CoolHead look

Today's random exotic picks from the off licence are all by the Helsinki brewery CoolHead.

They wear their hearts on their sleeves with an IPA called Best Coast Forever, overtly claiming affiliation with the bitter west-coast style and using classic US hops of Simcoe, Centennial and Mosaic. All that said, it is a most unAmerican 5% ABV, and poured rather murky, so can't boast the pin-bright gold or amber of the style's classic examples. The haze adds a level of fuzz to the mouthfeel, making it seem quite heavy. After an initial flash of sharp lime and grapefruit, it settles out to a more chewy and sedate sort of beer, its cereal heft more similar to how English IPA behaves. Similarly, the initial hop rush becomes becalmed quite quickly, softening from raw pith to sweetened marmalade. I don't know that I would have claimed American credentials for it, but it is an enjoyable beer; spritzy and cleansing in a way that's very out of fashion for IPA at the moment, but much missed.

The ABV increases to a pokier 6.5% for the next one, called Nova. They say this is a "modern" take on west-coast IPA, because the Idaho 7 hops were added in DynaBoost™ and Cryo forms, in addition to Simcoe and Mosaic. Does that make it a better beer? This one is paler but still a little hazed up. There's less of a hop flavour, and I'm sure that wasn't the intention from using the proprietary tech. What's there is a dry, rasping grapefruit rind effect. It's quite abrasive and, despite the extra strength, there's no extra malt to help soften the smack. This definitely does have an authentic west-coast feel, and is particularly akin to the sharper and paler examples -- I was never as much of a fan of those. Although it's clean, the hop oils do sit on the tongue somewhat, giving it a long finish and aftertaste of dank resins. I hope the vocabulary of this review is pressing the buttons of any west coast aficionados reading, because this is very much in their wheelhouse, even if I found it a smidge too overweening.

I needed a palate-cleanser after that, and CoolHead is offering me a "nordic sour" with Ginger Sour. All of these three were consumed al fresco on a warm day, and I thought this one in particular was aimed at such a context. It's only 4% ABV but pours a dense-looking carrot-juice orange. It smells of bready ginger cake, and the sourness makes itself felt in the foretaste: tangy, acidic, and just stopping short of harsh. The ginger arrives in shortly afterwards, and it's the raw, shredded sort found in Chinese cookery as it's practised round my way. The mixture of tartness and spice works rather well, both providing their own sort of invigorating scrub for the palate and throat. Like the first IPA, it is surprisingly robustly textured, a sugar weight making it taste a bit like Canada Dry-type ginger ale, where there's a generous amount of sugar accompanying the spice. I wouldn't say that this is the light refresher I was expecting. Instead, it's more of a full-on culinary experience, to be sipped and savoured. It's nicely done.

The sour one was my favourite of those three, though I was charmed by the first IPA and challenged pleasantly by the second. CoolHead may not always brew beer to my taste, but they're always well-made and interesting.

Look to the skies

I don't often get to do cross-brewery sets of lager reviews, but I have one today, with new lagers from two of Ireland's most reputable producers.

Cloudless from The White Hag says "ice cold lager" on the can, but it wasn't that in my house; my beer fridge runs between 8 and 10°C -- there's no hiding place for off-flavours in there. Poured, it's a startling pale and clear colour, looking every bit like the wan and watery industrial American lagers it is presumably copying. The aroma is crisp and grainy, with a little bit of richer malt sweetness. The carbonation is busy, even though the head isn't much cop. By design, I'm sure, there isn't much flavour. The hops are so understated that I couldn't even tell you what region of the world is represented. German noble varieties? They could equally be American, they're so indistinct. That leaves us with the malt from the aroma, and it's tokenistic: a slightly Czech-like golden-syrup sweetness at the very beginning, but fading quickly to a mild lemon tang and then no aftertaste. I can see why the brewery wants it poured cold, but it does bear a warmer serving temperature, to get at least some character into it. I can't complain that it's not as advertised, but whoever they've formulated it for, it's not me.

Third Barrel scored some plaudits from me for their Hello Yes? Czech-style lager late last year. When the brewer likes lager, you get good lager. Waterloo Sunset is the first one they've released since then, and is on a New Zealand theme, although that doesn't seem to be anything more involved than the use of Motueka hops. Appearance-wise, it's a very different proposition to the Cloudless, being a rich, almost red, golden colour, with a light misting of haze. The aroma is sweetly tropical, mixing mango and guava in a most un-pilsner-like way. It's quite heavily-textured, and very much not the crisp and refreshing sort of lager; it's more of a chewer, even at only 4.8% ABV. Fruit candy is the opening flavour, followed quickly by a very serious herbal rasp, dry and acidic, with noble notes of nettle and spinach. The aftertaste is an assertive waxy bitterness. It wasn't quite what I was expecting -- I guess I over-associate the New Zealand descriptor with Nelson Sauvin, and this has nothing in common with a Nelson-forward beer. It is good as its own thing, however, showing plenty of character from both malt and hops. It's maybe a little on the sweet side and perhaps shows more in common with a modern pale ale than a classic pilsner, but we can allow such missteps from time to time.

Two very different takes on pale lager on display here. I don't think either is entirely to my taste. I appreciated the technical skill in The White Hag's one, and the punchy hops of Third Barrel's. I would have liked one's crispness with the other's flavour. Maybe I should have blended them.

The clearer the belter

It's Whiplash again. A note of appreciation, first of all, for their tendency to release new beers in groups rather than trickling them out one at a time. It makes hunting them down that much easier. And hunt them down I did.

Something light to kick us off: Nine Storey Pagoda, a sour ale of 3.8% ABV, brewed with pineapple and Thai basil, created in collaboration with Dublin restaurant Big Fan. There was a time, not long ago, when such a proposition would have seemed exotic and exciting. Now it's just "of course there's one of these in the set, let's see how they did," so let's see how they did. The opaque yellow colour and short-lived head are fairly normal, and the aroma is very much as advertised, introducing a measure of non-specific tropical fruit plus a stronger herbal greenness. I don't think I would have been able to identify the specifics unaided, however. The texture is heavier than I expected, but it still has enough of a tartness early on to give it the refreshing quality which I think it was designed for. A savoury saline tang follows the initial sour kick, and then the fruit and herbs land on the palate simultaneously, though not necessarily in a complementary way. Syrupy pineapple and oily basil leaf might work well together in food but didn't work for me in a beer. It's jarring and a bit busy. I certainly wouldn't recommend this as a restaurant beer. It's an interesting novelty and no more than that.

