The Festival of Ullage

The annual autumn beer festival took place across the JD Wetherspoon chain earlier this month. The three central Dublin branches kept the special edition beers fairly turning over, serving between two and four of the 30 at a time, changing every couple of days. Given how little interest there is in the cask beers of Dublin Wetherspoons, and especially unfamiliar ones, I dread to think how much of the beer is disposed of before the cask is even a quarter empty.

My shift began, as it often does, at The Silver Penny. Just the two festival specials were on at the beginning, which is unusual for this branch. First up, Coastal Coconut from Salem, the craft-ish Batemans sub-brand. The sleight of hand with this golden ale is that there's no coconut but there is Sorachi Ace and Sabro, hops famed for their coconut flavours. And, indeed, they deliver. The light and pale 4.2% ABV base gives free rein to the hops and the oily, creamy, aromatic coconut effect is the beer's entire deal. There's almost nothing else happening, which is fair enough given the branding, although I did also detect a smidge of pithy bitterness, another standard and positive feature of the hops. A tiny complementary hint of honeycomb arrives in as the beer warms. It's still no masterpiece of complexity and I fear a full pint might have been more work than it's worth. The half was fun, though.

Keeping the alliterative theme going, next was Mauldon's Maple, a copper-coloured bitter with all-English hops -- Challenger and Fuggles. The name suggests sweetness, as does the colouring, so it wasn't a surprise to get a big hit of toffee in the aroma. That's in the flavour too, but where I was expecting sticky unpleasantness, the caramel is nicely balanced with a gentle pinch of burnt-grain roast. After a second or two, the classic English hop profile makes an appearance: a mineral and vegetal bitterness, almost harsh but stopping at merely assertive. This is seasoned with a tannic, almost oaky, dry side, which is the key to adding drinkability to this sort of toffee-forward bitter. This isn't usually my sort of beer at all, so it was great to find one executed so well. Brown bitter ftw!

Over at The South Strand, business began with Elgood's doing their best craft beer dad dance via New World Session, a 4.4% ABV IPA hopped with Chinook, El Dorado and Mosaic. And Bramling Cross: let's not go crazy. It's a straightforward golden colour and the American hops' fruit candy presents nicely in the aroma. Something goes a bit wrong in the flavour, however. I suspect it's the English interloper, which should be adding a blackcurrant tartness, but that goes through as a fragranced disinfectant twang; a harsh and phenolic smoky aspect that I think is part of the beer, rather than incompetent line-cleaning, but who knows. A weighty texture and bubblegum golden-ale sweetness only adds to the yuck factor. If this was an attempt at doing bright hoppy fun in the American way, it hasn't worked out.

From an American take to a Czech one, via Denmark: English Dream, a pilsner brewed at Batemans in collaboration with Mikkeller. It looks almost identical to the previous: clear and clean and golden, as befits the style, though the low-key sparkle from being served on cask definitely does not. It really doesn't resemble proper pilsner, and only part of that is the absence of noble hops. Harlequin, Target and East Kent Goldings? What were they thinking? The hop side, despite involving three varieties, isn't a big part of the flavour, and at the centre there's a gummy, sticky, blonde ale mix of brioche and bubblegum. Nobody would be fooled into thinking they're drinking pilsner. This is an up and down English blonde ale. If the aim was some sort of magic trick, it has failed to convince this part of the audience. Call it an English golden ale and it's fine. Don't go trying to appropriate pilsner if you can't do it properly, however.

It was a Scottish double early doors at Keavan's Port, starting on Flying South from Loch Lomond. It's rare to see a sub-4% ABV beer at JDW these days, but this was 3.7%, and although badged as hazy, wasn't, presenting instead as clear and white-gold pale. The aroma's combination of tropical fruit and herbs is unmistakably Kiwi, and that follows through to a bright and fresh flavour, delivering a fruit salad of mango, mandarin and kiwifruit with a backing of bitterer forest floor resins and pepper spice. The taste is impressive, and so is the texture, which is full and smooth. I guess whatever they did to make it hazy didn't take for the appearance but gave the mouthfeel that round soft fluffiness. If the Salem beer was a bold flavoured beer that could be difficult to drink in quantity, here's one just as characterful but with massive sinkability. Top work, and probably my favourite of the festival overall.

Its compatriot was Autumn Nuts by Cairngorm, declaring as a "copper ale" at 4.8% ABV. It is indeed copper coloured, and smells quite sickly, of concentrated caramel, butterscotch and stewed tea. The flavour is thankfully not as severe, and there's a decent dry bite with a kick of hop bittering to help balance all the caramel malt; Cascade and Perle keeping the score level. It is heavy, though, warranting sipping rather than quaffing. After the initial sugar shock I warmed to it. The use of an American hop variety was an inspired choice, with a grapefruit complexity emerging late in the finish and taking the beer away from twiggy red ale and into comforting American-style amber. And maybe it's the name, but I get a hint of hazelnut and pecan as well. This is enjoyably cosy overall, ideally suited to those drawing-in late autumn evenings.

