Italy and abroad

The European Beer Consumers Union held one of its regular receptions in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, hosted at the local offices of the Italian farmers' organisation. Grain to glass and all that. All members of EBCU were asked to bring beers from their own countries, but the selection was centred around Italian beers, all winners in national competitions.

Eager to get stuck in, my first beer was La Mancina, from Forte. This is 7.5% ABV and described as a strong ale. It's a bright amber colour and absolutely teeming with too-warm-fermentation fruit esters. From an aroma of hot brown bananas, it leads to a flavour of the same, the sickly sweetness only fading enough to give impressions of fruitcake or treacle bread. That's tough going to drink, and there's nothing much else happening: despite it being a strong beer, there is little by way of complexity or contrasting flavours on offer. Maybe this is a perfect, to-style, rendering of some ghastly sub-genre of Italian beer, but I wouldn't have given it any prizes myself.

The next Italian in my glass was a stout: Cliffs, by Birrificio Humus in Abruzzo. I had brought stout to the meeting because our poor European neighbours tend to be in shortly supply of the pintable sort, but this one was only 4% ABV. You'd never guess from drinking it, though. It bursts with righteous stouty goodness: fresh coffee beans, dense dark chocolate and an unexplained seam of sweet coconut. The smooth body is big enough to carry all that, yet it's very much a dry stout, not a sweet one. If I hadn't been rushing through the selection (for your benefit, gentle reader) I would have liked to spend more time with this one.

There was much curiosity in the room about the Italian beer labelled as a "German Ale". Spitze, by AcmE, turned out to be nothing more exciting than a Kölsch: the law which prevents even mentioning or depicting Cologne on the label is not actually helping consumers. Its nature is immediately apparent from the first pour and sip: pale gold with a light and crisp malt aroma, followed by an equally clean crisp flavour, with a hint of sulphurous spice for character. I found it deliciously refreshing, and I hope those who thought there would be more hops involved aren't disappointed.

We stay on German styles for the next couple, starting with Officina del Baccano's Ziegenbock, an 8% ABV Doppelbock. There's not much to say about this, other than it's a flawless representation of the style, albeit missing any individual features. But it's the requisite chestnut colour, with a heavy texture lightened somewhat by its lager fizz. Chocolate and cereal malts meet with the grass and asparagus of noble German hop varieties. It is at once chewy and satisfying while also conversational and easy-going. Pure awards bait.

Another Italian brewery I've never heard of but am delighted to discover is Styles, from the east coast. At the reception, I tried Lilly Smoke, their rauchbier. Obviously, any sane brewer is going to try and copy Schlenkerla's Märzen, and this has a little of its dark tint, albeit not so severe. It's also on the sweet side, which is justifiable at 6% ABV. They've done a very good job of putting the smoke at the centre of the flavour while also keeping the beer balanced and drinkable, something Schlenkerla makes look easy but few breweries manage. It's actually the bock-like density and sweetness which turns out to be the beer's weak spot for me, but that's more a matter of taste than anything. This is very well made.

Among the beers I took home was another from Styles, and another stout. Black Eyes purports to be American style and is 5.6% ABV. In the glass it is quite black, with garnet highlights. An attractively ivory head doesn't last long. There's little aroma to speak of -- no blast of C-hops, which is what I want when I see the word "American" next to "Stout" -- and the flavour is similarly restrained. There's a delicate creaminess here, and subtle notes of sweet flowers and bitter herbs, but nothing jangling, difficult or, frankly, distinctive. We're in the smooth zone, where all is blended together to the point of blandness. A few light pinches of pepper and rosemary are as assertive as it gets. On the one hand it's a very well-made beer; on the other, this was suitcased from Italy to Belgium and then flown to Ireland, and I'm not sure it was worth the mileage. If you're on Italy's east coast, though, get it into you.

Next it's a couple of beers from Lombardian brewery 50&50, starting on a session IPA called God of Laif. Finally we get some colourful hops from the New World, and I don't know which varieties they use in this, but they're a superb advertisement for the American hop industry. The lead-in aroma is attractively spicy with lots of pine, while the flavour is deeply and thickly resinous, to begin. It then blends this with happy and bright tropical notes which add drinkability and a lightness of touch. The cherry on top is a light 4.5% ABV. This really does have all that's great about American IPA presented in a genuinely sessionable package.

50&50 is the first brewery I've found making an Italian grape lager, the style perhaps an inevitability given Italian microbrewing's contributions to world beer culture so far. Graziela is [rub fingers gesture] 6.5% ABV and pours a medium gold with a modicum of haze and a lacklustre head. The aroma is mostly that of a dry lager -- almost Japanese style -- but with some sort of estery chemical overtone, which I guess is the grapes. The flavour brings these two sides together much more harmoniously. Yes, it's a lager to the core: extremely dry and brittle, sanding down your tongue to leave it wanting more. The grape isn't exactly subtle, with a strong note of gooey Muscat or even Sauternes, which doesn't suggest Italy to me at all. Nevertheless, it works: summery crisp fizz meeting a more perfumed autumnal richness. I'm impressed, and not just because I've never tasted anything quite like it before. It's genuinely easy to drink and exquisitely balanced. Why they thought to send it out into the world in a can with two badly-drawn cartoon characters on it is anyone's guess.