Of course, this post is going to be mostly about hoppy stuff, and that commences with Flowers and You, a pale ale. It is indeed very pale, a wan yellow shade, and very heavily murked. The hops aren't specified, and they're not terribly prominent in the aroma, offering a slight peachy tropicality, but next to a worrying dry chalk dust effect. Both are present in the flavour, but neither seeks to dominate. There's a little stonefruit element, given an oily herbal backing of eucalyptus or aniseed, and then a tongue-coating rasp of plasterboard or flint. The finish is that hot, leafy, hop-dreg thing which tends to signify either the end of the barrel or an achingly hip beer, this being the latter, of course. It's only 4.5% ABV and that does mean that all flavours, good and bad, aren't especially strong. Regardless, it's still something of a clichéd haze disaster, showcasing features which have somehow become acceptable, nay desirable, to a beer-drinking public with degenerate tastes. What're ya gonna do?

Raising the oompf to 4.8% ABV brings us to Under the Eaves, one of those beaten-egg coloured hazy pale ales. I liked the sound of the advertised hop combination of Cascade, Simcoe and Vic Secret, and the aroma has that resinous pine-herb effect I would expect, though more than a hint of disturbing chalk as well. It's silky smooth and barely carbonated; heavily textured and very easy to drink. The front flavour is an almost west-coast citrus bite, but the New England character asserts itself quickly, adding mandarin segments and apricot. I don't know which of the three hops is responsible for that. And then there's the dreggy murk, teaming up annoyingly with the harder bittering to make the beer hotter and harsher than a pale ale of this strength ought to be. So, it's haze-compromised for sure, but I still enjoyed it. The lively hops do enough to keep things fun and hold the nasty grit in check. Vic Secret: my hero.

Paying tribute to Dublin's coolest neighbourhood (at least according to our fair city's estate agents), The Batter is described by the brewery as "Italo Disco Pils". It's 5.2% ABV and hopped with an all-noble combination of Saaz, Hersbrucker, Perle and Saphir. Pale to the point of appearing white-gold, it's faintly misted with haze and shows very little head retention after an initially frothy pour. I expect Italian-style pils to smell of American hops, and this does indeed have a lemony element which could well be some Pacific variety. It goes more herbal on tasting, with sweet coriander and fennel up front, then a gentler bitter lemongrass effect on the end. All is subtle and genteel, buoyed up by a body that's full without seeming heavy. The name and style may be banter-tastic, but the beer is refined and classy, adding some entertaining modern hop twists on a very classic continental lager. No doubt it won't be around long, so catch it if you see it.

And we're back on the haze again with Hybrid Moments, another murky yellow one, though looking a little thinner than the previous pale ale. This is an American-style wheat ale, 5.5% ABV and hopped with El Dorado and Comet. The big stack of foam on top fades quickly, so the initial weissbier impression was short lived. There's not much aroma, but I got a slightly eye-watering nutmeg spice and a hint of stonefruit beneath. The wheaty texture is the first impression it gives on tasting, beautifully soft and smooth, the carbonation no more than strictly necessary. I was expecting bigger hops, however. What's there is rather savoury, suggesting basil and thyme, with a slightly meaty or sweaty tang. A bit of lemon? Yes, but just a bit. While this is easy drinking stuff, and inoffensive, it's not the first time this year I expected rather more wallop from a Whiplash beer. Top marks for mouthfeel is a poor consolation prize.

Possibly intended as a companion to Under the Eaves, released in the same tranche, is Above the Clouds. I'm well used to Whiplash's "west coast" IPAs turning out hazy, and this is no exception, my fingers only blurrily visible through a glass of it. Columbus is the only American classic hop involved; otherwise it's Kiwis Nelson Sauvin and Nectaron. Unsurprisingly, that gives it a strongly tropical aroma: softly sweet, like ripe mango and honeydew melon. It's a dense affair, and I was surprised by the viscous resistance of the first pull. I guess that shouldn't be surprising at 6.8% ABV, though I know Whiplash can do such things with a lightness of touch. This is a firmer stroke, and with the weight comes a boozy heat. It doesn't have any crystal malt, but there's an echo of that kind of sweeter depth from the copious amounts of Caramalt and Munich which seem to have been employed. All of that has muted the hops a little, unfortunately. There's still a measure of Nelson's unmistakable brambly mineral sharpness, and a certain pithy citrus, but not the fleshy tropical fruit of the aroma. After the initial confusion, I made my peace with it. This does present most of the things a drinker would want from a west-coast IPA: big of substance, booze you can feel, and hopping which is piquant, edging onto aggressive. I've taken us a roundabout route with this one but it's very good: a delightful slice of hefty hop fun.

In search of a conclusion, it shouldn't be a surprise that the two clearer beers were my favourites. I know for a fact that Whiplash can do murky without the muck, so it was disappointing to find that telltale dregginess in several of these. And since nobody else seems to be calling it out, that's up to me.

Are you there, Nelson?

The contemporary beer scene has made me quite sceptical when it comes to the words "West Coast" on a label. So many of them turn out to be hazy in contravention of the laws of decency that I'm buying them almost as much to be cross about them as to enjoy drinking them. So it was a very pleasant surprise to find that Strata x Nelson Sauvin West Coast IPA from Latvian brewery Ārpus was not only clear, but pilsner-pale too, an appearance I associate most with Ballast Point Sculpin from the good old days, though I'm sure plenty of equally attractive IPAs existed on the West Coast around the same time. 

From the aroma I wasn't sure if the Nelson was in tropical-fruit mode, or if it was being drowned out by the peach and mango of the Strata, but either way, it smells nicely tropical, if a little muted for a beer wearing its hops as its name. The mouthfeel is full and thick, more than one might expect for 6.5% ABV, with only a light sparkle of carbonation. Strata's stonefruit is where the flavour begins but it quickly turns bitterer, as befits the style, though the Kiwi hopping means that's expressed as grass and flint rather than grapefruit and pine. There's an invigorating punch to it, balanced well by a golden syrup malt sweetness, a by-product of the heavy texture. For all that, the finish is a bit too quick, with no palate-coating resins. Marks for being proper West Coast, then, though it's not an excellent example. I'm especially disappointed I didn't get the full Nelson Sauvin effect I was after, however. 

Maybe I'd have better luck with TDH Riwaka x Nelson x Citra x Mosaic IPA: four hops, but at least they're triple dry, whatever that means. We're very much back in the haze zone here: pale yellow again, but totally opaque. Surprisingly, this does have more Nelson character than the previous, that beautiful mix of diesel and grapes, conjuring happy memories of the cheapest white wine on the menu. Mwah! There's a certain amount of your typical New England IPA flavours -- vanilla especially -- but nothing off or unpleasant; not so much as a smear of nasty garlic. The hops, triple dry or not, arrive in orderly fashion, with light and summery honeydew melon followed swiftly by a sterner lemon zest which lasts long into the finish. Where was that when we were on the West Coast?

