Light verse

Three new beers from Heaney Brewery to round the week off.

Correct Me If I'm Wrong, with the brewery's sober logo playfully scrambled on the label, is a "farmhouse ale", which I'm taking to mean a saison. Reading that it's brewed with sichuan pepper made me do an involuntary approving lip-pucker. It pours hazy and golden, with a short-lived head. The aroma is all fruit and no spice, though still attractive, with cool fresh pear and lychee. It's surprisingly thin for 5.9% ABV, and I'm not sure it's conditioned the way it should be, feeling a bit lifeless, especially for a (maybe) saison. The flavour is different again: florally sweet rather than fruity, and the spice is no more than one would get from a light ginger beer. And nothing else happens: after an initial burst of flavour, it fades to nothing, and seems almost watery, which is all wrong for the style and strength. I had thought this would be much more interesting but it's a bit of a damp squib. The brewery may have been over-cautious, seeking to be creative without being weird. Never a good idea and I hope they don't do it again.

The other two are in more established styles. Whatever You Think Yourself is the most Northern Irish way of telling someone you think their idea is bad, so it's a bit of a worry for it to be the name of a hazy IPA. "tropical yearning, the ghost of a pineapple's ambition" as part of the description gives us the seriousness of tone intended by the beer. It's a pale orange colour and fully opaque, with an aroma which is strongly pithy, not tropical. It's another light one for the strength, this time up at 6% ABV. The pith is loud and proud in the flavour, very similar to the fibrous underskin of a big jaffa. I doubt Seamus would approve of such intense orangeism. Next to this is a rough gritty side; a regular stumbling block for hazy IPA. It doesn't mean the beer is unpleasant, but it does remove any possibility of it being soft, juicy or tropical. Drinking this is a bit of a workout, and I can recommend it only to those who want their hazy IPAs with a big whack of bitterness as the main feature. Personally, Heaney, I'd have given it a whirl in the centrifuge to clean it up, but wh...

Not a great opening pair, then. Surely redemption must come with the export stout? This is the sort of solidly traditional beer style with which Heaney has already proven its worth. I was immediately on guard when Lamp Light poured more of a dark garnet colour than proper black. Still, the aroma is decent, with the same rich fudgey quality as found in modern classics Leann Folláin and Nocturne. The flavour does not lack darkness, I'm happy to say, opening on quite an intense black-toast roastiness. This is balanced, quickly, by a softer milk chocolate character, which is then contrasted in turn by a leafy green hop bitterness, which is the often-forgotten piece of the Proper Stout puzzle. Again, though, it's weirdly thin-bodied for its 6% ABV, and I'm starting to think that may be a Heaney trait. This one, even more than the others, would have benefited from a greater heft; something to chew on. Here, however, that's a mere niggle. This is a damn decent stout, and I was right to think that the brewery would get the fundamentals right. Export stout is one of my favourite beer styles in general and I welcome this example of it. The process maybe needs some fine tuning, but no more than that.

Redemption indeed, then. I can't help thinking that Heaney really should put less work into trying to be a craft-era brewery and stick to playing the hits. Lamp Light would certainly be an excellent addition to its bottled range. Imagine a choice of three top-notch microbrewed Irish export stouts in glass. We wouldn't know ourselves.

Shack a can

What more appropriate drink for a summer midweek than shandy? The Shandy Shack would like us to believe there is no better proposition. "Shandy's a British treasure that gives everyone pleasure" says the unlikely copy on the cans I bought in a northside Dublin supermarket, adding that it was "ripe for a refresh, so we [who?] quit our jobs, built a Shack and started the revival". Err, OK.

I began with Elderflower Lager, described as a pilsner with added elderflower cordial, and is 2.5% ABV. The visuals are excellent: it's a rich golden colour with pristine clarity. If the intention is to make it look like a proper lager then it works. I see oats on the ingredients, which I'm guessing is a texture thing, because it doesn't contribute any haze, nor does much for head retention. So it's not thin, but it goes a little too far the other way, because of course it's sweet, and so it feels syrupy, and that has a knock-on detrimental effect on its ability to refresh. Half way through I added ice, which helped a little. It still mostly tasted of sugar, and not of elderflower. I guess the cordial is already at one remove, and adding the beer makes it even less elderflowery. It's not unpleasant, but I think it fails at its primary function of being light and thirst-quenching. This is something of a theme with me and pre-made shandies, but they should have added more beer.

OK. Reset and go again. There are a number of shandies in the Shandy Shack range, but the only other one I found was Raspberry Lager. It's still 2.5% ABV, and again they've done a superb job with the appearance. I was expecting lurid pink, but instead it's a dead classy russet shade. It does smell of raspberry -- that's a difficult fruit to hide -- but there's a degree of artificiality about it, like raspberryade or sherbet candy. And it is, if anything, even more syrupy than the elderflower one. I made sure to serve it properly fridge-cold and it still gummed up my palate immediately, the fizz struggling to push through the mire and failing to do any refreshment or palate cleansing. Even more than with the aroma, the flavour tastes of fruit-flavoured candy rather than anything real: there's none of the tartness or juice burst of any actual summer berry. This one would need a lot more beer to make it worthwhile.

I realised at the end that I hadn't even been judging these as beers, so distant are they from the concept as commonly understood. Any of the continental citrus radlers will provide a better experience than you get from this pair. They're obviously trying hard, and seeking to look classy, on both the inside and outside of the cans. But their syrupy stickiness is a deal-breaker. Just have, like, a normal beer instead?

Big beer's small batches

The uncertainty that surrounds the rest of Diageo doesn't seem to be affecting the folks at Guinness: the one bit of the drinks multinational which looks to be washing its face, and no doubt the faces of Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan too. At The Open Gate Brewery in Dublin, they're continuing to turn out new product, and the recipes have been particularly weird creative recently.

"the classic deli pickle flavor" is the oddly Americanised rationale behind Pickle Sour, arriving at the taproom in time for the late-June heatwave. It's 5% ABV, a pale gold and, shortly after pouring, quite headless. I understand that this is an established style of beer, though not one I've tasted before, so I don't know how accurately this example represents it. First off, it's not at all sour: no mixed-fermentation acidity nor kettle-soured yoghurt twang. It's light and refreshing, though, and while it's predominantly a sweet beer, it's far from the dessertishness of all those fake-sour candy fruit beers. Instead, it delivers the pickle element very successfully. At the centre there's the real green, almost crunchy, bite of gherkin, seasoned subtly and respectfully with herbs -- dill and fennel, says the menu. The accuracy of this serves as a reminder that quite a few spoonfuls of sugar have gone into your wholesome jar of cornichons. This wasn't what I expected, but I liked it. While not a vinegar delivery system like real pickles, it does channel their flavour competently. Of course it's a daft novelty beer, but I have respect for daft novelty when it's done this well.