I wrapped up my Italian explorations on the night with Quadro, from Barbaforte, a saison. Funny, I remember this as being a tripel, and now I turn to my notes I see that I thought it smelled like one, with more of a sweet spice than saison normally has. While the taste is predominantly dry, with a subtle cinnamon spice, there's an unwelcome banana element as well: harsh skin at the front and ripe flesh in the finish. It's not a dealbreaker but it didn't add anything positive to the experience for me. This is an acceptable saison, and nicely drinkable for 6.4% ABV, but it's by no means an exceptional one. 

Litha is a witbier, from Arte Brassicola Mastio in central Italy. All appearances are of an orthodox example of the style: 5.2% ABV and hazy yellow. Not content with coriander and orange peel, the brewer has also added cardamom. There's a distinctly herbal note from the aroma, but the promise of citrus zest as well. Alas the zest gets somewhat lost in the flavour, and it's the cardamom which is most pronounced, giving it a strongly savoury character. That is at least a character, but it's not one I care for. It's quite a weighty beer, and the cardamom adds to an overall feeling of heaviness: zingy summer drinking it is not, even straight from the fridge. If you like a more serious and involved witbier, this is one you might enjoy, though I've never met anyone who does.

Last of the Italian beers I nabbed from the post-event leftovers is Ponale, described by its brewer, Leder, as "hoppy pils" -- a reminder that the whole "Italian pilsner" designation isn't much of a thing in Italy. This is 5% ABV and a hazy pale yellow with lots of foam piling up. The aroma is fantastically zesty, giving limoncello and lemon sherbet. It doesn't feel like a pilsner, being quite heavy and ale-like. I would almost swear that the lemon is provided by a syrup flavouring, but it isn't. The sweetness tails off, but leaves those damn lemons in the finish -- sharply citric, like fancy lemonade. It's a fun beer, and worked well on a sunny day, but between the fuzzy murk and the IPA hops, it doesn't deliver what I want from a pilsner of any stripe. Where is the crispness? I had hoped for a classic but got a novelty instead.

Turning to the beers from elsewhere, EBCU's Swedish member recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a commemorative dark mild. Weird flex, but OK. 40 år Jubileumsöl was produced at Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri in Stockholm, and packed in 500ml bottles. It's quite a pale brown colour and 4.2% ABV, so similarities to English mild are scant. The fruit esters, too, are not the right sort. The best milds have a plummy, autumnal fruit character; this was a more basic raisin and banana effect. Likewise, I enjoy a kick of coffee roast in a mild, and this seemed to be aiming for it but lacks impact, coming across meek and miserly. I think they've taken the notion that mild isn't meant to be an exciting beer a bit too far. As celebrations go, it's a muted one.

The sole German appearance was from a Berliner weisse called Kaiserweisse, brewed by Tyrell BrauKunstAtelier in Brandenburg. This was the 2022 vintage, and there was only one bottle, so I had merely a tiny sip, but it's very good. I could tell it's stronger than normal Berliner weisse but would never have guessed the strength is as high as 9.5% ABV. An innocent pale hazy yellow, it's dry more than it's sour, with an understated acidic sharpness and no high-gravity warmth. The aroma has a snatch of sulphur while the flavour, I guess using Brettanomyces yeast, offers soft ripe stonefruit and pineapple, seasoned with a mild peppery spice. There's a lot to it and I'd be keen to try some other years.

I tend to associate Iceland with dark and smoky beers -- perhaps that's mostly what gets exported -- but the delegates brought something quite different: a light and fruity sour ale. Gæðingur Brugghús makes Eldgosi, souring the mash with a local yoghurt-like culture (skyr) and adding cumin, herbs and seasalt before finishing it with raspberries. There is an unfruited version and I would like to try that, because the raspberries tend to take over here. Candy-like summer fruit -- cherry in particular -- is the long and the short of it, given a clean and spritzy base, making for thirst-quenching fun at just 4.1% ABV. I couldn't help thinking I was missing out on the base beer's deeper complexity, however.

This next one should be good. Lager maestros De La Senne have got together with the pioneering Birrificio Italiano and revered Schönramer to create a talent-pooling lager called Freundeslager. While it's an unpromising 4% ABV it has plenty of body and loads of flavour. Though the hops are a mix of Belgian and German, it's the latter which is most prominent, with a hay-like dryness and lots of greenly herbal bitterness. That took a bit of getting used to, but I was enjoying the overall loud brashness of it before long. The beer is also hazy, and that doesn't help things, adding an unwelcome gritty fuzz: not to tell these people their jobs, but pale lager works best when fully transparent. Some gentle citrus emerges as it warms, adding a layer of peach and mandarin next to the herbs, though the finish is acridily dry; almost a crêpe-paper rasp. I get what they're trying to do here, but I found it somewhat overdone, pulling in multiple directions instead of presenting a seamless and integrated flavour experience. It's lager, but not as I want it. All three breweries make better examples by themselves.

And finally, from Austria, there was Ottakringer G'mischte. This isn't really a beer in its own right, being a blend of the brewery's Helles and Dunkles lagers, presumably in equal measures. I'm not at all sure why they would do this, but I guess it's a convenience thing. The result is a flawless dark copper colour with a subtle herbal quality in the aroma leading to a less subtle one in the flavour. This adds aniseed and basil to the malt's caramel and toast, and the combination works beautifully. While there's plenty going on, it's all blended together perfectly. The only thing upsetting things slightly is its high density and considerable sweetness, making it tough drinking for a beer that's only 4.8% ABV. Still, taking time over it is no hardship. I still think the component beers are perhaps better enjoyed apart, but nothing has been diluted by turning them into this.

With the reception over, the tidying up done, and the goodbyes said, it was off to see what else was happening in Brussels.

