Sugar rush

What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Look, they were in my eyeline, in the supermarket, labelled as BEER despite all other appearances. So that I could stop wondering whether they should be included on the blog or not, I bought them both, God forgive me, and here they are.

You will find a review of classic Desperados here, written in 2009. These are extensions of a brand that probably didn't need any. Both are at the same strength as that: 5.9% ABV.

Desperados is (loosely) tequila flavoured, but for Desperados Tropical Daquiri they've taken pains to point out that rum is the spirit invoked. It looks like a standard lager: a clear deep golden. It doesn't smell like a beer at all, however, with sickly sweet syrup of the generically tropical variety, done with passionfruit. To taste, it's not as sickly as I was expecting, something it has in common with the original. There's a clean base that has been syruped up but not completely destroyed. Where the beer side contributes most is the finish, cleaning up the worst of the sugary excesses so that they don't dwell on the palate. The promoted rum character does not materialise at all, which suits me as a disliker of rum-flavoured things that aren't actually rum. I mean, it's not good beer, but it could be much worse. There are "proper" artisanal breweries passing off products as fruited sours that are more sticky and unpleasant than this. Though as a fan of both beer and daquiris, this doesn't really give me any sense of either.

The spirit moves once more, and the next one is Desperados Red Caipirinha, claiming to be flavoured with cachaça, though I'm not expecting to find much of that. It's a dark rosé shade in the glass and, bizarrely, actually smells like beer. The listed additives are cachaça, which isn't a strong flavour by itself, and elderberry juice, which I'm guessing is mostly for the colour. That leaves the grain of the lager base as the main character in the aroma. It does taste syrupy: sweet and generically fruity, more raspberry and cherry than anything fancier. There's absolutely no sign of the spirit and it really doesn't resemble a cocktail of any kind. This is an alcopop in all things but smell. The previous one, and standard Desperados, do at least add interesting things to the syrup; this doesn't. Its USP is that it's pink. I'm not impressed.

In for a penny, in for a pounding. The same supermarket also sells Kopparberg's Orange Ginger Beer, and what with ginger beer having a bit of a moment in these parts lately, I thought I ought to give it a whirl. 4% ABV seems to be standard for this sort of thing, likewise the pale Golden-Delicious yellow colour. To taste, it's sweet, which is hardly surprising given Kopparberg's form with cider-adjacent products. You don't get much ginger, just a tiny pinch of spice; a spritz of heat in the back of the throat. In front of that is masses of sugar, which is mostly cleanly syrupy but includes a fun element of boozy orange, like a cheeky dash of triple sec. Half a litre of this was hard work. While it's light on alcohol, there's so much sugar here that I found it difficult, and I'm pretty tolerant of sweetness in beers. The orange gives it something of an interesting twist, but ginger beer fans would be much better off sticking to the examples from Smithfield Brewing and Kinnegar. Add your own orange to taste.

Well, I'm glad that's over. If you've ever hovered at the colourful, ultra-sweet, not-quite-beer section of the supermarket, consider this your cue to walk on.

Red, white and new

The randomness is part of what I enjoy about the churn of British cask beer at The Silver Penny, the Wetherspoon on Dublin's Abbey Street and current unlikely champion of decent ale. On a recent visit, however, there was a pattern: two new ticks, both with a colour in the name.

Oakham's presence in the regular roster of breweries is a blessing, and I hadn't seen White Dwarf before. It's a golden ale of 4.3% ABV, made mostly with English hops, plus some bonus American Cascade. Beer quality is rarely an issue at the 'Penny but this one was served uncharacteristically warm on the sunny June afternoon. Perhaps the cellar cooler has gone the way of the wifi and the gents' hand drier. It's a pale gold and perfectly clear, giving off a gentle aroma of pear and apple. The pear ester is more pronounced on tasting, allied with some sweet banana: ripe fruit, or even artificial candy. The finish is clean, though there's no real malt character, whereas a little biscuit or cracker would have improved it. As well as the slightly high temperature, it was on the flat side too, which was another factor in preventing this from being everything it could be. This beer should really be crisp. Warm and flabby isn't going to suit any beer, but I think this one suffers especially. Oh well.

