More of that

I got my hands on the first Sierra Nevadas of the year last month. They're two IPAs, so very much what the brewery is good at, if somewhat disappointingly unoriginal. We already have several IPAs made in this country.

The first out is called Hop Tropical, and I was on alert straight away, remembering my rule that beers described as "tropical" almost never taste it. Sierra Nevada wouldn't get that wrong, though, would they? Yes and no. It's not powerfully tropical, but there is a little mango and pineapple sweetness, especially in the finish and aftertaste. Before that, there's a classic citric bite, of satsuma and lime, with a little oily resin bitterness as well. As such it's well-balanced and very tasty. And it's clean too, showing only the very slightest haze in the pale yellow body, contributing to the crisp, precise taste. 6.5% ABV is fairly modest, and no alcohol heat disturbs the lovely hopping. There's also great head retention with pretty lacing on the glass. This is a class act, and by no means a novelty beer or some sort of youth-oriented "juice bomb". While not exactly an original creation, the quality is unassailable and the enjoyment immense.

Meanwhile, they're definitely running out of names for entries in the never-ending Little Things series. What's purportedly radical about Rad Little Thing is its combination of "East Coast haze" with "West Coast flavor" to create a "West Coast hazy IPA" (albeit brewed in North Carolina). Call me a jaded old hack, but I wasn't wowed, nor especially intrigued. It's not even all that hazy, though somewhat more so than the beer above. Not much happens in the aroma, and the flavour takes a while to get going. The first thing I noticed is the sharp bitterness, raw and piney, so it is doing the West Coast thing. There isn't really the flavour to back this up: where it should by rights be roaring with grapefruit, there's only quite a light pithy quality. The murk brings an unwelcome savoury dregginess, and there's significant heat in the finish, although it's only 7% ABV. Hazy Little Thing's key feature was its bright fruity character; replacing that with a hard bitterness doesn't really make for a good beer. Few members of this series are worth their salt, and here's another for the nope pile.

I do like that Sierra Nevada is still pushing out brand new beer, and I'm happy to feature them on this blog when they come my way. I blame the beer market for the fact that, these days, everything is an IPA because nothing else sells. If any of you IPA-only drinkers are reading this: knock it off, yeah?

Lunar ticks

I have a whole new brewery for you today: Moon Lark, from Poręba in southern Poland. I have no idea by what means their cans ended up in Dublin shops, but witaj! regardless.

IPA features heavily, so I guess somebody reckoned we didn't have enough of those already. The first is a wheat one, called Byway. It's billed as hazy, and indeed it is, all pale and sunny. The aroma is sunny too, both sweet and citrus like lemon curd or drizzle cake. In the flavour, that transforms into zest, with a pinch of lemony sharpness and lots of refreshing zingy lemonade. It's lemons all the way down, it seems. As a wheat beer it also has a happy softness which does help smooth out the hops' sharper edges. After all the initial citric fireworks, the finish offers a more serious oily resin, adding a brush of pine needles. Overall it's a very jolly affair, quite light at 5.8% ABV, and tasting as joyful as it looks. The balance between punchy hop complexity and accessibility is exquisite.

Someone at the brewery likes West Coast IPA, because there are two in this set. Cliff is the lighter one, at 6.7% ABV. There's a very slight haze going on in the golden body, but it still manages to look the part. A sharp pine-and-lime aroma starts us off appropriately, and the flavour doesn't stray too far from that. Citra is at work here, of course, along with Mosaic adding a little melon and tropicals to the middle. There's allegedly Sabro as well but I couldn't find any of its coconutty goodness, but it might be adding a touch of pith to the citrus. This is crisp, clean and made with precision. Where it falls down a bit is the malt base, which is minimalist. I guess it's meant to give the hops a clear run, but they need more of a foundation than they get here. As a result, it's not very boldly flavoured, and could do with a bit more wallop, and a finish with more legs than the sudden stop we get here. It's passable, but is presented in 2D rather than full Technicolor.

Let's see if we do any better with Prime, a bit stronger at 7.4% ABV and hopped with Citra, El Dorado and Columbus, which sees like a more interesting combination. It's another pale golden one, and again only very slightly murked. It has the same problem as the previous beer: a blandness, where the hops don't really kick into gear properly. What's there is also less assertive than the previous, with crunchy, savoury sesame seed or onion, a little dank resin, and that's it: another quick finish due to a lack of malt backbone. The Citra here really doesn't present itself as much as in the second, and while it does still taste American, it's not a good example of the West Coast profile. Crisp comes with a crunch here, and it just isn't as enjoyable as its punchy and citric sibling. While technically proficient, both of these lack character and charm.

The last beer is the lightest of the set, at 5.2% ABV. I'm glad they specified that Wharf is a brown porter, because it's definitely not black, more a russet shade, and looking quite soupy in the glass. The aroma is what I expected, showing plenty of coffee, chocolate and caramel, emphasising the roast over the sweet side, which is good. The carbonation is very low, which might upset some, but I liked the gentle cask-like sparkle it has instead. It's very obvious from the flavour that it's been built around brown malt in quantity, giving it a warm richness, packing in the same coffee and chocolate complexity as the aroma. The body is fairly light, ensuring drinkability, although the murk gives it a slightly gritty feel that it would be better off without. But there's nothing wrong with this that outweighs its brown malt joy. It serves as a delicious but poignant reminder that this malt is criminally underused.

That was an interesting run-through, and at the end of it I don't know whether Moon Lark gets filed as a hidden gem or not worth your while. I will buy more of theirs in due course, though may pause over the IPAs.

A Thorny question

I'm taking a punt, and a liberty, with this month's Session topic. Boak & Bailey are hosting and have asked about "the best beer you can drink at home right now". Though an inveterate ticker, I do have a canon of house beers; the ones I buy on a near weekly basis and often have in stock for inattentive drinking. Kinnegar's Black Bucket is one, Schlenkerla Märzen another, Little Fawn, Duvel, Leann Folláin and Nocturne: desert island beers all, in regular production and a lot less pricey than the one-offs I tend to drink more of, on account of this terrible masochistic hobby I developed twenty years ago.

And because of that, I'm taking a gamble and not writing about any of the above-mentioned. In the golden age of beer blogging, from the UK at least, the beer that got mentioned most for its quality and accessibility was Thornbridge's Jaipur IPA. I'm very fond of a pint myself, when it shows up in my local Wetherspoons. There have been various brand extensions over the years, and last week an unfamiliar one arrived in my eyeline in Redmond's off licence in Ranelagh: Jaipur Noir. I like Jaipur, but I love a black IPA. By rights, and before opening the can, this should be the best beer I can drink at home.

