Big beer's small batches

The uncertainty that surrounds the rest of Diageo doesn't seem to be affecting the folks at Guinness: the one bit of the drinks multinational which looks to be washing its face, and no doubt the faces of Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan too. At The Open Gate Brewery in Dublin, they're continuing to turn out new product, and the recipes have been particularly weird creative recently.

"the classic deli pickle flavor" is the oddly Americanised rationale behind Pickle Sour, arriving at the taproom in time for the late-June heatwave. It's 5% ABV, a pale gold and, shortly after pouring, quite headless. I understand that this is an established style of beer, though not one I've tasted before, so I don't know how accurately this example represents it. First off, it's not at all sour: no mixed-fermentation acidity nor kettle-soured yoghurt twang. It's light and refreshing, though, and while it's predominantly a sweet beer, it's far from the dessertishness of all those fake-sour candy fruit beers. Instead, it delivers the pickle element very successfully. At the centre there's the real green, almost crunchy, bite of gherkin, seasoned subtly and respectfully with herbs -- dill and fennel, says the menu. The accuracy of this serves as a reminder that quite a few spoonfuls of sugar have gone into your wholesome jar of cornichons. This wasn't what I expected, but I liked it. While not a vinegar delivery system like real pickles, it does channel their flavour competently. Of course it's a daft novelty beer, but I have respect for daft novelty when it's done this well.

Alongside it, we also got Specific Sunrise, a New England-style IPA, though a light example at only 4.7% ABV. Pint, so. It's rather wan looking, the sickly translucent yellow of a low-rent witbier. Still, the aroma is bright and cheery with lots of fresh lemony zing. The flavour is clean and, well, not very exciting. There's a simple zesty citrus foretaste which fades too-quickly into watery nothing, leaving only a carbonic bite from the abundant fizz. By the end of the pint, a little vanilla residue had built up, so I guess it qualifies as a New England IPA, though it's far from a good example. Despite being part of a big industrial brewing operation, Open Gate tends not to produce dull beer. This, though proficient and workmanlike, doesn't taste small-batch. Unlike too many of their IPAs, they haven't killed the hops with an overly estery yeast, but it tastes like they haven't used enough hops in the first place.

The next round included an intriguing-sounding Orange Cardamom Rye Ale. It looked pretty normal, the same clear amber colour as the rye ale Guinness made, back in 2016, when they were giving the craft cow a proper milking. This is the same 5% ABV. Rye is the one aspect of the offer that I couldn't taste immediately. The herbal cardamom is very prevalent, somewhere between the baking supplies aisle and the bathroom cabinet. Sweet and zesty orange follows, giving it high-end orangeade vibe: Club or Orangina. I'm told they made their own tincture of orange to get the effect. A faint, tokenistic, old-world hop rasp finishes it off. They served it cold and fizzy, which was deliciously refreshing as a warm-day pint. It is a bit strong for that, however, though since most Open Gate drinkers are here on their holidays, that's less of an issue. If peppery orangeade is something you value, then here it is, done decently, with a bit of poke. Shame about the absent rye, though.

After that pint, I chose to drop down to a half for the Barrel-Aged Cherry Ale, out of respect. OK, it's only 4.8% ABV, but this is a sour ale given six months in Calvados barrels and then aged further on real cherries. I expected it would be involved, and not the sort of beer one quaffs by the dirty great pint. The brewery says it's inspired by Belgian kriek lambic, even if it isn't one. It definitely isn't one. What I missed on reading the description is that it's also blended with a fresh cherry beer, and "blended with" in this context really means "diluted by". The result is very plain stuff, with no mature complexity of any kind. I was hard-pressed to find any indication of barrel aging. The cherry flavour is bright and candy-like, presented on a light and fizzy base. It's predominantly sweet, not sour, and has even more of a soft-drink quality than the orange one. It's passable, but pitched more at the squeals-at-pink-beer crowd than the insufferable mixed fermentation connoisseur. This is another bit of summer fun, and the only actually irritating part is how far the experience of drinking it is from how the brewery describes it. What know they of the finer oude krieks? Bugger all, I'd say.