It's all pretty straightforward but highly enjoyable nonetheless. If all hazy IPAs presented their hops so brightly and cleanly, I would be much more on board with the style. Oddly, while the previous one seemed heavy at 6.5% ABV, this is light at the same strength. The world turned upside down. Oh yeah. New Zealand. Right.

Neither delivered the high-octane kerosene or passionfruit cocktail that I had hoped for, but I still had a good time with them. Ārpus knows how to do IPA with balance and cleanliness in a way that I feel I need to call out because it's much rarer than it ought to be.

Littlest Italy

I don't have a proper entry for The Session this month. David Jesudason is hosting, with the perfectly legitimate topic of pub food. Unfortunately, it's not something I have much interest in or knowledge of. I suspect that it's because pubs and food have much less of a connection in Ireland. We have the gastropubs and the carveries, of course: ideas which were imported from the neighbouring island but don't have any organic history here. Authentic Irish pub food is the toastie and the bag of crisps, and I'm not much of a consumer of either. So I'm flipping the topic. Instead of pubs and food, I'm doing a restaurant with beer. I would say that restaurants with good beer are probably more common than pubs with good food.

And my favourite place to eat in Dublin? That's Zero Zero pizza on Sundrive Road. The menu is short and to the point -- pizza done in an unfussy, high-quality way -- and the space is bijou, making very efficient and comfortable use of the room at the back of what is essentially a takeaway. What gives it the edge is that it's very close to my house, in an area that is short of catering options for an inner southside neighbourhood. The name, in case you're wondering, comes from the amount of effort required of me to go out and eat there.

And there's beer! A much better selection than you might expect from such an establishment. Hopfully featured for as long as it existed, but at time of writing there's still Whiplash's Body Riddle and two types of Brugse Zot in the fridge, plus Brooklyn's Special Effects as the non-alcoholic option (hello Four Corners!). Three well-known Italian industrial beers are also stocked, including one I had never tried before.

I didn't think to check where my bottle of Menabrea La 150° Bionda came from. The inexplicable fashion for retro-styled Mediterranean lagers has meant that its distributor, C&C, recently moved production for the UK to its brewery in Glasgow. I don't know if the beer I drank came from the heritage brewery in Piedmont, or Scotland, or if we get an Irish version from C&C's local brewery in Clonmel.

Anyway: it's rather good. OK, I wasn't expecting much, but there's a weighty quality to this, which put me in mind of good Czech lager. While those tend to have a golden syrup malt effect, this is more like honey: a thicker sweetness overlaid with a floral complexity. The hops are an afterthought, but they're real and present, adding a lightly green Germanic note of fresh spinach and raw celery. I'm impressed by how much is going on in a 4.8% ABV pale lager, and the heft of it does make it a good match for pizza. The only gripe I have is the 33cl bottle. All of its competitors have a larger serving option, and this one should too.

Anyway, that was an extra nice surprise, on top of the original one that there's somewhere decent in Kimmage to eat dinner these days. No toasties required.

Ellen and Arthur

I hadn't planned on being back in Open Gate quite so soon, but the offer of a new imperial stout was enough to tempt me in. And I found out about it because they've finally got round to updating their online menu. Hooray and ker-ching!

It helped also that the beer is Islay-cask-aged, having been created to celebrate the, er, 201st anniversary of Diageo's distillery at Port Ellen. They've called it The 200, for the sake of neatness. It's a dense black colour with a fine crema on top. The aroma is light on peat but includes lots of toasty roast, suggesting a serious and grown-up taste to come.

So the rather sweet flavour was a surprise. I got an odd but fun mix of dark chocolate with summer fruit -- raspberry and cherry. There's a kind of truffle or praline quality to it; hella classy. The smoke is there, but easy to miss if you aren't looking for it, manifesting as a lightly salty, iodine-laced seaside savouriness. That gives it even more the manner of something shiny and expensive from an especially creative high-end chocolatier.

At a mere 9% ABV and served ice cold, it misses the weighty and satisfying character of big imperial stout. It's pretty good as a lightweight, though. I'll take a quality gimmick-free imperial stout whenever it comes my way.

The Tallaght strategy

It's a miracle! Though perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that a brewery called Priory, with a comprehensively Catholic theme running across its branding, should be the one that managed to pull a Lazarus act.

We last saw this microbrewery in the south Dublin suburb of Tallaght on these pages in June 2019. "An ambitious set of plans" is what I noted. I don't know how far advanced those got before Covid shut the whole thing down, and with the overall decline in Irish microbrewing, I wasn't expecting to see them back. The announcement in 2023 that the building which houses the brewery -- a café and a lot of empty space when I visited in 2019 -- would be transformed into an indoor food market didn't do much to change my mind. Dublin has serious form on failed indoor food market projects. If it can't be done in the city centre, what chance of doing it in Tallaght? And besides, craft beer is over, and it would be such a 2015 move to put a microbrewery in a food hall.

Nevertheless, the Priory Market project rolled on and, in late June 2025, it opened its doors to the hungry public, the offer including Priory Brewing reborn as a "tank bar" on the site. I went along on the first weekend, genuinely not expecting much. Usually, the brewery and the beer range is the last part of the project to get delivered, if it ever does. I was surprised by what I found.

The food hall was thronged, and all the stalls seemed to be doing brisk business, though without the excessive queues you get at events which don't have their catering logistics in order. Down the back, opposite two outlying food stalls, is the bar. I found perching space across from the window which looks into the production brewery.

Tank means tank, and there are four of them behind the bar, from which beer is poured directly. Original Sin, the flagship IPA, and Venial Sin, its session-strength sibling, have made a return and are two of them. I started with one of the new beers, Helles Fire. This is no still-fermenting murk: the bright tank has left it bright; a perfectly clear golden colour. It's a little light on its feet at 4.3% ABV though I appreciated the cold pour -- 3.3°C according to the readout on the vessel. So it was definitely thirst-quenching, and while it's fairly plain, there is enough of a gentle spongecake sweetness to pass. The finish is as clean as the beer looks, with nary a hint of the off flavours that can bedevil small-batch lagers, and a nicely crisp grain bite on the end. It may be unexciting, but it's very technically proficient. Time and money has been spent on getting it right, and I could taste that.

