The Christmas menu

I hadn't noticed before that Wetherspoon publishes a quarterly leaflet of its upcoming seasonal rotational beers. Maybe it's a new practice, but it's great for us tickers. In the run-up to Christmas, I did some hunting around the Dublin branches for the late 2025 offerings.

That started with the appropriate Winter Draws On, by Brewsters. It's only 4% ABV and promises citrus and spice, so is one of those English winter ales. Still, it looks cosy with its warm copper glow. The citrus manifests as dried peel, like fruitcake mix without any of the actual cake. Complementing the lightly fruity bitterness is a tea-like dryness, adding a refreshment quality that isn't very seasonal but is very pleasant. This is a clean, characterful and well-balanced session beer, exactly the sort of thing that I associate with Brewsters. Your cockles won't be warmed but your thirst will be slaked.

A rare visit to The South Strand brought me Evil Elf by Rudgate. I would be quite willing to bet that this golden ale appears under a different name during the summer, because it has a very sunny disposition. Zesty, and slightly oily, lemon forms the aroma and continues in the foretaste. It's not bitter, however, tasting more like lemon candy than actual citrus fruit. The sweet side grows gradually, adding notes of honey and golden syrup. It verges on sticky but its modest 4% ABV keeps it on the right side of drinkable. This is solidly made and devoid of seasonal daftness. There's no way any sensible brewery would only roll out such a straightforwardly enjoyable recipe at Christmas.

Advent Ale is from Titanic, the brewery abandoning its sinking ship theme for the season of goodwill. This 4.6%-er is a medium gold in the glass and smells sweetly spicy, hinting at clove and nutmeg. Those spicy oils are present in the flavour but pleasingly low-balled, hinting at their presence but not the beer's whole thing. Unfortunately, the beer doesn't have a whole thing, its base tasting to me like a rather plain blonde ale: honey-sweet, gently floral, but otherwise nondescript. I guess Christmas beer doesn't have to be dark and strong, though at the same time I don't really get the point of doing them pale and light, except there's presumably a market for them. File this inoffensive chap with the other cod-seasonals, made for spring rugby and... actually, is that the only other time English breweries make lacklustre tie-in beers? Answers in the comments.

So far, so sessionable, but where are those big winter warmers? Otter's Otter Claus brings us all the way up to 5% ABV and is a wholesome-looking dark amber colour. Alas, it doesn't go anywhere special in the flavour, being the same as any number of malt forward, medium-dark, strong bitters. To wit, there's toffee, black tea, burnt caramel and a token measure of orange peel and meadow flowers from distinctly English hops. It reminds me a bit of Wetherspoon staple Abbot Ale but is much more enjoyable; lighter on the caramel and more drinkable as a result. It left me feeling a bit stiffed on Christmas vibes, but it's a decent beer. While it may be a brown bitter, I don't think it can be accused of being twiggy or boring. For €2.60 the pint, I have little to complain about here.

It's not all red suits and reindeer in the seasonal offerings. I also had my second encounter with the Bateman's sub-brand Salem, and their Dark Fruits porter. It's actually surprising that more cask breweries aren't taking a pop at Titanic's Plum Porter market share. I didn't get to try them side by side, but I deem this a worthy adversary. The berries are very prominent in the flavour, a jammy damson and cherry effect with just the right amount of restraint on the sweet side and a mild blackcurrant tartness. In proper Titanic style, the base is velvety smooth with oodles of creamy milk chocolate. The depth and roundness of its texture is especially impressive, given it's only 4.6% ABV. Mouthfeel for days. My one pint wasn't long being sunk, and while I'm not sure that a second would have been as enjoyable, in other circumstances I would have been quite prepared to try it. Quality stuff, this, and I say that as a fruit porter sceptic.