The other was Red Kite from Vale Brewery: a bitter at the same strength. "Chestnut" says the badge, and indeed it is: a lovely clear auburn with a cream-coloured head. The aroma presents that most unhelpful of descriptors: "beery", like a carpeted pub just after the doors have opened for the day. It's heavy, almost chewy, and here the warmth is really helping it out, lending what may normally be a so-so brown bitter the character of a wholesome porter. There's milk chocolate, dark toast, a coating of caramel and a slightly fruity finish, giving raisins and red apples. A tannic dryness prevents any of this making the overall effect busy or difficult. Well-made brown bitter is a rarity and, for me, Harvey's Sussex Best is unassailable. This different take, leaning into the roast and residual sugar, impressed me too, however.

That's your lot. Nothing amazing here, but at the same time, both beers were exotic and noteworthy pints for Dublin. If there was anything like this available from local breweries in locally-owned pubs, I'd be all over it, though would probably have the place to myself. Until then, rack 'em up, JD.

Savoury and unsavoury

The pace may have slowed, but enough beer featuring the DOT Brew name is being turned out to get it the occasional dedicated blog post. Here's the latest, with five new ones which landed over the past few months.

The first is Spin Off Series NEIPA, part of the sequence of beers DOT makes for Aldi. It's not the densest of haze, looking a little thin and vapid as it poured. The aroma tells you it's no milquetoast, though, delivering what I interpret as a west-coast vibe of dank resin and sharp grapefruit. No complaints about that. The flavour brings us back to the eastern seaboard, with a soft vanilla and apricot effect, aided by a full and soft texture. There are no sharp edges here. The finish is quick, though, and I feel that a beer in this style, and of 5.8% ABV, should have longer legs. There's also an oddly savoury off flavour lurking in the background: a bit smoky, and a bit onion-ish, but nothing good and I'm reasonably sure it shouldn't be there. Still, at the sub-€3 price point, you get a decent hazy IPA. Don't scrutinise it too closely and you'll enjoy it. It's too late for me. Save yourselves.

I trundled along to UnderDog a few weeks ago where a tap takeover was under way, and two further new IPAs were pouring. I started on Levitation, a 6% ABV job which is a medium hazy orange colour. I don't have the hop information to hand, and I'm not even sure they've been published, but whatever they are, they work brilliantly. Both the aroma and flavour have a fabulous sweet and zesty character, exactly like freshly squeezed orange juice. While that makes it a little one-dimensional, it is highly enjoyable. It's almost a shame that the ABV is so high, because it slips back with indecent ease; at once satisfying and refreshing. Complexity doesn't really feature, although I did find a little bit of spicy grapefruit peel lurking in amongst the jaffa segments. It remains to be seen whether the brightness and freshness on display in UnderDog will last if they decide to can it, but I've had my fun, and that's all that matters.

Next, the grandly titled IPA IPA Reborn, created especially for the Craft Central off licence, and a 6.5% ABV reboot of a 7% ABV IPA that they made back in 2020. I didn't like that one and I didn't like this either. The dirty dark orange colour hinted at oxidation, the beer itself resembling carrot juice in a most unattractive way. Last time round, hot garlic was the problem, mixing badly with plastic and vanilla in a worst-of-everything take on hazy IPA. This one draws on a different set of common flaws, tasting gritty and savoury, with a harshly bittersweet marmalade tang being its only fruity feature. I don't think it was actually oxidised, but it was far from clean; too murky-tasting to be any way enjoyable. If you liked the original then maybe you should pick up a can of this as well. I can't recommend it, however.

Perhaps it's a signifier of contract brewing that these were so wildly different from each other, though alas I have no way of knowing which was brewed where. Whoever was responsible for Levitation can take a bow, but I will be keeping any third version of IPA IPA at arm's length.