The next round of releases appeared at first to contain a real surprise: the revival of the late and unloved Guinness Black Lager from 2010. A chat with the management revealed that this isn't the case; it's a new recipe and, with a pint in front of me, I can confirm that that's true. The new Black Lager tastes of something. Primarily hops, surprisingly. There's a hard and raw pellet bitterness from the get-go, running all the way through to the finishing vapours. That's set on a properly clean lager base but with a seam of slightly sticky Czech-like treacle. Together it works well, and is enjoyably flavoursome while refreshing to boot. At 4.2% ABV, it's done at a slightly lower strength than the earlier 4.5% take on the style. This is a neat example of how, for the most part, small scale brewing will get you better beer than doing it industrially.

Finally, assembled, not brewed, was my initial impression of the new Belgian Blonde. My pint of this 6.5%-er arrived extremely cold, and I suspect that separated out the flavours. And there's a bunch of them. White pepper is first, arriving loudly in the aroma and spicing up the foretaste. The core is a crunchy, grainy rasp; rustic, unrefined and wholesome, echoing unfiltered pilsner. Then we're resolutely back in Belgium with the fruit seam, bringing peach, lychee, apricot and nectarine, all bright and distinct, with none of the gummy, sticky warmth. Half way down my pint I learned that it may have been a saison at some point in the production process, and that scans. Style concerns aside, it's a jolly nice creature, all told: complex yet pintable in a way the Belgians wouldn't countenance, but I'm an internationalist to a fault.

Open Gate is in autumnal mode now. That means Germany, so expect doppelbock in the next report from here.

Up before the Beak

I've left it late getting to Beak, a brewery which shares its Sussex home town with the redoubtable Harvey's. But it looks like they complement each other well: Harvey's being staunchly traditional while Beak is colourful, playful and very much down with the non-bitter-drinking kids. I opened my account with a small assortment of the dozen or so Beak beers currently on sale in Dublin.

"Life-affirming ales" is the brewery strapline, but it says nothing of their lagers. I started this lot with Déšť, an unfiltered and naturally carbonated (can-conditioned?) pilsner, presumably in the Czech style, judging by the name. An actual unfiltered Czech pils would be cloudy but this is barely hazed at all -- not that I'm complaining; I was merely a little surprised. The aroma is divine, the fresh-mown summer lawn of Saaz cutting past anything more serious that the Hallertau Mittelfrüh might have imparted. That seems to be in the flavour, where we leave the garden and encounter a harder hop bitterness, one that's a little plasticky to my palate. I got used to it though, and before the half-way point it had changed from unpleasantly harsh to bracingly assertive. That's helped, of course, by the malt side, which brings the rich and rounded crusty loaf quality of really good Mitteleuropa lager. I wouldn't be able to pin this as a clone of any particular Czech or German beer, but to my mind it channels their important attributes beautifully. The paltry 440ml serving format is, of course, an insult.

The next one is rather more run of the mill: Parade, the flagship IPA. Here, "unfiltered" means full-on murk; a medium beaten-egg yellow emulsion. The aroma is brightly fruity, as cloudy IPA ought to be, and there's a strongly tropical character, of mango and pineapple. Enticing. The murk typicality continues in the texture, which is soft and creamy, and happily lacking in unpleasant grit. I expected more from the flavour than I got. Citra, Mosaic and Idaho 7 feature in plenty of big-tasting IPAs, but this isn't one of them. It's not unpleasant, and frankly the lack of garlic and plasterboard off-flavours is a point in its favour, but... There's a subtle blend of fruit salad elements, mostly pineapple and mandarin, but the intensity is dialled way down, starting slow, building to little and fading quickly. That makes for an easy pinter, I'm sure, but it's also 6% ABV, and that should mean a bigger flavour all round. There are, of course, double- and triple- brand extensions, but I didn't think I would need them to get a proper hop hit.

