DOT of all trades

Six beers in a variety of styles from DOT today, proving that even if they don't release as many barrel-aged blends as they used to, everything doesn't have to be standard hazy IPA otherwise.

Spin Off Series Pilsner is brewed for Aldi and is described simply as "a classic easy drinking crisp lager". DOT hasn't named the brewery of origin, but if it came from Third Barrel, I trust it to hit the mark. Although it's an attractive warm gold colour, there's a certain haze to it, so isn't precision-engineered in the German or Czech way. A full 5% ABV gives it plenty of substance, feeling almost like a festbier, bock, or similar supercharged lager. The first pull gives all the malt flavours, with a subtle honey and white bread character. The aroma is freshly leafy, suggesting spinach and lamb's lettuce. This hop side manifests at the end of the flavour, bringing a spicy, peppery bitterness and a rub of acidic damp grass. It's lovely. Easy drinking, sure, but filling and satisfying too. I'm pleased also to find an Irish pilsner with enough hopping to justify the label. You won't find better lager in Aldi, and you'd have to look to the likes of Third Barrel's own Hello Yes? for an Ireland-brewed comparator. I wonder if the recipes are related.

Also for Aldi, there's Spin Off Series Brown Ale. This is a bit of a departure as, when it comes to brown ale, DOT normally can't resist adding coffee or doing something funky with Belgian yeast. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this unadorned 5% ABV example is very welcome. In the glass it's a deep dark brown, with hints of ruby visible against the light, and a generous fine-bubbled head. A roasty aroma suggests it is drier than the ideal but the flavour pulls back on the severity, adding a milk chocolate richness which balances the dark toasted grain at its centre. I poured mine a bit cold, so that's all there was initially. With a little warmth, the chocolate takes more of a role, and there's a floral side too: a summer garden of honeysuckle and roses. While it doesn't have the flavour impact of the one Rye River does for Dunnes -- the hoppy punch there makes it a different sort of creature altogether -- as a simple take on an overlooked beer style, it's hard to find fault with it. Just be careful about the serving temperature: closer to room than fridge makes it an altogether more enjoyable experience.

The next one is a session IPA, and means it, at just 3.5% ABV. Mid Week is a hazy one: a pale yellow shade, and more or less opaque. The aroma is a mix of citrus juice and woody nutmeg spice, hinting at complexity to come. They've done a great job with the body, and it doesn't feel at all compromised by the low gravity, landing velvety smooth on the palate. With that comes a veritable bouquet of tropical fruit flavour: passionfruit and pineapple lead it out; guava and mango follow, with a growing lime and grapefruit bitterness. Only that it fades out into watery fizz rather than building to sticky sugar tells you that you aren't drinking Lilt. I don't know that I would literally have a session on this, but as a low-strength beer that's jam-packed with big hop flavour and channels the New England aspect well, it's a very welcome creation, and I hope it sticks around. 

It's quite leap from these two to Twilight, a 9% ABV bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout. Very much the typical sort of thing from DOT. It poured dense and thick, with a fine off-white head on top. The aroma is dark chocolate and boozy liqueur, smelling very classy and luxurious. I was expecting sweet, but there's a deft pivot to drier roast in the foretaste; a tasty coffee smack, with the chocolate running to catch up. It's surprisingly unsweet, for while the chocolate does build, it never quite takes control. A crisp seam of wafer biscuit runs through it from end to end, and although the bourbon is discernible, it remains in the background, speaking softly under the stout, as it too seldom does. The result is a refined and balanced imperial stout, pulling together the correct flavour elements, but holding them in check, so it never gets too sweet or too boozy. I'm sure beers like this don't just happen, and take a lot of skill to produce. Maybe it doesn't have the complexity of a convoluted barrel-aged blend, but it's very fine drinking nonetheless.

I had been planning to wrap things up there, but then the winter seasonal range arrived, with barrel-ageing to beat the band. One in particular caught my eye: Wild Ale III, a mixed fermentation beer aged three years in former white port barrels, then given an extra three months on blueberries. Sounds like my kind of thing. It's a murky pale pink in the glass, looking like a kir. The aroma gives little away, only a nondescript berry tartness. The body is light and there's no real sourness with this one. None was promised, mind, but I wrongly assumed that it would be a central feature. Instead there's a light and cool vinous quality, conjuring real white port, and then spritzy sweet side from the real-tasting blueberries. Some floral perfume and rosewater enters the picture as it warms. It's clean and crisp, and worked well in place of a pre-dinner cocktail. Though 6.2% ABV, it tastes lighter, and there's no heavy oak of the sort that can throw something like this off balance. A little more complexity might have improved it, but as a subtly complex appetite-sharpener, it's a beaut.

Finally, another beer that's fully DOTty. You see, first there was a Cabernet Franc ice wine. Its barrels were repurposed to make single malt whiskey and, years later, re-repurposed for imperial milk stout. The result is Over A Barrel 08, the latest in a series of particularly adventurous barrel experiments conducted in conjunction with TwoSides, the beer brand of Dublin's Brickyard pub. It's more brown than black in the glass, and the aroma really shows off its convoluted heritage, with sharp oaky notes and a spirit heat. Not much sign of the lactose, mind. It is smooth-bodied, however, and I think the milk end of things contributes more to the texture than the flavour, whether or not that's by design. You can taste every bit of the 10.6% ABV, and the booze hit on the foretaste is strong enough to resemble whiskey rather than beer. Behind it, the raw oak again, and the ghost of the wine: a slightly unctuous and concentrated white grape note. Presumably there are normal milk stout features like chocolate and vanilla too, but they were buried too deep for me to taste them, which is a little unfortunate. Overall, I liked this, and I can't really complain that a 10+% ABV whiskey-aged stout was overly hot, but a bit of dark malt beeriness would have been appreciated. It left me feeling that the beer format was merely a vehicle of convenience for all the whiskey and wine characteristics.

Six beers later that's pretty good going by DOT, with some superb examples of their style, going above and beyond the basic specs. They're too wildly different for me to pick a favourite, and as a fan of pilsners, session IPAs brown ales and imperial stouts I can happily say that they all met my needs for these styles. DOT's still got it.