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.