We leave such concerns behind for the finishing imperial stout, Oak, brewed in collaboration with 3 Sons of Florida. Alarm bells began ringing when the can claimed it tries to recreate barrel-ageing without actually doing it, via "innovative barrel-derived extracts, wood additions and micro-oxidation". Beak does Innis & Gunn, by the sounds of it. Further unease was caused by the can, once the beer was poured. I know what an empty 440ml can feels like, and this was heavier, like something weighty was stuck to the bottom of it. I pushed it away and turned to the beer. It smells great: a bit oaky and quite vinous, not far from those lovely barrel-aged imperial stouts that I used to look to De Molen for, in happier times. It's quite flat and very thick, even for 10% ABV. The flavour opens on black cherry and soft toffee, though shies away from the chocolate and coffee which are far more common features in this sort of stout. The wood arrives next and, as expected, it's a very poor substitute for real barrel maturity, adding a dry and splintery tang, then a rough metallic rasp. The overall effect of this high-tech process is half maple syrup and half pencil shavings. The fundamental big stout party is still there, but it hasn't been any way enhanced and, between the sweetness and the tang, is hard work to chomp through. I consider this a misstep, however well intentioned.

Seems to me the life-affirming work of this brewery is indeed done with their lagers. I'm sure I'll be back to Beak in due course, but I don't feel I'm missing anything by not charging out immediately to fill a basket with more of their IPAs.

Would Jubel-ieve it?

Jubel lager "cut with" fruit has, it seems, been going great guns over in the country next door. It's possibly too early to say where this sits in the specialty beer segment, since it's definitely not in the geek-coded global-Brooklyn craft end, nor is it any way presented as traditional, be that authentic or fake. Maybe it's a sector by itself. The arrival of two blatant knock-offs from Irish microbreweries working incognito backs this theory up.

First out was Carlow Brewing with Bohem Lager Cut With Blood Orange. I found it on tap at Tapped. Being curious more than genuinely enthusiastic, I just had a half, to taste. It's the industry-standard 4% ABV, and has a very slight haze, suggesting it's not so non-craft as the brewery presents it. The aroma is pure fizzy pop, suggesting lemonade to me, more than Fanta or Orangina. There's a decent heft to the texture, just managing to avoid being sticky and retaining a properly clean lager crispness. There's not much lager character in the flavour, however. The flavouring gunk has been added in thick and generously. It does at least taste of oranges, though processed: marmalade, cordial and ice pops. Overall I found it decently refreshing, but quite un-beer-like. Perhaps there's a target audience of drinkers who want a radler, but full strength. If so, they're well catered for here.

Jubel splits its half-white logo diagonally, Bohem vertically, so the market was wide open for one that's white on the top and coloured on the bottom. That's about the only significant point of difference for Cúpla Beers: Peach. Wicklow Wolf isn't named on the can as the brewer and brand owner, but you can look up the Eircode of "Cúpla Beers" if you're that kind of curious. I can see why there's a tendency to make peach the flagship flavour: it's striking here, with a perfume that has little to do with real peaches, but is bright and luxurious. Maybe it's because no mass-market soft drinks are peach flavoured, only the posh ones. And there's even a bit of lager character; a hint of grain and a dry finish, after the super-sweet syrup subsides. It's less fizzy than the other though, so while you get a different 4% ABV syruped lager experience, it's not necessarily a better one.

This is one of those fads that I hope won't last long. I don't think it adds anything positive to the beer scene, other than possibly making it more likely that two good breweries will stay in business, and continue making proper beer for people who want it. I'm more irked by the cringey copycat factor. Are we this short of original thought on recipe and packaging design? I can't Jubel-ieve it's not better.

Like Spain

At time of writing, the long hot summer of 2026 is continuing. You won't catch me on holiday in southern Europe, but today I've brought it home with four beers by Basqueland.

I thought 5.6% ABV was a bit strong for something called Bavarian Pils, but that's exactly the same as the arguable archetype from Augustiner, so I'll give it a pass. It's an appropriate clear golden colour, though its head was a little too quick to dissipate. The aroma is seriously funky in a noble hop way, smelling of silage and manure, in a most agricultural manner. Distinctive, assertive, but really not to my liking. The flavour is somewhat less extreme, and there's a more recognisable hop bitterness, though still extremely noble, with concentrated grass and a rocket or white pepper spice. This is one of those beers where I appreciated its boldness, but I tend not to like it when German brewers go hard on the hops, and this is very obviously trying to beat them at their own game. To me, "Bavarian" is antonym of "severe", implying an hospitable softness with maybe a slightly cheeky, spoil-yourself luxury. This beer, conversely, is a hard sensory workout: be prepared to sweat for it.

