In the Navy

Sierra Nevada's Torpedo IPA took its name from the cylindrical piece of apparatus used to dry hop it. Since it graduated from being a beer to being a whole range of beers (capitalism: yay!), someone in the branding department has decided to militarise it, hence the sonar-style graphics on this latest pair of cans.

First up is Rye Torpedo, a whole percentage point weaker than the original, at 6.2% ABV. It's a lovely rich orange colour with a little haze, without being actually hazy. Rye is good for head retention and you really get your money's worth here: a massive mushroom dome of foam forming. I caught it within three months of canning and it still smelled very freshly hopped, of grapefruit zest and lemon jelly. Rye's peppery quality makes a brief appearance in the flavour, but for the most part it's classic west coast IPA -- just what we come to Sierra Nevada for -- mixing the bright citrus with an equal dose of slick pine oil and backed by a marmalade sweet side. There's nothing extreme here, no hop fireworks nor residual slickness, and I'm not even sure it's a better beer than the original. It's damn tasty, however, and still well worth your while, whether or not you were a fan of Torpedo to begin with. Just don't expect too much rye character.

"Dual Torpedo" is how Admiral Grossman has chosen to signal that the next one is Torpedo as a double IPA. It's 8.2% ABV and double dry hopped. I know that "double dry hopped" generally doesn't mean anything, but at the same time I can't help wonder which version of Torpedo it's the doubled version of. Original? Atomic? We will never know. No rye means it's paler: still slightly murked, but golden, not amber. The aroma is rather more muted too, lacking the zest and emphasising the dank and resin instead. The branding wants us to think hops but the flavour, to me, is malt first. It's a large chap, with a chewy body and acres of bready, cakey, toffee and treacle. Trust Sierra Nevada to continue bringing us double IPA in its earliest known form. Not that this isn't hoppy: that high-gravity base is a launchpad for a panoply of hop fun, including peppery spice, piney resin, citric zest and oily peel: all the classic hits of the American golden age. If you like your retro served fresh, here's the double IPA you need. That said, unlike many of the first wave American double IPAs I drank, this one is clean and finessed, low in heat given the strength, and in the dangerously drinkable category. More than anything, it's happy, and very much a reminder of when big-hop American beer was fun, before all the joyless nerds started over-analysing it. Ahem. 

These are definitely different from Torpedo, and I wish the brewery had the confidence to simply call them something else. But they're both bloody decent beers, highly enjoyable, and worth anyone's time, especially anyone sick of haze and tropical and everything else we must accept that American IPA has become.

Summer in the Garden

My reaction to beer with weird stuff in it has evolved from "Wow! This is exciting" to "Ugh! This is stupid" to "Wow! Somebody is still doing this". Today's set is from Zagreb's Garden Brewing, and I drank them in an attempt to recreate the youthful sensation of finding off-kilter beer interesting.

I didn't notice until after I bought them that the brewery has put them in sequence, and first of four is Imperial Strawberry & Vanilla Milkshake IPA. It's so long since I've had a milkshake IPA that I was expecting it to pour pink, but it's actually a more orthodox golden shade, and only slightly hazed. It's a brave move to name Magnum, Citra and Mosaic as the hops, yet it does really smell like an IPA, with lots of citrus zest, next to low-key strawberry blancmange pudding. "Super creamy" they say, but the first sensation I got on sipping was clean fizz and quite a light body for 7.4% ABV. The hops have very much taken a back seat, and it tastes like a lurid-pink pre-packaged single-serving of strawberry cheesecake: the strawberry at a remove from the real thing, blended with a gummy dairy sweetness and set on a crunchy biscuit base. As a child of the 1970s, I never lost my taste for highly processed industrial desserts, so I quite enjoyed this beer. It's not offensively sweet, neither sticky nor hot, and generally quite clean and drinkable. I guess if you're going to make a beer taste of strawberry and vanilla, this is the way to do it: not subtle, but far from a hot mess. It's still fun that milkshake IPA is so often the butt of the joke in beer discourse -- it's inarguably a ridiculous concept -- but faced with Garden making quite a nice one, I'm a bit lost for words. The "IPA" part of the equation is not pulling its weight, but otherwise, this is at worst harmless and possibly, sneakily, rather enjoyable.