Alongside it, we also got Specific Sunrise, a New England-style IPA, though a light example at only 4.7% ABV. Pint, so. It's rather wan looking, the sickly translucent yellow of a low-rent witbier. Still, the aroma is bright and cheery with lots of fresh lemony zing. The flavour is clean and, well, not very exciting. There's a simple zesty citrus foretaste which fades too-quickly into watery nothing, leaving only a carbonic bite from the abundant fizz. By the end of the pint, a little vanilla residue had built up, so I guess it qualifies as a New England IPA, though it's far from a good example. Despite being part of a big industrial brewing operation, Open Gate tends not to produce dull beer. This, though proficient and workmanlike, doesn't taste small-batch. Unlike too many of their IPAs, they haven't killed the hops with an overly estery yeast, but it tastes like they haven't used enough hops in the first place.

The next round included an intriguing-sounding Orange Cardamom Rye Ale. It looked pretty normal, the same clear amber colour as the rye ale Guinness made, back in 2016, when they were giving the craft cow a proper milking. This is the same 5% ABV. Rye is the one aspect of the offer that I couldn't taste immediately. The herbal cardamom is very prevalent, somewhere between the baking supplies aisle and the bathroom cabinet. Sweet and zesty orange follows, giving it high-end orangeade vibe: Club or Orangina. I'm told they made their own tincture of orange to get the effect. A faint, tokenistic, old-world hop rasp finishes it off. They served it cold and fizzy, which was deliciously refreshing as a warm-day pint. It is a bit strong for that, however, though since most Open Gate drinkers are here on their holidays, that's less of an issue. If peppery orangeade is something you value, then here it is, done decently, with a bit of poke. Shame about the absent rye, though.

After that pint, I chose to drop down to a half for the Barrel-Aged Cherry Ale, out of respect. OK, it's only 4.8% ABV, but this is a sour ale given six months in Calvados barrels and then aged further on real cherries. I expected it would be involved, and not the sort of beer one quaffs by the dirty great pint. The brewery says it's inspired by Belgian kriek lambic, even if it isn't one. It definitely isn't one. What I missed on reading the description is that it's also blended with a fresh cherry beer, and "blended with" in this context really means "diluted by". The result is very plain stuff, with no mature complexity of any kind. I was hard-pressed to find any indication of barrel aging. The cherry flavour is bright and candy-like, presented on a light and fizzy base. It's predominantly sweet, not sour, and has even more of a soft-drink quality than the orange one. It's passable, but pitched more at the squeals-at-pink-beer crowd than the insufferable mixed fermentation connoisseur. This is another bit of summer fun, and the only actually irritating part is how far the experience of drinking it is from how the brewery describes it. What know they of the finer oude krieks? Bugger all, I'd say.

The next round of releases appeared at first to contain a real surprise: the revival of the late and unloved Guinness Black Lager from 2010. A chat with the management revealed that this isn't the case; it's a new recipe and, with a pint in front of me, I can confirm that that's true. The new Black Lager tastes of something. Primarily hops, surprisingly. There's a hard and raw pellet bitterness from the get-go, running all the way through to the finishing vapours. That's set on a properly clean lager base but with a seam of slightly sticky Czech-like treacle. Together it works well, and is enjoyably flavoursome while refreshing to boot. At 4.2% ABV, it's done at a slightly lower strength than the earlier 4.5% take on the style. This is a neat example of how, for the most part, small scale brewing will get you better beer than doing it industrially.

Finally, assembled, not brewed, was my initial impression of the new Belgian Blonde. My pint of this 6.5%-er arrived extremely cold, and I suspect that separated out the flavours. And there's a bunch of them. White pepper is first, arriving loudly in the aroma and spicing up the foretaste. The core is a crunchy, grainy rasp; rustic, unrefined and wholesome, echoing unfiltered pilsner. Then we're resolutely back in Belgium with the fruit seam, bringing peach, lychee, apricot and nectarine, all bright and distinct, with none of the gummy, sticky warmth. Half way down my pint I learned that it may have been a saison at some point in the production process, and that scans. Style concerns aside, it's a jolly nice creature, all told: complex yet pintable in a way the Belgians wouldn't countenance, but I'm an internationalist to a fault.

Open Gate is in autumnal mode now. That means Germany, so expect doppelbock in the next report from here.

Up before the Beak

I've left it late getting to Beak, a brewery which shares its Sussex home town with the redoubtable Harvey's. But it looks like they complement each other well: Harvey's being staunchly traditional while Beak is colourful, playful and very much down with the non-bitter-drinking kids. I opened my account with a small assortment of the dozen or so Beak beers currently on sale in Dublin.

"Life-affirming ales" is the brewery strapline, but it says nothing of their lagers. I started this lot with Déšť, an unfiltered and naturally carbonated (can-conditioned?) pilsner, presumably in the Czech style, judging by the name. An actual unfiltered Czech pils would be cloudy but this is barely hazed at all -- not that I'm complaining; I was merely a little surprised. The aroma is divine, the fresh-mown summer lawn of Saaz cutting past anything more serious that the Hallertau Mittelfrüh might have imparted. That seems to be in the flavour, where we leave the garden and encounter a harder hop bitterness, one that's a little plasticky to my palate. I got used to it though, and before the half-way point it had changed from unpleasantly harsh to bracingly assertive. That's helped, of course, by the malt side, which brings the rich and rounded crusty loaf quality of really good Mitteleuropa lager. I wouldn't be able to pin this as a clone of any particular Czech or German beer, but to my mind it channels their important attributes beautifully. The paltry 440ml serving format is, of course, an insult.

The next one is rather more run of the mill: Parade, the flagship IPA. Here, "unfiltered" means full-on murk; a medium beaten-egg yellow emulsion. The aroma is brightly fruity, as cloudy IPA ought to be, and there's a strongly tropical character, of mango and pineapple. Enticing. The murk typicality continues in the texture, which is soft and creamy, and happily lacking in unpleasant grit. I expected more from the flavour than I got. Citra, Mosaic and Idaho 7 feature in plenty of big-tasting IPAs, but this isn't one of them. It's not unpleasant, and frankly the lack of garlic and plasterboard off-flavours is a point in its favour, but... There's a subtle blend of fruit salad elements, mostly pineapple and mandarin, but the intensity is dialled way down, starting slow, building to little and fading quickly. That makes for an easy pinter, I'm sure, but it's also 6% ABV, and that should mean a bigger flavour all round. There are, of course, double- and triple- brand extensions, but I didn't think I would need them to get a proper hop hit.

