Middling

Athlone's Dead Centre Brewing remains a jewel in the national brewery treasury, the Shannonside tap room a gloriously bright and jolly place when the weather is good, which it was when I visited recently. I don't get here often enough to tell you how frequently the beers turn over, but while there was a modest selection of new-to-me offerings on the day, the flagship pale ale, Marooned, was the best beer there, that I tried.

I had started the afternoon with Silly Giggles, an India pale lager, and a light one, too, at just 4.1% ABV. The new-world hopping is not subtle, and a big burst of bright citrus arrives front and centre, right from the start. It lingers too, gradually filling out an otherwise thin mouthfeel with stickier hop oils. Complexity is not part of the deal, but then I don't think it's meant to be. This is down-the-hatch refreshment: good for clearing the travel dust at the start of the session, and I came back to it for some palate cleansing via a second pint later on.

Next door to the pub is top-tier eatery Thyme, and for it, Dead Centre brews an Elderflower Pale Ale. I'm not sure if that's meant to be consumed with or around the cheffy food, though at 4.2% ABV it seems a bit light for the former. The pint is clear and golden, and I expected a sizeable hit from the elderflower. There isn't one, however. It's quite a disappointment to find little sign of the headline ingredient, and there's little by way of supporting enjoyment from the base beer. It's dry, dull and husky, with no hop character at all. Late in the pint I did get a very mild hint of meadow flowers, albeit much more muted than full-on summery elderflower. I guess it won't interfere with the taste of the food at Thyme, but I very much doubt it adds anything either.

The red ale Red Sun Rising garnered a few unhappy clucks around the table, so when I came to it, I stuck with a half. For a start, it looks awful: a murky, muddy brownish red. That doesn't automatically mean there's something wrong -- it might be charmingly rustic -- but there was a pop of sour vinegar in the aroma to indicate there was something amiss. That wasn't too strong in the flavour, so I'm filing it as factory seconds rather than something unfit for sale. Although it's rough and quite homebrewish, I'm sure there are plenty of drinkers who would be happy with it, and one could even make the case that it straddles a gap between Irish red and the Flanders sort. I was glad I only had a small glass, however, and was a bit disappointed that the brewing and tasting processes at Dead Centre would let something like this through. I'm not sure what's worse between not being able to detect a flaw, or noticing it and putting the beer out anyway. Here's where the back-up pint of Silly Giggles proved invaluable.

The week before had been Dead Centre's Oktoberfest, and remaindered from that was the Hofbräu Sommerzwickl, a 5.1% ABV unfiltered lager. The name had me expecting something light and pale, so it was a surprise to be given another murky ochre beer. At least there were no acetobacter footprints in this one, but instead it had a strong and disconcerting whack of banana esters. This clashes with a hard grainy dryness which reaches almost a roasted level of acridity. Again, I don't think the beer was off off, but I suspect it's not meant to sit in the keg for as long as I'm guessing this one has. Zwickl is built to be served fresh, so it's probably not a good idea to try shipping one all the way to Westmeath from Munich in the first place. That said, I doubt I would have liked this anyway. I don't get along with Hofbräu beers in general, and an unfiltered semi-dark lager seems like an unlikely candidate to redeem them. If I'd known what it was, I probably would have stuck to the excellent Marooned.

Niggles about beer quality didn't stop me from having a good time in Athlone. Dead Centre's pizza are top notch (the currywurst special a particular highlight) and the whole vibe of the place is upbeat and friendly. It appears to do a roaring local trade, though I fear they might not be as beer-curious as a production facility like this needs them to be.