It's arguable whether or not the beer numbered two in the sequence is more or less ridiculous. Imperial Banana Bread Stout has as much to do with Courage and Barclay Perkins as the previous beer has to do with Hodgson and Bass. It's a sober 8.4% ABV and a flawless obsidian black, though the head is short-lived. The fruit steers clear of the aroma, which is an enticing coffee and vanilla with a dusting of cocoa, like tiramisu. And... it doesn't taste of banana. At all. That's probably a good thing, but the sort of weirdo who buys this sort of beer at face value is likely to be disappointed by how unweird it is. Whoever wrote "packed with real bananas" on the label has clearly never been packed with real bananas. Coffee is the centre of the taste, oily and liqueur-sweet at first, then dry and dark-roasted. An assortment of other flavours I associate with strong and sweet stout follows: treacle, cookies, vanilla and chocolate, but no banana. It's good stuff, the modest ABV keeping any boozy vapours off the table while still allowing it to be satisfyingly chewy for dessert. It's not much of a complaint that they haven't ruined it with ridiculous novelty, but that's the worst thing I can say about it. Would definitely drink again, though not immediately after the first one.

Number three is a normal beer, and I nearly didn't bother until the lacuna began gnawing at me (naughty lacuna!) and I bought it solely to complete the set. American IPA: Prysma Showcase is its official name; I suspect that they could equally have called it "Let's Find Out If This Stuff Works". Prysma is a hop extract, used here in Citra, Mosaic and Cascade flavours, though each hop is also listed in its normal solid form as well, which seems like a bit of a compromise of the experiment. The beer is 7.2% ABV and nicely west-coast clear; a classy golden amber colour. Grapefruit on the aroma leads to similar in the flavour, doing an excellent job of balancing zesty spritz with slicker resin. There's no missing the hops, but I'm not sure they're bringing "a sharper aroma [and] deeper flavour" than a well-made, non-Prysma, American-style IPA. This one's old-school credentials are copper-fastened by a generous dollop of slightly caramelised malt, making it weighty and chewy, in a way that complements the hopping nicely. They've sold it as the next generation of bleeding edge high-tech IPA. It's not. But it's damn tasty and I'm glad I found space for it in this post.

Last in the sequence is the lightest of the bunch, the 5.5% ABV Gin & Tonic Sour Beer. I've tasted this sort of thing done well before, although this one came with a warning from the lad in the off licence. It looks plain and lager-like, with rather more head than most gin and tonics. It smells lagerish too, all crisp and grainy. We're promised juniper and lemon on the label and neither manifests in the taste to any significant degree. Sour is plentiful, however: it's teeth-squeakingly sharp, a grimace with every sip. Not much is on offer beyond this, with the husky grain making a return, plus a waxy bitterness and maybe a very faint peppery spice in the background, which I suspect is juniper-related. It's not problematic, but not very impressive either. More citrus and more botanicals are needed for this to live up to the promise of its spec. Perhaps one is supposed to be more forgiving when drinking it in order, after three other strong beers.

That's where the series ends. Just one last beer as dessert. Tama says it's an imperial salted caramel and chocolate biscuit stout. "Indulgent", but not over the top at only 8.1% ABV. The aroma is very dairy, with the sweet/sour mix of yoghurt or milk on the turn. Its relatively low gravity (again) means that while it's smooth, it's not thick or heavy, and is a beer for drinking, not merely sipping. Promise of chocolate, biscuit and salted caramel doesn't materialise in any big way, with instead only a buttery cookie and vanilla cream flavour, finishing quickly. "Rich" is another word on the label, overstating the case again. It's not a bad beer by any means, being simple and classy, where it could easily have been a hot sticky mess. I was expecting more of everything, however, and it's a little disappointing not to get it. As a relatively straightforward milk stout, however, it's pretty good.

In general, I think Garden has got the novelty factor correct here. They never lose sight of the need for an underlying good recipe in order for the beer to be enjoyable, no matter the ingredients. These strike me as the work of a brewery that paid its dues making IPAs and sweet stouts properly, before trying anything silly with them.

Odds on

The little bit of Barcelona that is forever Ballyfermot makes a comeback today, with three new beers from Oddity, a Catalonian beer brand which has its production done at Whiplash.

