierra Nevada.

First up is Trail Pass Golden, which is indeed golden, and west-coast clear. The aroma is lightly lemony, although I also get a hint of the excess sweetness which usually plagues non-alcoholic beer. Sure enough, the flavour is highly sugary, suggesting a diluted orange cordial rather than a beer. In its favour it doesn't have the clanging metallic off-flavour that's another common problem with these, but that's not much comfort. I guess they're going for the lager market with this, and if non-alcoholic lager is something you drink regularly, then here's an inoffensive, clean-tasting, thirst-quenching example. As a beer substitute, however, it misses the mark significantly.

It being Sierra Nevada, I thought Trail Pass IPA would be amber coloured, but it turned out to be a very pale yellow, and slightly murky too. The aroma is much sweeter than the previous one, that light lemon zest becoming full-on fruit-chew candy. Strangely, there's not much of anything in the flavour this time. It's certainly not overly sweet, and has quite a pleasant dry cracker-like malt base. The hops, again, are orangey, tasting a bit dull and artificial, with none of the intensity that a proper American IPA ought to have. There's also a twang of that metallic aspirin effect, meaning it's not really much different to most other alcohol-free IPAs, which is unfortunate. I wouldn't trade a real beer for this one either.

And so my scepticism continues. If Sierra Nevada can't make a convincing non-alcoholic pale beer, I'm not sure anyone else will.