Stan's suitcase

Mr Stan Hieronymus visited Ireland in September and I was happy to be able to meet for a couple of pints in Dublin shortly after he arrived. I was good enough to take a couple of cans which he had shipped over off his hands, to save him shlepping them around the country.

First, and perhaps least remarkable, is the 2024 Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, this year a collaboration with Gutmann of Titting, Bavaria's most romantic-sounding brewery. It looks like a modern festbier, being a bright clear golden. The ABV is on the high side at 6%. That does the job of giving it a voll und süffig body, with lots of dense fresh white bread leading the flavour. The hops bring quite a spiky bitterness, beyond grass and salad and into quite an English profile, of earth and zinc. A tiny note of celery in the finish is the only confirmation that the hops (Hersbrucker, Loral, Saphir and Spalter) are definitely German. From that list I would have expected something a bit more modern, but this is as trad as they come, small can notwithstanding. It's certainly streets ahead of the orange and sticky Oktoberfest beer which I'm guessing too many American breweries still produce, but here in Europe, this isn't very distinctive and different. It's satisfactory.

The other can came from one of Stan's local breweries in Colorado, Lyric. It's a double IPA called Can Full of Gas and is one of those eggy-looking hazy double IPAs, the full 8% ABV. It smells quite minerally, with the sort of kerosene effect I sometimes get from Nelson Sauvin, as well as dry plasterboard grit and some softer lemon and lime candy. Nelson is indeed one of the hops used, along with Riwaka. It's full-bodied and slick, feeling barely carbonated despite the substantial head. There's a rawness about the hops; a concentrated leafiness that makes it taste a little dreggy. That gives it a hard bitter finish, before which it's pleasantly citric, with a faint smoky burnt note, presumably from whatever was making it smell like kerosene. There's a certain amount of lemon meringue pie sweetness mixed in with this, but the leafy bitterness prevails. I guess it's a decent example of this sort of strong super-hopped beer, but it's not really to my taste, feeling a little rough or unfinished to me. I'm sure it has its fans though.

Thanks for the beers Stan, and I hoped you and Daria enjoyed your visit to Ireland.