Veering west

Time for another round-up of Irish hoppy beers. I'm not keeping count, but the west coast seems to be on the rise at the moment, whether that's a blip, a renormalisation, or the beginning of the end of haze's autocratic rule of terror. I know which one I'm hoping for.

First up it's The White Hag and the second in their Experimental Brew Series ("XBS V2", for all the tech bros out there): Grapefruit NEIPA. Wow! What will the boffins of Ballymote think up next? It's 4% ABV and very pale yellow with full-on haze, as one would expect. The grapefruit is not hop grapefruit, it's very real and bursting out of the aroma like a jet of juice to the eyeball. From that, I expected big grapefruit in the flavour, but the gravity lets it down. The first mouthful is watery and hollow, in a way that's totally unacceptable for an IPA invoking New England. The first flavour to arrive is dry and gritty dregs, then a little vanilla sweetness followed quickly by an unsubtle hop-leaf bitterness. The grapefruit is last in the queue, and while it's as fresh and authentic as the aroma, it lacks impact, so we're back to fizzy water in the finish. If the purpose of the experiment was to determine whether they should make more beers like this, my answer is please no.

A rare new canned beer from Trouble Brewing, Wouldn't It Be Nice, is a pale ale with New Zealand hops Nelson Sauvin and Wai-iti. It's a bright rose-gold colour and 5.4% ABV. A funky aroma of fermented grass starts things off, while tasting reveals quite a dry base, with more than a little tannin. The hops take a twin-track approach, with juicy tropical fruit in one stream, and then a bitterer vegetal side, all grass and spinach. I don't think it's as simple as one hop doing one thing and the other another, but the end result is nicely balanced regardless. There's a floral perfume finish for some added complexity. The dry side of it makes for excellent thirst quenching, and the invigorating bitterness helps too. This is classically constructed in the old-school fashion, and well suited to by-the-pint drinking. Though nothing fancy, it's quality all the way through.

Next it's Bullhouse in collaboration with Galway Bay, and the beautifully clear golden Old Crows. The ABV gets a boost to 5.8%, though that's probably not strong enough to class it as an IPA by American standards, which they have. The aroma is dry and spicy, like an onion bhaji, with a touch of kerosene. Heady. Crispness is promised on the can and it's as clean and crisp as it looks -- almost lager-like in its angular precision. They don't tell us what the hop combination is, which is a shame, because it's an odd effect. We're promised pine but it's a highly concentrated version of that, intensely bitter to the point of turning harsh and plasticky. I'm sure they meant it to be rock-n-roll extreme but to this old crow it just tasted unpleasant. I always preferred the west coast IPAs with a bit of a blush to their malt; by going fully pale here they have unbalanced the profile and it makes for tough drinking as a result. I'm reminded of the sort of tongue-burners produced by the IBU race of the 2000s. Try this if you have fonder memories of those than I do.

At the same strength is Third Barrel's Dead As Disco, also badged as a west coast IPA. I see maybe a bit too much haze for that to be strictly accurate, but it's an attractive sunset gold colour regardless. A resinous spice dominates the aroma, plus a sideline of tropical fruit which I wasn't expecting but is rather enjoyable. That spice leads in the flavour, a foretaste of peppercorns and capgun smoke. The fruity side of the hops arrives later and is only slightly citric, with a considerable tropical element. So with your lime and grapefruit, there's a bonus topping of pineapple and passionfruit. I'm not going to ding it for that: the effect may be an east-coast thing but it adds a very welcome complexity, and makes it a better beer than if it were just acid all the way through. The finish is clean, with just a hint of crystal malt caramel to round things out. This is pretty good. Though it doesn't show the precise bitterness of, say, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, it goes its own way, which is validly west coast but with an extra element of enjoyment too.

I'm taking a bit of a punt on the next one, as it's not specifically marked as "west coast" by the brewery, just "American pale ale", so I'm guessing west coast again. This is Renegade, created by Hope to mark the arrival of the NFL to Dublin, and siding with the "home" team for September's game, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pennsylvania brewery Tortured Souls has been drafted in as collaborator, and the hops are an all-German mix of Hallertau Blanc and Solero. For all that, and 6% ABV, it's not an especially characterful beer. There's little aroma, while the flavour lacks the melon fruit I would have expected of H. Blanc and instead goes for quite harsh and green vegetal notes, cabbage leaf and kale, with a wisp of lemon zest on the finish. This may not have the full-on citrus and pine of the west coast, but it definitely has the punchy and uncompromising bitterness. The malt side is very low key, evidenced by the pale colour (10 EBC, fact fans) and quite a thin texture. Rather like the Bullhouse beer, I found it hard to get along with, and struggled with the unbalanced bitterness. I do at least feel justified in identifying it as belonging to the west coast genre.