Serious fun

Sour IPA is one of my favourite beer styles, and one produced much too rarely. When I spotted an example from Dutch brewery Baxbier, I had to give it a go. It's called Pucker Potion and is 6.2% ABV. It's as pale and hazy as these tend to be, looking like old-school lemonade, although there are some disturbingly large gobbets bobbing around in it. The aroma is fresh and zesty, powerful enough to suggest pancake topping. The flavour continues the lemon theme, although it's more sweet than sour: the lemonade effect again. I detect a certain wild acidity with a hint of barnyard funk in the background, but it's not very pronounced. This is happy and zingy for the most part, with a sunny disposition and some irresponsibly well-hidden alcohol. I would have liked a bit more pucker to the potion, but came away from it considerably more refreshed than when I started.

And if that looked and tasted like old-school lemonade, what to make of Oldskool Lemonade? It's another IPA, this one 6% ABV and with added lemon juice, lemon peel, lactose and vanilla. That sounds quite busy. It's quite hazy; an opaque yellow, on the darker side. It smells bright and summery, which suited the afternoon on which I drank it: fun and zesty; a spritz of orange and grapefruit, conjuring summer cocktails on the terrace. I'm very happy to say the lactose and vanilla are not at all apparent, and it's crisp and tangy, lacking any sugary quality from the malt and the milk. This does not really taste like lemonade of any stripe, so the name is a bust. It does use the weighty body well -- more lemon curd than lemonade. All told, it's pretty decent. For a sunny day on the patio, it worked especially well.

To conclude, we Party Like There's A Cherry On Top, a 12% ABV stout with added cherries, chocolate, lactose and vanilla, for the full pastry effect. It's a foamy one, with a luxurious creamy head over the jet-black body. It smells quite serious, of dark-roasted coffee and crunchy hazelnuts, giving away none of the silliness suggested by the branding. The flavour, too, is subtle and balanced -- unusual for a pastry stout, but I will absolutely take it. The roast is paramount, and again there's a crunch, of dry coffee grounds and unadorned wafer biscuits. After a moment, the chocolate emerges, and it's a very real effect: dark and bitter, where I would have thought the added vanilla and lactose would create a milk chocolate character. In fact, if those two ingredients were supposed to make it sweet and pastry-like then they've completely failed at their task, but it's a better beer for it. The cherries are subtle, but present right at the very end. When the alcohol vapours drift up the back of your nose after swallowing, they carry a gentle kirsch warmth, one which then respectfully fades away, ready for your next mouthful of mocha. This is a much better beer than I was expecting it to be; a proper imperial stout to the core, having some fun with silly ingredients, but not allowing them to turn the beer silly. Pastry stout designed for the thinking beer-drinker is all too rare in this world.

There's a daftness to the Baxbier branding, and the way it presents its off-kilter beers. Don't let it fool you into thinking they're simply novelty gimmicks, however. These recipes have been well-formulated and carefully produced. The results are enjoyably entertaining rather than clownishly silly.

Big can energy

Lancashire brewery Rivington is a new one to me. I don't know if they've made much headway in their time in Ireland so far, as this pair were rescued from the Craft Central bargain bin, a few days past their best-before date.

The one that caught my eye as I perusing said bin was Struck Me Down, described as a farmhouse pale ale. Intriguing. It's a hazy pale yellow in the glass, with a fine white head. There's a pleasant kick of lemon zest from the aroma, but I think it hasn't otherwise been well served by time. I believe I'm within my rights to expect more zest from the flavour, but if it was there originally, it's gone now. Instead, it's dry and savoury, with a crunch of sesame seed up front. There's tiny pinch of citrus in the middle, and then a different sort of savouriness -- a briney salinity. It's all a bit severe, and drinking it was an effort, which shouldn't be the case for any beer at 4.6% ABV. The farmhouse side of the spec is all dry and earthy, lacking any fun fruit or funk. I had high hopes for this, but whether it was the recipe or the extended storage time, it didn't live up to them.

That had me worried about the follow-up: Never Known Fog Like It. I just liked the name, but this turns out to be the brewery's flagship, and received particular praise from Katie a few years back. Well, let's see how it works a week after the expiry date. It's a cheery bright yellow/orange colour, fully opaque, with a thick and lasting head. The aroma is quite bitter and piney, which makes sense as traditionally bitter hops Simcoe, Chinook and Citra are all included, alongside Mosaic. Despite looking thick, it's actually quite light, and the easy-going texture reflects its modest 5.2% ABV. The flavour is quite a simple one, but delicious. It's pretty much all mandarin, and all of the mandarin: the peel, the pith, the flesh and the juice, sweet and tangy with a tiny bite of acidity. There's a hint of the green pine from the aroma too, but barely noticeable and easily ignored. This can seems to have weathered much better than its stablemate, and the beer is still very enjoyable. It reminds me of another brewery's flagship: Trouble Brewing Ambush, one which similarly puts high-end New England characteristics in sinkable pint form.

The final score from Rivington is a 1-1 draw. Perhaps my favourite feature of the beers was that both came in 50cl cans, which just feels more satisfying to handle and to drink than the usual 44. I'm not in a big rush to explore more of their wares, but I'll make a point of getting fresher ones when I do.

You had to be there

When it was mentioned that 2025 was the fourth annual Mullingar Wild Beer Festival, I was taken aback. Can it really have been that long? (yes it can) This edition suffered a fit of last-minute hiccups when three of the six attending breweries pulled out on the day, citing various reasons. So we had to make do without The White Hag, Land & Labour and Ballykilcavan. Those guys can owe us.