First up is Go On Fool, described as a "Zested WC-IPA" which doesn't make a lot of sense, beyond invoking Grapefruit Sculpin, a popular fruit-flavoured Californian IPA from the long-ago craft beer era. That was 7% ABV while this is a mere 5.5%, though it does list grapefruit zest on the ingredients, along with Saphir and Motueka hops. It's a foggy orange-yellow colour with a decently thick head and plenty of piquant citrus juice in the aroma. The texture is creamy, in a modern New-England way, lacking the sharp edge of Sculpin's California character. So I don't know what they're doing, calling it "WC" IPA: this is very much in the east coast vernacular. For all that, it's not bad, showing some dank resins alongside the sunnier citrus, and keeping everything fresh, clean and unfussily drinkable. The grapefruit element doesn't dominate the flavour, and there's a definite herbal quality from the Motueka perceptible alongside it. As the starter of a three-beer session it works well, and I wouldn't be sad to be offered a second pint of it after the first.

Wildfires is merely a pale ale, but it's stronger, at 6.2% ABV. Simcoe, Strata and Mosaic are the hops and it's unashamedly murky, though pale and translucent rather than resembling eggy batter. The aroma is mildly zesty, humbly suggesting lemon and lime peel, while the flavour is lightly garlicked with peripheral hints of marmalade, lemonade and custard. None of it is terribly loud, and the texture is surprisingly light for the strength. This beer's name is all drama but the liquid itself is rather damp and lacklustre. It's not unpleasant, but doesn't really use the significant gravity and doubtlessly expensive hop charge to make a big impression. This is unfortunately typical of Whiplash's recent offerings: promising full-colour 3D hop zing but not really delivering on it. "A big glass of meh" is a harsh verdict on Wildfires, but unfortunately that's what it is. Hazy pale can be done better than this, and certainly by this brewery.

The one I was looking forward to most was Things We've Done, which is in that most under-represented of styles, double black IPA. It's a whole 8% ABV and is properly dense and weighty with it, the body heavy and slick, despite lots of carbonation and a tall nicotine-stained head of foam. Its aroma is quite roasty and stout-like, with the hops contributing a serious grass and liquorice bitterness to this. The bittering hits hard in the foretaste, mixing super sharp grapefruit rind with an almost plasticky herbal concentration. Sabro, says the can: I might have known. There's Cashmere and Centennial too, but it's extremely on-brand for Sabro to hog the limelight, as it definitely does here. After a second there's a warmer and richer cocoa element, some slightly burnt and sticky treacle and then a colourful zesty citric spritz for the finish. I would never have guessed the strength: the flavour is thoroughly hop dominated with little alcoholic heat. That pithy Sabro does make it a little one-note and not very complex, but if you enjoy what it does, it's an exciting and very boldly-flavoured beer, which is exactly what I'm looking for in a double black IPA.

The slight decline in hop impact of Whiplash's recent beers is somewhat in evidence here, except for the black IPA's total Sabro bug-out. The other two are grand if unspectacular. Oddity shows no sign of brewing for themselves or moving to a different contractor. I'm happy to have them as a slightly exotic contributor to the brewing scene in my home city.

All right Jack

It's a new brewery for me today. McGill's has been plying its trade down in Waterville for some years now, but I didn't know that it bottled its beer, nor that it was ever shipped outside of Co. Kerry. I found this bottle of Jack Murphy Kerry Lager on the shelves of The Wine Centre in Kilkenny recently, less than two months beyond the hand-written best-before date on the label.

They've brewed it to 4.3% ABV and in a rustic fashion, the beer pouring murkily and a greyish amber colour. I made sure to leave at least some of the dregs in the bottom of the bottle. It smells quite sweet, and a little fruity, suggesting lemon sponge and ripe apricot, with a slight herbal hop bitterness to the rear. The flavour is very much built around the malt, tasting heavy and, well, malty, like Ovaltine or Horlicks. There are some warm-fermentation pear esters and a rough grain-husk dry side, all of which gives it a bit of a homebrew vibe. There's no polish to this; no sense of a brewer honing their lager with precision.

It's not at all bad, though. Any number of things could have gone wrong, but didn't, so while it's a little off-kilter, it's still tasty, in a wholesome and amateurish way. Pale lager is a tough style for very small breweries, and I'm not sure McGill's has what it needs to do it brilliantly. Accept the slightly over-sweetened nature of this one, however, and it's enjoyable. I would imagine warm fermentation is more the brewery's forte, however.

Who asked for this?

They've gone all creative at Open Gate for the summer, Lord save us. Classic styles can wait; everything is getting an off kilter ingredient or two. But we shouldn't be too cynical before starting to drink them.

