Hope for strength

North Dublin brewery Hope provides today's beers: two big wintery specials.

The first is plainly titled Barrel Aged Export Stout. With a nod to the history of exporting stout to the Caribbean, the barrels involved previously held Two Shores rum. It's 8% ABV and foamed busily on pouring, eventually settling to a pure black body with a tan-coloured head. There's a warming, fruity element to the aroma, which I'm guessing must be the rum, though I wouldn't have identified it as such unbidden.

Unsurprising given the froth, it's quite fizzy: a little too much for the style, I think, giving it a thin and sharp quality that doesn't suit strong stout. The rum element is present in the flavour, but subtle. I tend not to like rum-aged beers, finding the spirit cloyingly sweet, but that isn't the case here. Instead, the barrels add more of that fruitcake or Christmas pudding quality I found in the aroma, as well as a rawer oaken sappiness. None of this overrules the base beer, which is a no-nonsense, properly bitter, grown-up stout: dark toast, a molasses sweet side and then a finish of punchy spinach and green cabbage leaf. The can says it's 48 IBUs; it tastes like considerably more. This is quality stuff, and I'm always happy to find a modern stout that goes big without resorting to silliness. The fizz is its one flaw, and I found myself doing a lot of swirling to try and knock that out. It only reached an acceptable level of smoothness around the time I finished it.

From one olde-worlde English style to another. Paddy's Barleywine results from this year's National Homebrew Club championships, being a recreation of the grand prize winner's beer. It's paler than most beers of this type, rose-gold rather than deep red. The aroma is sweet and summery, conjuring ripe strawberries and glace cherries. No excessive carbonation here: the gentle sparkle suits its 8.7% ABV and the texture is heavy, carrying lots of malt sweetness. That tastes of toffee and jam to begin, turning bitterer towards the finish as the hops kick in fully. There's a good balance between the sweet and bitter sides, the candy malt offset with a tannic dryness which verges on harsh.

It's a straightforward sort of creature. I couldn't tell you what sort of hops have been deployed, but I would guess European rather than American: it doesn't have the citric oomph that the likes of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot show, a feature which has been copied by many a European barley wine brewer. The understated nature of the flavour meant I took my time with it, allowing the sensation to unfold gradually, and enjoying the building warmth. This is another well-made and novelty-free beer, hitting the style's good points with nothing silly going on. I don't think we get enough beers like this, especially at the stronger end of the spectrum. Shame about the ropy AI-generated artwork on the label. Hope is usually more of a class act than that.

That was an enjoyable winter afternoon's drinking, and I'm glad the brewery thinks there's an audience for beers like this.