North-west trad

Ireland has a number of breweries whose beers never feature on these pages because they're only available in the immediate catchment area. Not everything finds its way to the big cities, and that's as it should be. I'm grateful to the family member who spotted these while on holiday in Donegal and brought them down to me. All are from the Errigal Brewing Company, based at the Caisleáin Óir Hotel in Annagary.

I started with the red ale, Rua, and was immediately impressed by the thick pillowy head of loose bubbles over a clear copper body. Top marks for appearance, then. It's on the strong side at 4.7% ABV, though doesn't smell particularly rich, with only a faint note of non-specific mineral dryness. That leads to a foretaste which also offers nothing in particular beyond carbonic fizz. It needs a moment, and a little warmth, to come out of its shell (don't we all), and when it does we're back on track for the style: the flavour is centred on caramel, but in a light way, with a burnt dry edge. The counterpoint is those minerals again, which I'm guessing comes from some unobtrusive old-world hops, with England's coming to mind in particular. The caramel flashes briefly in the aftertaste and then we're done. I'm sure it isn't meant to offer a multiplexity of flavour, but with the extra body there's certainly room for it to do more. As a basic, decent and well-made Irish red ale, there's not much to complain about. And if that doesn't sound appealing, there's always something else.

The next something else for me was Óir, the self-styled "gaeltacht lager", with the same name as one of Wednesday's beers. Do the breweries not talk to each other? I tend to be apprehensive when a tiny Irish brewery, using a kit that was most likely designed for ales, tries its hand at cool fermentation. The punters want lager and, sure how how hard can it be? Óir passes inspection as a kellerbier: it's yellow and fairly hazy, with a generous and lasting head. The aroma is husky and grainy, which again puts it squarely within kellerbier parameters. Crispness? Yes, to an extent. In the flavour, the grain husk from the aroma presents as a rye-cracker dryness, but it doesn't last long. An odd, warm-tasting, pear-and-apricot, fruity side emerges after a few seconds, confirming my prejudice that breweries like this aren't really cut out for lager. What  you get here instead is a sort of fluffy blonde ale: well made as a beer, but unconvincing for the market segment it's seeking to attract. Every single Heineken drinker would rather a Heineken than this.

Let's see if they do any better with pale ale. APA, or Anagaire Pale Ale, is named for the brewery's home town. It's 4.7% ABV and translucently hazy, with a thick foam on top. The inclusion of oats in the grain bill is likely related. The aroma is brightly citric, with a poke of sharp lime in particular. The flavour is unfortunately rather plainer, and emphasises the sweet side of the profile, giving me orange candy and vanilla. There's a husky, grainy element, similar to the lager, and one which doesn't sit well with the hops. The citrus arrives back to some extent in the finish, though isn't nearly as bitter as the aroma hinted it would be. This is another slightly rough and retro offering, missing the brightness and cleanness that an American-style pale ale really needs. You would want to be fierce loyal to local to deem this an acceptable alternative.

A porter is altogether more promising, and that's where we finish. Dubh looks well as it pours, a dark red that's mistakable for black, with a lovely and firm off-white head. It smells sweetly of chocolate and wafer biscuits, while the flavour goes full-on for coffee, pushing the oily roasted side at first, then following it with both sweeter milk chocolate and an earthy bitterness: contrasting but balanced. It's let down a little by a thin texture, which I guess is to be expected as it's only 4.3% ABV and is very much built for session drinking. And it's adequately suited for that, being quite restrained in how it goes about its business. There's plenty of interest, however, and after the initial cocoa and coffee, I got some bonus liquorice and burnt caramel complexity after it had warmed a little. There's a wholesome, old-fashioned quality to it, and there aren't many Irish breweries doing this sort of thing by the large bottle any more, unfortunately. 

To me, these seem intended as local beers for local people, designed for mainstream appeal even if they're produced in bespoke quantities. The porter is one which I think deserves a wider audience.

Not what they seem

It's hard to believe that Mescan passed ten years in business in 2024, but congratulations to them. To celebrate they put out a new golden ale called, appropriately as Gaeilge, Óir. It's a dark-ish shade of gold and lightly hazy in a typically Belgian way. The aroma is that of a million Belgian golden ales, all succulent fruit, candy and spices. The flavour, too, is very familiar. A distinctive feature, in amongst the peaches and pears, is a white peppery piquancy, of the sort I associate with La Chouffe in particular. In fact, there's a lot that's very Chouffe-like in this overall, so it was a shock half way down when I discovered it's a mere 5.7% ABV. Maybe it's because the flavour profile is so close, but I was blithely assuming it was 7% ABV+. There's no thinness, nor any lack of complexity. It's not especially warm, but then the Belgians are very adept at making strong beers that aren't either. If Duvel 6.66 only took you half way down, here's a beer to finish the job.

Released at the same time was Spéartha Dorcha, celebrating the Clew Bay dark sky reserve. Although it's again fermented with Belgian yeast, it's in the not-very-Belgian style of oyster stout, including real Clew Bay oysters, untroubled by artificial lighting. There's a crisply fizzy cola sweetness to the aroma, suggesting lightly spiced caramel. The high carbonation does disrupt the flavour: it's hard to figure out what something tastes like when the bubbles are busily pummelling your tongue. I let it sit for a while, and when the fizz subsides, there's isn't actually very much to discover. You get a basic level of dry roast: burnt toast, shading to dark coffee beans. The caramel from the aroma puts in a brief appearance in the finish, but it's not a main part. And I couldn't find anything Belgian going on, nor indeed any oysters. Compared with, say, The Porterhouse's Oyster Stout, this is altogether less enjoyable, lacking the chocolate, creaminess and slight salinity which make that one worthwhile. It's perfunctory, and only 4.7% ABV, but is much less interesting than the concept suggests it will be.

I didn't think that the golden ale would be my favourite of the set, but that wasn't the first surprise of the day from Mescan.