Urban renewal

Blimey. It's been a year since I last called by Urban Brewing. Shameful altogether. As a brewpub with no core range, beers turn over regularly, but there are themes, and regular re-ups of styles they've done before.

For example, I know of no other brewery so fond of lemon verbena. I had never heard of the herb until I saw a sack of it on the brewing gallery at Urban some years ago. Recently, they had a Lemon Verbena Argentinian Ale on the menu. I'm guessing the geographical allusion is simply a reference to where lemon verbena comes from, because the hops are plain old Cascade. It's 4.8% ABV and a deep shade of gold, smelling both of lemons and savoury herbs, as one might expect. Oddly, it's only the leafy herbal side that manifests in the flavour, given an earthy mineral tang by the Cascade. The vegetal bitterness masks any citric freshness, which is disappointing, and makes the flavour a little too harsh. The best feature of this beer is its burpy reflux which brings up basil and rosemary notes with a twist of fresh black pepper. And I think that may be the most disgusting positive tasting note I've ever written, but it's true. I'm not sure that lemon verbena is the killer beer ingredient Urban seems to think it is.

Tropical Sour is an entirely new concept for this brewery, as far as I'm aware. This arrived an unattractive dun colour though with a colourful aroma of mango, guava and similarly Lilt-like stereotypical tropical fruits. To taste, it's not sour, exactly, but it is crisp, clean and refreshing, helped by the ice-cold serving. 4.9% ABV gives it a heft, and you wouldn't mistake it for a lighter, more sessionable, beer. There's an edge here; a serious chord thrumming behind the jauntier fruit melody. I would have liked it more but for an unpleasant bleachy tang in the background, and I can't tell whether that's part of the spec which didn't suit my palate or an error somewhere in the one-storey distance between production and serving. I can accept a lack of polish in a short-run brewpub beer but I wouldn't be happy if I found this in a retail offering out in the wild. That twang seems to be how it does sourness, and I don't approve. Sour should be sharp and clean, and this is a bit mucky, the different elements not quite fitting together. If they're going to do this one again, refinement is necessary.

There was a Belgian Wit Bier on the menu back in 2017 when it first opened, and now there's a new one, the ABV dropped from 5.4% to 5%. This iteration is brightly golden with a fine froth on top and a strong coriander aroma, suggesting they've fully leaned into the style specs and not tried to do anything "creative". I approve. The flavour is quite plain, however. The herbs wait to the finish before emerging, and it's orange peel a-go-go for the foretaste. That's fine, I guess. The body is thin and the finish abrupt, and I don't think that should be the case given the strength: witbier cliché alert, but Hoegaarden does the same thing at the same spec, but better. Regardless, this is a bright and summery example of the style, and I hope that people who didn't sit indoors at the bar writing notes enjoyed it by the pint on the sunny terrace: that's what this beer is ideally suited for. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the strength would benefit from dialling down further.

Urban has had a bunch of saisons over the years, but only one called simply Saison, and now here's another. It's strikingly clear, looking like a lovely lager. The aroma is a perfect Dupont-esque blend of crisp grain husk and farmy white pepper spicing, eschewing the fruitier aspects of saison, and I'm absolutely fine with that. So it goes with the flavour: dry and possibly a little dusty, without seeming stale or any way not fresh. There's a zip to it, an easy-going spiced cracker effect which is highly enjoyable. Saisons from breweries who don't specialise can be hot and flabby, but this one shows an amazing cleanness and accessibility for the frankly stonking 6.3% ABV. It drinks a couple of points below that and runs the risk of being a public order problem. I found it slaking my thirst efficiently, as though I were a Belgian farm worker, while also having to cycle home carefully through Dublin traffic. Saison is very much a movable feast, and lots of breweries try their hands at it, with variable results. I can't say this is the best ever, but it is a superb example of what I understand the style to be. Urban tends not to re-do recipes exactly, but this one deserves a wider audience. Perhaps parent company O'Hara's has space for one in their line-up.

The final beer is quite the contrast: American Hazy IPA. It's last because it's strongest at 6.8% ABV, verging on what qualifies as "double", here in the land of session pints. They've hit the unfortunate essentials of the style, with a dreggy appearance and an aroma of garlic, vanilla and booze. It's heavy and acrid, the bitterness not of fresh hops but of yeasty scoopings from the bottom of the keg. It tastes how it looks, unfortunately. There's that plasterboard grittiness, and there's that unnecessary heat, and there's that inappropriate hot garlic sauce, and there's that excessive vanilla sweetness. I can't believe that people who were into hops decided that hoppy beer should taste like this. There's so much interference from the beer not being properly finished that I can't believe anyone would enjoy drinking it, and that goes for any number  of dreg-forward hazy IPAs out there. Lads. Fix this. 

A beer that demonstrates the problems with contemporary IPA is probably a good place to finish.