The local crowd

I watch with envy as DOT Brew pours interesting-looking new beers at faraway festivals. I must make do with what they put on the local market, including these two.

Dublin Dime is presumably named for its 5% ABV and is the latest in a long sequence of barrel-aged pale ales created for the Teeling distillery gift shop. It poured a clear bright orange colour at first, murking up when the tail end of the can was poured in. The aroma is zesty and lime-like, an effect which can be attributable to American hops and bourbon barrels, and I suspect both are involved here. It foamed heavily so I was expecting excessive carbonation, but it's surprisingly soft, with a fine and gentle sparkle. The base beer is a sweetly fruity one, with colourful Skittle and Starburst flavours. That's given a more grown-up edge by a lacing of vanilla oak and a slight sharpness which, again, could be either hop bittering or bourbon souring, but may well be both in tandem. It's not obviously barrel-aged, and I'm not sure I would have even noticed were it not how the beer presents itself, but the wood has been used judiciously, to add a subtle complexity rather than the honkingly loud effect found in too many bourbon-aged beers. This is a very decent offering, bringing a small ray of summer sunshine to a dismal winter day.

DOT has a regular strong red ale called Rum Red Dark, reaching version twenty by last year. Something in the programming seems to have changed now, because while this red ale is labelled as batch twenty-one in what appears to be the same sequence, its name is Big Base. I guessed there was no rum involved, and it turns out there are no barrels at all: this is the base beer which will eventually become the next Rum Red Dark. Like the pale ale, it's foamy, overflowing the generously-sized glass I put it in. The body is very dark: more brown than red, and could pass for black. The aroma is a little sickly, all toffee and butterscotch, but the flavour balances that with a drier roasted quality and some berry sharpness, suggesting redcurrant and raspberry. Its ABV is a whopping 10.2% and that's well hidden. While this is no easy-drinker, it's not a hot mess either, and it's the roast intensity which makes it a sipper, not the booze. I enjoyed it, but equally I can see how it would be enhanced by barrel-ageing. There's enough character in the base to mean it won't change drastically, while there's still room for some oaky spirit fun to be clipped on. I will keep an eye out for Rum Red Dark XXI.

Two solidly decent beers from DOT here. The brewery can be relied upon to give us the goods in the strong and barrel-aged space, even if not everything they create makes it into circulation in Dublin.