I was about to compliment Basqueland on including a west coast IPA in the range, and then remembered that the range is huge and I chose the styles judiciously, so Skeleton Bay's inclusion is on me. 6.7% ABV puts it in the right area for an American-style IPA, if a tiny bit light. They've gone pale with the specs, and left a modest degree of haze in there. Still, my authenticity-detecting antennae were tingling. Have they got this close enough? The aroma is mild, and more on the tropical side than citrus. There's a very solid malt density, so while the ABV may be a smidge low, they've still provided a generous base for the hops and given the beer a satisfyingly chewy texture. Loral, Cashmere and Idaho 7 are the dry hops, which perhaps goes some way to explain that tropicality. Can you really make a west coast IPA without some combination of Citra and/or Simcoe? They have, in fairness, given this one a sufficient clean bitterness to pass the style test. It lacks pine and dankness, opening instead on a sweet orange cordial effect, but that gives way quickly to a more starkly assertive pithy bite, one that lingers long, buoyed up by the thickness and leaving a wax-like residue on the palate, much like classic Sierra Nevada Pale Ale does. While this lacks the bite of the best west coast IPAs, and there's nothing for those who consider crystal malt an essential feature, it still delivers on the bitter promise of the style. An IPA brewed for the grown-up palate? What a concept!

From there we jump straight to triple IPA, and Elbow Grease, a 10% ABV hazy job, dark orange in colour with a loose-bubbled head. The hop schedule is a line-up of favourites, featuring Vic Secret, Sabro, Mosaic and Motueka, so I was expecting a good time, and I got it. Present and correct at the centre of them is Vic Secret's essence of aniseed, almost numbing in its concentration. Around it there's a deliciously juicy mandarin and pineapple fruit salad effect, with a hint of Sabro's pithy bite. Its aroma is simultaneously dank and sweet, which is a fun combination. The can art reflects it all nicely: colourfully childish attributes, but presented for adults only. About the only thing I can ding it for is how well hidden the alcohol is. This could easily pass for a mere double IPA. I don't usually need to consciously hold back from necking triple ones -- the booze burn tends to take care of that -- but here the warmth arrives very late. Dangerously late. Before that it's all sunshine, good times and Robert-Crumb hops wearing baseball caps and shades. There's no subtlety or understatement about any of  it, but it hangs together in a joyously enjoyable manner. Vic Secret enthusiasts: take particular note.

Our finisher is Boyicao, an imperial pastry stout. This is a full 12.5% ABV, though only modestly enhanced, with just chocolate and hazelnut. There has been no straying from the specs here: this pours as thickly as you'd expect, and smells luxurious, like a big slice of warm fudge cake, decadently frosted and served under a tall peak of whipped cream. And a glass of Tia Maria on the side. Surprisingly, it's the hazelnut which opens the flavour: a very slightly dry and nutty husky flavour. The chocolate sweeps in immediately after, all brownies and cookies, followed by an almost spirituous alcohol heat. That doesn't build, however, so like the triple IPA above, the prodigious booziness is expertly concealed. It's a big beer, but jolly, not dangerous or problematic. Again, the label expresses the beer's nature accurately: chocolate confectionery on an epic space quest. That's how it tastes.

I'm quite surprised to find the lager is the one that didn't particularly suit me, though I fully recognise that's a matter of my taste, not the product's quality. Basqueland has produced some exemplary work here. I commend all of these beers, whether I liked them or not.

The Queens of Hungary

I have some tripartite brand extendery for you today. The three beers are from Horizont of Budapest, who made one beer, and then tried to sell tweaked versions of it to idiots who just want new, slightly different, beers to satisfy their weird cravings. Fancy that!

Our basis point is Hazy Queen, an IPA in the New England sub-style; 6% ABV and a bright and sunny opaque orange colour in the glass. The can says it's juicy and it certainly looks like juice. There's a sweetly citric quality to the aroma which helps it keep that promise, and the flavour balances biting hop acidity with softer fruit flesh very nicely. It stays on the citric side, threatening tropical without ever quite delivering it, and is deliciously clean with lots of refreshing zing. I assume it's something of a flagship, because it tastes like a beer that has been finely honed and deftly refined to be accessible and enjoyable to all. I could ding it for a lack of distinguishing features, but that would be churlish. It is, in the most complimentary sense of the word, daycent. The citizens of Budapest should be glad to have it as a regular. So how has the brewery managed to trash its rep by making other versions of it?

