Of orient are

Beers from Japanese brewery Coedo showed up at Christmas in England, courtesy of my sister. I'd never heard of it, even though there's an address of a Dublin-based importer on the label.

The first I opened is in the rarely-seen style of imperial sweet potato amber, and I had no idea what that was likely to mean. Beniaka is 7% ABV and a cola brown colour in the glass. Although fizzy, it's plenty thick and feels luxuriously "imperial". Can't say I tasted much potato, but there's a pleasant woody spice: nutmeg, sassafras and liquorice. It's fairly sweet with it, showing a little Scotch-ale-style toffee, with the herbs helping balance it. This is interesting, with lots happening, but it's not a daft novelty, and makes for a very civilised digestif.

There's also a black lager, called Shikkoku. While it does have a proper lager cleanness, and is straightforwardly drinkable at 5% ABV, there's a dark-malt stickiness to it. A burnt treacle roast sits at the centre, providing a sweet aspect which means it's no simple German-style Schwarzbier, which is what I was expecting, and leans a little more towards Czech tmavý. A mild herbal bitterness is a nod to Germany, and keeps the sweet side under control. The label promises smoke in the aroma, but I didn't get that, and didn't really miss it either: I'm not sure it would add anything positive. I liked this. It's nothing fancy, and I doubt it warranted being shipped from the other side of the world, but I'll never turn my nose up at a well made dark lager. That's just how I am.

This was a welcome bit of surprise exploration. I'm now very interested in the rest of the range, and where I might get hold of some locally.

On the Marches

A family Christmas in Shropshire afforded the opportunity for a little bit of pub-going in the area. That began in Shrewsbury, at The Coach & Horses, recently re-opened and given a thumbs up by local pub maven Laura. Shortly after opening on the day before Christmas Eve, I thought I would have had it to myself, but it was bustling -- all drinking and dining tables occupied. I was lucky to find a draughty spot to sit by the door. 

Local brewery Noble had a couple of beers on, and I picked Jester, described as an amber ale, so a bitter with notions, then. It is, in fairness, fairly amber coloured: a clear garnet shade. The aroma is predominantly dark fruits, suggesting plums and black cherries, with a hint of Christmas cake spice. Tannin features heavily in the flavour. It is achingly dry, to the point of acridity, and I wasn't a fan of that. The nutmeg and pepper spice helps ease the severity a little but there's none of the fruit, and no malt sweetness from the caramelised one which provides its colour. The end result is certainly bold and flavourful, and brimming with old fashioned beery tradition of a distinctly English sort. I found it a little too rough and unbalanced to be properly enjoyable, unfortunately.

Noble showed up again at The Red Lion in Longden Common, in the form of Scruffy Jon. They've badged this simply as a dark ale, though it has a lot in common with stout, I thought, starting with the pure black colour. Dryness -- perhaps a house trait -- features also, but there's more besides. I don't get to drink a lot of English old ales, beyond good old Old Peculier, but this had a bit of that character: a mature, vinous quality with woody cork notes. We're back to stout again when the roasty finish kicks in. Like the Jester before it, it's a little severe and very grown-up -- don't expect any chocolate or vanilla softness here. I liked it, however: serious black beer is more my thing than serious amber.

Christmas day at The White Horse in Pulverbatch involved a long wait for a pint of Monty's MPA, the Welsh brewery's session IPA. The freshly-tapped cask had to be run through the lines, and was foaming furiously when eventually poured, even with the sparkler twisted off. I don't know that it was entirely worth the wait, but it's a decent beer. Pale gold, it has a punchy lemon bitterness, building gradually to a more intense wax bite. Seasonal factors meant it was served keg-cold, but I think that suited it, upping the refreshment factor, something aided by its 4% ABV. It's unfussy, quality stuff, one of those cask ales that manages to deliver big flavours in a modestly sized package.

Nipping in to The Mytton Arms for a swift one on Stephen's's Day yielded a pint of Dorothy Goodbody's Christmas Cracker. This is another one of those English Christmas ales which aren't especially different to the year-round output. Wye Valley is generally a good brewery so I trust them with this. Take a best bitter at 4.7% ABV and make it a little darker than the norm, plum coloured though not plum flavoured. It is unsurprisingly malt forward, though dry with that: something like the toasted crust of a fruitcake, seasoned by earthy English hops, and with a strong mug of black tea on the side. It's filling, and even a little warming. There's nothing fancy going on, and certainly no seasonal spice silliness, but it's solid.

That's the pubs covered, but my sister had some bottled beers laid in too. Here are my picks from the cellar selection.