Back around to the 'Penny, where they do keep the goods turning over, in fairness, and Pinball Wizard. It's an oatmeal stout brewed at Adnams with UPP Liquids of Oregon, which is possibly the worst name for a brewery I've ever encountered. This is 5.5% ABV and nearly fully black, though showing reddish-brown murk at the edges of the pint. I don't know if it's an oatmeal thing, a cask thing or an English thing, but there's a familiar sweetness to this, giving it a feel of mild or old ale, more than stout. There's an enjoyable damson and blackberry jam effect which I associate in particular with Theakston Old Peculier. A hint of milk chocolate is as stouty as it gets. No roast and no hop bitterness means that this, while whilesome and basically good fun, fails to press the buttons for Proper Stout. Yeah, I'm fussy. Deal with it, UPP Liquids.

The festival contribution from Buckinghamshire's Rebellion is Knucker, billed as red and hoppy. It looks well: a clear dark mahogany shade, and there's a distinct bite of American grapefruit hops in the aroma. The flavour leads on that too, meaning the dark malt aspect is somewhat left behind. There's a certain sweetness, but not caramelised. Instead the hopping makes it taste of raspberry and plum. It's boldly flavoured, nicely weighty for 4.2% ABV, and I enjoyed it though was a little disappointed it missed the mark of being in the American amber style. You won't often find me commenting that a beer at this festival needs less hops, but here we are.

Next to it at Keavan's was another of the international collaborations: Varvar was invited from Kyiv to brew a Session Golden Ale at Hook Norton. This is my first time trying the national beer style of Ukraine, and it's a loose definition of "session" for England, as it's a full 5% ABV, making it one of the strongest beers in the festival range. It's certainly golden, and I thought it rather plain at first, showing a lagerish grainy character but not much else. Three sips in, however, it unfolded somewhat, delivering floral honey and light lemon zest. This is set on a beautifully soft texture meaning it fulfills its session remit perfectly, regardless of the strength. If there hadn't been more to try I would have very happily settled into a few pints of this bad boy. Ukrainian golden ale, it turns out, isn't hugely different to English golden ale, but seems to have a bit more hoppy pizzazz and definitely isn't just an attempt to make lager with ale techniques.

The next beer, Reggae by Otter, was only 3.4% ABV, so why not have a full pint, I thought. My first gulp of same told me immediately that I'd made a mistake. There's a nasty burnt rubber twang on this, suggesting a fault somewhere in the brewing or dispense processes. Normally, I try to taste past that, to find out what beer the brewer intended, but the brewer doesn't appear to have intended much: some light biscuit, cream-ale-like sweetcorn, and the vaguest of meadowy English hops -- Calypso, we're told, presumably in minimal quantities. I'd shrug it off if it had been presented as a golden ale or bitter, but a pale ale? It really doesn't deserve the designation. I didn't even get as far as considering the appropriative branding. It's a yuck all round.

We were back on the strong stuff a few days later, with two similar-looking golden beers. Yard Arm by Hook Norton is a 5% ABV IPA, brewed with a broad mix of English, American and New Zealand hops. There's a lightly zesty aroma for all that, suggesting waxy lemon peel and a spritz of lime. The flavour does have a few layers of complexity, however. There's a foundation of hard, flinty English-hop bitterness which contrasts with fruit candy and fizzy pop from the new-world varieties. A bonus level of distinctly American grapefruit lands in on top, while the dense texture gives the hopping plenty of heft and a long finish that almost scorches the palate with oily bitter resins. It's big, bold and tremendous fun, and one of those lovely lessons in how to do assertive hops well when brewing for cask.

That was a bit of a tough act for Salopian to follow, with their spooky looking 1000 Yard-Stare (the hyphen goes there? OK). For one thing, although similarly pale gold, it didn't look as good as the other, with an unpleasant greyish murk going on. I feared that might bring a less-than-clean taste, and it does: a rough and harsh cereal staleness that really compromises the hops. They're trying to deliver bright and fun notes of roses and bubblegum but are stymied with cardboard and burlap. Shame. The beer isn't honkingly off, but doesn't compare favourably with the similar one on tap next to it. A rare miss from Salopian, too.

A second oatmeal stout comes to the list from Orkney. Their Orca is just 4.2% ABV, although the obsidian black colour with a dark tan head was exciting enough to elicit questions from multiple drinkers between the bar and my seat. It is, indeed, an interesting creature. Like the other one, it's primarily sweet, and there's a lot of wafer and caramel at the front. Here, however, it's balanced by a strongly savoury herbal bitter side, enhanced with a seaside seaweed iodine tang, and a waft of turf smoke. You would never guess the strength: it tastes massive, passing from complex into busy. A full pint was hard slow work, but it's impossible to deny that this is stout without the training wheels. By the half way point I had stopped noticing the toffee, captivated instead by the spinach, charcoal and anchovy craziness, all of it assisted by the slick silkiness of the texture. Something of an acquired taste, it should be part of the entrance exam for anyone who wishes to publicly profess a love for stout. This is how the proper stuff tastes.

We'll stop here at the half way point. There's more to follow on Wednesday.