We leave such concerns behind for the finishing imperial stout, Oak, brewed in collaboration with 3 Sons of Florida. Alarm bells began ringing when the can claimed it tries to recreate barrel-ageing without actually doing it, via "innovative barrel-derived extracts, wood additions and micro-oxidation". Beak does Innis & Gunn, by the sounds of it. Further unease was caused by the can, once the beer was poured. I know what an empty 440ml can feels like, and this was heavier, like something weighty was stuck to the bottom of it. I pushed it away and turned to the beer. It smells great: a bit oaky and quite vinous, not far from those lovely barrel-aged imperial stouts that I used to look to De Molen for, in happier times. It's quite flat and very thick, even for 10% ABV. The flavour opens on black cherry and soft toffee, though shies away from the chocolate and coffee which are far more common features in this sort of stout. The wood arrives next and, as expected, it's a very poor substitute for real barrel maturity, adding a dry and splintery tang, then a rough metallic rasp. The overall effect of this high-tech process is half maple syrup and half pencil shavings. The fundamental big stout party is still there, but it hasn't been any way enhanced and, between the sweetness and the tang, is hard work to chomp through. I consider this a misstep, however well intentioned.

Seems to me the life-affirming work of this brewery is indeed done with their lagers. I'm sure I'll be back to Beak in due course, but I don't feel I'm missing anything by not charging out immediately to fill a basket with more of their IPAs.

Would Jubel-ieve it?

Jubel lager "cut with" fruit has, it seems, been going great guns over in the country next door. It's possibly too early to say where this sits in the specialty beer segment, since it's definitely not in the geek-coded global-Brooklyn craft end, nor is it any way presented as traditional, be that authentic or fake. Maybe it's a sector by itself. The arrival of two blatant knock-offs from Irish microbreweries working incognito backs this theory up.

First out was Carlow Brewing with Bohem Lager Cut With Blood Orange. I found it on tap at Tapped. Being curious more than genuinely enthusiastic, I just had a half, to taste. It's the industry-standard 4% ABV, and has a very slight haze, suggesting it's not so non-craft as the brewery presents it. The aroma is pure fizzy pop, suggesting lemonade to me, more than Fanta or Orangina. There's a decent heft to the texture, just managing to avoid being sticky and retaining a properly clean lager crispness. There's not much lager character in the flavour, however. The flavouring gunk has been added in thick and generously. It does at least taste of oranges, though processed: marmalade, cordial and ice pops. Overall I found it decently refreshing, but quite un-beer-like. Perhaps there's a target audience of drinkers who want a radler, but full strength. If so, they're well catered for here.

Jubel splits its half-white logo diagonally, Bohem vertically, so the market was wide open for one that's white on the top and coloured on the bottom. That's about the only significant point of difference for Cúpla Beers: Peach. Wicklow Wolf isn't named on the can as the brewer and brand owner, but you can look up the Eircode of "Cúpla Beers" if you're that kind of curious. I can see why there's a tendency to make peach the flagship flavour: it's striking here, with a perfume that has little to do with real peaches, but is bright and luxurious. Maybe it's because no mass-market soft drinks are peach flavoured, only the posh ones. And there's even a bit of lager character; a hint of grain and a dry finish, after the super-sweet syrup subsides. It's less fizzy than the other though, so while you get a different 4% ABV syruped lager experience, it's not necessarily a better one.

This is one of those fads that I hope won't last long. I don't think it adds anything positive to the beer scene, other than possibly making it more likely that two good breweries will stay in business, and continue making proper beer for people who want it. I'm more irked by the cringey copycat factor. Are we this short of original thought on recipe and packaging design? I can't Jubel-ieve it's not better.

Like Spain

At time of writing, the long hot summer of 2026 is continuing. You won't catch me on holiday in southern Europe, but today I've brought it home with four beers by Basqueland.

I thought 5.6% ABV was a bit strong for something called Bavarian Pils, but that's exactly the same as the arguable archetype from Augustiner, so I'll give it a pass. It's an appropriate clear golden colour, though its head was a little too quick to dissipate. The aroma is seriously funky in a noble hop way, smelling of silage and manure, in a most agricultural manner. Distinctive, assertive, but really not to my liking. The flavour is somewhat less extreme, and there's a more recognisable hop bitterness, though still extremely noble, with concentrated grass and a rocket or white pepper spice. This is one of those beers where I appreciated its boldness, but I tend not to like it when German brewers go hard on the hops, and this is very obviously trying to beat them at their own game. To me, "Bavarian" is antonym of "severe", implying an hospitable softness with maybe a slightly cheeky, spoil-yourself luxury. This beer, conversely, is a hard sensory workout: be prepared to sweat for it.

I was about to compliment Basqueland on including a west coast IPA in the range, and then remembered that the range is huge and I chose the styles judiciously, so Skeleton Bay's inclusion is on me. 6.7% ABV puts it in the right area for an American-style IPA, if a tiny bit light. They've gone pale with the specs, and left a modest degree of haze in there. Still, my authenticity-detecting antennae were tingling. Have they got this close enough? The aroma is mild, and more on the tropical side than citrus. There's a very solid malt density, so while the ABV may be a smidge low, they've still provided a generous base for the hops and given the beer a satisfyingly chewy texture. Loral, Cashmere and Idaho 7 are the dry hops, which perhaps goes some way to explain that tropicality. Can you really make a west coast IPA without some combination of Citra and/or Simcoe? They have, in fairness, given this one a sufficient clean bitterness to pass the style test. It lacks pine and dankness, opening instead on a sweet orange cordial effect, but that gives way quickly to a more starkly assertive pithy bite, one that lingers long, buoyed up by the thickness and leaving a wax-like residue on the palate, much like classic Sierra Nevada Pale Ale does. While this lacks the bite of the best west coast IPAs, and there's nothing for those who consider crystal malt an essential feature, it still delivers on the bitter promise of the style. An IPA brewed for the grown-up palate? What a concept!

From there we jump straight to triple IPA, and Elbow Grease, a 10% ABV hazy job, dark orange in colour with a loose-bubbled head. The hop schedule is a line-up of favourites, featuring Vic Secret, Sabro, Mosaic and Motueka, so I was expecting a good time, and I got it. Present and correct at the centre of them is Vic Secret's essence of aniseed, almost numbing in its concentration. Around it there's a deliciously juicy mandarin and pineapple fruit salad effect, with a hint of Sabro's pithy bite. Its aroma is simultaneously dank and sweet, which is a fun combination. The can art reflects it all nicely: colourfully childish attributes, but presented for adults only. About the only thing I can ding it for is how well hidden the alcohol is. This could easily pass for a mere double IPA. I don't usually need to consciously hold back from necking triple ones -- the booze burn tends to take care of that -- but here the warmth arrives very late. Dangerously late. Before that it's all sunshine, good times and Robert-Crumb hops wearing baseball caps and shades. There's no subtlety or understatement about any of  it, but it hangs together in a joyously enjoyable manner. Vic Secret enthusiasts: take particular note.