Exhibit A is Cola Radler. It looks like stout: a dark reddish brown with a fine white head. I suspect stout is the beer base and it tastes immediately roasty, plus I think I detect some Guinness tang in the aroma. Cola sits in the middle of the flavour, tasting a little concentrated, conjuring long-dormant sensory memories of the Soda Stream machine in my childhood kitchen. The cola syrup had a particular smell and taste which is echoed here. And that's it. As we saw on Friday, radler is supposed to be quenching and refreshing, and although this is only 3.5% ABV, the lack of citrus means it doesn't work. The cola is overly sticky and clashes unpleasantly with the stout's bitterness and roast. I noticed towards the end a nearby menu board saying that there is lime in the mix here, but there's not nearly enough. You may wince at the very notion of mixing Guinness and Coke, and I'm here to tell you, first hand, that that's an entirely appropriate reaction.

Open Gate becomes the third local brewery, after Rascals and Third Circle, to brew a beer called Dubliner Weisse. Theirs is with hibiscus, blood orange and pomegranate. It's a fun pink colour and 3.8% ABV. I was on the lookout for sourness first and was not very surprised to find it isn't really, hitting dry and crisp but not proceeding beyond that into tartness. The fruit mix is pleasant, though, suggesting cherry, pineapple, raspberry and apricot: all very bright and summery. A twang of yoghurt is the only nod to microflora complexity, but that's OK. It may not be even close to proper Berliner weisse, but this does what it's designed to do. Party on.

Yet another in the recent series of flavoured stouts follows that. With a Coconut Rum Stout it was always going to be tough not to mention Bounty bars, and I'm completely failing at that, because this very much tastes Bounteous: dark chocolate and gooey coconut paste. But wait, there's more. The official description doesn't mention real rum, only "rum spices", suggesting the involvement of Uncle Arthur's housemate, Captain Morgan. That's a big part of the aroma but mild in the flavour, adding hints of vanilla, cinnamon, walnut and smoke without interrupting the headline features. Most pleasingly, the beer is dry not sweet, with a proper bite of roast and a non-sticky texture, even at 5.6% ABV. Excellent work. Yes, it's pure gimmick, but designed and executed in an expert way, paying due care and attention to balance and complexity, while also doing the wacky novelty thing. I'm fully on board for that sort of brewing.

That set was followed swiftly by two further additions, still keeping things weird. I suspect that the Chilli-Mango DIPA didn't hit its intended gravity as it's only 6.9% ABV. It presents a foggy orange colour and smells properly pulpy and tropical, the 45kg of mango in the 10hL batch paying their way. That does mean there's something of a yoghurt kick about the flavour: not sour but creamy with a light layer of vanilla. There wasn't anything I would describe as hop character,  but perhaps drinkers of this type of heavy and hazy IPA don't care about the hops. It's not readily obvious that chilli is involved (three types): I didn't get any spice piquancy, which is unfortunate. Instead, I think all the pepper action is in the finish, where it's dry and a little plasticky, not contributing anything positive to the picture. Hey, Open Gate is a self-described experimental brewery, and this strikes me as a very experimental beer; one that doesn't quite do what it's supposed to. They've got the mango right; the other details need tweaking, however.

Next to it is Port Ellen Part II. I assume that Part I was the one released last summer under the name The 200, a collaboration with Diageo's distillery in the Islay town of the same name. My notes on that one said it was served too cold, hence letting this one sit for a bit. A freshly fried bacon aroma starts us off on the right foot, and the flavour continues in that vein, the sweet smoke suggesting Bamberg more than Islay to me. An enquiry about whether smoked malt was used, rather than simply depending on the whisky barrels, revealed that yes, it's peated malt, though the beer is possibly not barrel-aged. That scans. Though 7.1% ABV, it's not hot or spirit-laden. This sort of brightly smoky stout is right up my street: savoury as the day is long but still clean, drinkable and positively refreshing. I carry a torch for the one Messrs Maguire brewed, once, back in 2007, and this brought me right back there. Smokeheads assemble.

Just one (and a half) missteps with these, and it's not a surprise. Mostly, this is ideal fare for the al fresco drinking season, however short and sporadic it may prove to be this year.

Rad bod

Today, you join me not-live on the patio, on the first properly warm day of the year. Our topic is radler (shandy the German way) and the conditions are excellent for some side-by-side evaluation.