No coastal indication is given on the latest from Ballykilcavan. Clancy's Cans #16: Gate Crasher IPA simply says it's "juicy", so I still expected it to be cloudy, and it was. It's quite a deep orange colour, and fairly fizzy, though there's a substantial body, especially for a modest 5% ABV. Fresh hop character is indicated by the pieces of hop leaf I found floating on the head when the beer was poured. The bitterness leads, however: an orangey pithiness, set on an expansive malt base. After a moment, the two sides coalesce into a sweeter orangeade or marmalade effect. It doesn't have the tropicality of most well-made hazy IPAs, and I had hoped the inclusion of Mosaic as a hop would have brought this. They've paired it with Amarillo, and even that isn't one I associate with this level of bitterness. I don't think "juicy" is an accurate description: it's very citric, sure, but in a pith and zest way, not juice. Maybe this belongs with the west coast examples too. 

At The Porterhouse one afternoon in September, I found two new Dublin-brewed double IPAs which I was keen to try. I started with Voodoo Child by Rascals. This is a clear amber gold,  putting us squarely on the west coast, though its 7.7% ABV barely counts as double in that context. Classic Mosaic, Amarillo and Centennial do their job, bringing bags of piney resin and grapefruit spice, overlaid with juicier mango before it's back to the pine for the finish. There's a little caramel sweetness from the malt, but only enough to highlight the hops, rather than  fight with them. This is very nicely done, showing lots of classic American hop quality given a modern kick which is fun without disturbing the fundamentals. Core range material, I reckon.

Two taps over was Disco Devil, new from Lineman. The ABV goes up to 9% here: nearly at the threshold of triple IPA. The aroma is innocently pithy, like Club Orange, and there's a bit of that in the flavour, but... The alcohol is well hidden, I'll give it that, and it took several mouthfuls before I twigged I was drinking a properly strong beer. The main flavour is quite dry, with crisp and husky sesame seed and a peppercorn spice. That's kind of it, though. In the finish there's the clean spirit burn which I used to associate with triple IPA before they went hazy, but no more hop character. It's all a bit basic and unexciting, lacking richness and resins. While it is clean and without flaws, this isn't how I like my double IPAs. As a caneable 9%-er, though, it can't be beat.

There was a late opportunity for redemption with the most recent Lineman release, Punctuate, a straight-up hazy IPA of 5.6% ABV. It looks like orange squash in the glass, so is broadly to style, while the aroma centres on a spicy dankness, hinting at citrus behind. There's not much of a fluff to the texture; in fact it's quite crisp, in a west-coast way, and is the better for it. Similarly, while there's a sweet element in the flavour, it's a sharper orangeade effect, not vanilla cream and (thankfully!) no sesame. Mosaic and Krush in the hop charge should probably have made it more tropical-tasting than it is, but there's only a mild seam of mango and peach, before we're back to the zesty lemon and grapefruit. Despite not adhering strictly to any sub-category of IPA, it works very well, being brightly and cleanly flavoured, balancing exotic fruit flesh against bitter pith, showing the most fun aspects of both. There's a spice complexity too, and yet it's not overwrought or busy, making for some excellent refreshment. Perhaps it's better suited to the summer, but I found it to be a ray of sunshine on a chilly day. Redemption granted.

Finally, the 12th anniversary celebrations for Galway Bay's Of Foam and Fury double IPA continue, with a Hazy TDH edition, wording that would have left us scratching our heads back in 2013. I can't actually recall what the baseline OF&F is like these days, so I don't know how much of a variation this is from it, but it is hazy, and a very modern pale yellow with that. It smells gloriously dank, tropical and citric all at once, thanks to the Simcoe, Mosaic and Chinook hops. The first surprise was the thin body: this was always a beefy fellow, but it's a bit watery in this iteration, despite being 8.3% ABV. With that comes quite harsh and dreggy hop bitterness, all tongue-coating acid and resin, plus a leafy, vegetal unpleasantness. There's a more enjoyable zesty side to it as well, arriving late in the finish after the hop dregs have faded. That's not much consolation, however. A hazy double IPA needs more than just a cloudy appearance; there should be a soft texture and some juice or sweetness too. Yes, this beer is derived from a very old-fashioned double IPA recipe, and it wouldn't be Of Foam and Fury if it had been completely re-engineered from the ground up. As is, however, it's missing the malt warmth of the original recipe, and isn't harnessing the benefits of modernisation. In 2013 we joked about the ridiculousness of overly-bittered double IPAs, wondering who could possibly enjoy them. Those who did have a new one to try here.

It does look like the American-style pale ales and IPAs brewed in Ireland are recalibrating. There's a new hazy amber sort that might claim to be west-coast, or might not, but doesn't resemble the clear crystal malt jobs of twenty years ago. I welcome the diversity, and will end by noting that it's not the style specs that count, it's how well it's done. Hazy or bright, let those hops sing!