I couldn't let the odometer flip into another year without clearing the backlog of assorted Irish-brewed pale ales that has been accumulating since late summer. Here's what I've got: Electromode from Lineman is a straightforward pale ale in the American style, hopped with Azacca, Simcoe and Columbus. It's pretty hazy, but dark with it: a warm sunset orange. I associate Azacca with chewy fruit candy, and I get that in the aroma. The flavour goes more for juice: naturalistic notes of apricot, satsuma and Golden Delicious apples. Simcoe's harder bitterness represents at the end, giving a more assertive, grown-up, finish. The haze doesn't interfere with any of it: all is clean and clear despite appearances. This is veey much a typical Lineman beer, precision engineered for both complexity and accessibility.
"If I brewed a Pliny clone I'd be happy if it came out like that" said Dave in the pub of Underline, a double IPA by Lineman in collaboration with said pub, UnderDog. It's a little stronger than the California icon at 8.3% ABV, but Dave's not wrong, inasmuch as I remember Pliny. This is very much in the west-coast genre, a paleish clear amber and going big on the dry citrus rind set on a background of lightly caramelised malt. After a moment, a more intense bitterness emerges, of pine resin, leaning towards raw hop leaf but stopping short of harsh. Stopping short of everything, in fact: the finish is clean and there's little sign of all the booze. We're in dangerously drinkable territory here, as perhaps befits a strong beer made for a pub. I commend it to everyone hankering after the double IPAs of yesteryear, or all the youngsters wondering what their grandparents drank in the craft beer bars of 2012.
But back to the more sessionable stuff, and Sunrise In The Clouds, the latest hazy pale ale from Cork's Hopsicle brand, still brewing in Dublin at Third Barrel, as far as I'm aware. Sure why would you change? This one is 4.9% ABV and hazy as you like (or hazier): a dense custard yellow. The name comes from the use of Pacific Sunrise hops, along with Citra and Motueka. That seems like quite a diverse combination but it works really well, starting juicy as advertised before adding balanced herbal and citric bitterness: contrast without conflict. Despite the appearance, there's no mucky dregs anywhere in the taste, and the mouthfeel is as full and soft as any decent hazy pale ale. This is very good, honest, by-the-pint, fun. It's highly unfashionable to find something so on-trend at a sub-5% ABV but it can be done without compromising the experience, and maybe more brewers should give it a go. 
Is there something a bit Sierra Nevada going on with Northwest from Lough Gill? It matches that guy's classic 5.6% ABV and is the same deep copper colour. The aroma gives me a little resin, but not to the extent of the original. If that was the intention, the flavour makes it clear that it failed. This is a rather dull affair, offering caramel and a twiggy malt base. What hops you get are earthy, suggesting Cascade, with citrus elements but no fun zest. It's a slog: you have to pile through crystal malt toffee and hard-bitter American hops, and I don't think it's worth it. Sierra Nevada includes a clean drinkability that's missing here. The sharpness is fun but it doesn't deliver on any other fronts. Perhaps trying to copy a classic isn't a great idea.
They've also bopped out a session IPA called Sesh, a name freed up by the tragic demise of last year's Sesh Beer Project. It does the fundamentals, being 4.2% ABV and clear gold, looking for all the world like a pale lager. And the taste doesn't exactly break the mould, but it gets everything right, going bitter and classical with grapefruit and lime rind. It's clean, refreshing and assertive, and fulfils a bitterness niche that Scraggy Bay, Little Fawn and Ambush have left unoccupied. I wish it well.
The latest wild-fermented and barrel-aged special from Wide Street will be reviewed in another post in the near future, but they also recently launched a hazy IPA called The Sequence. It's an ordinary looking affair, promising lots and lots of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops, landing at a medium 5.4% ABV. It looks pretty medium too, a very standard hazy orange, though with a prodigiously huge bouffant of white foam on top. The aroma offers that highly-prized combination of orangey icepop and vanilla ice cream: yes, we're in The Supersplit Zone. The vanilla doesn't come through to the flavour, however, so this isn't one of those fluffy and sweet hazy jobs. Instead, the texture is light and crisp, and while the flavour is very juicy, it's more like high-end orangeade with bits in it, than actual pulpy juice. But that's OK: it gives it a very refreshing character, providing a ray of summer sunshine in the depths of this winter. All three hops are playing their part, but to me this tasted like a showcase for Galaxy in particular. And that's no hardship. 
Rascals steps in next, with a collaboration IPA they made with Bullhouse of Belfast, called Dubfast 2.0. I appear to have missed the first iteration. This is 5.8% ABV and the hop-boosting grape by-product Phantasm is employed. It's translucently orange and smells quite savoury, of crisp fried onions and flinty minerals, with a backing of seriously dank funkiness. The sparky, ozone-and-saltpetre effect is to the fore in the flavour -- Nelson Sauvin, of course, here combined with Pacifica -- but because it's not a very heavy beer, that doesn't stick around. It fades quickly, letting a sweet apricot candy effect come through, though again one that's light, breezy and easy-going. The combination of sweetness and zest reminds me of the filling of a Jaffa Cake: this is similarly fruit flavoured but not in any real fruit sense. I liked it. The spicing is the highlight for me, though the zing from the hopping is an entirely complementary bonus feature. It's certainly a step to the side from mainstream hazy IPA and, for me, the Nelson is the making of it. I'm very glad to see that hop is still both available and in fashion. Long may its reign continue.