We start traditionally, with a thick-walled half-litre bottle of Hofbräuhaus Traunstein Radler, from Bavaria. It's 50% "bier" (lager, presumably), and the other half cloudy lemonade, coming out at 2.4% ABV. With these, I think the choice of lemonade is crucial, and they've picked a good one. It has quite a natural flavour of real lemons, pulped and sweetened, and that's in spite of an ingredients list that shows it's anything but natural, including both lemon extract and citrus-hop-extract as well. The result is big bodied and satisfying; verging on sticky but still perfectly thirst-quenching. And while the lemonade is far and away the main character, there's a slight hint of biscuit lager malt and salad-leaf noble hops, hovering in the background. The contents of my glass did not last long, and I reckon I could have followed it with another straight away. I'd say the sweet side would have caught up with me before I finished that, however. This is no watery lemon fizz bomb, but a radler of substance. I enjoyed its bigness.

Staying German but switching fruit, next is König Pilsener Radler Grapefruit, brewed by Bitburger and packaged in half-litre cans. The ABV drops to 1.9% as a result of it being only 40% beer, so I'm expecting this to be another brief affair. The archetypal grapefruit radler is that made by Stiegl, so this has some work to do to impress. It's a hazy carrot-orange colour, with lots of foam on pouring but none by the time I came to take a drink. It's certainly lighter and less sweet than the previous one, which also means it has less flavour in general. I had hoped for a bit of grapefruit's sharp piquancy, as in the Stiegl one, but it doesn't have that, instead staying simplistic and sugary, the sweetness kept in check by the thin body and overactive carbonation. It's drinkable and refreshing for sure, and meets the basic requirements of the genre, but no more than basic. This is low-effort radler; lacking beer character and may as well be a soft drink: unfortunate, but not unusual for the style. 

We turn to the craft beer segment for the final one, and pretty much double the price paid. To Øl Lemon Radler is 2.5% ABV but doesn't tell us anything about how it's constituted. It's certainly less sugary than the previous two, tasting more like a lemon-flavoured beer than a mix of beer and fizzy pop. It's still no masterpiece of complexity, however. The lemon is nicely tangy with a proper bitter edge, and it lasts a long time, finishing on an almost metallic mineral rasp. While not overly sweet, it's not very fizzy either, and that reduces the refreshment factor somewhat. While I may feel like I'm drinking a real beer, more than with the others, it's less impressive as a sunny-day throw-it-down-cold job. I'd be less inclined to drink another, even if it hadn't cost me the guts of €4 for the experience. The Germans' cheap and simple approach works better in general, I reckon. 

I'm not really a fan of radler. I probably should have mentioned that at the outset. For the day that's in it, I would really have preferred a few properly cold proper beers than these citrus mixes. There's no harm in doing the occasional experiment, however, on the rare occasions when the weather is up to it.

If the Chouffe hits

Obviously I don't do "guilty pleasure" beers, but I do have a fondness for Cherry Chouffe while also recognising it's no great feat of Belgian brewing artistry. So I was perhaps inappropriately delighted to find the fruited gnome series has a second addition: Chouffe Framboise. Raspberry, like cherry, is an established and acceptable Belgian beer fruit. When we start getting Chouffe Mango and Chouffe Banana, I'll worry that they've gone full Floris.

This can't be exactly the same beer as Cherry Chouffe with only a different syrup, because it's 7% ABV rather than 8. Maybe that just means they've added more gunk. Anyone who sees the word "Framboise" and thinks immediately of acid tartness, may look elsewhere. This is heavy and dense, a clear claret-red colour in the glass, and is extremely sweet. For those who consider a cone of soft-serve ice cream incomplete without a streak of tachycardia-inducing pink sauce: this is your beer.

I am, generally speaking, tolerant of fruity sweet flavours in Belgian beer, and this stops just short of being horrible. It is not a beer to convince anyone that flavoured syrup in beer is quite good actually. Do not expect subtlety. I assume the heavily buried base beer is the standard La Chouffe blond ale, because there is a trace of it in the background of the taste: dry grain husk and Belgian yeast spicing. But it is not a beer which gives that up readily, preferring instead to shout loudly about raspberry jam over the top of everything else.

Any excuse, but I decided to drink it back to back with Cherry Chouffe, and found that to be far and away its superior. That's likely simply because I prefer artificially cherry-flavoured things to artificially raspberry-flavoured ones. There's a more grown-up boozy phenol thing going on in the cherry one that I think has more to do with the chemical properties of cherries than it does with the beer simply being stronger. Anyway, I might recommend Chouffe Framboise to drinkers who want nothing more than a strong and sweet fruit-based drink, but if that's you, you're much better served outside of the beer sphere these days.