I'm reasonably sure the beer buyer included Tower Brewery's Ale to the King as a wind-up. It's a strong ale of 5.6% ABV and a beautiful clear mahogany colour. The aroma is unsurprisingly malt-forward, all toffee and nougat. That's a big part of the flavour, the toffee in particular, while the hops manifest as stickily bitter liquorice, completing the Victorian sweetshop effect. As such, it's not an easy drinker. There's a bit of a sweaty note, a hit of rubber and an earthiness from the all-English hops, all barely tolerable, though doubtless part of the design. Like the monarchy, this belongs to a different age and I'm not sure it should still be around today.

Wrexham Lager's first claim to fame is that it's Britain's oldest lager brewery. The second is that it was recently part-acquired by two Hollywood medium-to-big shots. There's a flagship lager, and then there's this: Wrexham Lager Export. Drinking it in Shropshire meant it hadn't been exported very far. It looks like... lager: pale gold, and perfectly clear. Claiming to be in the Dortmund style, the aroma is sweetly malt-driven and the texture has a bit of chew to it, more than might be expected at 5% ABV. When German lagers use hop extract I tend to get a tang of plastic, and this has that. There's a candyfloss sugary quality and a touch of popcorn, none of which says good lager. I liked the general beefiness of this, but it doesn’t get the finer details right. Maybe the new ownership can fix that.

Gluten free oatmeal stout? How does that work? The label on Monty's Dark Secret says the gluten has been removed ("and laboratory tested". Eh?) but wouldn't that also remove the point of having oatmeal there in the first place? Anyway. 5.5% ABV and full- on black. The aroma is a beautiful wintery mix of cocoa, rosemary and brown toast. I wind my critical neck in from the first sip, which is fully full, with all the beautiful round sumptuousness that we come to oatmeal stout for. The flavour uses that to deliver big coffee and chocolate, matched with herbal hops for a mildly tangy bitterness. It's superbly put together, the contrasting tastes complementing each other perfectly. I opened this with a big cynical head on me but came away utterly charmed. It's an extremely well-made stout, which I fear might put drinkers off by proclaiming its gluten-freeness. The dark secret is it's excellent anyway.

Monty's also has a barley wine, called Magnitude 8.0, named for its ABV. It's a pale one, showing a light ochre colour, one which clouds up when the significant quantity of dregs at the bottom of the bottle went in accidentally. Ahem. Turns out, the bottle is a full three years old, and I detected a definite maturity here: the roundness and warmth of a dark sherry. An aroma of stewed raisin starts us off, while the flavour puts them in a cake, with some bonus honey, a hint of seasonal cinnamon, and a less-cake-like leafy savoury bitterness. It's an unorthodox barley wine, lacking the toffee, roast and general darkness they often have. It works, though. I like a change, and pale, light-ish barley wine is a valid one.

Aldi UK has enlisted Hall & Woodhouse, the Badger people, to brew its Specially Selected Chocolate Stout. It's a sturdy fellow, at 5% ABV, pouring with a substantial head of rough, loose-bubbled foam. The chocolate appears to have been laid on very heavily, and it smells rather sickly, more of vanilla and butterscotch than chocolate. That's actually a little unpleasant. The flavour isn't quite so extreme, and there's a modicum of balancing roast before the chocolate kicks in. The texture is light too, so don't expect much by way of creaminess. The vanilla sweetness does build, however, and light body or no, it does leave one with a fully candy-coated palate, which is even less pleasant than it sounds. I get what they were trying to do with this, and it is unmistakably A Chocolate Stout. They have significantly over-chocolated it, however, and I recommend it only to those with a taste for sweet beer which is even more pronounced than mine.

A palate-cleanser was needed after that, for which we turned to Aldi's arch-rival. This is one of those stubby-bottled French lagers, not normally spotted in the wild at this time of year. Saint-Bertin, named for the patron saint of beers you buy for guests but have no intention of drinking yourself, is 2.6% ABV and by golly is it watery. The aroma is slightly sugary, but I don't think I can dignify it with the descriptor "malt". What flavour there is arrives late, and does actually manage to combine golden-syrup malt with a tang from hop extract. Nothing is anywhere near intense enough to be problematic, but it is extremely plain: the final exam for the beer reviewers' certificate. This is one for very hot days only, but even under those circumstances I think I'd prefer something which tasted of beer.