I missed this year's Hagstravanganza festival at The White Hag brewery, but of course I picked up the official festival beer. Also at 5.8% ABV, Hopstravaganza 10 is, I think, the lightest of the four or five of these they've released. It's badged as a hazy IPA although wears it lightly, being quite translucent and quite a deep orange colour, shading to amber. The aroma doesn't have much to say, only a mild suggestion of pineapple and peach: soft and ripe but not very assertive. The flavour is more full-colour 3-D, lightly spiced at first, with white pepper and nutmeg, then a centrepiece of bright and fresh tropical mango and cantaloupe. That doesn't get too comfortable and is quickly in competition with a harder pithy bitterness which makes for some very well-done balance. Plenty of breweries wouldn't describe this as "hazy" and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't like the more extreme custard-and-garlic iterations. Frankly I think it's better suited to a nice big can than a festival snifter. I'm all about the optimisation.
They have also created a barrel-aged tripel IPA, fermented with Brettanomyces, called Benandonner. It's 9.9% ABV and comes packaged in a half Champagne bottle with cork and cage, from which it fizzed busily on opening, forming a tall, stiff head. Beneath that, it's a deep orange colour with considerable murk, and smells both fruity and funky, like fresh Orval. The flavour goes a similar way, blending sweet floral notes of lilac and lavender with a twist of orange peel and a waft of spicy incense. The finish makes it very clear that it's a strong beer: while the flavour combination is familiar from other hop-forward Brett beers, the alcoholic burn at the end is unusual, and not entirely welcome. Still, it's a triple IPA, so I can't complain when it tastes like one. The complex flavour is interfered with a little by its overactive carbonation, which is unfortunate. I found it quite hard to explore everything going on while the bubbles scratched at my tongue. At €10 the bottle, the price is spicier than the taste, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I did enjoy it, however, and found it delivered everything promised in the specs.
There's usually something a bit more trad in these round-ups, and this time it's the turn of Hope to provide it. Limited Edition No. 34 from them is an Extra Special Bitter. I've drank enough bitter in England over the past year to be able to say they shouldn't look like this: a muddy ochre. I'm immediately thinking of mediocre homebrew, rather than the polished pinnacle of Victorian brewing science. The aroma is sweet and full of caramel and strawberries, very much at the point where English bitter meets Irish red ale, inasmuch as they can be said to be different things. The foretaste concentrates that sweetness into toffee and nougat, but balances it in the finish with a tangy, tongue-pinching, throat-scratching, mineral bitterness, turning to boiled green veg at the very end. It's as full-bodied as you might expect for 5.9% ABV, but as the appearance makes clear, it lacks polish. Being non-filtered does give the taste a welcome signal boost, and as long as you don't mind that slightly amateurish feel, it works well. This is good, wholesome, winter fare, and a perfect antidote to all the juicy haze, if one be needed.
Permanent Holiday is the first contribution from Galway Bay to this round-up. Do I detect a conjuring of the New Zealand lifestyle? That's how it felt to me when I visited. This is an IPA of 6.2% ABV, hopped with Kiwi varieties. It's a dense and eggy yellow in the glass, though smells light and clean, of fresh peach and tinned pineapple. The flavour stays on that tropical theme, layering on the cool pineapple and adding some mango and lychee. This is the more frivolous side of the New Zealand hop character and there's little by way of the minerals or bitterness you sometimes get too, only a very faint fresh-grass buzz, right on the end. The murk, and the strength, give the mouthfeel a thickness but it's still pristinely clean and all about the fruit. More than anything it reminds me of the brewery's own excellent Catharina sour beers, and I can't pay it a higher compliment than that.
The second Galway Bay beer is our only double IPA, another collaboration with Sibeeria of Prague, this one called Whisper Shouts. There's an almost west-coast clarity here; brightly golden, if a little lacking in polish. The aroma is warm (unsurprising for 8% ABV) and a little savoury, with a raw rubbery note meeting sweeter apricot or nectarine. The texture is heavy, and a pull on the glass requires serious effort of the drinking muscles. And I'm sorry to say I'm not sure the exertion is worthwhile. A syrupy texture, which this has in spades, ought to be a platform for fun hop flavours. This one continues the very serious chemical rubber bitterness, adding only a token streak of pith, and a fruit candy sweet side that does nothing to help its drinkability. The hops are a combination I've never seen before: Azacca, Talus and Luminosa, and it doesn't work well. There's something promisingly fruity and joyous around the edges here, but the centre is all heat and acridity. I hope the meetings between these two breweries are enjoyable, because the beers it has produced, so far, haven't been up to Galway Bay's standards of late.
Finally for today, Rye River has collaborated with Swedish brewer Poppels to create Round Feet, a 7% ABV IPA. They've taken a gamble on experimental hop HBC 1019 and in my amateur opinion it has very much paid off. The aroma gives a subtle mix of tart lemon juice, sweet mandarin and, oh, is that coconut? On tasting: yes, yes it is. There's a very Sorachi/Sabro quality at the heart of this; dessertish but herbal, and quite delicious. Behind it you get a slightly more conventional new-world peach and pear fruitiness. In all the hop fun I didn't notice the alcohol, which is very well hidden. It's all quite light, and a bit fizzy, helping the hops zing their zingy thing. Nice. Put 1019 on your list of yet-unnamed hops to keep track of.Some last-minute Christmas shopping ideas for you there, I hope.
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