Of those that did show, Third Barrel only brought one beer, which was extra-appreciated. It's called Princess Peach, and is an experiment in what happens when you match the sweet stonefruit effect that certain Brettanomyces strains bring to a beer, with actual peach purée. I didn't think it worked very well, but I'm told by Kev the brewer and owner that I'm wrong, which is fair enough. For me, the Brett got lost. The beer tasted very sweet, and very similar to what you might get if you simply added peach extract to a plain blonde ale. The wild side, the fact that it was also aged in a Chardonnay barrel, and the sizeable 7% ABV were all missing from the taste. It's juicy fun, but as a complex beer for insufferable chin-stroking connoisseurs (ie the whole point of this festival) it was lacking.

Everyone else's first beer was a new one from Wide Street: Cuvée Spontanée, so I had that next in case it ran out. The brewery says it's in a gueze style, though was pouring it on cask, a format generally reserved in Belgium for straight lambic only. That left it a little on the warm and flat side, which gueze shouldn't be, but it got the other basics correct. Brettanomyces is indicated in a lightly peachy aroma, while the flavour is decently sharp and tangy, with a kind of green-apple acidity to the sourness, enriched with an odd but not unwelcome smear of butteriness. It finishes cleanly, making for some very easy drinking. I assume this will be out in bottled form in due course, and it will be interesting to see how it develops with a bit of age. Some extra complexity would be good, though it's hard to fault it as it was served on the day.

Finally, there was Otterbank, a Donegal brewery which no longer has any distribution in Dublin. By way of apology, the management sent me away with a selection of bottles, so I got to try a few of the offerings in both draught and small-pack formats.

The first of these was Messers, an ale brewed with heritage barley and oats, fermented with locally harvested wild yeast for three years in an ex-Chardonnay barrel. I'm guessing the aim is to create something historical-ish, though without reference to any established style of beer. It pours a honey colour -- much paler than in my terrible photograph --  and has a very oaky aroma, with sparks of mineral spices. Perhaps in keeping with its pre-modern sensibilities, it's quite flat, with only a very faint sparkle. The white wine is to the fore in the flavour, with elements of gooseberry and lychee, plus a heaping helping of vanilla and an odd seam of coconut. The sourness is quite assertive, so it's not one for beginners, but there's a balance, too: a sweet side from its fruity characteristics and the significant gravity (finishing at 6.6% ABV) which helps it stay drinkable. It probably resembles straight lambic more than anything else, and as such is highly enjoyable.

Next is Matriarch, which is described as "our most complex release to date", being a Flanders red ale, given five years of ageing in Armagnac barrels, finishing at a formidable 9.9% ABV. That strength is immediately apparent from the first sip. It's heavy with caramel malt and lots of fortified wine: port or dark sherry, though the aroma is distinctly all brandy. There's a very clubby mix of flavours, incorporating cigar smoke, oak and old leather, making it very much a beer to sip. Surprisingly, it's not hot, however. Neither is it especially sour: you can just about tell that there's a Flanders red at the base, but not one of the more extreme ones. Think Rodenbach Classic. Come to think of it, this is a better hacked-about Flanders red than most of the ones Rodenbach has come out with. What the wild side does especially well is give it a clean finish, much like the previous beers, not letting the weighty richness become a burden on the palate. This is an all-round classy affair, and another example of getting full value out of a very complicated production process.

Not at the festival, but I had a bottle later, was Welcome To Muff, billed as a session IPA and 3.5% ABV. There has to be a twist, and it's that it's a raw ale, brewed without boiling. That technique tends to be used for beers without hops, because you won't get the proper bittering effect without a boil. However, this adds Galaxy dry. I had no idea what to expect from it. In the glass it's a dusty-looking amber colour and quite hazy. The aroma is fresh and zesty, with the orange-shred marmalade character I very much associate with Galaxy. The body is light and the carbonation soft, which puts us in English cask bitter territory. I assumed there would be some pinch of wildness in its make up, but no: other than the accent on the hops, it's quite neutral. I see this working well by the pint, as a high-quality, unfussy, drinking beer. I would never have guessed the ABV is as low as it is: it gets away with it the same way the English brewers do, with a beautifully subtle complexity. If this was an experiment, it paid off handsomely. The 33cl serving size is the only cause for complaint I have.

Back to Mullingar, then, and as always there were a handful of kegs from breweries abroad.

Echoes of Summer by Little Earth Project was left over from last year's gig. It's a mixed fermentation beer of 5.3% ABV with a mixture of summer fruit in it. The pour was headless and the beer dark brown, with an aroma of spices and dark fruit, a little like HP Sauce. The flavour is quite sharp, and there was a certain staleness going on which made me think that the inter-festival maturation hasn't done it any good. On the plus side, there's an enjoyable richness to the taste, bringing red grape, raisin and fig. I wonder if it had more zing originally, because that's what's missing from the picture.

Cyclic is a specialist wild beer brewer in Catalonia, and they sent a grape ale called Skin Contact. This deeply purple 6.9%-er started life as a saison before the grape skin was added. The result isn't sour, but has a strong Bretty funk, of the farmyards and horseblankets variety. The grape must have gone in in bulk because there's a lusciously dense, weighty, fruit side. I got quite kriek-like vibes, with the grapes adding a cherry jam sweetness, contrasting with the more serious drier funk. It works incredibly well, and sits nicely in between the flavour profiles of wild beer and natural wine. Fascinating, but delicious too.