The stock of alcohol-free beer proved to be somewhat surplus to requirements, so, as a final gesture of goodwill, I drank one of them before leaving: Adnams Ghost Ship. This version of their flagship pale ale is 0.5% ABV and a clear rose-gold colour. There's not much head to speak of, though the aroma has a decent hop kick, a Lilt-like lemon, lime and pineapple. The body is decent at first, turning watery towards the finish. In the flavour, I was on alert for nasty cooked vegetables, metallic twangs, unfermented wort and similar bum notes of the genre, but there's none of that, just more of that tropical sweetness, finishing with a gentle poke of bittering. And yet it doesn't come across as a soft drink, but genuinely beery. The watery aspect is the only thing that would prevent me from substituting the real thing for it. As non-alcoholic beers go, though, this is a class act.

That's almost every beer I drank over Christmas, though I've singled out two oddities for their own post, next.

Call the style police

As it's the beer producing arm of a brewing supplies company, one would have thought that Our Brewery would have all the technicals dialled in. I found some... not flaws, but anomalies, in the most recent set I bought.

I began with Is This How You Feel, presented as a witbier, and it does list wheat, coriander and orange peel among the ingredients, but there's chamomile too. 3.8% ABV is far lower than any Belgian brewery makes this style, and seems a little retrograde. And then the colour is almost completely clear, the shiny gold only very faintly misted. So it's not a witbier as the term is commonly understood. The aroma doesn't do much, offering little other than vague savoury herbs. It's as light as the strength number suggests, verging on watery, though there's enough flavour being carried to keep it interesting. That's a fresh floral character, giving meadowy lavender and violet with a jet of lemon zest and a heavier oily herb side. It's not witbier but it's very tasty and exceedingly refreshing. I can't think of what other style it could be designated as: this is the sort of creation that isn't really done any favours by the whole concept of beer styles. While it's delicious, I don't know that it would score many points in a style-based competition against other beers. This demands to be enjoyed on its own level.

Pils to follow: Any Kind of Weather, single hopped with Nelson Sauvin. This is a flawless pure gold, and with a bit of poke at 5.4% ABV. Immediate marks off for poor head retention, though instant forgiveness for a fabulous tropical aroma, combining mango and melon with a spicy-floral bathbomb background. I'm in. Expecting fruit, I was surprised by the bitterness of the foretaste, and there's a dry grain-husk character as well. Nelson's white grape follows that, and the spice reappears as a jasmine perfume effect, more sticky dessert wine than crisp Sauvignon Blanc. With that comes an unctuous texture which is most un-pils-like. I think they might have mis-assigned the style here, because it's really not much like a pilsner, what with the sweetness, strength and density. Regardless, it's another unorthodox beauty. I love Nelson Sauvin in full-throated tropical mode and that's what's on offer here, although I had looked forward to a pilsner and was a little disappointed it wasn't delivered. I'll take a gummy Nelson showcase quite happily instead, however. 

They're all special to me, so I don't know what makes the American-style IPA, Making Sense Of It All, a "special edition". They're trying to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds here, offering "west coast intensity with a touch of modern haze juiciness". I was sceptical. In the glass it's a west-coast amber, though reasonably hazed up, albeit far from opaque. The aroma is citrus pith and grapefruit segments, plus a savoury seam of fried onion, all of which chimes with the billed hops: Columbus, Cascade, Simcoe and Citra. There's nothing New England about anything there. The body is surprisingly light for 6.2% ABV, and there's certainly none of the full and smooth body that comes with the hazy side. Alas, that onion end of the equation is what dominates the flavour, leaving the grapefruit cowering behind it. No extra flavour dimensions appear either, so there's none of the promised haze character and it's all quite two-dimensional. I expected more at 6.2% ABV. Thin and severe, without any proper west-coast zing, this was quite the damp squib, unfortunately.

Still, two out of three is decent going. It's not like we needed another hazy IPA on the shelves anyway. Bonus points for the brewery's tweaking of the established beer styles and (mostly) making good stuff outside of the normal parameters. That's a more worthwhile type of creativity than bunging in some wacky ingredients.

Runners up

I'm such a sucker for a sequence of beers that I'm miffed to find these two are part of a series of three. It's obvious from the names, to which I wasn't really paying attention when I picked them up in Polonez just before Christmas. They're both from the Vienas Brewery in Lithuania. There's a ring of faux-craft about the branding, but I couldn't find any direct link to the big Lithuanian brewing concerns.

In reverse order, then, we start with Bronze Dark. "Pint of dark beer" it says on the can. Yes please. It's not actually all that dark: a clear copper tone, not dissimilar to a red ale. There's an estery aroma, of bananas and headaches, which is much less clean than the beer appears. Sweet chocolate opens the flavour, followed by a complementary nutty quality. It's a bit odd, but then the beer makes no claim to a style, so I can't really ding it on those grounds alone.