DOT also makes barrel-aged beers, though it has taken some time and effort to hunt any down lately. First up, though, is To Ten and Beyond, marking ten years of Dublin's Teeling Distillery (est. 1782) and one of the regular specials DOT makes for the giftshop. As with many of the series, it's a barrel-aged pale lager, this time matured in single-grain ex-red-wine casks. There's certainly a fruity element to the aroma, though all about macerated grapes, not wonky fermentation, I'm happy to report. A cleanly crisp lager is still discernible beneath. And that's all the flavour really does. I had anticipated a little bit of whiskey, wine or raw oak, but instead it's almost purely dry to the point of being a little papery. "Hop forward" says the label, and I do get a certain Saaz-like grass note, although that does little to soften it. The finish is mineral-like: a kick of zinc and chalk. I guess it does have a few extra dimensions than your ordinary 4.8% ABV pils, and the aroma is good fun, but I didn't really get it otherwise. Happy birthday Teeling; enjoy my €6.

Finally, here's the twentieth version of Rum Red Dark, the perennial barrel-aged strong red ale. This time it's 9.5% ABV and claiming to be "the boldest red in the series so far". Oo-er. It's the same murky dun colour as all the rest, and smells of warm oak and sunny rum cocktails. The wood is right at the fore of the flavour, given a slightly burnt and smoky cast, though more caramelised sugar and glazed brisket than anything unpleasantly kippery. There's a separate sticky-sweet summer fruit jam element, running in parallel to the smoky wood, and an immediate boozy heat that grows steadily in the belly with each successive sip. I drank it outside on a warm evening, but it's is very much a winter beer, and an enjoyable one. I particularly commend how it melds the sticky red malt side with the barrels and booze, keeping everything smooth and sippable, even if balance isn't a concern, exactly. This is worth picking up at your leisure, but don't be in a rush to drink it.

While I prefer to see DOT releasing the barrel-aged blends, the fact that my favourite of this set was a straight IPA shows that they're fully justified in doing the less involved recipes too. Good beer is good beer, regardless of the producer's ethos or tendencies.

The history round

Or is it the geography round? It's Session day again and our topic this month was chosen by Laura: The Ultimate Pub Quiz. Hopefully not literally: I do like a quiz and wouldn't like to think of them coming to an end. As regards preferred subjects, rounds on beer trivia are rare, but I'll settle for geography or history, two areas that I've learned about extensively via beer.

In which year was the Spanish Armada wrecked on the Irish coast?
Today I'm assessing two beers from Western Herd in Co. Clare. As a regular visitor to Donegal in my youth, I was well aware of the associations there with the Spanish Armada, the failed attempt by Spain to invade England by sea, resulting in a swathe of wrecked ships down the western Irish coast. I'm less familiar with how it affected areas further south, but Clare got a coastal placename out of it, and from the placename, a beer: Spanish Point.

This has been around for a couple of years now, but I've only just encountered it for the first time. The brewery calls it an "American pale ale", though at 5.9% ABV it's stronger than many an Irish-brewed IPA. That's one part of its authentically American sensibilities; the other is the huge citrus aroma, packed to the gunwales with zesty, spicy citrus. There's a bit of heat too, making it smell a bit like an Old Fashioned to me, even though there's no barrel-ageing involved. On tasting, that turns to pine resin: a different sort of classic US character. It's not a million miles from what Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale does, though maybe a little more fruit forward. And I shouldn't have to mention this, but for the record, it's completely clear: a slightly amber-leaning golden. All in, it's a class act, and leaves me wondering if the American brewer at Western Herd makes this sort of thing because he's homesick. I assume it's in regular production, even if it's a bit tricky to get hold of in Dublin, and I heartily recommend it to everyone who's done with the vanilla, garlic and grit of contemporary pale ales.

