A welcome disruption

Non-alcoholic beer gets the occasional bit of coverage on here, though I tend to find very few which perform the role required of a beer. Pale ales, wheat beers and lagers seem to be the preferred styles, which may be the problem. I've often said that dark styles make for better alcohol-free beer, my favourite to date being Švyturys Go Juodas, and the Guinness one is pretty decent too. The latter's success has provided an opportunity for other breweries to get in on the 0.0 stout racket, and the first I've seen locally is Dundalk Bay's Zero Zero Nitro Stout, available in Aldi.

It's in a widget can and pours well, the head forming and staying in place as it should. Nitro here doesn't mean an absence of aroma, and there's quite a pungent roastiness: thick coffee, made a little Turkish with cardamom and nutmeg. Guinness adds fructose sugar to its 0.0 on the grounds that there isn't enough flavour in the base grains. Maybe that's a quirk of the Guinness recipe, because this is all-malt (barley and wheat) and there's no lack of flavour. It's very bitter, mixing dark toast with savoury herbs, the intensity turning almost metallic by the end. A little chocolate or mocha sweetness creeps in as it warms and helps soften the experience. The texture is where it falls down most, however: although there's a certain creamy aspect because of the nitrogen smoothness, it's inescapably thin, with a disappointing watery quality in the finish. Maybe this is where bulking-up with a non-fermentable sugar might have helped.

Overall, though, it's impressive stuff. Dundalk Bay does good stouts in general, and they seem to have brought some of that acumen to this one. It's boldly flavoured and tastes like a big and bitter old-fashioned stout. My theory holds up. Now, who else wants to give this style a go?

Chillax

I think this is a first for me: enough winter specials from Ireland's breweries to warrant a round-up post. Put on a cosy cardigan, light the fire, open a box of luxury seasonal clichés, and let's see how they stack up.

First out of the selection box is Vinternatt, brewed by Galway Bay but with the assistance of Bådin, for some Arctic authenticity. It's 6% ABV and brewed with orange peel and cinnamon, pouring a handsome and wholesome dark ruby. I feel the hygge just looking at it. The fruit and spice are to the fore in its aroma, conjuring the season admirably, smelling like a warm kitchen as the Christmas baking is happening. Although it's the lightest beer in our set, the texture is nicely rounded, and while there's no real heat, it's full and filling. The nine different types of malt are where that body comes from but they don't contribute much to the flavour directly. We're told the base is a Scotch ale recipe and to expect toffee, but I didn't get that. We have the orange and cinnamon at the front again, as in the aroma, though I'll note that they're relatively subtle -- I'm thankful in particular that the cinnamon isn't a foghorn blast of raw sticks, as found in too many Christmas beers. After this there's a old-world bitterness, earthy and vegetal, but again balanced and relatively understated. And that's pretty much it; a quick finish and no aftertaste. Seekers after novelty might be a bit miffed by how calm it all is, but it works, with the body being its best feature, something entirely appropriate to a winter warmer. Hooray for subtlety.

Kinnegar's answer to the season is a new version of their Winterland stout, this year's being 7% ABV with added vanilla and hazelnut. Though the pour was lively, it settled after a moment to a shiny black with a stable tobacco-stain head. The hazelnut has control of the aroma, which is dry and woody. So there's quite a turnaround when the flavour is powerfully sweet, the vanilla laid on thick and custard-creamy. I can't really find the hazelnut element in this, but there is a dry side: a dark coffee roast from the very fine stout at the base. As well as the coffee, there's dark chocolate, summer fruit, rose petals and herbal liqueur; all things that make strong stout worthwhile. If anything, the honking vanilla is a distraction and doesn't really add anything positive. The beer would taste just as delightfully wintery without it. Combining the vanilla and burnt-caramel element gives it a crème brûlée feel, and if that's the sort of thing that makes your Christmas, have at it. It left me hankering for more of the serious roast, heat and bitterness, however. Dessert can wait.