Well, the first take on that I have for you is Hazy Queen: Kohia Nelson Edition. It's the same strength and pretty much the same colour, if maybe a tiny bit paler. The aroma adds a dry huskiness to the pithy fruit, which is a little worrying. It's similarly smooth, and still citrus first, but the newcomer Kiwi hops don't really transform it. Yes, there's a tiny bit of lychee, white plum and whatnot, bringing a slightly more exotic fruit element, but it doesn't significantly alter the beer from its base, nor bring any significant improvement. If I liked it more, it's because I got to drink a full 44cl of it. It's just as clean, exactly as (not very) juicy, and a jolly fun time. But we're still merely in daycent territory and nothing fancier.

Never mind the hops, then, feel the gravity. We finish on Hazy Double Queen, the original beer, dialled up to 8% ABV. There's no difference to the appearance, but the aroma does seem brighter and ballsier, suggesting biteable fleshy citrus. Yum. On tasting it's definitely heavier and hotter, which is its own kind of fun, but I had been hoping that the hops would be brighter and more colourful. That doesn't happen. Instead, we're back to the nets of satsumas and mandarins, just given a bit of extra malt poke. There's a breadish chewiness and a little boozy heat, though honestly it's not hugely different from the baseline. No marks off, and all is I'm sure as the brewer intended; I'm not awestruck by the presence of double royalty, however.

If there are props to be given, it's because they didn't do anything silly or unpleasant with the variants. They're largely as good as the original, and very worthy of the name. The question, then, is why bother with the minor edge-tinkering? Hazy Queen fans may feel aggrieved that the brewery is making a play for more of their pocket money without doing enough to justify it. Poor show, lads.

Keep Ballymahon weird

Sometime wild beer specialist Wide Street Brewing continues to pursue other goals with its two latest releases.

"Wakame" is mentioned four times on the can of Umi Lager, so its inclusion in the ingredients is a big deal. There's no explanation as to what it is, however. Turns out it's a seaweed, used in Japanese cuisine. The beer is a pale muddy yellow, its head lasting only briefly. It's not flat, though, and has a fully lager-appropriate sparkle, with a decent body, flattering the 4.8% ABV. As well as seaweed, we're promised Sorachi Ace hops, but that's not a huge part of it. Sorachi extremophiles will have to make do with a sweetly satsuma-esque aroma and some gentle cloudy lemonade citrus in the flavour. I can't say I noticed the wakame, other than maybe a mild saline savouriness, but I could easily have imagined that. It's not bland, however. This has the unpolished but very tasty quality of good Czech or German unfiltered lager. With Japanese rice, Japanese hops and unusual aquatic adjuncts, it seems to promise exotic, but instead it's fundamentally decent and very enjoyable. It's a hack observation to say that it would match well with subtly flavoured Japanese seafood but it actually would.

With Krush, the brewery has aimed for hazy but ended up at muddy, the beer's soupy brown appearance as unattractive as the smudgy AI-generated label. The aroma is candy-sweet, suggesting a cordial stickiness, and it's thin-bodied, even for a mere 5.2% ABV. Judging by everything else, I wasn't expecting much from the flavour, so that wasn't as disappointing as it otherwise might have been. Let's see... The sweetness isn't anything like as strong as the aroma suggested, and there's a slightly dreggy dry and bitter huskiness. El Dorado and Krush both tend towards the tropical, and there's a flash of that, but it's not the main feature. Instead, I get a mineral, chalky rasp, a little too much fizz, and an abrupt finish. The can says it's smooth and soft; I say it didn't turn out as the brewer wanted it. I doubt it's turned out as anyone wanted it. The thing about there being lots and lots of hazy IPAs on sale is that the bad ones really stick out, and this is a bad one.

That the tricky exotic lager worked out beautifully while the basic IPA didn't should perhaps not be surprising with Wide Street. It's a brewery that, for the most part, has gone about things the hard way, and we the drinkers have benefited from that. I think they should stay fancy, because simple doesn't suit them.