How long has Western Herd been brewing?
It has not been a good time for microbrewing out west, and the boom is certainly over. Bridewell, Galway Hooker and most recently Black Donkey have all packed it in of late. That makes me extra grateful for the breweries from Donegal down to Kerry who are still keeping the lights on. Maybe it's because I don't see their beer very often, but Western Herd seems to be staying out of the rat race, and I hope that's working for them. It has seen them through to their tenth anniversary, for which they brewed another classic American-style beer.

Milestone describes itself matter-of-factly as a Centennial IPA. There's no crowing about the West Coast anywhere, but it's immediately obvious on pouring that it's that sort of IPA. The beer is perfectly clear again, and a shining copper colour, promising toasted malt to go along with the hops. The aroma is floral: sweeter than I thought it would be, and any citrus is juice, not pith. The flavour goes big on jaffa oranges, and it too is surprisingly sweet. There's more than a hint of hard candy and lollipops about the hop taste here. I thought there would be toffee from the malt, but that whole aspect is very understated, tasting merely tannic, stewed not caramelised. All told, it's not a very bright and distinctive beer, resembling a simple English bitter more than an American IPA. I didn't quite get what I was expecting, but an easy-drinking bitter is never a chore.

It seems that Western Herd has a house style, and it's a distinctly retro one. No remarks would be passed on either of these beers if they'd showed up in the US microbrew scene of the 1990s. Perhaps those that do know their history are still doomed to repeat it, in quite a tasty way, it turns out.

Belfast bookends

Today's post is a short companion piece to Monday's run-through of the beers I drank at the Jubilate festival organised by Boundary Brewing last month.

Glider efficiency meant we were some minutes early for the gig, and fortunately the Boundary taproom across the yard from the venue was open and serving. It seemed appropriate to open my account for the day with the beer created to commemorate the event: Jubilate, brewed by Boundary in collaboration with nine festival participants from the island of Ireland. It's a pale ale of 4.5% ABV and hazy in the way that Boundary likes to make them; as do most of the other breweries involved, in fairness to them. Everyone must have brought a big sack of hops to the kettle because it is absolutely saturated in them, giving the beer a harsh and hot garlic character which I wasn't keen on. This clashes with another haze cliché: thick vanilla custard. There's a little orange juice lurking in the background, but I wouldn't classify the beer as juicy, the way the brewery does. It's bang on for the fashion, is absolutely the sort of thing that Boundary has a name for, and it will have fans for sure. For my part, I didn't think it was awful, but definitely isn't my kind of vibe. It's at least part of the reason that there weren't many IPAs in Monday's blog post: I reached my haze quota early.

We had a couple of hours between kicking out time after the early Saturday session and the train home from Belfast's shiny new Grand Central Station. It would have been rude not to drop in at The Crown while passing it, and we shared a snug with some Americans, upset that their stew arrived partially frozen. Pfft. Tourists. I had a pint of overly sweet English cask cider and an excellent one of Timothy Taylor Boltmaker, and on we went.

There was still time at the station. Time to exercise some morbid curiosity about the new BrewDog Belfast, situated on the mezzanine above the station concourse and about which I have yet to hear a good word said. It's a poky little space, all width and no depth (make your own BrewDog joke here) but it does serve White Hag's Little Fawn on draught, so can't be all bad.

Nothing so sensible for me, however. I spotted one potential tick among the BrewDog beers so opted for a pint of Wingman Tropical Storm. I quite liked the session IPA this is based on, and indeed found it to have a happy tropical flavour from the hops. Here, they've boosted the ABV to 7.2% and boosted the tropicals with mango and passionfruit extract. Or at least, they've tried to. The hop side gets utterly drowned out in a sticky confection of fake-tasting syrup. The sweetness is at that needle-bending end of the scale where it starts tasting hot and metallic. I will say the alcohol is well hidden, but it's hidden by something horrible. Still, I finished my pint and caught the train anyway. I doubt I'll be making BrewDog Belfast a regular stop on visits to the city, but I am glad that it's there and that it serves drinkable beer, something I'm increasingly glad of as the multinationals flex their muscles. Better this than somewhere pouring mass market rubbish.