Happy tenth birthday to Dungarvan's Gallows Hill barley wine, originally featured here on Christmas Eve 2015. Now they've produced a barrel-aged version, matured in ex-bourbon Irish whiskey casks from Great Northern, raising the ABV from 8.5% to 10%. Last time I dinged it for being too hot, but this version isn't, I'm happy to say. Dark fruit and spicy fresh oak present an alluring aroma, while the foretaste leaves no doubt that bourbon was used in its production. It has that sour lime character of many American whiskeys, balanced by sweeter vanilla. The finish is dry and a little splintery, but not excessively so. All that made it difficult to find the beer in the equation. The raisin and prune effect from the aroma does appear in the flavour but elides somewhat with the spirit: those are valid whiskey flavours too, and at first I couldn't be entirely sure that they were brought here by the beer. They sit embedded in a bread or fruitcake malt base that took me a while to spot, but is its own form of sweetness, separate to the vanilla, and very much a beer thing. And while it's not hot in the marker-pen-phenol way, there's a definite warmth to this, one which is felt more than tasted. You will need to enjoy, or at least tolerate, bourbon in order to appreciate it, and if that's not a problem you'll find a beautifully mellow sipping beer. It may not have Santy on the label, but it's the epitome of wintertime beery enjoyment. A half-litre at a time? That's a full Christmas film of your choice.

Lough Gill takes us out, with a late addition to their winter 2025 range, one which hadn't yet appeared when I covered the bulk of them last month. It's called North Star (unfondly remembered as the name of a misconceived Guinness brand extension back in 2006) and is another of their barrel-aged imperial stouts, Christmassed up with a maroon label and the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and cocoa. Ulp. That suggests an absolute mess, but they have integrated the disparate elements beautifully, creating a confection which tastes of chocolate, marzipan, gingerbread and cherry liqueur. Even though it's a whopping 12.6% ABV, and has the sticky, unctuous texture to go with that, it's a beer of nuance and balance, keeping its syrupy dark sugar clean and accessible, while the candy and spice enhancements are, if not subtle, at least appropriate to the broad flavour profile. Above all, it tastes mature, the ingredients fully complementary to each other, with everything playing its part and not seeking to dominate the others. I had mostly finished it when I remembered the barrel ageing. As usual, Boann whiskey barrels have been employed, but it doesn't taste especially barrelly. I guess once you add vanilla you're going to lose any vanillin subtlety from the casks. No matter. This is gorgeous, and the perfect Christmas season beer to go out on. Trust Lough Gill to deliver.

Well, we're heading into the sharp end of the Christmas period now. If you have access to any of the above, they're all well suited to what the season has in store. Lough Gill's is the one for your quiet moment away from all the heat and noise, however.

The eternal October

We go back to the tail end of October for the beginning of today's post. I had gone in search of the Oktoberfestbier from Hopkins & Hopkins which had been on tap at The Porterhouse, only to run out as soon as I ordered a pint. As an alternative, I picked the unOktoberfest Weissbier Spezial Edition by Hofbräuhaus Traunstein, a 5.4% ABV weizen. What makes it Spezial? Not the strength, particularly, but it's the dark ochre of Schneider's classic, so maybe I was in for a bit of roast. The aroma didn't suggest this, leading on concentrated banana. The roast did arrive in the flavour, however. Typical banana kicks things off, but quickly gives way, first to even sweeter caramel before it all gets cleaned up by a dry bite. A bitterer green banana effect adds acidity to the finish, and that's it done.

"Special" is maybe going a bit far, but it's a very decent take on weissbier. There's lots of the style's distinctive features, though not too much fruit, caramel, or alcohol heat. You do need to be OK with banana, and not go looking for clove phenols, to enjoy it. While this wasn't a substitute for the Festbier I wanted, I was happy to stumble across it regardless.

It was over a month later that the beer gods smiled upon me and H&H's Hopburgh Festbier (as the badge had it; it's "Oktoberfest" bottled) appeared at The Porterhouse's cooler younger sibling, Tapped. Pint please. The serving, in a Peroni-style sleeve glass, didn't really suit it but I could still see it's a deep rose gold, with perfect clarity. This is the full 5.8% ABV and shows a spectacular malt richness, right from the first sniff. Sweet and cakey melanoidins contrast with a noble hop intensity which goes beyond lettuce and celery, towards harsh burnt plastic. With a thinner beer, that could be a problem. Not here though. Malt is the dominant feature, and I don't know that the brewery does decoction mashing, but this has that bread-and-treacle depth of flavour. However it's done, it's marvellous, managing to be at once chewy and süffig while also sinkable and refreshing. The only thing missing was a handled glass from which to chug it. Worth waiting for, as the fella in Alexandria had it.