From the same part of the world comes La Salvatge, and they had another peach beer, called La Viu-Viu. This is a blend of two spontaneously-fermented ales which was then aged in red wine barrels with the peaches. It's 6% ABV and a cloudy orange colour. There was something a bit off about the fruit in this, tasting too sweet and slightly rancid. There's a waxy, bitter quality to the base beer, which adds to the harshness. This is a challenging creature, and while I appreciated the depth and complexity, it's too much for me.

That leaves what I thought was going to be the star of the show: Boerenerf. I didn't recognise the beer on sale from this newcomer in Belgian lambic, badged here as Gueuze: Pineau des Charentes Barrels -- the brewery might have a different name for it. I didn't even know what Pineau des Charentes was, learning it's a fortified wine from western France. OK then. The beer is rather sweet for a proper geuze, and I guess it's the barrels which give it a tropical character, suggesting mango and passionfruit in an odd but not unpleasant way. Though sweet, it's not gloopy, and has a gorgeously crisp Champagne sparkle. The sourness is assertive without being aggressive, and when it warms there's a growing incense spice in the taste. As such, it performs as a lambic ought to, and confirms further my admiration for this new producer.

While it's a shame we didn't have three more breweries on the day, I fully used up my afternoon on the beers that were there. Thanks as always to the organisers and brewers.

Twisted pair

Things are not what they seem with today's beers, both from Dublin brewery Lineman.

The draught-only Love Buzz had me wearing out some shoe leather for a trip across to Tapped on Nassau Street, not a part of town I'd be in regularly, at least since the Porterhouse discontinued Wrasslers. There I found a 4.5% ABV session IPA which was an unappetising murky ochre, with a slightly sickly sweet cordial aroma. It's smoothly textured, feeling much bigger than the strength, while the flavour is bizarre. I hadn't twigged that it had added passionfruit, although the brewery did warn us, in fairness. Anyway, it's very passionfruit, with a concentrated syrupiness that somehow manages to be more spicy than sweet, giving me cinnamon and sandalwood, while still also being tropical. Like I say: bizarre. It's fun, and certainly different. I can't imagine it works as an actual session beer, however. My palate was gumming up at the two-thirds mark and my next beer was definitely going to be something cleaner. Still, a worthwhile experiment, and worth trying if you see it, if only for the weirdness.

I gave an approving nod recently to the Saul Bass homage on one of Tiny Rebel's cans. Lineman is at it too, referencing Bass's Hitchcock poster work on Vertigo. Double black IPA is a rare treat indeed, and this one is a prize-winning homebrew recipe, which is another signal that there's a good time to come. It poured a little murky, with a brackish brownish tint to the black body. A raft of rocky ivory foam tops it off. The aroma is quite subtle, but I do get the suggestion of mocha and pine, which indicates it will be stylistically accurate. It is, I guess, but in an understated way. The unspecified American hops manifest as a sharp citric bitterness, like a squirt of lemon juice. That sits up front, and is quite brief. The middle section is all about the dark malt, and it's more chocolate-forward than I would prefer, holding back on the roast. There's a hint of dankness on the finish, but you don't get a lot of bang for your buck here, and there's no intimation at all that we're dealing with an 8.2% ABV whopper. Black IPA is a daft, clownish beer style, and double-black doubly so. That gives brewers a licence to make something loud and silly, but that's not what's happened here. Maybe the homebrew judges preferred a bit of nuance and balance in theirs, because you absolutely get that. I would have liked something more head-spinning, however. 

I'll say this for Lineman: they know how to keep things interesting. It's quite the gift to the beer blogging community.

Spring warmer

Despite the sunshine there was still a nip in the air when Kinnegar's Brewers At Play 45 arrived, so I can forgive the brewery for putting out a winter beer just as spring starts turning to summer. It's a smoked porter with maple syrup, and surprisingly low-strength for such a thing, at a mere 4.2% ABV.

It's not a light beer, however. The brewery's description suggests that it was designed smoke-first with the syrup as an afterthought, but it's exceedingly dense, though tastes and feels more like chocolate sauce than maple syrup. The base porter, then, is wonderfully full-flavoured, packed with high-cocoa chocolate mixed with dark-roast coffee, the impact aided by the silky texture. Yet oddly there's very little smoke, that I could detect, maybe just a hint of burnt sugar to signal its presence. I don't miss it, though; there are few things worse than a smoked porter that tastes ashen or fishy, and this definitely isn't one of those. The maple flavour arrives right on the end, present but unobtrusive. I'm not sure it's needed: the underlying porter is plenty.

This is the sort of high quality autumn seasonal that works well any time of the year. It's big, bold and luxurious, yet at a strength to permit mid-week drinking. Another addition to the Kinnegar pantheon of top notch dark beers.

It was twenty years ago today

In February 2005, Russian River launched the world's first triple IPA, Pliny the Younger. A few months later, on 28th April, I stopped putting things off and published the first post on my new beer blog. The two of us have not met previously, but here we are at last, on the 20th anniversary of me getting this thing moving.

I can't remember the last time I saw a clear triple IPA, but it's quite the thrill: the promise of a strong, clean, upright and muscular experience; a beer six-pack of a different sort altogether. The aroma is pure West Coast, but not in an especially intense way, just nice sparks of grapefruit zest on a clean malt base which calls to mind strong pale lager. Flavourwise, it's not hugely different to how I remember its double IPA antecedent, Pliny the Elder, tasting: an orderly array of classic American IPA characteristics, including grapefruit, pine, orange peel and a touch of spicy, herby, cannabis. The extra strength does make a contribution to all this, though, preventing any harsh IBU-chasing bitterness by adding a slightly syrupy residual-sugar effect. Despite it, the heat intensity is restrained and I wouldn't have guessed an ABV as high as 10.25%. This is drinkable rocket fuel.