The above is, of course, not representative of Belfast as a beer drinking city. (You can read some better recent experiences here, for example.) Boltmaker is already a magnificent beer, but it takes on an extra level of reverence in this sort of context.

Better Jubilate than never

Having been cancelled  by that virus thingy back in 2020, Boundary Brewing's Jubilate festival finally came to life at the end of May. The venue was a spacious floor of a former linen mill, just opposite the brewery and its taproom in east Belfast. 20 guest brewers from Ireland and the UK showed up, each pouring two beers at a time.

Without any particular strategy in mind, I began with Ultimate Thunder, a 4.9% ABV New Zealand-hopped pale ale, produced by Northern Monk with collaborative input from Amity and Elusive. The hop bill is an involved one, and I'll leave you to look up the details yourself. I didn't find it especially characterful, however, seeming to offer nothing more than the basics of New Zealand hops' Germanic origins: a weedpatch of nettle, dandelion and dry grass clippings. It's nicely clear and clean, channelling the pale lager styles which such hops were originally bred for, and there's a beautiful creamy texture of the sort found in the best pilsners. Despite this, the finish is abrupt with no aftertaste to speak of. I enjoyed it to an extent but had expected more from it. 

Beside it here is Exemplify, a coffee stout from Belfast client brewer Tilt & Pour. Though only 4.5% ABV, it's weighty and sweet, presenting like the unloved coffee-cream item in a milk chocolate assortment. After the initial sugar rush, the roast reasserts itself and it tends towards acrid and burnt from the middle to the finish. They certainly didn't skimp on the coffee: this has at least two very real coffee aspects going on. I found it a bit too busy for my liking, not enjoying the clash of the rough and the sugary. If you like your coffee beer with all the coffee, however, it might just be your cup of tea.

While we're on novelty stouts, I had high hopes for Sigaro, currently being touted around the festival circuit by Galway Bay, and made in collaboration with Italian brewer Hilltop. The name derives from the inclusion of tobacco in the recipe, which I don't think I've encountered before, but seems like a suitably complementary adjunct for a stout. There's rather more normal cacao as well. Alas, I have no idea where the tobacco went, or what contribution it made, because I couldn't taste it. Nor the chocolate either, frankly. This 5.6%-er turned out to be another confectionary-like effort, smelling warm and creamy, like an Irish coffee, and with a roasted coffee dryness at the centre of the flavour, more subtle than in the Tilt & Pour one. No gimmicks, no fireworks, just a well-made classic drinking stout, properly balanced and making good use of nitrogenation to smooth it out. Have your cigar on the side.

Our hosts had set up their own bar separately from the guests, and my first from here was a lime and coconut gose, given a typically Boundary name of Just Had To Teach Myself Calculation Logic. Although it's a light 4.5% ABV, this has a beautifully smooth texture and does an excellent job of showing off its headline ingredients. The big coconut flavour comes with an attendant creaminess, while the lime is subtly tangy, taking a background role along with the salinity. It's dessertish without turning overly sweet, and while very much a novelty beer, the classic elements of gose are still present and form the visible framework onto which the novel aspects are affixed. It's gulpable, refreshing, and only a little bit silly. Perfect summer fare.

The festival selection, though satisfactory, was lacking in high-end geek-bait, which was a little disappointing. Land & Labour's presence helped, and there was also The Kernel, from whom I tried Bière de Saison Apricot. First impressions weren't much, the beer looking innocent and yellow, with a simplistic stonefruit-flesh aroma. It hit the geek buttons with its flavour, however: a lambic-like soured peppery spice and lots Brettanomyces-derived funk, resembling a young and frisky blue cheese. The name is typical Kernel understatement: it puts in a performance which is much more impressive than those four simple words convey.