On the can they assure us that this isn't just Jaipur dyed black, even though it's the same 5.9% ABV. An "array of dark malts" has been employed. An array, no less. It's pretty black in the glass, revealed as a clear deep ruby when held to the light. The aroma is all bright and fresh citrus, with nothing dark hinted at here. It's lightly carbonated, so only a little fizzier than cask Jaipur, and the first impression is the same grapefruit and lemon sherbet you get in the original. After this, there's a faint stout-like dryness, including a most unAmerican bitterness, being green and vegetal, but pleasant. That finishes on a similarly subtle toasty roast. The whole thing is quite subtle, in fact: classy and understated. I enjoyed it, but the beatings of Black Bucket? Not to my taste. It still meets the requirement of the topic, however, because every ticker knows that the best beer you can drink at home is one you've never had before.

So while I was perusing the Thornbridge section, I picked up a couple of other new ticks. In the middle is Simka, badged as a "plum sour", brewed with an allegedly renowned Japanese variety of plum which, presumably, the name references. It's not made clear. Neither is the beer: it's a hazy pinkish orange in the glass and doesn't smell at all fruity, exuding instead a dry cereal crunch. There's a little more sharpness in the taste -- properly sour, not one of those syrupy fruit concoctions. From the can text, it seems the brewery expects us to be able to taste dark fruit but I certainly couldn't, only a vague berry tartness, blending in with the souring culture. This is another subtle one, hitting the sour points well, and doing it lightly at only 4.2% ABV, but other than the colour, the plums are AWOL. Nobody likes an AWOL plum, and especially when it's a fancy Japanese variety.

We finish on Thornbridge 90 Shilling, created using the Burton union gadget that the brewery rescued last year from the dastardly grip of Carlsberg-Marston. How is proper 90/- supposed to taste? I have no idea. But what difference can we expect the union to make? Also, no idea. It's 6.3% ABV and badged as an amber ale, with Odell Brewing coming over from Colorado to have a gawk at the kit in action. It is indeed amber, and smells like a crisp and dry bitter: tannic with a little resin. On tasting, that resin blossoms into a full-on incense and black pepper spicing; dry, but balanced by a toffee element, which I guess is where the Scottish cosplay kicks in. Despite these strong and wildly contrasting flavours, it's all integrated, cohesive and balanced. This one isn't subtle: it's bold, and all the more delicious for it. The mineral spicing has me wondering if they've given it some extra Burtonisation, to make the union feel at home. Other than that spurious reasoning, I'm still none the wiser as to what the thing does to a finished beer. Regardless, this is a beaut.

Is it too late to change my best-beer-I-can-drink-at-home? I think I have a new candidate.

Eternal return of the same

Today's beers were released late last year by Galway Bay Brewery but strictly speaking they're not new ones. They were brewed and sold as versions of The Eternalist sour ale, and bottled about three years ago. I only ever had the raspberry Eternalist, back in 2015, so both of them are still new to me.

The first they've called Ash, and it has added cherries in, as well as vanilla and tonka beans which aren't mentioned on the label. It's a deep purple colour with a firm pink head and smells strongly of the cherries: ripe and luscious and real. It's sour but not sharp; tangy more than tart, I'd say, and with a big and rounded body, reflecting the substantial 6.8% ABV. I can't say I was able to identify the tonka or vanilla, but there is a certain sweetness which can't be assigned to the cherries alone. It's entirely complementary with the sourness and quite different to the sugared-up effect of Belgian candy-kriek. Here, it's an added richness, of the sort you get from an amber-coloured malt. This does come at the expense of the wildness: I thought that a barrel-aged beer with wild yeast would be funkier but there's only a very faint trace of that here, right on the very end. On the other hand, I like cherry beer to actualy taste of cherries and this does so, quite beautifully. So while it's not as serious as many a cork-stoppered wild ale, it's very enjoyable in its own fun way.

The companion piece is called Oak, and this time the added ingredient is apricot. It's a plain golden colour, and the aroma shows little sign of the fruit, instead exhibiting a mineral spicing of the sort you often find from geuze: that brick-cellar nitre effect. It's even stronger than the last one, at 7% ABV, and again the mouthfeel is weighty, almost chewy. This offsets the sour punch, but here there isn't all the fruit to counterbalance the flavour, so it's plainer overall; or more subtle, depending on one's viewpoint. There is a certain tang from the apricot but it's far from central in the taste. For the most part, this presents like an unadorned lambic, albeit a strong and weighty one. There's a wax bitterness, the same mineral spice as I found in the aroma, and a lightly citric acidity which makes it refreshing and clean, despite the high strength. This is a classy character, wearing the added fruit and the barrel ageing lightly while exhibiting very proper wild beer characteristics.

I had skipped the two new versions of The Eternalist when they first came out, and that appears to have been a mistake. I'm very glad to have been able to catch up, even though I didn't know it's what these were when I bought them. Both belong in the canon of high-end wild Irish beer, and since there likely won't be any more, I recommend picking them up if you see them.

Peaks and troughs

Skiing has never appealed to me, so a brewery that seems to have made it its whole thing was always going to be a tough sell. Beer is more important than branding, of course, and even though I hadn't been very impressed by my first encounter with Outer Range -- based in both the Colorado Rockies and the French Alps -- I was willing to give them another go in this fallow period of the brewing year. Six cans should be enough to settle me on whether or not it's a brewery worth pursuing.

I'm never sure what to make of it when breweries have beers labelled with lager sub-styles such as Helles and pilsner, but also ones they're just calling "lager". It immediately suggests that, with the latter, they haven't really put the effort in to do it well. The first two today are a case in point, beginning with Cool Cool, a "lager" of 4.9% ABV. It seems it's the unfiltered sort, pouring a misty amber colour, with lots of head initially, then fading fast. There's a crispness and a greenness in the aroma which reminds me of many a decent unfiltered pils, and the flavour combines those mitteleuropa elements well. It is a little sweeter than most proper pilsners, having a light honey and caramel middle, but then there's a mineral bitterness with the fresh bite of raw spinach or lamb's lettuce. And even though there was all that foam, it's somewhat undercarbonated which renders it easy to drink but takes away from the refreshment power. Overall, though, it's a very nice beer, and well made as long as you don't mind your pale lager cloudy and low on fizz. Close your eyes and pretend you're in pine-tabled German brewpub.

