Big fruit, little fruit

The White Hag made a big deal over the launch of Nektar. It was in the quiet period at the beginning of the year when little else seemed to be happening in Irish beer, so perhaps it was an opportune time to get the attention of the half-dozen people, me included, who give two shits about an Irish brewery releasing something new. Nektar itself was tricky to track down, and when I did, I found it's a peach-flavoured lager of 2.6% ABV. How worthy of attention would that be?

It's hard to see from the photograph, but it looks like... a lager. It's clear and yellow, with a fine and thin topping of foam. The syrup makes its presence felt early doors, with an aroma which is very much nectar: all sweet and perfumey, more jam or jelly than beer. The benefit of a lager base is evident on tasting. While it's very sweet and novelty-driven, it avoids turning unpleasantly sticky by having an extremely clean -- bland, arguably -- basic lager base. One gets to, er, appreciate the fruit concentrate without having it gum up one's palate with residual malt sugar. The low gravity means it's certainly light, though it doesn't tail off into wateriness as I feared it might.

I'm sure this turned out as the brewer wanted it, but I'm not on board with it. It might work as a component in a beer cocktail, or served over ice with a shake or two of bitters, like those ginger beers whose boom seems to be continuing into a further Irish summer. As a straight-up drinking beer, however, it's all candied novelty and no substance. Not for the likes of me.

Imperial stout is for the likes of me. The latest twist on The White Hag's long-established oatmeal imperial stout gives us Black Boar: Orange Bitters Barrels. It's the standard Black Boar strength of 10.2% ABV, and the standard density too, glooping into the glass, the generous head forming at a leisurely pace. I probably shouldn't have been surprised to find it smells like a Terry's Chocolate Orange, but it does: stouty dark chocolate meets oily orange essence. Though rich, it's not hot, and I wouldn't have guessed the strength by smell alone.

Nor indeed the flavour: still no heat. The bitters side is laid on heavily, however, and that's at the expense of the beer side. A beer this dark and viscous shouldn't taste primarily of Campari and soda, but this does. The orange element, while very pronounced, isn't like oranges, but has that bittersweet liqueur quality, a little bit perfume and a little bit candied peel, but tastes nothing so much like the orange bitters from which it's directly derived. There's even a carbonic bite to suggest the fizz, even though the beer itself is too heavy to be fizzy. Alchemy!

It's a bit of fun, this. But it's not a serious imperial stout. While the orange element doesn't feel forced or tacked-on for the sake of novelty, I feel a little put out that it lacks, for want of an actual word, stoutishness. I guess oatmeal means it's all about the feels, and there's no shortage of chewy depth. Just don't look for much by way of coffee or chocolate.

Two very playful beers here, in their own ways. I'm not averse to novelty fruit flavours, but in both cases I don't think they did anything to improve the base beer underneath. The White Hag makes straight-up lagers and imperial stouts which don't need this treatment.