Our finisher is Boyicao, an imperial pastry stout. This is a full 12.5% ABV, though only modestly enhanced, with just chocolate and hazelnut. There has been no straying from the specs here: this pours as thickly as you'd expect, and smells luxurious, like a big slice of warm fudge cake, decadently frosted and served under a tall peak of whipped cream. And a glass of Tia Maria on the side. Surprisingly, it's the hazelnut which opens the flavour: a very slightly dry and nutty husky flavour. The chocolate sweeps in immediately after, all brownies and cookies, followed by an almost spirituous alcohol heat. That doesn't build, however, so like the triple IPA above, the prodigious booziness is expertly concealed. It's a big beer, but jolly, not dangerous or problematic. Again, the label expresses the beer's nature accurately: chocolate confectionery on an epic space quest. That's how it tastes.

I'm quite surprised to find the lager is the one that didn't particularly suit me, though I fully recognise that's a matter of my taste, not the product's quality. Basqueland has produced some exemplary work here. I commend all of these beers, whether I liked them or not.

The Queens of Hungary

I have some tripartite brand extendery for you today. The three beers are from Horizont of Budapest, who made one beer, and then tried to sell tweaked versions of it to idiots who just want new, slightly different, beers to satisfy their weird cravings. Fancy that!

Our basis point is Hazy Queen, an IPA in the New England sub-style; 6% ABV and a bright and sunny opaque orange colour in the glass. The can says it's juicy and it certainly looks like juice. There's a sweetly citric quality to the aroma which helps it keep that promise, and the flavour balances biting hop acidity with softer fruit flesh very nicely. It stays on the citric side, threatening tropical without ever quite delivering it, and is deliciously clean with lots of refreshing zing. I assume it's something of a flagship, because it tastes like a beer that has been finely honed and deftly refined to be accessible and enjoyable to all. I could ding it for a lack of distinguishing features, but that would be churlish. It is, in the most complimentary sense of the word, daycent. The citizens of Budapest should be glad to have it as a regular. So how has the brewery managed to trash its rep by making other versions of it?

Well, the first take on that I have for you is Hazy Queen: Kohia Nelson Edition. It's the same strength and pretty much the same colour, if maybe a tiny bit paler. The aroma adds a dry huskiness to the pithy fruit, which is a little worrying. It's similarly smooth, and still citrus first, but the newcomer Kiwi hops don't really transform it. Yes, there's a tiny bit of lychee, white plum and whatnot, bringing a slightly more exotic fruit element, but it doesn't significantly alter the beer from its base, nor bring any significant improvement. If I liked it more, it's because I got to drink a full 44cl of it. It's just as clean, exactly as (not very) juicy, and a jolly fun time. But we're still merely in daycent territory and nothing fancier.

Never mind the hops, then, feel the gravity. We finish on Hazy Double Queen, the original beer, dialled up to 8% ABV. There's no difference to the appearance, but the aroma does seem brighter and ballsier, suggesting biteable fleshy citrus. Yum. On tasting it's definitely heavier and hotter, which is its own kind of fun, but I had been hoping that the hops would be brighter and more colourful. That doesn't happen. Instead, we're back to the nets of satsumas and mandarins, just given a bit of extra malt poke. There's a breadish chewiness and a little boozy heat, though honestly it's not hugely different from the baseline. No marks off, and all is I'm sure as the brewer intended; I'm not awestruck by the presence of double royalty, however.

If there are props to be given, it's because they didn't do anything silly or unpleasant with the variants. They're largely as good as the original, and very worthy of the name. The question, then, is why bother with the minor edge-tinkering? Hazy Queen fans may feel aggrieved that the brewery is making a play for more of their pocket money without doing enough to justify it. Poor show, lads.

Keep Ballymahon weird

Sometime wild beer specialist Wide Street Brewing continues to pursue other goals with its two latest releases.

"Wakame" is mentioned four times on the can of Umi Lager, so its inclusion in the ingredients is a big deal. There's no explanation as to what it is, however. Turns out it's a seaweed, used in Japanese cuisine. The beer is a pale muddy yellow, its head lasting only briefly. It's not flat, though, and has a fully lager-appropriate sparkle, with a decent body, flattering the 4.8% ABV. As well as seaweed, we're promised Sorachi Ace hops, but that's not a huge part of it. Sorachi extremophiles will have to make do with a sweetly satsuma-esque aroma and some gentle cloudy lemonade citrus in the flavour. I can't say I noticed the wakame, other than maybe a mild saline savouriness, but I could easily have imagined that. It's not bland, however. This has the unpolished but very tasty quality of good Czech or German unfiltered lager. With Japanese rice, Japanese hops and unusual aquatic adjuncts, it seems to promise exotic, but instead it's fundamentally decent and very enjoyable. It's a hack observation to say that it would match well with subtly flavoured Japanese seafood but it actually would.

With Krush, the brewery has aimed for hazy but ended up at muddy, the beer's soupy brown appearance as unattractive as the smudgy AI-generated label. The aroma is candy-sweet, suggesting a cordial stickiness, and it's thin-bodied, even for a mere 5.2% ABV. Judging by everything else, I wasn't expecting much from the flavour, so that wasn't as disappointing as it otherwise might have been. Let's see... The sweetness isn't anything like as strong as the aroma suggested, and there's a slightly dreggy dry and bitter huskiness. El Dorado and Krush both tend towards the tropical, and there's a flash of that, but it's not the main feature. Instead, I get a mineral, chalky rasp, a little too much fizz, and an abrupt finish. The can says it's smooth and soft; I say it didn't turn out as the brewer wanted it. I doubt it's turned out as anyone wanted it. The thing about there being lots and lots of hazy IPAs on sale is that the bad ones really stick out, and this is a bad one.

That the tricky exotic lager worked out beautifully while the basic IPA didn't should perhaps not be surprising with Wide Street. It's a brewery that, for the most part, has gone about things the hard way, and we the drinkers have benefited from that. I think they should stay fancy, because simple doesn't suit them.

Solid state

The beer range at Marks & Spencer is something I tend to pick at, rather than actively pursue. But there's a bigger range of them in the UK, and I couldn't help but grab an armful of randomers last time I was passing through that way. Nothing fancy, mind.

