White wine and coffee. Or not

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

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

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

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

Q4 results

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No stopping the hopping

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope for strength

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

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

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

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

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

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

DOT of all trades

Six beers in a variety of styles from DOT today, proving that even if they don't release as many barrel-aged blends as they used to, everything doesn't have to be standard hazy IPA otherwise.

Spin Off Series Pilsner is brewed for Aldi and is described simply as "a classic easy drinking crisp lager". DOT hasn't named the brewery of origin, but if it came from Third Barrel, I trust it to hit the mark. Although it's an attractive warm gold colour, there's a certain haze to it, so isn't precision-engineered in the German or Czech way. A full 5% ABV gives it plenty of substance, feeling almost like a festbier, bock, or similar supercharged lager. The first pull gives all the malt flavours, with a subtle honey and white bread character. The aroma is freshly leafy, suggesting spinach and lamb's lettuce. This hop side manifests at the end of the flavour, bringing a spicy, peppery bitterness and a rub of acidic damp grass. It's lovely. Easy drinking, sure, but filling and satisfying too. I'm pleased also to find an Irish pilsner with enough hopping to justify the label. You won't find better lager in Aldi, and you'd have to look to the likes of Third Barrel's own Hello Yes? for an Ireland-brewed comparator. I wonder if the recipes are related.

Also for Aldi, there's Spin Off Series Brown Ale. This is a bit of a departure as, when it comes to brown ale, DOT normally can't resist adding coffee or doing something funky with Belgian yeast. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this unadorned 5% ABV example is very welcome. In the glass it's a deep dark brown, with hints of ruby visible against the light, and a generous fine-bubbled head. A roasty aroma suggests it is drier than the ideal but the flavour pulls back on the severity, adding a milk chocolate richness which balances the dark toasted grain at its centre. I poured mine a bit cold, so that's all there was initially. With a little warmth, the chocolate takes more of a role, and there's a floral side too: a summer garden of honeysuckle and roses. While it doesn't have the flavour impact of the one Rye River does for Dunnes -- the hoppy punch there makes it a different sort of creature altogether -- as a simple take on an overlooked beer style, it's hard to find fault with it. Just be careful about the serving temperature: closer to room than fridge makes it an altogether more enjoyable experience.

The next one is a session IPA, and means it, at just 3.5% ABV. Mid Week is a hazy one: a pale yellow shade, and more or less opaque. The aroma is a mix of citrus juice and woody nutmeg spice, hinting at complexity to come. They've done a great job with the body, and it doesn't feel at all compromised by the low gravity, landing velvety smooth on the palate. With that comes a veritable bouquet of tropical fruit flavour: passionfruit and pineapple lead it out; guava and mango follow, with a growing lime and grapefruit bitterness. Only that it fades out into watery fizz rather than building to sticky sugar tells you that you aren't drinking Lilt. I don't know that I would literally have a session on this, but as a low-strength beer that's jam-packed with big hop flavour and channels the New England aspect well, it's a very welcome creation, and I hope it sticks around. 

It's quite leap from these two to Twilight, a 9% ABV bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout. Very much the typical sort of thing from DOT. It poured dense and thick, with a fine off-white head on top. The aroma is dark chocolate and boozy liqueur, smelling very classy and luxurious. I was expecting sweet, but there's a deft pivot to drier roast in the foretaste; a tasty coffee smack, with the chocolate running to catch up. It's surprisingly unsweet, for while the chocolate does build, it never quite takes control. A crisp seam of wafer biscuit runs through it from end to end, and although the bourbon is discernible, it remains in the background, speaking softly under the stout, as it too seldom does. The result is a refined and balanced imperial stout, pulling together the correct flavour elements, but holding them in check, so it never gets too sweet or too boozy. I'm sure beers like this don't just happen, and take a lot of skill to produce. Maybe it doesn't have the complexity of a convoluted barrel-aged blend, but it's very fine drinking nonetheless.

I had been planning to wrap things up there, but then the winter seasonal range arrived, with barrel-ageing to beat the band. One in particular caught my eye: Wild Ale III, a mixed fermentation beer aged three years in former white port barrels, then given an extra three months on blueberries. Sounds like my kind of thing. It's a murky pale pink in the glass, looking like a kir. The aroma gives little away, only a nondescript berry tartness. The body is light and there's no real sourness with this one. None was promised, mind, but I wrongly assumed that it would be a central feature. Instead there's a light and cool vinous quality, conjuring real white port, and then spritzy sweet side from the real-tasting blueberries. Some floral perfume and rosewater enters the picture as it warms. It's clean and crisp, and worked well in place of a pre-dinner cocktail. Though 6.2% ABV, it tastes lighter, and there's no heavy oak of the sort that can throw something like this off balance. A little more complexity might have improved it, but as a subtly complex appetite-sharpener, it's a beaut.

