Taste this

I mentioned in Monday's post how microbreweries don't seem to take their own stands at Taste of Dublin any more. It is, I'm sure, a very expensive event to attend, and while you're likely to reach a crowd of punters who are probably not already familiar with your product, I would question how much repeat trade you're likely to get out of them once the tents are folded and the Iveagh Gardens returned to the citizenry.

Across the park from Diageo's Open Gate Brewery, Alltech had a similar landmark bar for its Station Works and Lexington breweries. From the former there were two new beers, including the latest in the Foxes Rock range, Foxes Rock India Pale Lager. Now, I will admit at the outset that I don't really get this style. There's enough of a hoppy buzz in any properly made pilsner so why go chasing after the IPA crowd with this neither-fish-nor-fowl type of beer? Oh yeah: money. OK then. Would any brewer care to admit to brewing an IPL for the sheer love of it?

Abstract witterings aside, real life FRIPL is 5.2% ABV and a highly attractive deep gold colour. It definitely misses its step on the lager front: the body is too heavy, with very ale-like esters and no crisp lager cleanness. And nor is the flavour a good example of IPA: it's floral-sweet and intensely sharp, like the taste of perfume, and that lasts long into the finish as a cloying, abrasive bitterness. It seems like a beer that doesn't quite know what it's supposed to be but it definitely isn't fun to drink.

The other new Station Works beer is brimming with fun, however. It's brewed, I believe, for the Cremin & Radley distribution company and is marketed under the new Bartleys brand. No prizes for guessing what fruit juice has been added to Strawbeeri, and especially not if you've tasted it. It's very strawberry, and extremely sweet. A soft texture adds to the jammy effect and it reminds me a lot of that Belgian classic Früli. Subtle as a brick through the greenhouse window but it hit my sweet tooth just right.

Molson Coors had also staked out a claim for Franciscan Well where I had just a swift pint of their Summer Saison. This is a modest 5% ABV with an invigorating pear-skin edge and an almost velvety smoothness. Very easy drinking and great for a mid-point palate refresh.

On then to the Dunbrody House complex in the corner of the park. Here the hotel had set up a mini lecture area for Chef Dundon to talk barbecue, the restaurant had the standard three-dish offering that all the other Taste participants had, and down one side Dunbrody's on-site brewery, Arthurstown, was pouring a mix of regulars and specials. Arthurstown American IPA was apparently served at Killarney this year but I missed it. It's a 6% ABV bruiser, quite a hazy pale amber and apparently only uses a little bit of Sorachi Ace, which surprised me because it tastes and smells almost one-dimensionally coconutty to me. Light and clean with it, however, and other people I thrust it at found it dank and complex so it must just be me who got hit with the coconuts. De gustibus non est disputandum. Either way, I enjoyed it, and especially the lightness of touch it showed on quite a big ABV.

The remains of the afternoon played out at the Premier International Beer Heaven stand, a fixture of Taste quite possibly since year one. From a distance I had been wondering which new American brewery was responsible for the distinctive paddle-like tap handles but closer inspection revealed it to be Bavaria's own Maisel, going full yank with its craftish range. Among them: Maisel Pale Ale, simple and fun with the clean bitterness of a real American pale ale but wearing more of a German costume up front in the form of a green celery hop bite; Maisel India Ale raises the ABV from 5.2% to 6.3% but hits pretty much the same flavour points, except more of them. The strength is well hidden, however. And best of the lot was Maisel Choco Porter, a lovely balancing act of sweet milky chocolate and dry roasted malt, rich and full while staying clean and drinkable, and all done without the addition of any non-Reinheitsgebot additives. Impressive, but also lovely to just knock back. Except it's 6.5% ABV.

And because we weren't wobbly enough already, Dean broke out the good stuff before we left, starting with a bomber of Widmer Brothers Brrrbon '12. This 9.4%-er is a mucky orange colour and smells of vanilla and lime, meaning the brewery definitely got its money's worth out of that bourbon barrel. It's smooth at first but a growing sweetness makes it more and more difficult to drink as it goes along. I found myself struggling desperately to appreciate its intensity before realising that I just actually don't like it.

It was followed by Widmer Brothers Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout '12 which was much better. Here the 9.3% ABV is better hidden and the raspberry is used to full effect, in both the aroma and the flavour. You get lots of chocolate and lots of tart juicy fruit in both, while the base beer is dry and remarkably light. The hopping is generous too and this does fight a little with the raspberry acidity but the overall picture holds together coherently: bold, but not overdone.