First it's an extremely straight-up Helles Lager, stating what it is in large capital letters on the 33cl can. It's brewed by Cornish brewery Harbour, which does a few contractual things of this nature, as I recall. 4.5% ABV seems a little inauthentically low, and it poured without a proper head, which it definitely should not. There isn't much aroma, but it seems broadly on-style: a snap of cracker with a hint of lemon zest. I was thirsty, so half the glass went in one gulp, and there was plenty of invigorating fizz, keeping it dry and properly refreshing. They still managed to shoot themselves in the foot here, however, because the can says it's "lightly carbonated". It is not. In all honesty, how it tastes was not a major concern for me, but out of respect for you, specifically, I will say that it's very plain stuff. There's a slightly hot fruitiness, suggesting the same sort of careless brewing flaw that made it headless, but you'd barely notice that. I can't remember how much it cost, but I'm assuming not much. Drink it cold; lie back and think of anywhere but Germany.

Being northern, there's a better head on the Session IPA by Northern Monk, and it's lighter than the previous at 4.2% ABV. I knew there was haze coming but didn't expect it this early in the set: it looks like a witbier, translucently pale and hazy. There's a pleasant citric zest in the aroma, suggesting it's no sensory lightweight, whatever the strength might indicate. The flavour starts well, with a fairly assertive bitterness, but the lack of substance, I guess, causes it to all fade away frustratingly fast. The pithy American zing gets replaced by a gritty, savoury quality, a common attribute of wonky haze. I mean, yes, you could have a session on this IPA, but personally I wasn't on for drinking more than one. First of all they should warn people it's hazy -- "juicy" isn't enough, especially when it doesn't taste juicy at all -- and secondly they should clean it the hell up. I wouldn't go quite so far as to say this was a can of useless watery dregs, but it leans in that direction. Only the aroma makes it more of a positive than negative experience. Next!

Next is a little pink can of Hazy Pale Ale. This looks less hazy than the Session IPA, being a bright yellow Golden Delicious shade, and close to transparent. Vocation is the brewer, and it's 4.8% ABV. The aroma doesn't have much to say, and the texture is light, lacking the soft fuzz that's one of haze's signatures, and which I know can be done at this gravity. Its flavour is all up front, and it should carry a health warning for Mosaic-dodgers. I know what people mean when they complain about that hop's sweaty onion tendency, but I don't usually taste it as powerfully as it is manifest here. There's a fried edge and a scallion-green acidity; a faint fruit-chew sweet side, finishing on drier caraway husk. All of that flashes past quicker than it took you to read about it and, perhaps mercifully, there's no aftertaste. This passes as a hazy pale ale, sure, but it's very much a supermarket kind of one, lacking brightness, flare and individuality. Another damp squib, I'm sorry to say.

Finally, the big pink can contains the New England IPA, another from Northern Monk. It's a bruiser at 6.2% ABV and is a little darker than ideal: densely opaque, but with a slight orange cast at its heart. We are not told the hop varieties on the label, but from the get-go I detect the presence of Sabro, Sorachi Ace or one of them fellows, because there's a strong waft of coconut. The aroma adds a little dessertish vanilla to that. This particular hop profile has a tendency to taste pithy, and it does so here in spades. Forget your typical custard or juice of most NEIPA, this starts on a strong and sharp rasp of citrus peel, beginning as jaffas and then intensifying, almost to the level of fresh grass or smouldering plastic. It's invigorating and, if you're one of the Sorachi tribe like me, tremendous fun. I thought we'd get something more typical on the fade-out, but that pithiness continues all the way into the finish, given significant legs, and a charming warmth, by the sizeable strength. I liked it a lot, but be warned it's not the accessible easy-drinker one might expect from a big chain grocer like M&S.

It seems the ABV is enough information on which to judge these beers. Bigger is better, by and large. There was a possibility that M&S and its generally reputable contract brewers would have done the styles well. Not the case, unfortunately, but you probably knew that.

Cultivating enjoyment

I had enough fun with the beers from Croatia's Garden Brewery recently that I picked up cans of the other two beers of theirs currently in circulation in Dublin.

The first is a hazy IPA, and if I hadn't been specifically chasing the brewery's wares, I would have ignored this. Sure they all taste the same. The numbers on Oseka are boringly orthodox too: 6.2% ABV at 30 IBUs. It's brightly yellow, completely opaque and topped by plentiful, if loose, white foam. The hops are a solid combination of Citra, Simcoe and Galaxy, though they've introduced a random factor via experimental variety HBC 431. I have to wonder how that experiment is going, because it hasn't yet been given a name despite my having encountered it almost nine years ago, at a brewery which no longer exists. The beer smells sweet and creamy, with plentiful vanilla backed by a pithy tang of lemon peel and jaffa orange. It was a surprise, then, to find coconut as the loudest part of the flavour: big and bitter, concentrated to the point of tasting almost medicinal. That's fun, but doesn't last, and there's very little behind it. After the initial hit, we're heading straight for the finish line, where the vanilla puts in a token appearance before it all tails away to nothing. It's fine: a perfectly serviceable IPA in the New England style, and if you're one of the distressing number of beer drinkers who demand more of these, then this is a good one. I enjoyed it on that level but don't feel I learned much from the experience.

Plima is a double IPA, though low-balled for an American-style beer, at a mere 7.4% ABV. The can says it's juicy, so customers shouldn't be surprised to find it pours opaque, and it's a pale yellow shade with decent head retention for this sort of thing. The aroma is very sweet, passing vanilla and heading for condensed milk, with added pineapple concentrate. It gets even more tropical on tasting, stacking pineapple on pineapple, with creamy coconut for additional exotic sweetness. This gets balanced somewhat by an assertive citric pith, bitterer than is typical in haze, but very welcome nonetheless. The low(ish) alcohol helps it stay clean and cool. It doesn't really feel like a double IPA, but I don't mind. This is overall good fun, pulling some impressive moves with the hops and avoiding anything unpleasant or daft. Fair play.

I'm glad I went against my instincts to try these out. Garden hasn't always been my favourite brewery, and hazy IPA certainly hasn't been my favourite style. A bit of persistence has paid off for both of us, however.

Krieking at the edges

Co. Mayo's Belgian-style brewery, Mescan, has added a new fruit beer to the range. Kriek Silín is, I think, overstating the case with the K-word: I put aside any notions of this being a mixed-fermentation barrel-aged marvel before opening the bottle. Mescan tried its hand at lambic a few years ago and it didn't go well. This one is a straight wheat beer at 6% ABV, relying on the cherries for any sourness.