Solid state

The beer range at Marks & Spencer is something I tend to pick at, rather than actively pursue. But there's a bigger range of them in the UK, and I couldn't help but grab an armful of randomers last time I was passing through that way. Nothing fancy, mind.

First it's an extremely straight-up Helles Lager, stating what it is in large capital letters on the 33cl can. It's brewed by Cornish brewery Harbour, which does a few contractual things of this nature, as I recall. 4.5% ABV seems a little inauthentically low, and it poured without a proper head, which it definitely should not. There isn't much aroma, but it seems broadly on-style: a snap of cracker with a hint of lemon zest. I was thirsty, so half the glass went in one gulp, and there was plenty of invigorating fizz, keeping it dry and properly refreshing. They still managed to shoot themselves in the foot here, however, because the can says it's "lightly carbonated". It is not. In all honesty, how it tastes was not a major concern for me, but out of respect for you, specifically, I will say that it's very plain stuff. There's a slightly hot fruitiness, suggesting the same sort of careless brewing flaw that made it headless, but you'd barely notice that. I can't remember how much it cost, but I'm assuming not much. Drink it cold; lie back and think of anywhere but Germany.

Being northern, there's a better head on the Session IPA by Northern Monk, and it's lighter than the previous at 4.2% ABV. I knew there was haze coming but didn't expect it this early in the set: it looks like a witbier, translucently pale and hazy. There's a pleasant citric zest in the aroma, suggesting it's no sensory lightweight, whatever the strength might indicate. The flavour starts well, with a fairly assertive bitterness, but the lack of substance, I guess, causes it to all fade away frustratingly fast. The pithy American zing gets replaced by a gritty, savoury quality, a common attribute of wonky haze. I mean, yes, you could have a session on this IPA, but personally I wasn't on for drinking more than one. First of all they should warn people it's hazy -- "juicy" isn't enough, especially when it doesn't taste juicy at all -- and secondly they should clean it the hell up. I wouldn't go quite so far as to say this was a can of useless watery dregs, but it leans in that direction. Only the aroma makes it more of a positive than negative experience. Next!

Next is a little pink can of Hazy Pale Ale. This looks less hazy than the Session IPA, being a bright yellow Golden Delicious shade, and close to transparent. Vocation is the brewer, and it's 4.8% ABV. The aroma doesn't have much to say, and the texture is light, lacking the soft fuzz that's one of haze's signatures, and which I know can be done at this gravity. Its flavour is all up front, and it should carry a health warning for Mosaic-dodgers. I know what people mean when they complain about that hop's sweaty onion tendency, but I don't usually taste it as powerfully as it is manifest here. There's a fried edge and a scallion-green acidity; a faint fruit-chew sweet side, finishing on drier caraway husk. All of that flashes past quicker than it took you to read about it and, perhaps mercifully, there's no aftertaste. This passes as a hazy pale ale, sure, but it's very much a supermarket kind of one, lacking brightness, flare and individuality. Another damp squib, I'm sorry to say.

Finally, the big pink can contains the New England IPA, another from Northern Monk. It's a bruiser at 6.2% ABV and is a little darker than ideal: densely opaque, but with a slight orange cast at its heart. We are not told the hop varieties on the label, but from the get-go I detect the presence of Sabro, Sorachi Ace or one of them fellows, because there's a strong waft of coconut. The aroma adds a little dessertish vanilla to that. This particular hop profile has a tendency to taste pithy, and it does so here in spades. Forget your typical custard or juice of most NEIPA, this starts on a strong and sharp rasp of citrus peel, beginning as jaffas and then intensifying, almost to the level of fresh grass or smouldering plastic. It's invigorating and, if you're one of the Sorachi tribe like me, tremendous fun. I thought we'd get something more typical on the fade-out, but that pithiness continues all the way into the finish, given significant legs, and a charming warmth, by the sizeable strength. I liked it a lot, but be warned it's not the accessible easy-drinker one might expect from a big chain grocer like M&S.

It seems the ABV is enough information on which to judge these beers. Bigger is better, by and large. There was a possibility that M&S and its generally reputable contract brewers would have done the styles well. Not the case, unfortunately, but you probably knew that.