On, then, to the actual pilsner, called Alpen Pils. It's paler than the previous one, though still cloudy and very slightly weaker at 4.8% ABV. The same issue of big foam followed by a disappearing head and tokenistic conditioning occurs. It's an altogether lighter and thinner affair, the malt side in particular dialled back to a mildly oaty crunch, and the hops too are muted, missing the leafy salad and chalky minerals and offering little substitute in their place, only a very faint pinch of lemon zest. It's quite generic, really, with only the haze giving it any proper personality: a yeast-derived clove and cinnamon effect that would definitely result in marks off in any style-based contest, but which I think gives it a bit of much-needed character. This is fine; being moderately refreshing and filling, and just about interesting enough to hold my attention all the way through. I think the non-defined lager is the better of the two, and that swapping the stated styles around would be more accurate.

From lager to a lager-adjacent style, Kölsch: Après All Day. This is another hazy one, though only slightly, and an appropriate pale yellow. The aroma is also appropriate, being grain-crisp and wholesome with a very light hint of fruitiness, but nothing un-lager-like. The carbonation is spot on, although that didn't help the head retention, its generous white dome collapsing to near-nothing with indecent haste. The flavour reverses what happened in the aroma, with a pale malt background giving the finish a dry crunch, while up front there's a subtle mix of lychee or white plum. That means it's not true to the Cologne style, and it's a bit cheeky (not to mention illegal) to reference it on the can. But it is a lovely beer; subtle yet characterful, refreshing and quaffable, and all at a very reasonable 4.5% ABV.

The lightest of today's set is only 4.1% ABV and is a witbier called Wisp. Obviously, haze is to be expected; not so much the big heavy gobbets of gunk that came out of the can too. Thankfully, that all settled quickly to the bottom of the glass so didn't interfere too much with the drinking experience. There's a strongly herbal aroma, making me disbelieve the can's claim that no herbs were used. Maybe it's just a side-effect of the yeast, but I would be surprised. We're back in low-carbonation territory, and that's a big problem with this style, which really needs the fizz to brighten it. When nearly flat, it tastes quite stale and sweaty. The herbal character is much lighter in the flavour, and the main feature is the wheat, which manifests as a kind of porridgey breadiness. There's a tiny hint of lemon zest, but not enough to brighten what's a rather dull and lifeless beer overall. There's lots in need of fixing here, all of which should be obvious to anyone who has ever enjoyed a witbier.

That left me quite apprehensive when approaching the last two, both of which are also in Belgian styles. Final Summit calls itself a "farmhouse ale", which I'm reading as a saison, and it's the right shade of hazy gold. It's strong for that, mind, at 7% ABV. This gives it a heavy texture and quite a lot of sweetness: saisons ought to be dry, and while this has a certain amount of the style's typical straw and white pepper, there's lots of fruit too. It's almost juicy, in fact, with softly tangy satsuma and tinned pineapple, plus a little pear and grape alongside, for the full fruit salad effect. Sweet herbs also feature: spearmint and aniseed. As such, it's quite tasty, but there's nothing very "farmhouse" about it. If it had been sold to me as a Belgian blonde ale I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's probably for the best that they didn't use the word saison and kept things fairly non-specific.

Air Stream, however, is described as a Belgian-style blonde ale, and is stronger again at 7.9% ABV. Miraculously, it's actually clear, proving that the brewery can do that if it wants to. It's an attractive deep gold and the head retention is very decent, for a change, at least in part due to proper carbonation. This isn't the brashest of beer styles, and the aroma is appropriately subtle, with pleasant notes of honey, apricot and pepper, but not too much of anything. The floral side of the honey is at the centre of the flavour, turning a little artificial, like fabric softener. A pinch of citrus zest helps balance this, and then there's a similar sharp mineral bite in the finish. All of it is set on a soft and pillowy base which demonstrates that it's a big beer even though there is no alcohol heat. Overall it's rather good. Think of it more as a stronger Leffe than a lighter Duvel: exciting it's not, but as a calm and unassuming sipper it's still enjoyable.

All that left me curious to try their American equivalents to see how they differ, if at all. American breweries tend to do things more by the book than European ones, and I doubt that some of the shoddiness on display here -- some of it charming; some unpleasant -- would fly on the highly competitive US market. The beers above lack polish, and I'm not convinced they're all as their brewer intended them to be. As such, I'm not strapping on my figurative skis and rushing back for another go on the Outer Range.

Global conflict

Sensing there's just too much peace and harmony in the world these days, Rascals has taken it upon itself to shake things up with its first two new releases of 2025. "North vs South" is the theme, though it could also be "Cold vs Warm" as we have one pilsner and one IPA.

Representing the north is Badlands, a pilsner made with American Luminosa hops. It looks well: a fine clear golden. It definitely smells American, more like a citric IPA than a European lager. While it's very clean, there's a lack of lager crispness; no snap, and no real malt character. Instead, the hops are all you get: bright and juicy, with lots of peach and lychee. It's less bitter than I was expecting from the aroma; less everything, in fact. For a beer that's presented as in competition with another, it doesn't put on much of a show. While it's perfectly acceptable as a lager with off-kilter hops, it doesn't offer the usual benefits of the pilsner style (see Wednesday's post), and runs the risk of being so clean it's bland. There's much more drama in the branding than in the glass.

On the southern side there's Outback, a hazy IPA with Galaxy and Eclipse from Australia. The haze is on the lighter side: translucent rather than opaque, and a rose-gold colour. The aroma is very subtle, showing only a gentle sweetness, of tinned peach and fresh mango. It's a full 6% ABV and a little sticky with it, though that suits the overall tropical flavour profile. That's mangoes again, plus even sweeter pineapple and cantaloupe. A very slight pithy bitterness arrives in the finish and helps balance things. It's a simple offering, though happily devoid of haze off-flavours. With this style, clean is good.

Both of these are decent if unspectacular affairs -- neither piles the flavours in to any great extent, but what's there is enjoyable. The pilsner didn't really deliver what I wanted so I'm finishing up as a member of Team South, albeit not through any preference of hops. Give the Americans the IPA next time out and perhaps the balance will be redressed.

