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.