Finally, another beer that's fully DOTty. You see, first there was a Cabernet Franc ice wine. Its barrels were repurposed to make single malt whiskey and, years later, re-repurposed for imperial milk stout. The result is Over A Barrel 08, the latest in a series of particularly adventurous barrel experiments conducted in conjunction with TwoSides, the beer brand of Dublin's Brickyard pub. It's more brown than black in the glass, and the aroma really shows off its convoluted heritage, with sharp oaky notes and a spirit heat. Not much sign of the lactose, mind. It is smooth-bodied, however, and I think the milk end of things contributes more to the texture than the flavour, whether or not that's by design. You can taste every bit of the 10.6% ABV, and the booze hit on the foretaste is strong enough to resemble whiskey rather than beer. Behind it, the raw oak again, and the ghost of the wine: a slightly unctuous and concentrated white grape note. Presumably there are normal milk stout features like chocolate and vanilla too, but they were buried too deep for me to taste them, which is a little unfortunate. Overall, I liked this, and I can't really complain that a 10+% ABV whiskey-aged stout was overly hot, but a bit of dark malt beeriness would have been appreciated. It left me feeling that the beer format was merely a vehicle of convenience for all the whiskey and wine characteristics.

Six beers later that's pretty good going by DOT, with some superb examples of their style, going above and beyond the basic specs. They're too wildly different for me to pick a favourite, and as a fan of pilsners, session IPAs brown ales and imperial stouts I can happily say that they all met my needs for these styles. DOT's still got it.

Sweetness and dark

The onset of winter seems to have turned their thoughts dark at Wicklow Wolf. I'm delighted by the offerings they've put forward as a result.

At Halloween, the limited edition series reached number 66, and even though we know Satan's own beer style is New England IPA, they've opted for a black IPA: 6.66% ABV and called Devil's Glen. Like many a black IPA before it, including one I made once, it suffers the cosmetic problem of being more dark brown than black. That they haven't packed it out with dark grain shows in a roast-free aroma, full of bright and juicy citrus, pulling the style's neat signature trick of smelling pale. The flavour is drier and somewhat sweet, with chocolate to the fore, plus some oily coffee bean. The hops aren't long behind, and it's juice again: freshly squeezed jaffa, and a hint of smooth vanilla, suggesting that maybe Beelzebub has had an influence on this one after all. We're back to coffee and black toast for the finish. I prefer a bit more punch in this style; more resin and vegetable than is on show here. This one is gentle and somewhat fluffy, very much pitched at the lily-livered hazebois who can't handle grown-up IBUs. You would never guess its strength from the silky texture and zesty hopping. It may be non-conformist, but I still liked it, as a black IPA and as a beer.

And as soon as the spooky decorations disappear from the shops, out come the stacks of chocolate-by-the-bucket for Christmas. Wicklow Wolf has gone one better than Heroes or Celebrations, and teamed up with Butlers Chocolates -- the high end of mainstream confectionery -- for a beer called Truffle Shuffle. I think it's possible that there are some GenXers in decision-making positions at the brewery. It's a milk chocolate stout, of course, though at the reasonable strength of 5% ABV. They claim a silky mouthfeel on the label, and it is fairly smooth, but there's more fizz than one would accept from silk. The aroma is pretty much identical to hot drinking chocolate, while the flavour is heavily influenced by residual sugar. Its chocolate effect, done with cocoa, lactose and vanilla, is powerfully sweet, and I have immediate sympathy with those continental snobs who insist that what passes for chocolate in this part of the world does not have enough cocoa to be counted as such. The actual cocoa here is a bit of an afterthought and there's a lot of sticky, custardy, toffee-like sweetness to deal with first. It will have its fans, I'm sure, but it's a deeply unserious stout, and even The Porterhouse's daft annual Chocolate Truffle Stout has more of the proper stout about it than this does. I wouldn't be rushing to drink it again, but maybe it'll be the gateway for some Butlers fans into the world of independent Irish beer.