Also new from the tanks was Atonement, a pale ale. This is in the old American style, a deep amber colour and packed out with crystal malt, contrasting with sharp US hops. A fruit candy aroma leads to a toffee-first flavour, although it's light at 4.5% ABV, and not at all sticky. There's a tannic note as a reminder that English bitter is a close relation, and a touch of crisp roast to help dry it out. The hop tang is a little bit lemonade and a little bit aspirin; unsubtle and clashing with the malt side, I thought. The intention seems to be something like Sierra Nevada pale ale, but there's none of that one's perfumed subtlety. This time, the technical proficiency can't hide the issues with the underlying recipe.

But the tank bar has more than just tanks: there's a sizeable array of keg taps on the bar, all Priory-branded except for Whiplash's Slow Life, which seems to be covering them for a dark beer for now. My in-built cynicism couldn't help wondering if some or all of these were brewed elsewhere, but then why bother with the tanks if you're shipping beer in?

I had a half of Vice Beer, the 5% ABV weissbier. Here the brewery's tendency towards clarity is a little less appropriate, because there's none of the cloudiness that has been this style's hallmark since before anyone in New England thought to make an IPA. That seems to have added a sharpness to it, manifesting initially in the slightly hot butane aroma. And while there's banana in the flavour, it's greenly acidic, which isn't unpleasant, but is quite different from the soft and sweet effect one normally gets. The hops are more pronounced than usual, with a bite of celery and pak choi. It's a valid take on the style, reminding me of the crisper, pointier, sort of weizen from north German breweries, and Flensburger in particular. If that's your particular vice, jump in. I prefer the more cuddly Bavarian take, however.

And we finish on yet another central European style: pilsner. Impeccable was also on the keg lines and arrived slightly hazy. Freshness was very much in evidence here, the aroma giving faint but persistent cut grass, like the patio doors are open and the lawn outside has just been mown. Though only 4.7% ABV it has a satisfyingly chewy texture and that adds extra punch to the noble hops, flourishing outwards into a whole bouquet of garden herbs, with basil and rosemary the ones I noticed most. Despite the density, this is still an excellent warm-day refresher and mid-session palate scrubber, and again remarkably free of flaws for a newly-created brewpub lager. Since they can do pils well, nothing else should be a problem.

I didn't revisit their double IPA, and the red ale will have to wait to next time. On the menu but not yet pouring were a stout and a bock, and there was a tap badge for a sour ale which had also yet to materialise. The ambition is incredible for an Irish brewpub but they really do seem to have the ability to pull it off. I hope the momentum stays with them and that they get the kind of local support which seems to be keeping the Rascals taproom blazing. This taproom is a new and rare jewel in Dublin's beer scene and I dearly want to see it thrive.

Sweet sounds

Being at home on the June Bank Holiday Sunday meant being an involuntary audience member at the Forbidden Fruit music festival, taking place at The Royal Hospital Kilmainham but broadcast directly onto my patio some distance away. I got out some fruit of my own and made the best of it.

I began on Utenos Radler Raspberry, blended from half lager and half raspberry-flavoured syrup cocktail, finishing at 2% ABV. It's bright pink, thanks to the carrot named on the can as the source of its colour. I found it very thick and syrupy, and was hard pressed to find the beer element in it. The raspberry is sweet, not tart, and more closely resembles jelly or candy than actual berries. That hampers the all-important refreshment power; it's not difficult drinking by any means, but neither is it much cop at warm-day thirst quenching.

I felt a little oversugared after that, so was apprehensive about launching into another from the same range straight after, but soldiered on anyway. Utenos Radler Watermelon is the same strength and made the same way, just with a different syrup component. It works rather better than the raspberry one, and is less stickily sweet. The melon flavour is as much rind as flesh, adding a green, slightly vegetal tang, which helps balance the sugar. A slightly lighter body makes it more refreshing, and the addition of a couple of ice cubes really helped it along there. It still doesn't really count as a beer, but as a watermelon-flavoured low-alcohol drink, I quite enjoyed it.

Last up is one from fellow Lithuanian brewer Volfas Engelman: Radler Mojito Splash, a pale green number, with 2.5% ABV, resulting from a boost in the beer component, to 51%. It still doesn't resemble beer. We're back in the heavy, sugary territory, and that's the first noticeable thing about it, which isn't a good sign. The mint is laid on thickly, doing nothing to make the beer refreshing, only causing it to taste like toothpaste. The lime is very much lime candy, rather than proper citrus, and adds neither bitterness nor sourness to the picture. I can see how this might have worked in a thinner, zestier beer; what you get here is a bit of a sugary mess.

Radler is supposed to be consumable in volume, and refreshing. The above litre and a half was hard work to get through and even outdoors on a sunny summer's afternoon, they were filling and dense. I don't mind sweetness in drinks, but these were quite one-dimensional in how they presented it, the samey sugar both cloying and boring. I don't often review radlers on this blog. Here's why.

Breeding and breading

No, the dire wolf is not back from extinction. Being able to critically examine the claims in the publicity material from a biosciences company should be a basic life skill, here in this Black Mirror episode we've all somehow ended up living in. The coverage of one company's success in breeding a dog that mimics the dire wolf's appearance was breathless and widespread, so it wasn't terribly surprising to discover Wicklow Wolf had picked it up to brand one of their limited edition beers.

So here is Dire Wolf, a hazy double IPA which they've been touting around the international festival circuit this summer. The hops are all-Australian -- Galaxy, Enigma, and Eclipse -- giving it a gently tropical fruit salad aroma, with pineapple chunks and passionfruit most prominent. The haze isn't especially thick, and the beer is at at least somewhat see-through. You would definitely know it's a full 8% ABV, however, as it's dense and a little hot as well, warming one's innards from the first swallow. That makes the flavour more serious than the aroma was suggesting; the Hawaiian-shirt tropicals getting traded for the dredgings from a very ripe fruitbowl: squashy mandarins and bruised peaches, with a sharper citrus-rind tang. Still, it manages to steer away from any genuinely unpleasant flavours, lacking both grit and garlic. If Aussie hops are the key to that, then let's have more of them. This is an enjoyable sipper. It's not trying to pass itself off as juice for kiddies, being a very grown-up proposition, big hops meeting big alcohol. Like its namesake, approach with caution.