That they haven't skimped on the cherries is obvious from its appearance: a dark Ribena purple with a vibrantly-coloured electric-pink head. With that comes a heavily thick mouthfeel, making it feel almost syrupy, although it's not sweet. The cherry aspect of the flavour flashes only briefly at the beginning: that concentrated jammy quality, like in a Bakewell tart. When it fades, it leaves a more generalised fruit perfume taste, with notes of red apple, grape juice and a blackcurrant tartness. You can throw on a whiff of violet and lavender old-lady perfume as well.

While I'm happy it's no sugar bomb, I would have liked more of a cherry taste. The problem may well be that they've used real cherries, which don't taste as cherry as the proprietary syrup from a tub which less scrupulous breweries tend to use. It also has reminders of the flavour profile of oude kriek lambic, without any of the essential aspects: oak and Brettanomyces, basically. To me, that gives it an air of something unfinished, awaiting the truly fun parts of the production process.

Would I recommend drinking it? I'm not sure. Mescan does its best work when brewing authentically-Belgian tasting beer, and this isn't that. It is, however, a decently strong fruited wheat beer with good complexity and a flavour, if brief, of real cherries. I found it a little harsh and hollow, however, being neither a fully-involved masterpiece of complexity, nor a laugh-along candy frippery, but somewhere in between that's not quite as enjoyable as either. If all that sounds unhelpful, buy a bottle and make your own mind up.

The blip

Three new beers from the generally reliable Our Brewery of Randalstown showed up locally recently. This producer has a pleasing tendency towards style variations, so I was a little disappointed to find that all three were pale ales. Still, at least they're different kinds of pale ale, and that's often the best we can hope for from beer these days.

The label of Next Time Around doesn't make it explicit that it's hazy, though the use of "juicy" and "soft" meant I wasn't surprised when it turned out to be. It's on the darker side of yellow, with plenty of head. I think "juicy" is overstating the case as it's sweet, but lacks any balancing refreshing acidity, tasting more of orange squash than proper juice. Its aroma is dry, with a poppyseed savoury crunch. Mosaic? No, this is done with Citra, Motueka and Rakau, and honestly I expected more from them. 5.3% is no compromised lightweight ABV, but this is dull and blunt, lacking colour and zing. A badly printed and incomprehensible date code means I can't tell if it's an issue of freshness, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's disappointing either way.

I followed that with The Nod. It's a collaboration with client brewer Tilt & Pour, in Australia's native beer style, the extra pale ale, and hopped with New Zealand varieties. I knew a vigorous pour would be necessary when I felt how squeezy the can was, and sure enough it's barely carbonated. Still, it manages to push out a gorgeous aroma, laden with fruit salad and tropical candy. The flavour is dialled back, however, with a harder bitterness in the ascendant, bringing notes of beeswax, zinc and aspirin. Though it smells like a cartoon, this is a beer of serious heft. The flatness makes it feel heavy for its 5.5% ABV, and I found myself having to chew through it, laboriously. If they'd got more of the hop fun from the aroma into the flavours, this would be a delight. As-is, it's missing the mark for me.

The final part of today's trilogy is Light Up Gold which the brewery describes as West Coast IPA, and backs that up with Citra, Simcoe and Chinook hops, as well as the beer's attractive rose-gold colour. At 6.3% ABV it's no lightweight local take either. There's not much aroma, and the flavour isn't a riot of grapefruit and pine, but it still works well, starting on a dry tannic note that helps hide the alcohol. There's a hint of crystal malt toffee and then it's over to the hops. They have a fun summer-fruit quality, tasting of strawberry and ripe red cherry, then a more serious resin and freshly-tanned leather. And while it's not heavy, there's enough substance to give it a long finish, continuing that fruity leathery fun for ages. This is classy stuff, taking a modest approach to the classic features which make west-coast IPAs so enjoyable.

All told, I don't think these represented the brewery's abilities well, and that's not just down to choice of styles and this drinker's preferences. Usually, Our Brewery's technicals are on point, and that under-carbonated one, in particular, was out of step. I'm fervently hoping that both that, and the tendency towards more pale ales than we need, are merely a blip.

Summer pubbin'

"Just stay out of Temple Bar" is my general advice to anyone coming to Dublin and looking for beer. Today's subjects were both found in pubs, and both of them technically in Temple Bar, although they're some distance from the Auld Dub/Oliver St John Gogarty/Quays/Temple Bar/Fitzsimons's central parade of shame.

I mean, The Porterhouse, Dublin's longest-surviving vendor of decent beer, is only a little bit west of Fitzsimons's on the same stretch, and it does get a generic crowd of uninterested tourists, but it also has a carefully chosen and ever-rotating beer menu. Lately, that has included the new range of tentative one-offs from Eight Degrees.

Last time it was Dolcita, an IPA, now it's a hoppy pilsner called Pacifika. It's got the pilsner look right, being clear golden with a well-formed and lasting lager head. The aroma is... lacking. No exotic gust of hop waft greeted mine hooter, I'm sorry to report. The flavour goes lager-first too, giving a grainy dry quality, all husky and slightly rustic. That's not unpleasant; this beer is clean to beat the band, but I signed up for hoppy. Where's my hoppy? One is left to wait, but it's there in the finish, with a quick and subtle burst of the tropical, fading to a fresh salad-leaf greenness and some slightly spicier forest resin. You have to look for it, though. I should probably be more appreciative that this pilsner is actually in the crisp and dry pilsner style, not simply a pale ale fermented cold. The Eight Degrees VLB training is on display here. But, since they made a hop the beer's actual name, I feel I should have got some more hop from it. Fans of proper pilsner are well served by this, but how many of us are there?

Changing Times, despite its name, doesn’t strike me as much of a trend-chaser, but it has seemingly decided that the tiny wave of Irish ginger beers is worth surfing, and produced one of its own: Sinséar. I found it in the busily touristed surrounds of Darkey Kelly's, on Temple Bar's far western edge.

The visuals are as one would expect: a lightly hazed pale yellow, and likewise its ABV is the orthodox 4%. I turned down the option of lime, but was happy to be asked. They haven't skimped on the ginger. It's been a while since I've tasted the competition (Smithfield Zingibeer and Kinnegar Jackrabbit), but this one feels like it has more of a spice kick than I remember from them. That sparks on the tongue initially, spreading a tingle over the palate like a mouthful of pop rock candy. It's not built for complexity though does have a bonus hint of brown sugar or very light caramel. The thin fizzy texture is a bit of a downside but I'm sure that's intended: it's not meant to be assessed the way regular beers are. For summer refreshment, I could have seen myself drinking it again, maybe even with the discretionary lime, then I looked at the bill and found that this particular pint of light fizz cost €8.75. Yes, this is technically Temple Bar, and such things shouldn't surprise me, but that's ouchy nonetheless. I don't know if other pubs in the brewery's group sell it, but I hope they price it more reasonably if and when they do.