Ramping up the strength and the blackness, next is Hammerhead Stout by Nottinghamshire brewery Milestone. This is a very full 5.6% ABV and promises "a bite" on the clip. It arrived looking handsome: fully black with a thick pillow of foam and a dome of loose bubbles over the top. It's exactly the appearance Draught Guinness was invented to reproduce but never will. The aroma, however, is in the Guinness zone, being rather vague, just toasted grain and a mild metallic bittering. From that, the flavour was a surprise, opening up a ribbon-wrapped box of milk chocolates, adding a light smattering of latte coffee, butterscotch and vanilla, with a subtle dry charcoal note on the end for balance. I was impressed by the contrast between aroma and flavour: it smells almost acrid but is smooth and sumptuous to drink. While not exactly complex, it's perfectly balanced and wonderfully drinkable. In a less festive mood I might be inclined to complain that the ABV is excessive, but I'm willing to let that go because I'm sure the heft is a major part of its classy, understated gameplan. For me, this hit the same spots as Irish stout classics Leann Folláin and Nocturne, with bonus cask silk. At time of drinking I had recently finished reading Martyn Cornell's epic history of porter, and this beer fitted the hyperbolic descriptions that 18th and 19th century writers used when describing good product. I hope this isn't just a Christmas beer. It belongs on the bar year-round.

In summary, I think the breweries could have done better here. Light and pale just doesn't do it for me at midwinter. I was very glad to find at least some level of darkness in the selection. It would have been a wash-out without them.

Family reunion

Alas, I haven't yet been out to the new(ish) O Brother taproom in Wicklow. Its creation is the reason they've given for the reduced number of new release beers of late. Some sort of normality seems to be returning, however, as here's three of them.

A saison starts us off, very much an under-served style among Irish brewers. Year of Plenty is 5.8% ABV and a mostly-clear gold, given just a dusting of haze. Not much is given away in the aroma, just dry husky grain and a little sweet fruit ester for a hint of honeydew. That's all fair for ordinary decent saison, and the flavour is too. Chopped apple and dried apricot represent the fruit, while clove and white pepper add some fun Belgian seasoning to that. Throw on a dry wheaty base, and that's saison, ladies and gentlemen: what else could you want? This is heftier than your classic saison from Belgium, and ordinarily the stronger sort doesn't appeal to me as much, but this one has a more piquant spicing than other hot and flabby versions I've tasted. That gives it an extra drinkability, not cancelling out the thicker sweet side, but making it more enjoyable. Non-typical takes on saison aren't normally my thing; this one manages to pull in the good bits of the archetypes and adds only worthwhile extra features. Very nicely done.

Next, My Mortal Soul is a Märzen. It's a strong one at 6.1% ABV, and dark too: well into the amber end of the spectrum, like the sticky Oktoberfestbier preferred by American breweries. On top of that was a short-lived head of big loose bubbles, and there's a concomitant lack of fizz. Many an ale would benefit from the gentle sparkle presented here, but a German-style lager, not so much. That does also mean it's overly heavy. I don't mind a bit of chewing in a strong lager but there should be a balancing crispness when one chooses that route, and this is just a little too syrupy. It does at least use that density to pile in lots of fun flavours while avoiding the cloying heat of the, er, cheaper sort of strong lager. Summer fruit sits up front, a jammy smear of strawberry and red cherry. That contrasts with a significant hop bitterness, typically herbal in the German way, with some zinc to go with the spinach and celery. It's flawed, but I liked it. This beer's heart is in the right place and it delivers a pleasing amount of complexity, even if it's closer (I reckon) to a pale bock than Märzen. Serve in your tall Prussian sipping glass, not the hearty Bavarian mug.

Only one IPA in the set? That's refreshing. Silent Roar is a 6% ABV example, badged as "tropical" and mostly smelling it too, though there's a hint of savoury onion alongside the sweetly colourful Lilt aroma. It's on the thin side for that strength, and the flavour, while pleasant, isn't especially strong. I expected rather more oomph. I mean, it does do tropical. There is mango and pineapple and all that jazz -- add some ripe pear and orange pith for extra fun -- but where modern IPAs tend to lay these on thick and juicy (when they get it right), here it's at a remove, more like the flavouring of a fizzy drink than anything freshly squeezed, or squeezed at all. I'm being overly fussy, however. This is bright and genuinely refreshing, and while I expected a certain seriousness from the strength (and the rather po-faced name), I thoroughly enjoyed the fruity frivolity on offer. I'd chance a pint, no problem.

They may not have included the customary double IPA in their recent output (unless I missed it), but O Brother hasn't suffered any decline in their usual high standards from the brewery move. When the days get brighter I'll venture out there.

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.