A lesson in lager

I was very sceptical going in to Franciscan Well's latest collaboration, with their Molson Coors stablemates, Staropramen. I'm not even sure what the name is: the badge says "Franciscan Well Docklands Series Staropramen x Pilsner", so pick the title out of that word salad. Staro is far from the top tier in the Czech lager stakes but does perfectly acceptable stuff by Irish standards.

And this one is more than acceptable, heading fully into good. It's a lovely rose gold colour with perfect head retention, looking built for one of those hefty handled Bohemian mugs. The aroma suggests Saaz and nothing but: moist grass and slightly spicier rocket. That continues in the flavour, joined by quite a strong buttery note, extremely similar to that found in genre-definer Pilsner Urquell. It's set on a wholesome biscuit base while the finish delivers a burst of flowers and minerals, like classy bathsalts.

I've seen a brewer describe collaboration beers as a form of professional education, and I fervently hope that this is the case here, that the folk from Prague came in to show their Cork colleagues how to make pilsner properly. If Archway had tasted like this I would have consumed a lot more of it.

Bull in a candy shop

A new selection of Bullhouse beers arrived in Dublin in the last few weeks. I don't buy everything of theirs I see, but I do like to check in now and again. Let's see what we have here.

The first I opened, on a dismal February afternoon, was Saisons in the Sun, a collaboration with fellow Belfast northern brewery Beer Hut. It is sunny looking: a bright shade of orange, looking like a glass of orangeade. It smells pretty juicy too, with just a very mild funky farmyard quality to remind you it's a saison, not an IPA. The balance is redressed on tasting, with the earthy, spicy side to the fore, bringing straw, white pepper and dry cream cracker. Then there's a more contemporary haze-like fruit side, offering sweet satsuma and sweeter cordial. It's a balancing act that works well: at once thirst-quenching and summery, but with enough serious Belgian farmhouse character to please fans of that whole genre. I held off checking the ABV, and was a little surprised to find it's as strong as 5.5% ABV. That's not excessive, though. There's end-to-end enjoyment on offer here.

Now, I'm first in the queue when it comes to bemoaning the infantilising of beer that's come with the hazy IPA era. If you want juice, drink juice, and leave beer to the adults. But I was still amused to see Bullhouse leaning into it with 10p Mixup, a hazy IPA named after a confectionery product of my youth, one which is presumably long extinct. It's another murky orange job, looking rather greyer than the previous. It doesn't smell like sweeties; it smells rough and dreggy, with quite a lot of heat from the 6.3% ABV. It's quite thick, unpleasantly so, and while there's a certain artificial fruit candy and sticky pink marshmallow taste, there's as much savoury sesame seed and rye bread too; clashing, not balancing. An intensely syrupy sugariness finishes it off, in a way that's truer to the title, but isn't actually very enjoyable. I see what they've done here, and if you squint, it does have the flavour profile of a bag of ersatz-fruit candy. But that's not a good way to make a beer. 

Things don't get any more traditional with the finisher: a grapefruited double IPA called There's No Time. Again it's a darkly clouded affair, sticking to the luminous orange palette the brewery seems to favour. There's nothing unusual in the aroma, which offers a lightly zesty orangeade zing. When mixed with a heavy, creamy texture, the orangeade effect becomes more like a milkshake or an icepop. While it's thick and sweet, it's manageable too. Here they've kept the boozy heat on the down-low, helped I'm sure by the modest 7.5% ABV. That does wonders for the beer's drinkability, as does a deftly balancing burst of citric bitterness towards the finish. I was really not expecting to like this, but it works very well. The novelty side is both restrained and fully complementary to the well-made base beer. There's something here for both the haze-addled kiddies and the old-school double IPA purists. Beer brings people together once again.

Bullhouse is a brewery that delivers on its promises. Nothing here was any different to how it was described on the outside of the can, and not every brewery does that. I may not have liked all of it, but I can't say I wasn't warned.

Fully on board

Today in backlog clearance, I have the winter specials from Hopfully, and big fellows they are too.

The lightweight is daintily named Dancing Shoes, a barley wine of 11.7% ABV. It's a lovely dark red colour, though would be even prettier if it weren't so murky. The aroma is a gently sweet mix of toffee and jammy fruit; strawberry in particular. It's as heavy as you'd think, lightly carbonated, chewy and warming. Something would be very remiss were this not the case. What usually goes wrong at this point is that the beer is too hot, or too bitter, or too dreggy, or all three. Happily, none of that occurs with this one. The flavour is quite gentle and malt-forward. I was half expecting some big American hops, and the body could have supported that, but the summer fruit is as hopped-up as it gets, while underneath is all caramel, marzipan and Nutella, giving an overall sensation of fancy donuts and cupcakes. It's not too sweet, though, and you get your value out of the strength from the comforting belly warmth it delivers after swallowing. Back when other people used to write beer blogs with tasting notes, the phrase "fireside sipper" tended to get thrown around in winter. I'm happy to wheel that one out once more and apply it to this in the most complimentary way.

Without looking too closely, I thought the next one would be something similar: 12.3% ABV and barrel aged. But it's actually a sour fruit beer: purple with a pink head and employing raspberry, blackberry, lemon and cherry. They've called it Levitate. It smells tart, but in a lemon juice way, not the souring effect of yeast and bacteria. The raspberry also sits to the fore here. There's a lot of raspberry in the flavour too: rich and jammy, like compote or even simpler ice cream sauce. That runs parallel with a bourbon heat: vanilla and honey, shading towards ice cream and flan. Sourness is not part of the taste, and I can't pick out any of the fruit other than raspberry. It's still very tasty, though. I very quickly got used to the barrel and berry combination, and was enjoying it before the end. It's a lovely blend of summer and winter flavours, and they don't clash with each other. I feel perhaps there should have been more complexity, given the convoluted ingredients list and production process, but I liked it as it is: frivolous, dessert-like, but with a warm and grown-up centre. Unusual, but delicious.

Proper winter beer doesn't have to mean stout. Well done to Hopfully for the creativity on display here.

About time

There was a gap in the initial line-up from Changing Times brewery, Dublin's newest, when I reported on it last year. Tap lines had been set aside in the brewery's partner pubs for Clockwork, a stout. But true to their word, the gap was filled before January was out, and I duly trooped along to give it a go.