Overall, it's a jolly decent beer. I get how, two decades ago, it would have been eye-poppingly amazing. At the time, I was only just discovering what Sierra Nevada Pale Ale does, and there wasn't a single commercial brewer in this country using Cascade hops, never mind anything more intense. But triple IPA made its way here eventually: half way between 2005 and now, Trouble Brewing released Ireland's first, and it wasn't markedly different to what I have in front of me. Since then, American IPA went tragically off course [insert politics joke here], and there are now any number of hot messes claiming to be worthy triple IPA, so the amazement factor is now back, except in retro mode: this is great because hardly anyone makes IPA like it, or as good, any more.

We're just two twenty-year-olds, having fun together, not caring that the rest of the world has moved on. A big thanks to Paul for gifting me the bottle.

Toro!

It's The Session time once again, and this month's host is Ding, who asks Where do you find value? As someone who does a bit of consumer campaigning, it's a very important topic: whether beer is expensive or cheap, the drinker should feel they're getting value for it. With the highly-marketed mainstream beers in the pubs of Ireland, I think that is very much not the case. For a neophile like me, there's another side to the value proposition. Most beers that I drink are new to me, so I've no idea whether they will prove good value or not. What helps is the existence of this blog. I've long come to view it as a way of getting value out of bad beer. I may not have enjoyed drinking it, but being able to compose and publish an account of why, makes it some way worth my while. And, of course, excoriating reviews are much more fun to write than positive ones.

I was expecting some excoriation to be necessary when I came to today's pair of beers.

The ongoing trend for rustic-branded Mediterranean lager rarely troubles these pages. I am bewildered that there still seems to be space in this sector where Heineken's Moretti and Molson Coors's Madrí are slugging it out. Neither beer is any good, but that hasn't stopped other large breweries trying to attract drinkers away from them with similarly-presented fare.

Damm's effort comes from its brewery in Málaga, and is called Victoria Málaga. It's presented in a 66cl bottle and, like Moretti, the label features an old-timey bloke with a hat -- he's a German tourist, apparently, the beer's mascot since the 1950s, before Damm bought and revived it in 2001. It's a quite a dark one; the clear golden colour having a slight tint of coppery red in it. It doesn't look like a cheapie mass-market job.

Not much happens in the aroma, just a vague graininess which is the sort you get from mass-market lager, though the body is fuller than I expected from just 4.8% ABV. There's a proper malt foretaste, thick and bready, with some quite Czech-tasting golden syrup. Alas, it doesn't last long, fading before the beer's other flavour kicks in. That's a mild zinc-like bitter bite, very much the sort you get from old-world hops, and likely German ones. This too is fleeting, and it finishes promptly and cleanly. This shows some of the features of good wholesome lagers, but its industrial nature betrays it. While it doesn't taste cheap or compromised, there's not really enough depth of taste for me to recommend it. It could have been much worse.

And speaking of: Aldi has taken a direct potshot at Madrí by creating an obvious knock-off, called Grande. Given that these, and there are many of them, never bear any resemblance to the beers they're copying, beyond the label, I had no idea what to expect. It's noteworthy that, unlike Madrí, this one is actually brewed in Spain. Again it's a 66cl bottle, and again it's on the darker side: not quite as deep as the previous beer but certainly an alluring amber. It's much thinner and fizzier, however, and drinking them back-to-back really shows up the Victoria as a better beer made to a more flavourful spec. This isn't much lighter at 4.6% ABV but is a world away.

The aroma is quite sugary, but not in a malt-like way, and suggests that the beer might become sweet and cloying. The chance would be a fine thing. On tasting there's almost nothing going on, with the insistent fizz providing white noise where the flavour should be. I let it warm up a little, in the hope that something of interest would emerge, but nothing of interest is on the cards here. There's a slight tang of green apple and brown sugar, hallmarks of lager done on the cheap, but nothing beyond this. Any bite comes from the carbonation rather than hops. It's not unpleasant, but it is extremely basic. Is it an effective substitute for the price-conscious Madrí drinker? Sure, why not?

I remain none the wiser about the Mediterranean lager trend. These beers are quite different from each other, yet both are being pitched at the same segment of beer drinkers. Neither has TV adverts, though, so I guess they'll continue in the ha'penny place, regardless of any individual merits. I'm certainly not planning to buy either one again, but the four paragraphs above mean I got my money's worth from them.

Tripel the fun

I was fortunate to get to visit the Westmalle brewery a couple of years ago. The most unusual thing I noticed was how this otherwise quite normal industrial-sized brewery only ever makes three beers, and most of that is just one beer: Westmalle Dubbel. In amongst the canyons of brown crates in the cellars there's only the occasional patch of cream or pale blue, for Tripel and Extra.

Now the two lesser siblings have got together to create a new draught product: Westmalle Duo. It's a 60/40 blend of the pair, and I guess the idea is to deliver the complexity of Westmalle Tripel at a more approachable strength. Still, it's 7.2% ABV, so I wouldn't exactly deem it a session beer.

In Dublin I found it on tap at The Porterhouse, a pub that has been known to serve draught Westmalle Dubbel by the pint, albeit not any time recently. Duo is a bright gold and completely clear. The aroma is unmistakably that of a golden Belgian ale, exuding fruit and flowers in colourful abundance. It leans fully into that in the flavour, almost too much so, with oodles of very ripe melon, pear, lychee and similar pale and sweet juicy fruits. This is perfumed up with lavender and jasmine top notes, plus a sprinkling of Westmalle Tripel's pithy spices.