The next beer is another precision-engineered hybrid. Wicklow Wolf's first collaboration with Brennan's Bread didn't get many plaudits beyond my positive review, but that hasn't stopped them from doing another: Batch Brew. As before, the grist includes leftover bread, and the brewery will be planting a tree for every 12 cans sold. It's 4% ABV and hopped with Idaho 7, Hüll Melon, Talus and Chinook. Those are mostly quite modern varieties, but there's a real classic effect here, full of bright citrus pith, balanced nicely with softer tangerine juice. The Talus adds a dusting of coconut, but sweet mini oranges are almost the whole of it, squeaky-clean with not a hint of interference, despite the somewhat hazy appearance. You won't find any compromise from the waste-product ingredient. This is a very jolly affair, packed with hop character at a modest strength. There are real summer party vibes about it; a proper crowd pleaser. Buy loads and tell your guests about the trees.

Wicklow Wolf is a brewery of many talents. I wouldn't necessarily have placed them as top of the hops, having turned out a few too many harsh face-melters over the years, but these two are both excellent examples of the sheer fun which can be had when the hopping of a pale ale is bang on.

Avast selection

I'm not unfamiliar with Dutch beer and brewing, but had never heard of Rotterdam's Stadshaven Brouwerij, until I found six of its beers in the Mace off licence on Dublin's South Circular Road. They're in retro 33cl longnecks and keenly priced at €3 a pop. All aboard!

Sailors' Lager is first out. How do we know it's for sailors? There's lemon in it. There's a haze too, the pale amber body being lightly translucent. Zesty lemonade presents in the aroma, suggesting this is going to be a bit of a novelty beer. If only there'd been some clue on the label. It's quite heavy, though only 4.9% ABV: the spec suggests refreshment is the goal, but it's a bit of a chewer. The lemon element is sweet and almost sickly, finishing on an artificial and slightly plasticky twang. This has its charms, I guess, but it's neither subtle nor balanced. An industrial-grade pilsner has been given a squirt of fruit essence and we're supposed to be impressed. I wasn't feeling it.

Let's see if they do any better with witbier. The visuals of Great White weren't, er, great: a lager-clear pale yellow. The aroma has me back in Belgium, with a sizeable whack of unctuous melon and apricot, with overtones of pink peppercorn and clove. This is why we like Belgian-style beer. It's rather thin in the mouth, and the lack of haze leads to a lack of softness; there's none of the fluff that ought to be part of the witbier spec. The addition of grapefruit is what distinguishes this from your standard witbier but I couldn't detect where that went. The citrus side in general is sweet and syrupy, implying that any citrus that featured did so as a gloopy extract. We're a little too far away from the classic dry and spicy, yet soft, witbier specification for this to count as a good one. It's sticky, sharp and, above all, artificial and contrived. This is a long way from the vision of Pierre Celis, and for me, that's a problem.

Continuing by ABV, the 5.5% IPA sits near the middle of the set, which is unusual. As is the use of tangerine and star anise in Moray IPA. It's a dense and murky carrot colour in the glass, with lots of foam and quite an artificial aroma, wearing the additives gaudily, and the spicy star anise in particular. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of sweetness here: the big crystal malt toffee of old-school American IPA plus a syrupy fruit element which suggests that no real tangerine has been near it. A tannic dryness that's almost equally as strong as the sugar pleasingly cuts off any potential sickliness before it starts. It's still a heavy beer, though: I got through it slowly and it was getting unpleasantly warm before I finished. Overall, I don't think it quite works. The novelty ingredients take away from its IPA qualities -- and it's certainly not "hoppy" as proclaimed on the label -- but they don't add anything positive. You could badge this as a dubbel and I doubt anyone would blink, which is a fatal flaw for any IPA.

With startling originality, the red ale is called Redhead. This time la fée purée has blessed us with lime and lychee. It looks well: a deep mahogany red and refreshingly clear. Bracing for calorific sugar vapours, I was happy to find that it doesn't actually smell of much: the caramel malt that it looks like, more of those assertive tannins, and a friendly wisp of metallic English hops. There's still no fruit gunk in the flavour. Tannins and toffee are nearly the whole of it, with a mildly drier roast crisping the edges. It's a pretty good take on red ale as it is practised in Ireland, albeit at a significantly higher strength at 5.8% ABV. Anyone looking for that bite of lime or sumptuous lychee squish will be disappointed, and they should buck up their ideas about beer, quite frankly. This is solid, unfussy, ungimmicky, and grown-up, even if its label isn't.

A blond ale, in the broadly Belgian category, comes next in sequence: Octopus. Again, they've decided it needs fruit extract, and again you can't taste it. Orange and kiwi are the wastes of everyone's time on this occasion. There's maybe a tiny kick of zest lurking in the background, but for the most part this is another simple, classically constructed, to-style job. There's an enjoyably gooey honey centre, infused with bubblegum and pear esters, and then balanced with a crisp cereal crunch around the edges. At 6% ABV and quite heavy-feeling, it's not a sessioner, but one 33cl serving felt just right. Other than four-packs of UK-brewed Leffe, we don't get much beer in this style in these parts, so this one is welcome, even if it's probably quite yawn-worthy in its homeland.

The final Dutchman in our flotilla is a tripel called Pirhana. Mango and kumquat. Let's not even bother. There's a worrying lack of head on this. Maybe it's my fault for putting it into a Westmalle glass, which that tripel always fills out nicely with a luxurious marshmallow of foam. The derisory skim of schuim here is downright ugly. No shade on the bright and clear golden body beneath, however. Though 8.5% ABV, it's a good deal thinner than the blonde ale which preceded it, and that's given it a flavour which is much less impactful, complex, and enjoyable. There's plenty of hot alcohol, but not much by way of fruit and spice. Only the dry tannic finish does what good tripel does; otherwise it's a poor show, doing the bare minimum to pass. If that's what €3 gets you in this space, then perhaps fair enough. On its merits, though, this is basic stuff: less a piranha and more of a damp squid.

My report card for Stadshaven says "must try harder". A sampler pack of fruit syrup does not make for a vibrant range of modern beers, for one thing. I sense an ability to do plain-spoken beers quite well, testified by the red and blonde in particular. Whether the decision not to steer that course is a creative one or a management one, I cannot say. The low price point is very much in these beers' favour, though I'm still not sure I got my money's worth from them.

Taken as red

Is it just me or are there a lot more colourful fruit beers around this season? We had one on Wednesday and today I have two more. This time the theme is red.