While we're on Irish-brewed German beer styles at The Porterhouse, an Altbier by Wide Street showed up at the Temple Bar branch in late November. Altstadt is 4.6% ABV and a dark mahogany red. It smells sweet, of bourbon biscuit and milk chocolate. That's one side of its flavour, but roast is the main one: a clean crispness, brushed with dark toast crumbs. The cookies arrive after that, followed by a green noble hop bitterness and a red fruit sweetness, adding a pinch of raspberry and cherry colour. I took my time over it, worth doing as it's a subtle beer which benefits from being given the opportunity to unfold. I should note that the brewery would like us to know that the grain bill includes rye for extra spice, but I can't say I tasted that. Regardless, it's an excellent Alt, offering the classic dark lager combination of clean drinkability with all the characterful dark malt flavour.

It's not for me to say that breweries in Dublin and Longford are doing a better job of German style beers than the Bavarians. This representative sample merely suggests that the hypothesis merits further investigation.

White wine and coffee. Or not

It's a swift couple of new beers from Third Barrel today, beginning with an IPA called Mojo Rising. The headline hops are Strata and Enigma, with a promise of tropical fruit and white wine effects. Before that, however, there was the ordeal of pouring, with lots of foam to deal with, and a dreggy murk which had settled to the bottom of the can, providing an unwelcome late addition. Still, I can't argue with "tropical" as a descriptor of the aroma: it's quite a fruit salad, suggesting pineapple and peaches in syrup. The flavour has a lot of that sweet side too, though is a little more old-world, with red apple and mandarin orange entering the picture. The dregs make their presence felt to an extent, adding a dry and gritty rasp that doesn't subsume the fruit side, but doesn't add anything positive either. There's a lot of the hazy stereotype going on here, with no bitterness and a big pillowy body to carry the juice, alongside a degree of vanilla. For the most part it's fine, if unexciting. The white wine element never materialised and it's completely lacking any crispness, which I'm guessing ought to be a part of that. Oh well. 6% ABV gives it plenty of bang regardless, and it is a genuinely fun beer to drink, piling in all the juicy hops that any haze-lover could want. It's nothing out of the ordinary, though. Don't expect the doors of perception to swing open after drinking one.

The other beer is House Blend, an imperial stout with chocolate, coffee, vanilla and cinnamon, and it's nice to see one of the simple and classy Third Barrel label designs of yesteryear, instead of a smeary AI cartoon. The aroma is ungimmicky, with hints of chocolate and coffee, though staying within the levels at which one might find these features in a straight stout. Its texture is beautifully silky, and it was a surprise to find the ABV a lightweight 8.5%: it tastes several points higher than this. The flavour is, of course, dessert-like, and I get banana mixed in with the initial chocolate. I didn't get much coffee; that seems to have elided with the chocolate to give it an affogato character, rather than any separate roast beans or oils. The vanilla and cinnamon arrive together in the finish, topping off the dessert qualities with a gooey, creamy, pastry confection effect.

I wanted to like this but it's a bit too gimmicky for me. I felt it needed some balance, be that drier coffee roast or some chilli spicing. Despite that low ABV it still turned out cloying, and lacks the warmth which can sometimes add a layer of charm to otherwise overly sweet stouts. Everything here is as advertised, and doubtless there are drinkers who will enjoy its sticky stylings. For me, it needed either further restraint and a move towards classic imperial stout, or an all-out tiramisu-laden calorific booze-fest. The middle ground just isn't as enjoyable.

On this showing, Third Barrel seems to be trying to make types of beer that are popular, but dialling back their essential attributes for the Irish market. Are we that cautious as a nation of beer drinkers? Both of these were well-made, yet lacked the full-colour HD 3D effect with which brewers abroad seem to imbue such efforts. Third Barrel is very much an asset for Dublin's beer scene, but I don't think this pair of releases were quite of international standard. More booze would probably help, for starters.

Q4 results

Today I'm wrapping up my coverage of Open Gate Brewery's 2025 output, with the late autumn and winter offerings from Diageo's Dublin microbrewery at St James's Gate. 