It has been a while since I last drank either of the component beers, but this did not seem at all like a compromise between them. The dilution of the alcohol has not in any way diluted the taste. Draught serving also results in a lighter carbonation, which may be why the flavour seems so pronounced. There's also plenty of slick and smooth body to give it a long and luxurious finish.

My assumption that this is a slightly cynical attempt at extending Westmalle's share of throat (shudder) remains, but it is still a superb beer. It's perfect for that one last one of the night, when you want the big flavour and the heft, and maybe there's nothing suitable in the venue's small-pack selection. I don't know how many Irish pubs will be willing to keep a 7.2% ABV on draught, though. I wish we could fix that.

American things

Wicklow Wolf has always been a westward-looking brewery, taking its initial influence from Colorado in particular. Today's quartet of beers are their first for 2025, and they're exploring other parts of the North American continent and its related beer styles.

You don't see many California commons brewed these days, and I think this may be Wicklow Wolf's first. It's called Pacific Heights, and is 4.9% ABV. It's an attractive clear golden, looking very lager-like, in a classy way. There's a surprising sweetness at the front of the flavour, all perfume and fruit-flavoured candy. I found it a little strange that this was set on a clean lager-like base: the two don't work very well together. California common should be crisp, not floral, with a crunch of crackers. That's missing from this one, which instead goes for estery fruit, with overtones of cherry, banana and rum cocktails. I'm not a fan. The flavours would work in a big and bold beer. In one that's trying to be subtle and modest, they're a distraction. We may not get many California commons, but we haven't forgotten how they taste, and this one doesn't fit in. I'm not a fan of the warm, headachey alcohol vapours on offer here.

A west coast IPA should clean things up nicely, and next is Next Stop, named after the east coast. Err... It's only 5.8% ABV, which gives me one point to question the stylistic fidelity, and it's hazy too: a pale kellerbier yellow. The hops are Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo and Columbus, and that gives it a bright and zesty aroma. There's a decently big and soft texture -- more than I would have expected from the strength -- and the hops pile into the foretaste with Citra leading the charge, all lime and grapefruit. Style purists may object that the bitterness is dialled back, and it's not especially sharp. Pine and dank don't feature, either, so the citrus is your lot. I enjoyed it, though. The summery zest is enough for a beer that isn't particularly strong or blousey. You get your money's worth from the hops regardless. This is just the sort of boldly flavoured American-style IPA that made Wicklow Wolf's name back in the early days. It's good that they're still at it.

A second pair followed hot on the heels of those two, and I'm starting with Cliff Walk, a hazy IPA, and a light one at only 5% ABV. From the date on the base it looks like this had been in the can three days when I opened it, and the benefit of drinking this sort of beer fresh was hammered home by the aroma: a powerful blend of citrus and sterner green vegetables. That bold mix is very much present in the flavour too, dominated by an acidity which suggests raw hop pellets, loaded up with bitter herbs, spinach and pine. It does run the risk of seeming dreggy, but the pure hop flavour cuts through the grit and keeps it out of the way. Those in search of juice from their murky IPA are made to wait a few seconds before the satsuma or tangerine emerges to feature in the finish. Although some softer vanilla creeps in as it warms, the aggressive bittering never quite goes away, leaving a strong impression of west-coast IPA, counter-intuitively. Regardless, it's a banger, and well worth grabbing as soon as you can because I very much doubt it will improve with age.

That arrived with Off Script, described as a West Coast Pilsner (see my recent thoughts on such terminology) and brewed with German hop variety Tango and a descendent of both Hersbrucker and Strata, named Audacia. 5.6% ABV makes it today's second-strongest beer, yet it is worryingly pale, and completely transparent, resembling an American light lager more than anything. There's a vague and slightly sweaty lemon zest aroma, which isn't especially enticing, and the flavour is mild too. A hint of onion is perhaps the most prominent characteristic, but it's still no more than a hint. Behind it there's a sweet 7-Up mix of lemon and lime extract, flashing briefly before fading out. The saviour of this beer is the texture, that big gravity giving it a full and chewy mouthfeel that makes it very satisfying to drink even if the flavour isn't up to much. Much like the Kinnegar one from a few weeks ago, I can't say I got much West Coast character from it, however.

I guess there's more stylistic leeway with IPAs compared to California common or pilsner, as long as you get the fundamentals right. Next Stop and Cliff Walk are commended to anyone who likes their beer with a pronounced hop character. Off Script offers lager lovers a certain clean yet weighty charm. I don't know who the other one is for, however.

Widening appeal

Two new beers from Wide Street today, and something of a departure. The brewery specialises in wild fermentation, barrel-ageing and blending, but these are both straight-up (ish) takes on more controlled beer styles. The funky stuff isn't for everyone (though it should be) so I guess this is the brewery trying to appeal to less adventurous drinkers. If that's what it takes to get the koelschip full now and again, then it's fine with me.

The year's first warm evening on the patio brought me Summer in Siam, a witbier. It's on the light side at only 4.3% ABV, and they've skipped the coriander and orange peel, hoping to get their combined effect from lemongrass instead. In the glass it's a sickly-looking greenish-yellow, though the head is properly white and fluffy. A bit of a farty whiff suggests that the yeast is properly Belgian, at least. Before I could get to the flavour, I was already disappointed by the texture. Beneath that fluffy foam it's not a fluffy beer, and from the first pull was unfortunately thin and fizzy. You do get your money's worth from the lemongrass: it tastes very much of it, clear and green and herbal, with a lacing of citric acidity. There's dry rasp from the grain and then it all tails off abruptly. I guess it's meant to be easy-drinking refreshment, but I think it needs to be sweeter for that. This is quite a pointy and severe witbier, rather than a fun one. The lemongrass is a highlight but it doesn't have much else going for it, I thought.