Initially, I had no idea what "Globe Salute" meant or why Rye River decided to call their cherry-flavoured sour beer that. I thought maybe it was a variety of cherry, but it turns out it's a firework, the one also known as a cherry bomb -- one of those occasional Americanisms for which we must forgive this brewery. The beer is 4.5% ABV and a bright pink colour. That makes it look like a simplistic novelty job, but looks can be deceptive: manys a well-made and deeply complex wild beer is luminous pink. This isn't one of those. Basic is the game here: syrupy fake-fruit flavour and a tang which definitely isn't properly sour. It's unimpressive, and for over a fiver a can in off licences, offers poor value for money. I try not to be a snob about such things, and I am aware that not everything like this has to be Brett-laced and oak-aged, but this manages to be overly sweet and rather boring. No salute from me, I'm afraid. Drop and give me twenty.

At around the same time, Hope had similar ideas and released one called Limited Edition 36: Raspberry and Lime Sour, which is rather less intriguing. This one is 4.8% ABV and, although the can claims it's red, it's more the orange pink shade of highly polished copper. It is almost unheard of for something like this to put the sourness ahead of the fruit purée, but here we are. The first sip is a puckering, mouthwatering jolt of candyshop sourness, all sherbet, sour jellies and red liquorice. Engaging my grown-up palate for a moment, I found the lime's bite to be central to proceedings, accompanied by several other sorts of sharpness, including green apple skin and a dry cereal twang. This is a very rare example of raspberry in a beer being subtle and providing background harmonies rather than the loudest vocal track. I approve. Its main contribution is a pink sugary smack on the finish. Cheeky! All told, it's a well-put-together beer, and delivers proper sour complexity where the norm (see above) is to simply pile in the syrup. And if you're not into picking the profile apart forensically, I can also tell you it's a beaut as a post-chore refresher on a sunny patio.

I doubt our nation's brewers are done feeding us fruit beers for the year yet. At least it's not endless samey takes on hazy IPA.

Fruiting the breeze

"Coconut Breeze" is an ominous name for a beer, sounding like a euphemism dreamt up by the marketing department of a chemical company for their latest additive or scent. Lough Gill is inviting us to don our Hawaiian shirts, cast our cares aside and join them in summer time. This is, in their words, a "coconut and pineapple fruited pastry sour". Let's unpack that, shall we?

The brewery has extensive form with this sort of thing, and is better at it than most. They've tended to have a light touch on the lactose, and enough sourness to actually qualify as sour. And so it goes here. It's a translucent yellow, like freshly-crushed pineapple juice, and has the unmistakably sweet-yet-vegetal aroma of real pineapple: the husk and stalk as much as the flesh. A significant acidic tartness singes the nostrils, even at this early stage. In the flavour it's the coconut that hits first, and lasts all the way to the finish. It seems to be buoyed up on the lactose, which gives it a mouth-coating creamy quality. And yet, it's not gloopy or cloying; the sourness is there to spritz away the residual sugar so it never becomes a problem. That means it's not one of the smoothie-like fruit "sours" that are par for the course, and that's the Lough Gill advantage. Pineapple's role in the flavour is very much secondary, and perhaps that's for the best, as a third sort of sweetness might not have been welcome.

6.8% is a sizeable ABV for a summer party beer, better suited to something more serious, and serious this is not. There's a considerable heat to contend with, and combined with the sourness, that gets a bit curdling and difficult before the end. I strongly recommend starting into this one when it's properly cold. It might even be refreshing that way. 

Above all, this is a strange beer, and I found myself teetering between liking it and not liking it, all the way down. I think you need to have a significant tolerance for weirdness in beers to enjoy it, and fortunately I do. Should you need a second and more forthright opinion, my house fruit flies adored it. Summer vibes all round.

Crow flight

In the interests of balance for what follows, I did buy one IPA from the range of Dois Corvos beers which arrived in Dublin from Lisbon recently. There were numerous options but I picked Funchal Drift, the New England-style one made with Citra and Motueka. That sounded interesting, though the unappetising pale yellowish green emulsion it poured as, less so. A worrying kick of vanilla and plasterboard manifests in the aroma, alongside an assertive lime bitterness. Hello Citra. From the foretaste I got an initial waft of that chalky mineral effect I smelt, followed by hot yeasty dregs and vegetal leaf bitterness. At least a part of this is down to the Motueka, adding a eucalyptus medicinal effect which dovetails neatly with the grit and the murk, but not in a good way. The Citra fails to come to the rescue; where there might be a zesty citric finish, it's only smoke and burnt plastic. Any dessertish custard softness has been thoroughly drowned out. I took a gamble and I lost. This beer presents a catalogue of reasons for calling the whole haze phase to a halt sooner rather than later.

Ugh. With that out of my system it was time to move on to the stuff which attracted me more. I began on Café Racer, which is as good a name for a coffee stout as any. Funny, it doesn't smell of coffee. It smells, and bear with me, of the things that coffee smells of. Toast, hazelnuts, tar and tobacco. I didn't say good coffee. It is intriguing though. The body is surprisingly light and fizzy, and the flavour primarily dry. 5.4% ABV means it shouldn't necessarily be a big and creamy fellow, but I was still surprised by how gassy the whole thing is. Nuts are at the centre of the flavour, with a bit of the aroma's hazelnut and even more dry peanut shell. A certain amount of dark chocolate surrounds that, though oddly no coffee. A tang of burnt salt is all the finish offers. I really wanted to like this, but it's all harsh and pointy; neither refreshing nor comforting. It doesn't smell like good coffee and it doesn't taste like good coffee stout. Maybe I should have expected that. 

Our last last best hope is Magnetic Poles, a Baltic porter with tonka beans. Normally I'm very much not in favour of microbreweries adding their own kooky twist on classic European lager styles, but I was so desperate for something good at this stage that I was determined to give it a fair shake. It's 8% ABV and densely dark brown with a tobacco-stain head. The aroma is oddly sour, of old sherry and cherry liqueur. It doesn't say it's barrel aged but I might believe it is. The cherry note continues in the flavour, even sharper, and joined by an oily tobacco leaf effect, classy dark chocolate, rosewater and Christmas cookies. It's the first beer that almost manages to put tonka in its place, turning it into a surface-level seasoning instead of the beer's whole deal, though the dusting of cinnamon is a dead giveaway of what's going on. It works beautifully, however. Strong tonka-laden stouts tend to be stickily sweet, but by adding the lager dimension this one retains a level of crispness which makes it far more drinkable than one might expect given the strength and other specs, which is of course the Baltic porter way and why we love the style. Never before have I encountered a beer that managed to put manners on tonka's busy confectionary, but if one style was going to do it, it would be this one. Baltic porter purists need not apply, but I found it a perfect melding of old fashioned meticulous decency and frivolous craft creativity. Fight me.

I've had a few Dois Corvos beers over the years, and their hit rate is generally better than what we have here. While I may have chosen poorly, I am not rushing back to try more of their hazy IPAs.