The alcohol kicks in next. It's only 5.8% ABV, but has the burn and cloy of manys a doppelbock or barley wine. The heat comes with a flabby, sugary texture, making it all a bit soupy and difficult. I'm guessing it's still a lager, mind, as the finish is at least more refined, cutting short any building unpleasantness and adding in some grassy noble hops and some light cherry and raisin. I hoped it would calm down as I got used to it but, half way through, it was still being a chore to drink. It's a combination of the heat and sweetness, plus bock-like intense Germanic hopping, that made it hard for me to enjoy. Your mileage may vary here. Just don't expect something along the lines of German or Czech dark lager: they're generally much more refined than this. A bronze is being very generous.

Above that on the podium, but below it in strength, is the 5% ABV Silver Wheat. I was expecting something in the weissbier line, though it poured kristall at first, only clouding up when some lees at the bottom of the can went in. There's a certain amount of phenolic fruit in the aroma, but we're talking watery tinned peaches rather than big banana. Clove-dodgers can rest assured that there isn't any here.

There is a little in the flavour, however. It's mild, but the rest is pretty bland so it sticks out, albeit at more of a rock-candy level than raw twiggy buds. The carbonation is low for the style, and the head-retention poor, so while I will admit that it does qualify as a weissbier and seems to have all the right ingredients for that, it's not a good one. There's nothing wrong, exactly, it's just all low-key and feels cheap, which of course it was. You might need to add a few pennies to trade up to Weihenstephaner, or even Franziskaner if you're not a snob, but I reckon it's worth doing.

Alas, "Golden Extra" will have to wait for the next medals ceremony since I don't have that to hand today. Mind you, on this showing I'm beginning to doubt that their purported credentials are warranted.

Fruit and pudding

A flying visit to Dublin by Jay Brooks last month gave me an opportunity to catch up on the recent beers from Urban Brewing in the docklands. More of them than I expected, in fact, thanks to Jay generously sharing his flight of samples.

A grape ale caught my eye. That's a new one for the brewery, but possibly inevitable given their prodigious turnover. Oenobier is the name, 5.4% ABV and a pale copper colour, or possibly rosé, for the wine-inclined. The aroma is sweet and broadly fruity, a bit like Lucozade, suggesting syrup to come. Not in the mouthfeel, though: it's fizzy like a lager and the light texture doesn't reflect the sizeable strength. Grape flavour is hard come by, and I looked hard. It's really just a vague, artificial, syrupy fruitiness, bringing us back to Lucozade, though it's allegedly Muscat. It is at least dry and slightly crisp, perhaps suggesting Champagne if one had to pin a wine style to it. I deem it fine, but there's room for grapeing it up significantly if it's being re-brewed.

Kalamansi + Blood Orange IPA doesn't need much explanation, though it's the session variety, at just 4% ABV. It's pale gold with a slight haze, giving off a mild perfume aroma. This is another understated one, with a hint of orange, but no more. You wouldn't guess that two types of citrus fruit were involved, and I'm guessing it's real fruit rather than concentrated, and as such has all but fermented out, leaving only an echo. The finish is dry, and the overall effect underwhelming. My main beef is that they did opt to describe this as an IPA, and that means there should be more hops, by rights. Maybe they didn't want to drown out the barely-there fruit effect, but that's resulted in a beer which sounded more interesting than it turned out to be.

It's a Scotch ale next, though they've used the Americanised name of Wee Heavy for it. Built for winter at 8.8% ABV, it's nicely dense: heavy by name and nature. I expected toffee from that, but while it's sufficiently sweet, there's no stickiness or any high-gravity unpleasantness. Instead, a surprise seam of tannin runs through the middle, drying it out. That's the balance, and for complexity there's a lovely port-wine and cork character. It may be a little unorthodox, but it works incredibly well, adding an extra dimension to what tends to be quite a by-the-numbers beer style. Small-batch creativity has paid off here.

The creativity continues with the daddy of the set: Christmas Stout. I don't think they've ever done this before: a 10.3% ABV imperial stout, aged in bourbon barrels, "seasoned" with dark rum, and with sticky toffee pudding thrown in too, presumably just to annoy the purists, and raising more questions than it answers. The bourbon element is very obvious at the start, showing a tang of sourness and some fresh-oak vanilla. Later, there's a rich and warming caramel fudge flavour, which might be the novelty dessert, but it's well integrated here, suiting the big cake-like body perfectly. This is very nicely done, overall. They've resisted the route-one option of piling in cinnamon and clove, which nobody really likes, and made something properly celebratory instead.

On a Wednesday afternoon in Christmas party season in Dublin's corporate law and banking district, the place was eerily quiet. I hope Urban is doing enough business to keep the lights on and, especially, the brewery running.