Its sibling is a hazy IPA called Midnight in a Perfect World, a collaboration with Trouble Brewing. If the witbier was no oil painting, this one is even uglier: the orangey-beige of an earwax smear. Luckily the aroma smells fresh and clean, of lemon candy and vanilla. The murk reasserts itself in the flavour: it is extremely dreggy, tasting like a full glassful of the bottom of the keg. I'm sure all of that did wonders for my vitamin B levels, but I didn't enjoy the ingestion. I can't tell you anything very much about the Motueka and Nelson Sauvin hops' contribution to the taste because that's buried under a loud layer of earth, grit and leafy bitterness. While it's stronger than the previous one at 5.4% ABV, it still seems very thin, like the witbier, though not as fizzy. I hope I just got a bad can and that the whole batch wasn't this mucky.

This pair really didn't do it for me, and I don't think I can place the blame on them not being in the brewery's usual fun and funky area of work. Neither represents their respective mainstream style at all well. A bit of bugs 'n' Brett would have benefitted either.

The novelty factor

It was dessert time after a big dinner. Down the street from the restaurant, we settled into UnderDog for a beer in lieu. The most appealing item on the menu for my sweet tooth was from Amundsen, delighting in the name Donut Series: Coconut Cronut with Dark Chocolate & Almond Glaze, a pastry stout, believe it or not.

Now, I have never eaten a cronut -- portmanteau words give me indigestion -- so I can't speak to how accurately this 10.5% ABV recreates the experience. To be honest, I didn't really get any sense of pastry from it, in the cake or bread sense: neither donut nor croissant. The coconut, though? Oh yes, in spades. I guess it doesn't take much of it to make a stout taste coconutty, because those that have it tend to absolutely honk of it, like this fellow. There's plenty of chocolate too: syrupy and thick, resembling more a sticky chocolate sauce than the real thing, and lacking the proper cocoa promised by the "dark" chocolate part of the beer's name. Beyond that, it's just sweetness, the lactose adding that particular vanilla quality that's common to lots of beers like this. And though it's heavy, it's not hot: the double-digit alcohol causing no unpleasantness.

While the name utterly overstates the case for what it is, it's a decent and fun beer, and was absolutely the afters I was after on the day. If you hate this sort of thing, whether the title, the concept or the taste, then it's best avoided. Me, I liked how simple it was in contrast to the very involved specification. I'd have been more inclined to buy it if they'd called it Big Chocolatey Stout and nothing else.

Belgians abroad

The influence of Belgium on the brewing world spreads far and wide. I noticed this on opening my beer fridge recently. Here are three beers from three different countries, all taking their cue from Belgian tradition.

The first is, purportedly, a Kriek, but I had my suspicions from the outset. This example, from Lithuania's Volfas Engelmann, claims to be "Belgian style" but is only 4% ABV and I wasn't expecting much wild character, if any. I wasn't surprised to find that it's pink, nor that it is, indeed, very very sweet. It differs from syrupy Belgian kriek by having a realer cherry flavour: there's a hint of the genuine flesh of the black cherry here. The label tells us this is down to the 10% real cherry juice it includes. Beyond that, it has pretty much nothing else going on in it. There's not even a pretence of sourness. I have a strong tolerance for this sort of daftly sweet beer, and it didn't take me long to chug through a pint of it. I can't say it made me think of Belgium, however.

From the odd to the downright strange. Colorado's Left Hand has long made bottled nitrogenated beer its whole thing, and is best known for the milk stout to which it gave this treatment. Would it work with a witbier? I can't believe anyone even asked. The other specs of Belgian White Nitro are pretty accurate, at 4.8% ABV and brewed with coriander and orange peel. The nitro gimmick works well for the appearance, and you get a thick and lasting head, although it looks a bit wrong sitting over a perfectly clear witbier. I didn't realise that high carbonation is an intrinsic part of the style's charm, but the flatness of this one brought it home. It feels gloopy and cloying, like smoothflow English bitter, lacking any palate-scrubbing condition and accentuating the malt sweetness. The coriander feels clumsily tacked on to this, more a chemical pollutant than a herbal seasoning. It looks good, but it doesn't work. There is nothing to be gained from nitrogenating witbier, however one does it.

We return home to Dublin for the final round: Belgian Tripel from Hope, number 35 in its Limited Edition series, for anyone counting. The first thing to note is that it has very poor head retention, and the second that my Westmalle chalice holds a full 44cl. It's darker than tripel typically is, and it's sweeter too, giving a strong impression of boiled sweets and candied citrus peel. I like a bit of spice in a tripel, and there's none of that on offer here. After the sugary foretaste it all just tails off, with a faint vegetal bitterness but nothing much else. Strong Belgian-style beer should be bold yet subtle, and this manages neither, tasting like simple alcoholic barley water, lacking finesse.

The complexity of their beer is what makes Belgium distinct, and it's essential to get that right when trying to copy it. Many's a brewer goes to the extreme, resulting in beer that's too hot or too cloying. These ones all have the opposite problem: they've got the basics right, but are missing the extra spark which seems to come naturally to Belgian brewers but is elusive elsewhere.