Marking Halloween, presumably, they produced a pumpkin-spice beer, with no actual pumpkin, called Spicy Friars. The latter part of the name is because the beer is based on Smithwick's, albeit at a much higher gravity than that flagship red ale, finishing at 6.2% ABV. It's a clear dark garnet colour, so darker than Smithwick's too, I'd say. The menu tells us that nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and apple have been added, though one of these completely dominates the others. The aroma is like warm Christmas cookies, huge on cinnamon, plus what I perceived as a menthol effect, however that was generated. Unsurprisingly, that's all the flavour does too, leaving little room for any beer character. While it's quite sweet, there's a tannic finish that helps dry it out, and as long as you can tolerate the exceedingly unsubtle spice, it's not a bad beer. I noted they hadn't given it a Halloweenish name, and couldn't help wondering if the intent was to migrate it seemlessly into being a Christmas seasonal. That would work, though it was gone from the taps before the tree went up.

In the half-pint beside it, Dublin DIPA. I guess the name is meant to be a pun on "double"? It's 7.5% ABV, murky ochre in colour, and very typical of the sort of IPA Open Gate tends to produce. That is to say, it's really not very good. Instead of bright and fresh hops, the flavour is muddy and imprecise. Gloopy lemon curd and chemical perfume leads to a slightly toasted finish which doesn't belong in the style. There's no bite to it, and neither west-coast sharpness nor east-coast softness. Just like the Nitro IPA and Citra IPA produced at the big plant across the street, this tastes overly processed and industrial, though I suspect that the hop-killing Guinness yeast may be the real culprit. It's a disappointment, but at least it's a predictable one.

I'm not usually a fan of the various stouts that the brewery produces, but they hit me just right with the Pistachio Choco Stout which arrived at the same time as the above, and did stay for Christmas. This has been beefed up, but not excessively, to 5.3% ABV, and it is absolutely packed with milk chocolate, smelling like a children's breakfast cereal. Although it's carbonated, the texture is nicely smooth, and the flavour offers plenty more chocolate, in a kind of a fluffy and truffle-like way, plus a bonus nuttiness which must be the pistachio but tasted more like plainer hazelnut or peanut to me. There's a parallel richness of alcohol and coffee, like the liqueur-drenched sponge of a tiramisu, as well as a floral rosewater effect and enough vanilla to bring Baileys to mind. So although the chocolate is its dominant characteristic, and lasts long into the finish, there's plenty more besides. Those who miss Porterhouse's Chocolate Truffle Stout would do well to get hold of this before it disappears. I think it's an even better beer than that one, and one of the best dessertish by-the-pint stouts I've ever had.

Staying dark but switching styles, we also got a new Munich Dunkel, and Open Gate generally knows what it's doing with dark lagers. This one is a very dark brown and was served a little too cold for comfort, but I wasn't in a rush with it. The first sip was a bit bland, but that's cold beer for you. Given a bit of time it reveals itself to be quite a modest and shy Dunkel, low on bitterness and roast. It's still pretty good though, mixing sweet milk chocolate with bitterer cocoa in a expertly balanced way, and holding back on the fizz. That allows one to appreciate a body which is beautifully full for a mere 5% ABV. One wouldn't mistake it for something served from a counter-top holzfass, but the level of smoothness makes it the nearest you'll find in Dublin on a winter afternoon. My final thought as I finished the pint was that I would be very happy to settle into another.

But there was another beer to be ticked: Espionage, a pale ale. There's a story with this one. They say that the brew didn't go according to plan, and the recipe includes squid ink, so maybe it was an attempt at a black IPA. It looks very far from that, being pale orange and mostly clear. Crispness is promised in the description and, OK, it's not flabby like Open Gate pale ales generally are, but it's more bland than crisp. There's a plain white toast base, spread with a thin layer of hop marmalade, and that's it. There's plenty of substance from its 5% ABV but it fails to do anything with it. I'm all for owning one's mistakes, but what is this for? It presents as a pale ale, but hasn't the hops to make that interesting. I'm left thinking of pale milds I've unenthusiastically chewed through in England, but they at least tend to be low strength. This is one of those beers which is unpleasant not because of how it tastes, but because of how much of my time it wastes. It passes as saleable beer, though this brewery could have discreetly disposed of it instead of putting it before the jaded and cynical drinking public, or at least this member of it. Pour one out for the utterly wasted hops.