Based on the previous two releases I had a fairly clear idea of what it would be and I wasn't wrong. We're talking the basics: hints of coffee roast on the nose, a medium-creamy mouthfeel from the nitrogenated dispense, and a fully dry flavour dominated by dark toast. A tiny hint of the coffee reappears in the finish, but there's nothing else by way individual character to mark it out. I would need a side-by-side to be sure, but it strikes me that at least two of the country's industrial nitro stouts have more complexity than this. Beamish drinkers may find it an acceptable substitute, however.

I'm being harsh, and perhaps unduly. It's a fine beer which I'm certain isn't being pitched to the lad writing tasting notes in the corner of the pub. But I'm also a stout enthusiast, and there was an opportunity here to make an exceptional, unmistakable one, and they've chosen not to. I had thought we were well past the days of Irish microbreweries mindlessly aping the output of the multinationals, but it seems to be alive and well when the brewery is funded by mainstream pubs. Full marks for that glass, though. Have a pint before they all get stolen.

The rough with the smooth

Ballykilcavan is one of the few Irish breweries with a brown ale in regular production. In 2023 they had a go at barrel-ageing one, using bourbon casks. Late last year, they did it again, this time with two different barrel types, previously used for whiskey at Lough Ree Distillery. Despite the spirituous influence, they're both quite weak affairs, at just 5.5% ABV. 

First up is Barrel-Aged Brown Ale: Recioto de Valpollicella. I noticed that the bourbon one tasted quite vinous so I was expecting lots of that from this. It's not in the aroma anyway, which has luscious warming hot chocolate notes and a hint of lightly oaked whiskey. That oak is stronger on tasting, becoming quite dry and splintery, with rub of damp cork across it. There's a different sort of dryness in the crunch of roasted grain, and only after that does the wine emerge, quite faintly, showing as concentrated damson and plum. All that took a bit of getting used to, but by the half way point I was finding the chocolate again, and enjoying the full and smooth texture: no qualms here about the ABV being too low. Unfortunately, that dry wooden rasp lingers long in the finish, becoming the beer's defining feature for me. I tried hard to like it, but ultimately found it a little too harsh to enjoy fully.

I had high hopes for more of a wow factor from Barrel-Aged Brown Ale: Islay Whisky, as in "wow that's smoky". The chlorophenols get straight to work in the aroma, imparting your classic Islay TCP twang. Sure enough, that occupies almost the entirety of the flavour, leaving no room for chocolate or coffee nuances. Throwing any beer into this barrel would likely have yielded similar-tasting results. In the flavour, the phenols ally with more of that splintery wood, and the effect is interesting, but I can't say it's very tasty. There's two kinds of harshness at play, and while I can tolerate the peat, the oak is too much. This has the same smooth texture as the other one but it doesn't carry any of the brown ale character. Getting through the half litre was hard work.

I'm going to lay the blame for these two at the gravity: I feel they both should have been big big beers in the first place, so the dark malt would hold its own against the barrel onslaught. As was, there didn't seem to be enough character in the base beer to deal with that, and the result was badly unbalanced. I've said it before, but there's a reason breweries tend to start with imperial stouts and barley wines when doing the barrel thing.

We'll finish on something completely different: the latest in the brewery's limited edition sequence, Clancy's Cans #15: Lemondrop Saison. Sounds delightful. It looks good too: a proper spun gold with haze of the friendly Belgian sort, not aggressively American. The aroma is certainly citric, and though I wouldn't say lemon candy, it definitely has wafts of scented candles and zesty baking ingredients. In the flavour, that gets combined beautifully with iconic saison earth and spice, giving it very classic Belgian vibes, with a little streak of modern hop colour running through it. That's a wonderful combination, spicing up the traditional saison profile while retaining all its fundamental traits. 6% ABV makes it a little on the strong side, but it doesn't try to kid you into thinking it's a light beer: this is hefty stuff, filling without being difficult. Very nicely done, overall.

I'm not convinced by Ballykilcavan's barrel-based exertions, but they hop a good saison.

Les animaux

Breton beer hasn't had the best of notes when it has featured on this blog over the years. Today's set were kindly supplied by a family member who holidayed there over the summer and I wasn't in a huge rush to get them opened. But they couldn't sit in the fridge forever either, so let's see how things are going in celtic France these days.

The opener, from Brasserie Lancelot, is Blanche Hermine, named for the region's totemic mustelid. I think I'm within my rights to expect bière blanche to be cloudy, but this one is Helles-clear and brightly golden. Things normalise from the aroma onwards, which offers fresh and zingy coriander: more than is typical for the style, but it works. The texture is appropriately soft and wheaty with a gentle and controlled sparkle, something not always a given in this part of the world. Unsurprisingly, the herbal side is to the fore in the flavour, and I couldn't detect any contribution from the orange peel listed alongside. The lager effect makes a slight return in the finish, which is quick and dry. Overall, I enjoyed it. The coriander is a favourite feature of witbier, and one that most brewers understate. I'm all in for one that makes it the centrepiece, even if there's not much other complexity.

There's always an ambrée, and I can't think of any I've enjoyed much. Chat-Malo appears to be a contract brew, produced at Brasserie de Bretagne. It includes that most Breton of ingredients, buckwheat. In the glass it's more brown than amber, and here's the wildly overactive fizz that I associate with the region's beers. The aroma gives away only slight hints of toffee and banana, a bit like a dukelweizen. Toffee continues to be part of the flavour, though the fruit goes more in a fig and date direction, with a warm pudding background plus some plum and raisin, creating an effect very similar to Belgian dubbel, and punching well above its 5.4% ABV. There's a certain swampy murk to it, but as in many Belgian dark beers, that's part of the charm. I didn't expect to like this, but on a chilly winter's night it hit the spot nicely.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a tripel as the last beer, and this one isn't from Brittany, but further south in Pays de la Loire. It's called La Piautre Triple, La Piautre being the main brand of La Fabrique des Bières d'Anjou. It's a lovely rose-gold colour and clear with it, smelling very sweet, of honeycomb and pear drops. The latter suggests alcohol, and it's a full 8% ABV. Oddly, it doesn't taste sweet, though neither does it have the spice kick I look for in tripel. Instead, it's an odd vegetal flavour, giving me celery, raw spinach and green cabbage, with a light dusting of clove. The carbonation is much too low for the style, combining with the savoury taste to make it feel somewhat soupy. The headachey high alcohols don't make it any easier drinking either. I found this one difficult to get along with: too hot, too flat and with a flavour profile that's too off-kilter to enjoy, even as a creative twist on tripel.