Sugar rush

What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Look, they were in my eyeline, in the supermarket, labelled as BEER despite all other appearances. So that I could stop wondering whether they should be included on the blog or not, I bought them both, God forgive me, and here they are.

You will find a review of classic Desperados here, written in 2009. These are extensions of a brand that probably didn't need any. Both are at the same strength as that: 5.9% ABV.

Desperados is (loosely) tequila flavoured, but for Desperados Tropical Daquiri they've taken pains to point out that rum is the spirit invoked. It looks like a standard lager: a clear deep golden. It doesn't smell like a beer at all, however, with sickly sweet syrup of the generically tropical variety, done with passionfruit. To taste, it's not as sickly as I was expecting, something it has in common with the original. There's a clean base that has been syruped up but not completely destroyed. Where the beer side contributes most is the finish, cleaning up the worst of the sugary excesses so that they don't dwell on the palate. The promoted rum character does not materialise at all, which suits me as a disliker of rum-flavoured things that aren't actually rum. I mean, it's not good beer, but it could be much worse. There are "proper" artisanal breweries passing off products as fruited sours that are more sticky and unpleasant than this. Though as a fan of both beer and daquiris, this doesn't really give me any sense of either.

The spirit moves once more, and the next one is Desperados Red Caipirinha, claiming to be flavoured with cachaça, though I'm not expecting to find much of that. It's a dark rosé shade in the glass and, bizarrely, actually smells like beer. The listed additives are cachaça, which isn't a strong flavour by itself, and elderberry juice, which I'm guessing is mostly for the colour. That leaves the grain of the lager base as the main character in the aroma. It does taste syrupy: sweet and generically fruity, more raspberry and cherry than anything fancier. There's absolutely no sign of the spirit and it really doesn't resemble a cocktail of any kind. This is an alcopop in all things but smell. The previous one, and standard Desperados, do at least add interesting things to the syrup; this doesn't. Its USP is that it's pink. I'm not impressed.

In for a penny, in for a pounding. The same supermarket also sells Kopparberg's Orange Ginger Beer, and what with ginger beer having a bit of a moment in these parts lately, I thought I ought to give it a whirl. 4% ABV seems to be standard for this sort of thing, likewise the pale Golden-Delicious yellow colour. To taste, it's sweet, which is hardly surprising given Kopparberg's form with cider-adjacent products. You don't get much ginger, just a tiny pinch of spice; a spritz of heat in the back of the throat. In front of that is masses of sugar, which is mostly cleanly syrupy but includes a fun element of boozy orange, like a cheeky dash of triple sec. Half a litre of this was hard work. While it's light on alcohol, there's so much sugar here that I found it difficult, and I'm pretty tolerant of sweetness in beers. The orange gives it something of an interesting twist, but ginger beer fans would be much better off sticking to the examples from Smithfield Brewing and Kinnegar. Add your own orange to taste.

Well, I'm glad that's over. If you've ever hovered at the colourful, ultra-sweet, not-quite-beer section of the supermarket, consider this your cue to walk on.

Red, white and new

The randomness is part of what I enjoy about the churn of British cask beer at The Silver Penny, the Wetherspoon on Dublin's Abbey Street and current unlikely champion of decent ale. On a recent visit, however, there was a pattern: two new ticks, both with a colour in the name.

Oakham's presence in the regular roster of breweries is a blessing, and I hadn't seen White Dwarf before. It's a golden ale of 4.3% ABV, made mostly with English hops, plus some bonus American Cascade. Beer quality is rarely an issue at the 'Penny but this one was served uncharacteristically warm on the sunny June afternoon. Perhaps the cellar cooler has gone the way of the wifi and the gents' hand drier. It's a pale gold and perfectly clear, giving off a gentle aroma of pear and apple. The pear ester is more pronounced on tasting, allied with some sweet banana: ripe fruit, or even artificial candy. The finish is clean, though there's no real malt character, whereas a little biscuit or cracker would have improved it. As well as the slightly high temperature, it was on the flat side too, which was another factor in preventing this from being everything it could be. This beer should really be crisp. Warm and flabby isn't going to suit any beer, but I think this one suffers especially. Oh well.

The other was Red Kite from Vale Brewery: a bitter at the same strength. "Chestnut" says the badge, and indeed it is: a lovely clear auburn with a cream-coloured head. The aroma presents that most unhelpful of descriptors: "beery", like a carpeted pub just after the doors have opened for the day. It's heavy, almost chewy, and here the warmth is really helping it out, lending what may normally be a so-so brown bitter the character of a wholesome porter. There's milk chocolate, dark toast, a coating of caramel and a slightly fruity finish, giving raisins and red apples. A tannic dryness prevents any of this making the overall effect busy or difficult. Well-made brown bitter is a rarity and, for me, Harvey's Sussex Best is unassailable. This different take, leaning into the roast and residual sugar, impressed me too, however.

That's your lot. Nothing amazing here, but at the same time, both beers were exotic and noteworthy pints for Dublin. If there was anything like this available from local breweries in locally-owned pubs, I'd be all over it, though would probably have the place to myself. Until then, rack 'em up, JD.

Savoury and unsavoury

The pace may have slowed, but enough beer featuring the DOT Brew name is being turned out to get it the occasional dedicated blog post. Here's the latest, with five new ones which landed over the past few months.

The first is Spin Off Series NEIPA, part of the sequence of beers DOT makes for Aldi. It's not the densest of haze, looking a little thin and vapid as it poured. The aroma tells you it's no milquetoast, though, delivering what I interpret as a west-coast vibe of dank resin and sharp grapefruit. No complaints about that. The flavour brings us back to the eastern seaboard, with a soft vanilla and apricot effect, aided by a full and soft texture. There are no sharp edges here. The finish is quick, though, and I feel that a beer in this style, and of 5.8% ABV, should have longer legs. There's also an oddly savoury off flavour lurking in the background: a bit smoky, and a bit onion-ish, but nothing good and I'm reasonably sure it shouldn't be there. Still, at the sub-€3 price point, you get a decent hazy IPA. Don't scrutinise it too closely and you'll enjoy it. It's too late for me. Save yourselves.