The Christmas decorations were up when I popped in to try the Winter Cherry Ale. I don't know what makes this wintery, other than the calendar, but cherry it has, being pink and strongly fruit-flavoured. The aroma hints it might be overly syruped but there's a balancing tart zing in the foretaste, more sherbet than jam. It still doesn't taste like real cherry and has a lot in common with the more lurid sort of Belgian cherry beers, the ones where if there's any lambic component it's purely tokenistic. The bite does mean none of it hangs around, leaving a clean albeit watery finish. For 5% ABV there should have been rather more substance, but as-is, it's accessible and fun. As it's essentially a tourist attraction, not many of Open Gate's clientele have much interest in beer, and I can see this suiting that cohort nicely. It's a valid niche, and poorly served in Irish beer.

The season was fully inaugurated with the arrival of Plum Pudding Porter, apparently in its fifth year of brewing. The strength keeps going up, hitting 8.4% ABV this year. The recipe is a convoluted one, with currants, sultanas, two kinds of cherry, vanilla, mixed fruit peel, prunes, pistachio, nutmeg, star anise, cloves and allspice. I can't imagine that's all necessary, though the chocolate and cherry aroma is highly enticing. It's suitably heavy and has a good bitter kick to balance what's otherwise quite the confection. Up front it's the chocolate and cherry again, and really that's plenty by itself. The spice takes a moment to come through and is rather dry and acrid, tasting like dusty beige powder in the jar at the back of the cupboard, which tends to be nutmeg and allspice's destiny, round my place. I understand why they added it, but it doesn't really work. The end result does not taste like a Christmas pudding. It is, however, bloody lovely. The rich combination of big portery chocolate with succulent cherry is a winner and I'm really not bothered about the accuracy. Our national dearth of strong seasonal beers on draught makes this a welcome tradition.

I don't know if Open Gate will be taking its customary extended January break, but I'll be back in the new year regardless, to find out what they put on next.

No stopping the hopping

For a dead brewery, Hopfully has sure been busy. The switch back to being a client brewer has seen no let-up in the release schedule, and this past autumn has seen four new ones.

The Vase arrived in mid-September, and is badged as a "west coast pale ale". Alas, it's a very Hopfully idea of "west coast", including oats in the grist and pouring with a very definite haze, even if it's not fully opaque. The hops are Amarillo, Citra and Mosaic, and the latter is dominant in the aroma, on its best behaviour with lots of juicy cantaloupe and passionfruit. There's not much juicy about the flavour, however, and maybe that's where the west coast element comes in. The Mosaic switches to its dry, caraway seed mode and there's a spiky citric bitterness which I suspect is the Citra's doing. It was a shock after the aroma, but I settled into it quickly and found myself enjoying it. The ABV is only 4.9% and it's a little on the thin side, with a slightly excessive amount of fizz, but it's refreshing and invigorating, just as the style is meant to be. Bold hops in a small package is to be celebrated. Well played, Hopfully.

Expectations were therefore high when the next pair landed. First open was Let It Drop, a 5.2% ABV IPA. It's hopped with Citra and Ekuanot, and also uses chit malt, which I had to look up. It's a malt with higher than usual protein and starch, used to boost the body of hazy IPAs. And this beer is, of course, hazy: a bright and sunny opaque yellow. There's a juice-laden yet sharp aroma, suggesting that the Citra is in control again. No harm. Although it has a certain bite of lime in its flavour, it's predominantly sweet, with a substantial degree of vanilla next to the citrus. It's a familiar flavour profile, done in a million other mid-strength hazy IPAs, though the execution is flawless, with none of the usual off flavours I complain about. The result is clean and easy drinking, but with bags of fresh hop complexity; unfussy, but far from dull. I don't mind the lack of originality at all. Good beer is good beer.

Released alongside it was Forest. It looks similar, though is a smidge duller than the previous beer. The ABV goes up to 5.6%, Columbus and Galaxy are the hops, and of course there's more chit malt. The aroma has much less to say, giving me a sniff of savoury spring onion but little else. The first taste is shockingly bitter, and while I'm sure the hops have a lot to do with that, it also tastes dreggy: of dry plaster dust and leafy hop detritus. I did my best to look beyond this, and while there's a certain pine resin element, it's doesn't have the zing and sparkle that good American IPAs show when they go this way. Columbus is not very fashionable, but I've enjoyed its peppery dankness in the past; Galaxy ought to bring orangeade and marmalade fun. There's no fun of any kind in this harsh and acrid beast, and it's a world away from the sunshine dessert of the last one. At least I can't accuse the brewer of turning out samey beers. My diagnosis is that they attempted to go big with hop varieties that aren't really meant for that. The technical aspects of the beer are fine, but the recipe is wildly unbalanced towards raw bitterness, and that's not what anyone wants from hazy IPA, and probably any IPA for that matter.