It turns out that Brittany makes the best beer in western France, going on this set alone. Who knew? The last one was the standard I expected from them all, lacking precision and nuance. But while the others might not be about to win any medals for stylistic fidelity, at least they tasted good. Tripel is a more exacting taskmaster than perhaps the brewers in Anjou realised.

Strange meeting

I was quite surprised to see O'Hara's having done a collaboration with De Molen. Not for any good reason, it's just that the two breweries occupy very different spaces in my beer awareness. One thing I think they do have in common is an over-fondness for nitrogenation, so it shouldn't be surprising that the result here comes in a nitro can. It's an "Imperial Irish Red Ale" (like that's a thing) called Fireside & Fable.

Surging pleasingly while pouring, it settles to a dark garnet red with a wholesome-looking pillow of cream on top. It smells dangerously sweet: a whole candy shop of sticky sugar-based mess, with added vanilla and white chocolate for extra cloy. The mouthfeel is heavy and hot; creamy, yes, but there's a reason cream isn't normally considered drinkable. There's chewing to be done with this, while the big 8% ABV adds to the effect with a gullet-strafing burn. At least the flavour is somewhat restrained, staying in the candy shop but adding a more wholesome selection of hazelnut, praline, buttery toffee and shortbread. I took a few moments to adjust to what it's doing -- one does not find many beers of this kind on a daily basis -- but once I was accustomed, I enjoyed the softly sippable combination of textures and tastes.

This is a beer to shut me up about nitro for a minute or two: there is plenty of flavour, and while it may have turned out quite cloying if carbonated, I can't complain when nitrogen's deadening effect successfully balances the beer. Observation two is that a bit of barley wine energy really suits the Irish red style. Boost that gravity and hold back on the aroma hops: there's a niche available somewhere adjacent to the strong Scottish ale genre. Thanks to both breweries for showing the way, and with an extra poignancy now that the permanent closure of De Molen has been announced for later this year.

Wolf haul

By the end of last year I had accumulated a growing stash of Wicklow Wolf beers which I hadn't taken the time to drink. When better than the January lull, when not much happens in Irish brewing, to work through them?

Gym + Coffee: for some a way of life, but not me, on either count. Wicklow Wolf has collaborated with a company of this name to create a non-alcoholic beer which they have optimistically called Make Life Richer. But does it? They describe it as a "tropical spritzy sour". Apricot, mango and peach have been used to achieve this, and oats too: presumably for body because they do nothing for head retention. Under the space where a head should be, it's clear and golden. It smells powerfully of Um Bongo, or similar 1980s mixed fruit drinks. The flavour doesn't depart far from that initial impression. It's monstrously sweet, though watery, not sticky, and the artificial perfume taste cloys somewhat. Carbonation is low and, in general, it doesn't taste, smell or feel anything like beer. I really don't understand why someone would reach for this rather than a fruit-based fizzy soft drink.

On, then, to the real stuff. The Molloy's off licence chain often commissions a local brewery to make them a beer for the Christmas season, and in 2024 it was Wicklow Wolf's turn. The result is a pale ale called Frostbite: named for its use of cold-fermenting lager yeast. It looks like a lager too, being a clear medium golden with a fine white froth on top. It smells zesty, of lemon candy, and is light-bodied, reflecting the gentle 4.6% ABV. I always think of these Molloy's releases as party beers, designed for drinkability, though usually with sufficient character to be properly interesting. This is no exception. There are no surprises in the flavour, just more of the lemony spritz and a burst of grapefruit, though more sweet than bitter, with some softer tangerine or mandarin complexity. The lager yeast ensures it finishes crisply clean, ready for the next mouthful, leaving no malt residue or hop oils in its wake. I could very happily have had several in a row, if only party season hadn't ended some weeks back. This is a simple delight and a credit to both collaborating parties.

Is there a hazy IPA in the set? Let me check... Phew! Here's Neon Moon, a light one at 5.2% ABV, hopped with Strata and Luminosa, hence the name. It's a pale sort of hazy in the glass, yellow and a bit thin-looking. The aroma is bright and fresh, with lots of pineapple and mango, and a rub of more serious resin. All very promising. You get a proper big and smooth hazy texture, and the first gulps (it was Friday, I was thirsty) unleash a rush of fruit salad, adding red apple slices, guava and kiwi to the main flow of tropicals. It's delightfully clean, and perfectly balanced in the texture, neither watery thin nor thick and difficult. This is textbook juicy; delightfully fruit-filled and oozing sunshine, with none of the difficult gritty or savoury bits that too many breweries still think is acceptable. Here's how it's done, everyone.

As for stouts, we begin with another of the unnecessary Apex brand extensions. This time it's Apex Irish Coffee, an oatmeal stout with coffee, lactose and vanilla. Oatmeal and lactose? Usually beers like this are high in strength, but they've kept it to 5.2% ABV here. It doesn't smell like an Irish coffee, nor of a beer. There's an intense sweetness, like toffee sauce or caramelised sugar. It's surprisingly light-bodied given all that unfermented sugar, and the very low carbonation accentuates its gently creamy smoothness. This slips back indecently easily, like a milkshake. First on the scene in the flavour is crunchy desiccated coconut, which was a surprise, coated in dark chocolate, and then a side order of honey and nuts. One Bounty, one Toberlone, and what else? I had to look for the coffee, but it's there to an extent, drowned out to the level of an extremely pale latte, without any oily intensity or bitterness. So as a coffee stout it's a bit of a bust, but as a luxury chocolate dessert in beer form, it works wonderfully. 

In the annals of bad collaboration beer names, "Bread Forty Wolf" has to be in the upper echelons. This is Wicklow Wolf getting together with Bread 41 bakery to create a cinnamon swirl pastry stout, something absolutely nobody asked for. It's another fairly light one at 6% ABV and the ingredients are very similar to the above, with the addition of cinnamon, of course. That sweet spiciness -- more mince pie than cinnamon swirl to my European nose -- is very much to the fore in the aroma, though there's nothing to indicate one is smelling a stout. The flavour, too, emphasises the spicy, cakey, cinnamon over everything else. Here's it's not just mince pie but gingerbread and lavender bathsalts too. In the midst of the swirling flowers and herbs there's a brief flash of gooey milk chocolate and caramel, but that's as close to a sense of stout as it comes; otherwise it's the seasonal shelf of the baking section all the way. I expected the Apex Irish Coffee to be the gimmick beer that annoyed me today. This one is exactly what the brewer intended it to be, but taking a decent-strength stout and then stripping the stout character from it is as unforgivable as the name. J'accuse, Bread Forty Wolf.