And speaking of overdone, that's the bit where I nabbed a last glass of Open Gate 1516 pils before the shutters came down there and stumbled out into town and around the corner for a comedown pint of Via Maris at Against the Grain.

Lots and lots of beer is definitely my preferred methodology for tackling a food festival.

Any given Friday

When I first visited The Open Gate Brewery, Diageo's Dublin brewpub, I expressed some concern about its lack of, well, openness: that you need to plan forward and book in advance to visit, and how this is likely to keep the masses away from what is intended as a reaching-out gesture. I've been back in a few times over the intervening months, though always as part of invitation-only events and I was very curious to see what The Open Gate is like on a typical Friday evening. So, having waited for the brewing roster to turn out some new stuff, I made arrangements a few weeks ago and headed in.

Pleasingly, the system does seem to be working. It was a mixed crowd, including the inevitable tourists, though very much of the prior beer-enthusiast persuasion. And then groups of locals: either workplace groups or friends using it as somewhere to congregate before moving on to the rest of the evening. And the spirit of the venue was also being observed: folk leaned in as the bar staff explained the beers, others wandered from table to table, inspecting and sniffing the jars of assorted hop pellets. It was a bar themed around beer the way almost no Dublin bar is. Score one for the geeks.

But I wasn't there just to look round me. There was beer to be evaluated. The headline draw was 1516 Anniversary Pilsner, created by ex-Alpirsbacher brewer Jasmin Winterer as the Guinness tribute to 500 years of Reinheitsgebot. The sample I got in my introductory flight looked a bit sad: the perfect clear shade of spun gold, but lacking any sort of head. I traded up to a pint before leaving and that's really how this beer needs to be enjoyed. And enjoy you will: a classically grassy noble hop aroma starts it off, as well as a soft rub of light diacetyl. On taste it's perfectly crisp with a light green Saaz bite, gentle white pepper and a mild baked-cookie malt note. The only fly in this ointment is a tiny one: a finish that's just too abrupt, leaving this drinker hankering for more of a bitter smack on the end, where there's only mineral water fizz. But otherwise it's an extremely well executed pils and a beer I would happily drain many pints of were it more widely available.

A tough act to follow, and next along was Offset Rye IPA, launched in association with the Offset design festival a few months back and causing a storm of controversy after the organisers cancelled a previous sponsorship arrangement they'd had with Kinnegar Brewing. Well, as far as the liquid is concerned, the brewers of Rustbucket have no cause for concern. While Offset does contain enough rye and hops for both to be tastable, it's dominated by a sweet toffee flavour which belongs in a red ale, not here. There's a mild rasping rye grassiness and a token tang of generic citrus but not enough of either to make the beer worthwhile. If you came to Open Gate to learn about IPA, this will leave you with a false impression, even if you enjoy the beer, as some people apparently do.

Last of the new ones is a Chocolate & Vanilla Stout, bearing some resemblance to the Milk Stout they were serving at the opening, in strength at least, at 6.3% ABV. I wasn't quite sure what it was trying to achieve. Yes, there is both chocolate and vanilla in the flavour, and it is predominantly sweet, but I think there's been an effort made to avoid cloying sickliness and this has toned things down to the point where the beer lacks distinguishing features. It's quite bland, in other words, and I ended up hankering after the mild sour twang that defines Guinness stout. The body is lacking as well, and the sweetness grows while it warms. Brewing a beer that's both overly sweet and overly thin is definitely a mortaller.

Antwerpen, the microbrewed version of Special Export Stout, was still on tap and I filled out my flight with one of those: and there's that sour twang. I got it to compare with some that they've been ageing in a rum barrel for a few weeks. It's made a huge difference as well: the sap and sawdust of the wood is very apparent, and there's a little of the sugary spirit as well, but what really interested me is how much has been lost: all the lactic elements, and the smooth creaminess is stripped out. The end result is still weighty and warming but the flavour just isn't as complex. It has been dumbed down. I've occasionally suspected that barrel ageing isn't always in the beer's best interests and this is very much an example of when it's not.

So, pilsner aside, I'm coming out of The Open Gate yet again rather disappointed by the quality of the beers. But chalked up on the blackboard was a forthcoming "Tropical IPA". Nothing can possibly go wrong with that, right?