It's been hot in the city lately, so it's good that the pubs are looking after the punters' need for refreshment. That the pubs on the edge of Temple Bar still sell pints at single-digit prices should perhaps be a cause for celebration. It won't be like that much longer.

Value proposition

A completely random pick from the fridge at Craft Central landed me this can of triple IPA from Canadian brewer Nano Cino. It's called Innovation #6, it's 9.7% ABV and it cost more than €10. What does that get me?

The big floaty gobbets aren't an innovation: I've see those before. And it's quite an average shade of medium opaque orange, darker than the triple kind of IPA tends to be. The aroma has a lot of the caramel/crystal quality of the sort I associate with first-generation double IPAs, where the brewers seemed to care only about boosting the gravity without being too concerned where the hops fitted in. There's a spicy sort of citrus sideshow, but nothing especially bright or fresh.

Thankfully it doesn't taste of caramel, but the sweet orange jelly it runs with instead indicates that it's still a malt-first beer, which is a little disappointing. To the cordial or orangeade it adds a twist of black pepper for complexity and lots of chewy, boozy liqueur heat. You get a dash of vermouth or madeira in with your hops here, and I'm not convinced that that's a good thing. The sticky finish coats the palate with marmalade and triple sec: Paddington's breath on Saturday night.

I guess it passes muster as a triple IPA, but it tastes a little elderly and overwrought. Maybe as an end-of-the-night finishing beer, but even then I suspect it's better in smaller doses than this.

I don't make a habit of buying the double-digit-priced cans, and this is a prime example of why. It's just not worth the risk. Beer of better quality is available from breweries much closer to home at significantly more reasonable cost.

Where they do things differently

The Glider is a modern marvel. Belfast's metro-like bus-with-notions runs transversely across the city, from west to east, passing plenty of the city's beer destinations on the way. A new curiosity has arrived at the eastern G1 terminus in Dundonald. As has been reported far and wide, Lidl NI has chosen to open a fully-operational pub in the same building as their supermarket, to subvert local licensing restrictions. I went up to have a look.

Knowing, presumably, how much of a curiosity The Middle Ale would be, and the potential for positive publicity, the chain has gone to more effort than it strictly needed to. Although there's nothing distinctive about the exterior, the inside has been designed to a definite theme, based on the old-fashioned Irish pub-grocer, as befits a kind of modern day equivalent. The shelves are lined with decorative versions of Lidl food and homewares, not to advertise them seriously, but to fit the theme. With that goes shiplap-style painted-wood walls and ceiling, lighting in the style of early electrification, and even little vestigial drawers behind the counter, as though for storing loose produce. That it's all garishly coloured in the company's red, yellow and blue, rather than more realistic earthy ochre or olive green, takes away from the effect and reminds one that it's all a bit of set dressing. But it's fun, like drinking in the on-stage pub from a pantomime.

The drinks offer... well, they've made a bit of an effort. For the most part, the draught options are what you might expect to find in a mainstream Norn Irish pub with a tie to C&C: Tennent's, Heverlee, Bulmer's, Bud Light, Guinness and the one surprise, Estrella Damm. When I lived in the province, such a basic array would absolutely have included C&C-brewed keg Bass as well, and it was a little jarring to see it's not part of what's plainly an out-of-the-box factory-settings beer line-up. I bet the marketing wunderkind who came up with "The Middle Ale" didn't think to ask if the pub would sell any ale. It doesn't.

While you can buy Lidl-brand wine and spirits behind the bar, the logistics of doing the same for draught beer would have been impractical. This is where the effort shows, though: an additional beer tap is badged as the own-brand Crafty Brewing Lager, and while I strongly suspect it's hooked up to a keg of Rye River's Bidin' Time, I also have my suspicions about whether or not those are two different beers in any meaningful way.

None of this was getting me any new ticks, however. I had to turn to the bottle options for that. Now, you know I love a bit of knock-off branding from the German discounters. I had never taken a punt on either of the main rivals' Corona clones, because they're only in six-packs and that's too much commitment to a beer that's likely undrinkable. At The Middle Ale, however, they'll do you a single of Camaro, and even shove a wedge of lime in it.

I understand that the lightstrike-proof hop substitute that big-brand clear-glass lagers are made from is quite expensive. That it's not in use here is painfully obvious, even sniffing through the tiny aperture of a longneck. The pub hasn't been open long but this was still skunked from its time in the glass-fronted fridge. That's present in the flavour too, but is far from the worst thing about it. There's a horrific cooked-sweetcorn savoury quality, turning to popcorn husk in the finish. The little jet of real lime from the wedge does genuinely help by masking some of the awfulness, but it's a bad time from start to finish. The mainstream versions of this type of beer are mostly very bland and treated a little unfairly in the discourse; the Lidl one, however, tastes as bad as all the jokes about them say they do.

A better drinks offer might have had me spending a little more time there, soaking in the Disney-does-country-grocer ambiance, but nothing took my fancy. Back on the Glider, then.

I didn't have any to-do list beyond that, although I'd never had a pint in the downstairs bar of The Ulster Sports Club, so decided to fix that next. It was quiet and cool in there, and downstairs was the only option as the Out of Office brewery taproom on the upper floor hadn't opened yet. I had a pint of their session IPA: Pencil Pusher.

This is a modest 4% ABV and pale yellow with a light but definite haze. The flavour is crisp at first: plain and a little grainy, before the hops kick in, bringing a fresh and pithy citric bitterness. It took a moment for anything else to appear, beyond the initial grapefruit, and that's a sweeter and slightly sticky stewed peach effect. It remains zippy and refreshing, however, and well-chosen as a regular on the more mainstream downstairs bar. There's little to dislike about it.

All roads lead to The Sunflower, and it was busy in the sunny beer garden, though a little quieter indoors, before the Friday after-work crowd fully descended. Galway Bay makes the house beer here: Sunny Lager. It's pretty unchallenging fare, though well made. It's a crystal-clear golden colour, looking like lager perfection, and is softly textured, the body full for something only 4.3% ABV and likely brewed to a price point. Where I cynically expected it to be bland, the flavour has a colourful floral quality, tasting of summer meadows and tasteful bouquets. Maybe the appropriate weather we had enhanced my impression of it, and it wouldn't be as engaging on a dismal grey afternoon. Quality is quality, however, and I would come back to this.

On the guest cask was El Dorado, a pale ale from Manchester brewery ShinDigger. They had it served nicely cold, which was appreciated. This is another pale and clear one, and has much in common with the lager, being plain and decent, with a subtle hop flavour. Here, that's a light zing of orange and grapefruit, though without any proper bitter kick. It's hard to dislike, but I had turned to the cask in search of complexity, and attracted by the name of the beer being the name of a hop. There's an element of false pretences about it: it's far from the hop showcase one might think it would be.