In recent years, the brewery has had an annual cycle of seasonal beers, made with ingredients from its own farm: Locavore. However, where the autumn 2025 Locavore should have been, we got instead an extra special bitter titled Locavore Hop Harvest 2025. It looks like the pattern has been revised. Anyway, this is a dark enough shade of amber to fit the post's theme, and is topped by a terribly handsome thick layer of coarse off-white bubbles. Were it not for a slight hazing, this could pass for cask. The aroma mixes earthy Fuggle tones with light caramel. There isn't much caramel to be found in the flavour, however, with the only sweet element arriving late in the finish. Instead, it's raspingly dry, packed with rough tannins and a twiggy, vegetal bitterness. It fits the style specs closely enough, if somewhat light-bodied for 5.6% ABV, but it's missing a richness and roundness that I think would help improve its drinkability. My feeling is that this is for ESB purists only (I know you're out there) and it was just a grade or two too harsh for me.

A big-ass barley wine to finish. The Still Hand has been barrel-aged with ex-Oloroso whiskey barrels from the brewery's neighbours, Glendalough Distillery. It's 13.1% ABV and a very dark red-brown, almost black. It frothed busily on pouring, settling back to just a skim of foam after a minute. The aroma is loose on specifics but indicates clearly that whiskey barrels were involved in the beer's production, with a warmly boozy waft giving hints of cherry and raisin. The flavour is quite wine-like, though more port than sherry, with a chocolate sweetness at the centre, and dark fruit -- add some fig and prune to the raisin and cherry -- around the edges. For all the initial foam, the carbonation is low, struggling to make itself felt beneath the malt weight. A sticky liquorice bitterness is the hops' token contribution. There's a burn on the finish which is the whiskey again, and a consequent warmth grows in one's innards after swallowing. This is seriously wintery stuff and ideal for cockle-warming on a cold day. I thought at first that the strength was excessive, but it makes very good use of it, and I don't think it would have quite the same multidimensional flavour otherwise. The gold lettering on the can implies luxury, and the beer inside delivers fully on that. My branded pint glass felt a little disrespectful: this is a beer for your best stemware.

One too sweet, one too bitter, but two that were just right (if not perfect). Wicklow Wolf is heading to the end of a very good year of beer releases, as regards both variety and quality. Don't leave us hanging on the winter Locavore, though. We're owed.

Fruit and veg and ice cream

Time was, finding odd fruits, vegetables and spices in beer was a source of excitement for me. These days, I think we're largely better off without them. The wide-eyed innocence hasn't quite gone away, however, so when I spotted that Mad Scientist of Budapest had put out a beer made with spinach, I bought it immediately, against my better judgement.

My better judgement could see that Sippin' On Spinach And Juice is an "ice cream sour", so likely gloopy-textured and overly sweet. Still I was prepared to give it a fair shake. I wish I'd given the can a literal shake before opening it: what poured out was not homogeneous, starting on a watery green trickle, followed by thick pulpy gobbets, settling into the glass looking decidedly bilious: the dull grey-green of institutional vegetable soup, marbled by macerated leaf bits. It looks impressive, but awful.

The beer wasn't as sweet as I expected it to be, and is light-bodied too, reflecting its mere 2.5% ABV. A non-descript tartness is the first flavour manifest, possibly stemming from the kiwifruit in the recipe. There's banana too, and that's next, making it taste like a smoothie even if it doesn't have the density of one. It finishes quickly after that, with no sign of the spinach, nor indeed anything I could pin as ice cream. It's inoffensive overall, certainly once you get past the appearance. I hope I got some health benefit from it, because the taste didn't do anything much for me.

So it wouldn't be lonely, I picked another Mad Scientist beer in the same genre to go with it: Oolong Lagoon, made with peach, apricot and tea. It's only 2.2% ABV, and instead of vegetable soup, looks like carrot soup, which at least is a step upmarket. I was prepared for the thinness this time, and as before there's no vanilla or creaminess to impart the impression of ice cream. Oolong is the absent ingredient in this one: I couldn't find any part of it that tasted like tea. We're spared the banana, leaving just the stonefruit, which tastes tart, juicy and real.

The sour side is less pronounced in this, and while it doesn't have a thick, lactose-derived sweet aspect, there is a tinned-peach element, adding a certain degree of dessertishness. There's another abrupt finish, though the concentrated peach juice does make a return in the aftertaste. It's simple stuff, doing the basics but no more than that.

I really expected more drama from this pair than I got. The only really "wrong" thing here is the presentation of the spinach one; otherwise they're all a bit normal and plain. Their thin textures are where I really felt wrong-footed: ice cream should mean ice cream. I appreciated the modest level of actual sourness but I still won't be making a habit of drinking this kind of beer regularly.