I trundled along to UnderDog a few weeks ago where a tap takeover was under way, and two further new IPAs were pouring. I started on Levitation, a 6% ABV job which is a medium hazy orange colour. I don't have the hop information to hand, and I'm not even sure they've been published, but whatever they are, they work brilliantly. Both the aroma and flavour have a fabulous sweet and zesty character, exactly like freshly squeezed orange juice. While that makes it a little one-dimensional, it is highly enjoyable. It's almost a shame that the ABV is so high, because it slips back with indecent ease; at once satisfying and refreshing. Complexity doesn't really feature, although I did find a little bit of spicy grapefruit peel lurking in amongst the jaffa segments. It remains to be seen whether the brightness and freshness on display in UnderDog will last if they decide to can it, but I've had my fun, and that's all that matters.

Next, the grandly titled IPA IPA Reborn, created especially for the Craft Central off licence, and a 6.5% ABV reboot of a 7% ABV IPA that they made back in 2020. I didn't like that one and I didn't like this either. The dirty dark orange colour hinted at oxidation, the beer itself resembling carrot juice in a most unattractive way. Last time round, hot garlic was the problem, mixing badly with plastic and vanilla in a worst-of-everything take on hazy IPA. This one draws on a different set of common flaws, tasting gritty and savoury, with a harshly bittersweet marmalade tang being its only fruity feature. I don't think it was actually oxidised, but it was far from clean; too murky-tasting to be any way enjoyable. If you liked the original then maybe you should pick up a can of this as well. I can't recommend it, however.

Perhaps it's a signifier of contract brewing that these were so wildly different from each other, though alas I have no way of knowing which was brewed where. Whoever was responsible for Levitation can take a bow, but I will be keeping any third version of IPA IPA at arm's length.

DOT also makes barrel-aged beers, though it has taken some time and effort to hunt any down lately. First up, though, is To Ten and Beyond, marking ten years of Dublin's Teeling Distillery (est. 1782) and one of the regular specials DOT makes for the giftshop. As with many of the series, it's a barrel-aged pale lager, this time matured in single-grain ex-red-wine casks. There's certainly a fruity element to the aroma, though all about macerated grapes, not wonky fermentation, I'm happy to report. A cleanly crisp lager is still discernible beneath. And that's all the flavour really does. I had anticipated a little bit of whiskey, wine or raw oak, but instead it's almost purely dry to the point of being a little papery. "Hop forward" says the label, and I do get a certain Saaz-like grass note, although that does little to soften it. The finish is mineral-like: a kick of zinc and chalk. I guess it does have a few extra dimensions than your ordinary 4.8% ABV pils, and the aroma is good fun, but I didn't really get it otherwise. Happy birthday Teeling; enjoy my €6.

Finally, here's the twentieth version of Rum Red Dark, the perennial barrel-aged strong red ale. This time it's 9.5% ABV and claiming to be "the boldest red in the series so far". Oo-er. It's the same murky dun colour as all the rest, and smells of warm oak and sunny rum cocktails. The wood is right at the fore of the flavour, given a slightly burnt and smoky cast, though more caramelised sugar and glazed brisket than anything unpleasantly kippery. There's a separate sticky-sweet summer fruit jam element, running in parallel to the smoky wood, and an immediate boozy heat that grows steadily in the belly with each successive sip. I drank it outside on a warm evening, but it's is very much a winter beer, and an enjoyable one. I particularly commend how it melds the sticky red malt side with the barrels and booze, keeping everything smooth and sippable, even if balance isn't a concern, exactly. This is worth picking up at your leisure, but don't be in a rush to drink it.

While I prefer to see DOT releasing the barrel-aged blends, the fact that my favourite of this set was a straight IPA shows that they're fully justified in doing the less involved recipes too. Good beer is good beer, regardless of the producer's ethos or tendencies.

The history round

Or is it the geography round? It's Session day again and our topic this month was chosen by Laura: The Ultimate Pub Quiz. Hopefully not literally: I do like a quiz and wouldn't like to think of them coming to an end. As regards preferred subjects, rounds on beer trivia are rare, but I'll settle for geography or history, two areas that I've learned about extensively via beer.

In which year was the Spanish Armada wrecked on the Irish coast?
Today I'm assessing two beers from Western Herd in Co. Clare. As a regular visitor to Donegal in my youth, I was well aware of the associations there with the Spanish Armada, the failed attempt by Spain to invade England by sea, resulting in a swathe of wrecked ships down the western Irish coast. I'm less familiar with how it affected areas further south, but Clare got a coastal placename out of it, and from the placename, a beer: Spanish Point.

This has been around for a couple of years now, but I've only just encountered it for the first time. The brewery calls it an "American pale ale", though at 5.9% ABV it's stronger than many an Irish-brewed IPA. That's one part of its authentically American sensibilities; the other is the huge citrus aroma, packed to the gunwales with zesty, spicy citrus. There's a bit of heat too, making it smell a bit like an Old Fashioned to me, even though there's no barrel-ageing involved. On tasting, that turns to pine resin: a different sort of classic US character. It's not a million miles from what Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale does, though maybe a little more fruit forward. And I shouldn't have to mention this, but for the record, it's completely clear: a slightly amber-leaning golden. All in, it's a class act, and leaves me wondering if the American brewer at Western Herd makes this sort of thing because he's homesick. I assume it's in regular production, even if it's a bit tricky to get hold of in Dublin, and I heartily recommend it to everyone who's done with the vanilla, garlic and grit of contemporary pale ales.

How long has Western Herd been brewing?
It has not been a good time for microbrewing out west, and the boom is certainly over. Bridewell, Galway Hooker and most recently Black Donkey have all packed it in of late. That makes me extra grateful for the breweries from Donegal down to Kerry who are still keeping the lights on. Maybe it's because I don't see their beer very often, but Western Herd seems to be staying out of the rat race, and I hope that's working for them. It has seen them through to their tenth anniversary, for which they brewed another classic American-style beer.

Milestone describes itself matter-of-factly as a Centennial IPA. There's no crowing about the West Coast anywhere, but it's immediately obvious on pouring that it's that sort of IPA. The beer is perfectly clear again, and a shining copper colour, promising toasted malt to go along with the hops. The aroma is floral: sweeter than I thought it would be, and any citrus is juice, not pith. The flavour goes big on jaffa oranges, and it too is surprisingly sweet. There's more than a hint of hard candy and lollipops about the hop taste here. I thought there would be toffee from the malt, but that whole aspect is very understated, tasting merely tannic, stewed not caramelised. All told, it's not a very bright and distinctive beer, resembling a simple English bitter more than an American IPA. I didn't quite get what I was expecting, but an easy-drinking bitter is never a chore.

It seems that Western Herd has a house style, and it's a distinctly retro one. No remarks would be passed on either of these beers if they'd showed up in the US microbrew scene of the 1990s. Perhaps those that do know their history are still doomed to repeat it, in quite a tasty way, it turns out.