There goes the summer

Here's an official end to the summer, and an official end to all the fruit beers that Irish breweries have been turning out in recent months. Although, given the idiosyncrasies of Irish beer seasonality, I could well still be writing about them until Christmas.

To the sunny terrace of The Taphouse in Ranelagh first. What brought me through the doors was a new one from Third Barrel called Stripey Paint. It's a watermelon-flavoured gose, they tell us, and despite the slightly dirty glass, it looked well: sparkling clear and golden. Effort was needed to identify the gose aspect because the watermelon syrup, which doesn't really taste like watermelon, absolutely dominates it. That makes it sickly sweet, the effect like some kind of sugar-coated hard candy. It's there at the beginning and runs all the way through, gumming up the palate by the end. Urgh. There's only a very faint hint of salinity to remind us of the purported style, which also serves to help clean things up a little. Coupled with the light 4% ABV and fizz, it somehow managed to work as the thirst-quencher I needed when the temperature hit 26°C. On the downside, I was stuck tasting the fake-fruit gunk for the rest of the afternoon.

Rye River's summer seasonal was a strawberry-flavoured lager called Once Upon a Time in Wexico, referencing Co. Wexford, famous for its strawberries. The ABV of 4.5% matches the brewery's flagship Helles, so I'm guessing nothing more involved has happened than the blending of that with some strawberry flavouring. If they formulated a new "Mexican-style" lager specifically for it, I don't see the point. There's a strong aroma of tinned strawberries, concentrated to the point where I doubt any real fruit was involved. That's somewhat muted in the flavour, or at least nowhere near as honkingly strong, but it's the only distinctive feature the beer has. Otherwise, there's a passable crisp fizz, but I got little to no malt or hops. If all you want is a beer that smells of strawberries, then this answers the need, and I'm sure it went down a storm at many an event bar during festival season. Where I drank it, it had the misfortune to be sharing a line-up with guilty pleasure Früli, which does beer plus strawberries in a far superior way. Once Upon a Time is enough for this recipe.

A rather less genteel dessert beer came from Rascals earlier in the summer: their Fruit Sundae Gelato Sour, responsibility for which is shared with Bådin of Norway. Despite the ice cream parlour stripes on the label, this is a serious affair, at all of 6% ABV. It doesn't look like a dessert, being a dull shade of earthy ochre. The aroma is light and zesty, however, and it's here that the souring culture is most perceptible. It's lactose rather than Lactobacillus that drives the flavour, and indeed the smooth and heavy texture. Vanilla forms the base of the profile, to which is added a mish-mash of fruit concentrates (four are named on the ingredients) with strawberry and blackberry being the most apparent. And that's it. While the mouthfeel reflects the high ABV, the flavour complexity doesn't. The weight also means it doesn't work as a summer refresher, and is more of a pudding substitute. This is simple and inoffensive stuff, so long as oodles of lactose and rivers of fruit gunk don't bother you.

That's me ready for the cooler days and darker evenings, then.