The Locavore series of all-local ingredients has continued, of course. Winter brought the usual hop-forward dry stout, and Locavore Autumn 2024 was again a big barleywine aged in Fercullen whiskey casks. This year's was a little lighter than the last couple, at a mere 13.2% ABV. Once again, it's a big and creamy dark brown fellow, with an opening flavour of milk chocolate and strawberry fondant. Pedro Ximinez is among the previous uses of the barrels, and I think that more than a little of the dark sherry's sweetness has rubbed off here. There's nothing as crude as oak in the flavour: that's all dark aged fruit like raisin and prune, next to the brighter summer berries and sticky candy. This is a well-practised performance at this stage, free of rough edges and unbalancing heat. Maybe a bit of extra hopping would give it some extra worthwhile character, but as a cold weather warmer it's impeccable. We don't have much by way of regular seasonal beer in Ireland so I'm very happy that the Locavores are still running, in all their differences and similarities from year to year.

The spring one will doubtless be along soon, and I see the brewery has a new selection of fruity non-alcoholic beers out. I think I'll give them a miss, however.

The invention of tradition

Beer blogging's big brother Alan is attempting to revive The Session, a cross-platform themed event last seen in these parts in 2018. His chosen topic for us is perhaps an obvious one for such a revival:

What is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018? 

Straightforward perhaps, but for me, not easy.

One thing I really enjoy about the beer world is how quickly it turns. The product itself only takes a week or two to produce, so trends move fast. Ideas that are outré and esoteric become standard practice worldwide within months. That hop, that yeast, that brewing method: they're all very communicable, and brewers love to copy each other; to give their customers that thing they read about, or drank, in Brooklyn or Hornindal or Catharina or Marlborough. Time means little and distance even less. That's fun, and saves me lots on air fares. So there must have been loads of innovation to pick from under the topic. Except there isn't. Haze has been mainstream since 2016 and shows no sign of going out of fashion. Ireland's first kveik beer arrived courtesy of Eight Degrees in 2017. I still consider those to be new things in beer, but they're outside the scope of the question and, honestly, I'm not sure either counts as "good" to this drinker, never mind "best". Things don't seem to have moved much for the good. Non-alcoholic beer? Sure, there's a lot more of it around, but while I don't object to its presence, I haven't found many that are properly enjoyable.

What do I enjoy then? This is where I'd love to be waxing lyrical about the oft-predicted lager revival, but that was never delivered. Nor the West Coast resurgence, nor the black IPA comeback: these styles are still noteworthy when they appear at all. They're not being revived; they just didn't quite die.

My ruminations in this direction did finally settle on a revival that has largely happened since 2018 and is very much positive, for my drinking tastes at least: lambic. Here we have a downright medieval style of beer, where the brewing establishment -- much of it dating from the century before last -- has been very established and unchanging. This derives from the nature of the product: where it can legally be made and the timescales of production. It's not one for those who have a rented warehouse, a start-up grant and a few stainless steel tanks. It takes patience, and that's an expensive commodity. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I've tended to view lambic production as a largely static thing. Newcomers have been rare, and haven't constituted anything that can be called a trend. Until recently.

I don't know what the cause is, but there seems to have been a run of new lambic producers in recent years: your Eylenbosch (2019), your Boerenerf (2020), your Kestemont (2021). Den Herberg just misses the window by being 2017, but they're still illustrative of my point. I visited most of them last year, and by and large was impressed with what they're offering. A lambic revival seems to be taking place, and it's genuinely good: not simply cash-ins by business people who've spotted a high-margin product with potential for quick wins. I hope it's sustainable, and I'd like to see more of the same in years to come.

That's the demands of The Session satiated, but this blog has its own strictures, and I need a beer to go with that. None of the above named are available to me locally, so I've picked something else that is, in its own way, a post-2018 innovation. Timmermans wouldn't be my favourite of the lambic brewers. It has a couple of good oude-style beers, but is mostly a purveyor of over-sweetened crap. Its collaboration with Guinness is one of the most egregiously overpriced examples of big brewers trying to exploit the beer-curious that I've ever seen. But putting black pepper into a lambic? Hello. Let's talk.

Created in 2022, Kriek Black Pepper Lambicus is what's before us today: a name in English and Latin suggests Belgium trying to disown the whole affair. 4% ABV and an aroma of Bakewell tart tells us immediately that this is very much in the sugary milieu. Not that it smells bad, just not like proper lambic. The colour is nice too, an almost glowing crimson, which I put down to food colouring, although the two E-numbers listed on the label are only innocent ascorbic and citric acid.

On the first sip is the standard sweetened lambic, all glace cherry and marzipan. It finishes on that too, but the black pepper flashes brightly, albeit briefly, in the middle. It's a very real version of it, at once crunchy and oily and spicy. I liked it, but I don't think it really belongs here. As with that Guinness/kriek blend, the elements don't integrate very well and are less than or equal to the sum of their parts. You could recreate this quite simply by taking any sweetened kriek you like and adding a twist of finely ground pepper to it.

I don't really get properly angry at sweet krieks. They pay for those breweries to make the beers I actually like to drink. However, I don't quite understand what they were trying to do with this one. Somebody must have added pepper to an existing beer and decided that this is something customers would want to drink. It's a bit of a shrug from me. Shaking up the world of lambic requires more than just the nearest jar from the spice rack. The new kids know that; I'd expect better from their eldest surviving relative.

Cold and colder

One of life's greatest pleasures is going to exotic beer shops and browsing for strange and intriguing beers. Today's pair came from no further abroad than Melger's of Haarlem where both made me want to know what they tasted like as soon as I saw them. They don't have anything else in common, other than having been brewed in the Netherlands.

Cold Gold is ostensibly from the Habesha brewery in Ethiopia, but that's a subsidiary of Swinkels and this version comes from one of their Dutch facilities. It is indeed gold: perfectly clear and sparkly, though the head doesn't last long. It's a full 5% ABV and nicely weighty with it; a lager of quality, not a cheaply made one, and considerably better than Swinkels's own buttery flagship pils. The malt is very much to the fore, smooth and rich, like a posh treacle-infused brown bread. The hops aren't quite as high-end, just a tangy metallic bitterness, providing sufficient balance but not much more than that. That echoes in the finish and helps make quite a heavy beer remarkably drinkable. I'm guessing this is mostly intended for ethnic-themed restaurants and it does indeed have the chops to match food well. A pleasant surprise all round.