Back to the locals, and Beer Hut was up next, with Master Blaster, a session IPA. This is a hazy one, and very pale yellow with it, 4% ABV and brewed with Centennial and Simcoe. I wasn't a fan of the butane and banana aroma, something better suited to a weissbier than an IPA. The flavour was a big improvement on this, thankfully, beginning with the zingy and sparking bitterness: grapefruit and lime rind, giving way to a more resinous forest pine. It's a little on the thin side, but avoids turning harsh, as so often happens when light beers are given big hops. The malt base is clean and dry, with a snap of water biscuit. This gives you big beer energy in a small package, which I guess is the point of session IPA, but it's seldom done so well as it is here.

Whiplash pulled a daring move with its choice of beers: maybe people would be bored with all the saturated IPAs and novelty stouts; maybe they'll want something to hit reset. So they brought their recent non-alcoholic IPA and their brand new shandy: Body Radler. As the name suggests, this is Body Riddle pale ale, diluted back to 2.5% ABV with lemonade. And it seems to be quite a high-end lemonade, being cloudy and with a fresh zesty tang. Unfortunately, the beer side gets totally buried under the sugar, so while it's far from unpleasant, you may as well be drinking the lemonade neat. I don't really see what purpose is served by the beer, because it doesn't taste or feel like a grown-up drink at all.

I rarely see them in the wild, but Kinnegar's "Tap Room Only" series has now reached TRO 12: Smoked Lime Sour. I was a little apprehensive, though there was no chance of me passing this one by. I was hoping for something along the lines of a tropical barbecue, but no. The aroma is barely there, while the flavour chases it with a honking, clunking fishy twang with an unpleasant chemical burntness. It's not the first smoked beer in which I've encountered this kippers-and-plastic effect, and I have to wonder who out there is OK with it. That said, the harshness settles after a moment or two and the whole beer becomes smoother and gentler, showing sweet lime candy, pineapple and honeydew melon, before finishing on a note of cold ashtray. It doesn't work. There is nothing complementary about how the citrus and the smoke interact with each other, and the latter would have been better left out. A worthy experiment, perhaps, but not one to repeat.

Beside it is a cleansing imperial stout from the Boundary bar, the last remnants of one from a few years ago called Like Putting on a Wee Jumper: 10.4% ABV and aged in an Islay cask for a swift four weeks, then cut with another stout. That cautiousness means it's only slightly smoky, which was a relief after the beer beside it. Instead, there's a beautiful spiced wine or vermouth character, mixing in with coffee and toast. The name is extremely apt: it's wintery and comforting, without turning hot or cloying. There's a good dryness to the toasty roast, lending it almost a crispness and ensuring it remains drinkable. There was no way back from here: stout time had begun.

Left Handed Giant's Deeper Water was a mere lightweight at just 4.5% ABV, served with a huge wodge of nitrogenated foam. The aroma is attractively chocolate-like, but it turns oddly savoury on tasting, with a strong umami note, hinting at autolysis, even though it's not the kind of strong and old beer which I'd have thought might be susceptible to that. While it's not bad, it left me a little confused as to what was going on here.

While the Rascals pilot brewery is relatively accessible to me at home, I had to come to Belfast to try Pilot #135, a big imperial stout of 10.3% ABV, which isn't usually their style, but I'll take it regardless. The lack of aroma was a bit of a let-down, giving me nothing but a worryingly harsh heat. The flavour is mellower, thankfully, offering a nutty cola effect, with a wintery cinnamon spice note. I'd be happy if they decided to make this a regular beer -- it would be most welcome in their generally quite light core range. But as a one-off, it lacked a bit of character. I felt it needed more of a richness to make use of the alcohol. Cake it up, please.

That beer's prospects weren't helped by it coming right next to the magnificent Vienna Imperial Stout from Kirkstall. The name derives from the base malt used, one which has given it a superb rich and velvety smoothness. This 10.2% ABV version has been aged in Irish whiskey and bourbon barrels, and the honey effect of the former arrives late in the flavour, complementing the sumptuous milk chocolate which forms the early part. It's one of those beers which is difficult to pick apart because it all dovetails so neatly together and you can't see the joins. It was a tough decision, but eventually I had to set down my pen, sit back and simply marvel.