It's not all haze 'n' hops at Hopfully, and an export stout brings up the rear: the 6.7% ABV Black Balloon. This is one of my favourite beer styles, one that sits perpetually on the periphery of the mainstream in Ireland, with Leann Folláin, Nocturne and Guinness West Indies offering that extra boost on the pint of plain in bottled form. This is slightly stronger than those 6%-ers though it looks the part, being properly black with an old-ivory head, albeit one which doesn't last terribly long. Sweet and sticky molasses start the aroma off right, telling us that the beer will be a sipper. I'm on board with that. The mouthfeel is beautifully full, providing a broad base to propel the stout flavours. That's coffee first: raw ground beans; bitter and oily. Some light chocolate and hazelnut sweetness comes behind, before a kick of green vegetal hops, for a proper, old-fashioned, grandad's stout. They may as well have packaged it with twenty Capstan and a well-worn cardigan. That's not to say it's a comfortable beer. This is serious stuff, bitter of roast and of hops and of general demeanour. The finish leaves scorchmarks of hot tar and burnt toast across the palate, and yet is clean with no excess heat. For a couple of Brazilians to rock into Ireland and make old-school stout better than most native breweries is quite an achievement. I'm very glad Hopfully is still around to do that.

It seems the price of one top-notch stout is three samey hazy pale ales. If that's the exchange rate then, frankly, I'll take it.

Hope for strength

North Dublin brewery Hope provides today's beers: two big wintery specials.

The first is plainly titled Barrel Aged Export Stout. With a nod to the history of exporting stout to the Caribbean, the barrels involved previously held Two Shores rum. It's 8% ABV and foamed busily on pouring, eventually settling to a pure black body with a tan-coloured head. There's a warming, fruity element to the aroma, which I'm guessing must be the rum, though I wouldn't have identified it as such unbidden.

Unsurprising given the froth, it's quite fizzy: a little too much for the style, I think, giving it a thin and sharp quality that doesn't suit strong stout. The rum element is present in the flavour, but subtle. I tend not to like rum-aged beers, finding the spirit cloyingly sweet, but that isn't the case here. Instead, the barrels add more of that fruitcake or Christmas pudding quality I found in the aroma, as well as a rawer oaken sappiness. None of this overrules the base beer, which is a no-nonsense, properly bitter, grown-up stout: dark toast, a molasses sweet side and then a finish of punchy spinach and green cabbage leaf. The can says it's 48 IBUs; it tastes like considerably more. This is quality stuff, and I'm always happy to find a modern stout that goes big without resorting to silliness. The fizz is its one flaw, and I found myself doing a lot of swirling to try and knock that out. It only reached an acceptable level of smoothness around the time I finished it.

From one olde-worlde English style to another. Paddy's Barleywine results from this year's National Homebrew Club championships, being a recreation of the grand prize winner's beer. It's paler than most beers of this type, rose-gold rather than deep red. The aroma is sweet and summery, conjuring ripe strawberries and glace cherries. No excessive carbonation here: the gentle sparkle suits its 8.7% ABV and the texture is heavy, carrying lots of malt sweetness. That tastes of toffee and jam to begin, turning bitterer towards the finish as the hops kick in fully. There's a good balance between the sweet and bitter sides, the candy malt offset with a tannic dryness which verges on harsh.

It's a straightforward sort of creature. I couldn't tell you what sort of hops have been deployed, but I would guess European rather than American: it doesn't have the citric oomph that the likes of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot show, a feature which has been copied by many a European barley wine brewer. The understated nature of the flavour meant I took my time with it, allowing the sensation to unfold gradually, and enjoying the building warmth. This is another well-made and novelty-free beer, hitting the style's good points with nothing silly going on. I don't think we get enough beers like this, especially at the stronger end of the spectrum. Shame about the ropy AI-generated artwork on the label. Hope is usually more of a class act than that.

That was an enjoyable winter afternoon's drinking, and I'm glad the brewery thinks there's an audience for beers like this.