Icebock isn't always a great choice, but I see so few of them that new ones are always of interest, especially when they're not at eye-watering artisanal prices. Gulpener is one of the bigger Dutch breweries and this is the 2023 vintage of Gulpener IJsbock. It seems a little weaker than the norm at 10.3% ABV -- Schneider's is the full 12% for example -- but it looks the part: a deep mahogany brown colour. The aroma is a warming wintery cocoa with hints of cherry liqueur and vanilla pods, which is very enticing. All of that is in the flavour too, though it's rather more severe. The vanilla ramps up to an almost sickly level, backed by gooey milk chocolate and caramel. Huge alcohol vapours accentuate all this even further, adding a hit of marker pen solvent. The gentler fruit I found in the aroma is nowhere to be seen, only brown banana for a different, but no better, type of gooeyness. You would know that this was a strong beer rendered even stronger, and the process seems to have concentrated its bad side while removing the good. Doubtless it's intended to be a slow sipper but they've achieved that by making it difficult to drink. There's no fun to be had here, only sadness and toil.

In conclusion, the exotic beer shelves is a land of contrasts.

Ask if it's glass

The UK beer media doesn't talk much about the Premium Bottled Ale category. To an outsider, it can seem like it doesn't exist any more, but small British breweries are still turning out beers in half litre bottles, and they always seem to end up at gatherings of my family. No cartoon cans here. Today's selection came from my festive break in rural Shropshire, though were suitcased in from various corners of the country.

Stone Daisy is based in Wiltshire, and Park Bottom is an IPA of 4.5% ABV, though they don't give us any further information than that. It's traditional style, of course, being a pale shade of amber with a fine white froth, the bottle pour doing a good impression of cask conditioning. There's a lemon juice tartness in the aroma, a little too severe and vinegar-like for my liking, with a twist of curdled milk for extra nastiness. Thankfully, the flavour is softer, thanks mainly, I think, to a high level of unfermented sugar, giving it an overall sweetness and full body. That tastes of jammy strawberry, sticky Lucozade and stickier Liquorice Allsorts. It's an odd set of impressions, and while it works, it's not the beer for me. There's a lingering acidity in the taste that's slightly gastric, or aspirin-esque, and that detracts from anything good or wholesome going on. The best I can say is that it's a very grown-up tasting beer, even if the label is rather childish.

Sourced more locally was Three Tuns Fezziwig, which I guess is intended as a companion piece to the brewery's Old Scrooge winter ale. This one is 4.8% ABV and copper coloured. It smells nicely floral, with more than a suggestion of honey sweetness. The flavour veers in that direction, opening on red lemonade and heavy caramel. Before it can get difficult, however, it's dried out by tea-like tannins, adding a gently leafy bitterness. That lasts long into the finish, the tea effect getting stronger and more concentrated. All told it's a bit of a bruiser, which is especially surprising given the modest strength. I don't think that it's otherwise Christmassy, though perhaps we should be glad they weren't tempted to bung novelty ingredients in. That doesn't seem to be the Three Tuns way, thankfully.

To Wales next, and Powys brewery Monty's. Gwyn a Du ("White and Black") is a 4% ABV stout, hopped with Styrian Dragons, not Welsh ones. It's bottle conditioned, so the off-white head was stained slightly browner in places with yeast dregs as it poured -- rarely a problem with stout. Much has been blathered in the beer discourse recently, especially in the UK, about possible replacements for Guinness when it's in short supply. I've never really understood the question, because Guinness's attraction is all about the brand and not the beer, but I can see where they're coming from here. This is light and toasty, just like the mainstream Irish brands, but it also has a tang of bitterness that resembles the one in Guinness. There's some properly stoutish dark chocolate and then a savoury herbal kick, mixing dried basil and oregano with more oily rosemary. Behind this, a subtler floral or medicinal note, of lavender and aniseed, something you don't get in any industrial stout. The whole is a combination that works incredibly well, resulting in something with profound complexity but which is still easy-going and thirst-quenching. There's even a certain creaminess to the texture, for those sufficiently lacking in taste and imagination to think that creaminess somehow makes a beer good.

Staying with Monty's, premium of the premiumest is Monty's Imperial Stout, a straight-up affair with no added silliness; 9% ABV and properly black. The density of colour follows through to the mouthfeel, which is nicely weighty and chewy. The flavour is sweet to begin with, with vanilla and milk chocolate, suggesting almost a milk stout vibe. Rather than going full pastry, it develops into a more serious herbal bitterness, not dissimilar to the previous one. I got cola nut and rosemary in particular. The chocolate makes a comeback in the finish and provides and long dessertish aftertaste. This is a very traditional sort of imperial stout, with a simplicity and elegance that the modern-day ratings chasers rarely manage. If you enjoyed the late-lamented Courage archetype, here's a reasonable substitute.

There was a token bit of cask to be had down at The Bridges, a pub which was once a showcase for Three Tuns but now seems to have been divested and, although there was a decent selection of local beers, only one from Three Tuns: Best. It's nearly a brown bitter but isn't quite sweet enough or brown enough. There's a decent dose of dry burnt caramel, while the appearance is a wholesome bright amber. A very English tang of metallic hops finishes things off. It tastes every inch the flagship bitter: straightforward, no-nonsense drinkability; no gimmicks or hard edges, but far from boring. I only had time for one quick one, though I would have been perfectly happy with a second or third pint of the same.

And there was one tick for me at the Birmingham airport Wetherspoon: Sambrooks Pumphouse, a pale ale. There's a mix of English and New Zealand hops, but mostly English, and so it tastes like a very straight-up English golden bitter. It's predominantly dry, without much of a foretaste or a finish, while the middle is raspy zinc and nettles, a bitterness that veers towards acridity but stays on the right side of it. The two best features are an aroma of floral honey, which it would have been nice to taste, and a soft texture, making it very easy drinking without being thin or watery. The whopping 4.2% ABV probably helps with that. It's plainer fare than I would have thought from Sambrooks, but when everything else on the handles is Greene King core range or Doom Bar, it will absolutely do. 

Traditional ales are very much still a thing in Britain. It's slightly odd that I don't read more about what's available.