That was it for the draught, but some packaged beer was circulating the room, via the good offices of Simon. Oldest stout of the day was Cloudwater's Hibernate, 11.2% ABV and bottled over a decade ago. This showed the classic pipe tobacco and old leather of very agéd stout, though there was a surprisingly fresh seam of coffee running through it as well. Predictable, but not overwhelming, soy-sauce umami crept in towards the end, and a fun aftershave spice finished it off. Beer this old often presents a trade-off of mature deliciousness against wonky flaws, but overall, this was worth drinking, and had escaped any unpleasant oxidation or souring. I'm not sure I would have left it much longer, though: get your Gyle 123 open, if you're holding.

And finally, half its age: Intergalactic, a whiskey-aged salted caramel stout, aged until five years ago in a whiskey barrel. This was the day's strongest, at 12.5% ABV and I'm not sure that the super high gravity served it well, because it came out smelling unpleasantly of hot mushy bananas. The flavour tempered this with some classic coffee and cocoa, and presumably the caramel element was a contributor to that. A small sample of this was plenty for me. Maybe it could have done with another five or so years in the can.

Anyway, that's where it all wrapped up. It was a well-run festival in an excellent space with plenty of interesting beers. Particular thanks to all the brewers who brought stout, something that's not always a given for a summer gig. I'm not quite done with this trip to Belfast yet, however: pre- and post-festival beers will follow next.

Look who's Tolkein

I guess it's the nerd connection that's responsible for all the fantasy telly tie-in beers. Mikkeller had the Game of Thrones franchise a few years back and now it seems that the owners of Lord of the Rings have granted a licence to Hungarian brewery Mad Scientist to make some associated beers. Three of them showed up in Craft Central.

White Tree is a pale ale of 5.2% ABV. It doesn't look ideal, being dull and murky, with a greyish cast. Oxidation? I don't get any staleness in the flavour, but there's no freshness either. It all tastes very savoury, which is a surprise given the New Zealand hops employed -- Nelson Sauvin, Motueka and Pacific Sunrise. Something has definitely gone wrong here. Instead of grapes, grass and minerals, it tastes of sesame paste and dark brown breadcrust: not what anyone wants from a pale ale. It is at least cleanly flavoured, the murk softening the texture but stopping short of adding any unwelcome grit. But ash-dry pale ale is an idea whose time has not yet come and hopefully never will.

Anyway, I only bought the pale ale to make up the numbers. The next two are in much more interesting styles. Mordor is a black IPA. They wouldn't dare mess one of those up, would they? It's a bit murky, pouring muddy brown rather than shiny black. The aroma doesn't have much to say, but it's on the right lines, with light liquorice and dark toast. The flavour keeps everything moving in the right direction, with the spiced red cabbage effect I especially enjoy in black IPAs. Sparks of peppercorn and gunpowder start us off, and the finish is smooth and treacly. That said, it's all quite understated, not making full use of the 5.5% ABV to drive flavour. I can't really criticise it too much, because it delivers all the lovely features of black IPA, and at a modest strength. Yes, I'd like bigger and bolder, but what's here is very decent. Mordor seems like a lovely place.

Our epic quest concludes with Dwarven Forge, an oatmeal stout. This one, at least, is properly black, with a rich and wholesome aroma of coffee and porridge. It's surprisingly lightly textured for all of 6% ABV, but it does have that oatmeal smoothness. The flavour centres on dark chocolate with an edging of oily coffee roast, finishing quickly and cleanly. There's a burst of floral complexity in the middle and a growing alcohol heat, making for some tasty after-dinner sipping. While it's no world-shaker, it's a jolly decent beer with enough going on to keep it entertaining while delivering all the things anyone could want from an oatmeal stout. Dwarves: dependable. 

I get the impression that Mad Scientist didn't bring their best to this franchise arrangement. The beers are middling and unspectacular. I guess they know that people will buy them for the association rather than the taste. That's one way to stay in business.