Clock this

I'm used to Irish breweries having a long gestation, from the first announcement by some ballsy entrepreneur to actually being able to drink a pint they brewed can be a long stretch, and often the second part never actually happens. So I was agog at how fast things moved with Changing Times. The news that a consortium of prominent Dublin publicans had bought the old Kepak warehouse in Glanevin and were planning to set up a brewery in it only landed last July. Since then we've seen Franciscan Well co-founder Shane Long and former Trouble and Hope brewer Mark Nixon become associated with the project, and now only four months later, there's actual beer pouring.

The consortium of owners includes The Palace pub in Temple Bar, and that's where I went on the day after the high-profile launch to try out the first two. Any excuse to visit such a fine establishment.

Daydreamer is the lager, described on the badge as "snappy". It's a very pubbable 4.2% ABV and arrived extremely cold, with a €7.60 tab -- priced on a par with other independent beers. There wasn't much to say about it at first: lots of fizz and a tiny amount of haze on the pale yellow body. Given a moment, there's a pleasant cracker crispness (snappiness? sure, why not), and a moment later brings some Germanic hopping. That adds a different sort of crispness: crunchy green vegetables. With the pint half empty and warmed a little, there's a threat of butteriness in the aroma but the flavour stays clean and dry. This has the basics of decent lager, and certainly isn't a clone of the cut-corner big brands. At the same time, however, it's no connoisseur's lager and only hints at the fun you can have with good pilsner, Helles or the like. If the mainstream lager drinkers aren't completely tied to the familiar labels, this offers an alternative of acceptable quality. I'm guessing that's what it's meant to do.

Launching alongside is the pale ale, After Hours. They've put "hazy" on the badge, but it's not really much cloudier than the lager. Sorry, hazebros: nothing for you here. It's 4.2% ABV again, which puts in a competitive space with Little Fawn, but it's nowhere near that quality. The aroma is broadly about American hops, with a certain amount of pine resin, though nothing overboard. The texture is thin, and fizz is again central, something much less acceptable in a pale ale than a lager. In the flavour, the hops make a valiant effort to be heard, but can't quite manage it sufficiently. There are token quantities of juice and dank with minimal bitterness, so it fits the hazy profile in the most basic way but, to me, comes across like an Ambush that's been run under the cold tap. It's not offensive, bad, or poorly made, but it tastes cheap and dumbed-down. This sort of beer was radical in Ireland a decade and more ago. These days, I think even mainstream pale ale drinkers will find it lacks character. I wouldn't be fully confident that it's a trade-up from fresh Hop House 13.

So... I don't really know who these beers are for. I can't see any drinkers of the big brands making the switch, when they've already turned down the pre-existing alternatives. And this goes even more for the third in the range, Clockwork stout, arriving soon. Equally, there's not much to attract the seasoned drinker of microbrewed beers. I see After Hours working as a distress purchase, but I think most of us would prefer a Little Fawn, Ambush, Scraggy Bay or Galway Hooker. It's disturbing to hear already of independent breweries' taplines being removed from pubs which are part of the brewery consortium.

A brand new brewery means lots of new potential, but I'm not seeing that realised to any great extent in the first two beers.