And with that it was back home to Dublin. I didn't get any proper exploring of Belfast done but felt I did the city's beer scene a little bit of justice. Whether it's worth gliding out to Dundonald to see how Lidl does a pub isn't for me to say. Don't go for the beer offer is all I have to add to the conversation.

A two, three, four

In the discourse around beer, one often sees it noted that the simplistic veneration of ever-bigger numbers, common a decade and more ago, has subsided. The IBU race is over, and conscientious beer drinkers, some of them even in the US, have come to recognise that stronger beer is not automatically better than weaker beer. However, I think there are still vestiges of The Old Ways to be found, including the exponential growth of IPA subgeneres: double was followed by triple for no rational reason, and brewery science (or, more likely, brewery marketing) has continued the stylistic inflation. Today we follow the pattern via one brewery: SOMA Beer of Girona in Catalonia.   

Representing double IPA is Lag, at 8% ABV. It's fully hazed up and especially pale, which I'm taking as a good sign: no nasty oxidation here. And indeed it smells very fresh, having been about a month in the can. Ripe mango and mandarin segments form the aroma, as well as a generous dollop of vanilla custard. That had me worrying it might taste sickly, but the flavour is clean. The custard sits at its centre but is prevented from turning cloying by a citric bite, adding oily lime zest and a squeeze of tart lemon juice. But there's something else. Yes, I know it's a full-strength double IPA, but it's also the first and weakest of a set of three, so I wasn't prepared for how hot it is. The texture is dense, almost chewy, and there's a burn to the flavour -- not unpleasant, though definitely surprising. That descends to become a wholesome glow in one's belly. This is a tasty and well-made beer -- hazy DIPA as the Lord intended -- but I was somewhat on edge at the thought of scaling up.

The burn warning continues with Ripple, a 10% ABV triple IPA with an all-Kiwi hop combination of Nectaron, Waimea and Motueka. A blast of heat is fair game for the style, though, and like the best examples, this one burns cleanly, with no unpleasant solvent notes. There's nuance too: a concentrated tropical fruit cordial lands in at the middle, and there's a more involved herbal and medicinal bitterness when it finishes. Despite all that, it rounds out in tidy fashion, with no significant aftertaste. On a warm evening, I took my time sipping through it and enjoyed it a lot. Prepare for a big beer with a big flavour, because it makes no apologies for being one of those, but equally it has been put together with skill and makes good use of big hops and big gravity to deliver a tremendously fun experience. Bring on the big lad!

Despite the glaring obviousness of the concept, quadruple IPAs are fairly thin on the ground. I've only previously had a couple. Today's set is completed by Midnight Club, SOMA's quadeepa. The ABV tops out at 12%. It looks pretty similar to the others: an opaque emulsion, but pale yellow, and therefore free of any oxidation that might make the promised big hopping suboptimal. The aroma is a fairly standard mix of tropical and stonefruit, and if anything it smells less hot than the triple IPA. The texture is where the difference lies. This is milkshake-thick; a beer which requires muscle to pull it out of the glass and down the throat. Hoppy custard. There's a bit of a burn, but not as much I thought there would be, and more of that hard herbal bitter side, turning almost waxy. The bitterness is what makes it different to your standard strong murk. There's no room for fruity niceties here: the hops are aggressive, as is the mouthfeel. I get a sense of a beer that wants to be taken seriously but is just camply silly instead. While it isn't unpleasant, going quadruple is no kind of upgrade on double or triple.

All told, these three aren't really different styles of beer. Strong and hoppy haze is what it is, and there are no significant variations between 8% and 12% ABV that justify according them separate styles. I will, however, say that SOMA is very good at doing it. I'm painfully aware of how many different things they could have got wrong here, throwing their beers out of whack, but it's expert poise and subtlety all the way through. You're on a crazy ride through Silly Town, but the driver has total control over the vehicle at all times and you will arrive safely, if perhaps a little dizzy.

North-west passable

On a recent trip to Blackrock Cellar I picked up a couple of bottles from two of the lesser-seen Donegal breweries. At least I think it's two breweries: they have a brewer in common and I see their bottlecaps are the same. 

Otterbank seems to be doing a bit of a Wide Street, pivoting away from the wild fermentations on which it built its reputation in favour of safer, presumably more saleable, fare. I wouldn't have marked the brewery as a natural home for a weissbier, but that's what Big Tree is. It's appropriately hazy, and an acceptable sunset orange colour, though paler is usually a visual indicator of better quality. As is head retention, and that was very poor here. The beer just doesn't look right in a tall weissbier vase without a thick puck of foam on top. I looked for banana and/or clove in the aroma but got little of either. There's a dry white wine effect instead, suggesting a possibly inappropriate acidity. That carries through into the flavour, which is just a little too sharp for comfort. The grape bite gives way to something close to vinegar, backed by a tang of stale sweat. This is baby's-first-homebrew stuff, or possibly a precursor to some particularly involved mixed fermentation saison type of creation. A classic take on the Bavarian icon it most definitely is not.

Barrel-aged imperial porter should be harder to get wrong. Next is Blás Anagaire from Errigal Brewing: a whopping 11.1% ABV and aged for 13 months in casks from the Crolly distillery. Here's another one where I had to be quick with the camera to capture any head presence, but at least it wasn't a gusher. The aroma of oak is overpowering, making it smell more like a heady dark Iberian fortified wine than a beer: lots of booze, but maybe some gentler chocolate as well. There was a series of surprises in store from the taste, starting on a savoury note of soy-sauce autolysis, then an ashen charred dryness, a rounded vinous fruitiness and a smear of Nutella. The wine factor is constant, and I wonder if Crolly was using sherry barrels for the whiskey that preceded the beer -- their website suggests they're no strangers to both Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez. It's still a bit rough-tasting, lacking the smoothness that comes with maturity. It is unquestionably entertaining, however. This is a beer that forces you to spend time with it, and it's mostly fun, though occasionally problematic, and finishes with a warm glow in the belly. The technical side needs work, I reckon: Lough Gill has shown us what the north-west can do with this genre of beer, and this isn't up to their standard. It's worth another punt, however.

I think there's a bit too much hoping for the best behind both these beers, where I would prefer science and accuracy. It's become something of a theme around half-litre bottles from down the country. The good-on-ya rough-and-ready approach had its day, but I think we're past that now, or at least us insufferable snobs above in Dublin are. Brewers: please cater to our whims, even though you can't make a living from them.