Unhorrible histories

It's taken a year, but we're not in any hurry. Trouble Brewing has created a set of beers to mark the publication of Christina Wade's multi-award-winning book on Irish beer history: Filthy Queens. Liam was deployed as production consultant and they decided early on that a by-the-numbers attempt at historical beer recreation wasn't going to fly. So where everybody else would have just lied about it, they settled on two recipes, showing aspects of what we know about porter as it was brewed in the 18th century. One is influenced by Irish brewing, the other by English.

It's clearly an indication of our innate moral superiority that the Irish version contains less weird stuff. This is Fire & Labour, named for the non-ingredient expenses of brewing. It's 6.5% ABV and has molasses and gentian as its historical-meets-craft ingredient twists. I can see how they might be used as malt and hop substitutes, respectively. Reading about old-style shortcuts and adjuncts, I often wonder how easy they were to hide in the flavour: would drinkers have noticed? On this first showing, quite possibly not. I thought there would be an out-of-place extra bitterness from the gentian, but there isn't; nor is there an overdone sticky treacle effect from the molasses. This tastes like a decent, if heavy, strong dark ale. Yes, there's a leafy, green-tea, greenness and lots of brown-sugared filter coffee, but it's all within the accepted flavour profile of porter. Where it misses that mark is the finishing gravity. This is a thick boi, and you would want to have portered up one hell of a thirst for it to be slaked by it. A brisk thirst-quenching porter would be a basic requirement for 18th century me, and this isn't that. It will do for breakfast in lieu of chocolate Ready Brek, or serve as a dessert drink when we're at war with Portugal. Daytime invigoration, though? It has the calories, but thirst quenching was not on offer. Still: this is a lovely beer, even if I'd have shelved it with the extra stouts rather than the porters.

Representing the neighbours is The Fox, a derogatory term for substandard beer. The ABV goes up further, to 6.8%, and it's as thick as the previous one. Our novelty ingredients this time are treacle, liquorice and ginger. I would have thought the latter is unmistakable in any beer, and that's its whole point. There's no ginger in the flavour here, however: no spice nor candy, cake nor biscuit. This is another straight-up heavy dark beer, and while it's altogether plainer than the one before, it's tastier too. Wherever the bitterness comes from, it's doing an especially good job, making me think of old-fashioned export stout. It's a vegetal effect, with overtones of cabbage leaf meeting a harder mineral zinc and iron. I understand why people thought this was nutritious: the flavour must have resembled any number of medicines. As a 21st century leisure beverage, again it's one to drink slowly and appreciate rather than quaff for refreshment.

The absence of the interloper ingredients in the finished flavour profile is perhaps the lesson here: 18th century brewers knew what they were doing when they cheated, and there's nobody but the taxman and the more compliant breweries to say they were doing anything wrong. These days, the problem is not that your porter contains ginger and gentian, but that it doesn't explicitly taste of them. Consider that.

Well done to all concerned, and a special big thanks to L. Mulligan Grocer for hosting the sort of launch event we used to have, back when beer was fun.

Oi, lightweight

This large bottle of St Hubertus Tripel Blond was foisted upon me during my last visit to Belgium. The brand is Carlsberg's take on Belgian beer, and I've not been impressed by others in the range. The bottle bears only the address of their Belgian distributor so I don't know where it's actually brewed; the wire cage snapped before I could twist it open; and it's only 7.2% ABV, so this had a hill to climb before even the first sip.

It looks more like a blonde ale than a tripel, being pale gold and almost completely clear, topped by an inconsiderate amount of foam. The aroma is blonde too: light on esters, with a hint of citrus and flowers, plus a minimal level of Belgian spicing. Before the flavour, the fizz. Tripel does tend to be gassy, but here the relatively light body makes the high carbonation busy and intrusive. Given time to settle... there's not much there. The bitterness is an aspirin or zinc twang which would be harsh if it were more pronounced, but here is merely an annoyance. I will give it the floral sweet side, however: that's undeniably pleasant, if unsophisticated. It doesn't last long, however, and it's back to the much louder aspirin and fizz after a mere moment.

I did my best not to let my prejudices affect my review of this one, but it's simply, objectively, not a good beer. It doesn't have the correct heft and complexity for a tripel, and doesn't even work as a strong blonde ale, lacking the crisp drinkability that the best ones exhibit. I reckon the gravity is the prime factor in its failure. 7.2% ABV may have seemed generous at the office in Copenhagen or Stockholm or wherever this was dreamed up. It's too light for Belgium, however, and completely inadequate to carry the bittersweet complexity that this attempts to pull off.