Drinkhana

The market for independent beer may have contracted somewhat, but the breweries can still put on a show. A couple of weeks ago the Dublin Beer Festival returned to the Ring Hall in the RDS's horsey bits for a third year, with an impressive array of beers from local and foreign breweries. There was much new and rare to be discovered, so let's begin.

For me, the beginning was O'Hara's and Le Chéile, a lager. I was interested to see "Brewed in Dundalk" on the tap badge. O'Hara's has taken ownership of the former Pearse Lyons brewery and is running it in parallel with Bagenalstown, as predominantly a lager brewery. This New Zealand-hopped pilsner bodes well for the plans, showcasing the Nelson Sauvin and Riwaka beautifully, from a powerful mown-grass aroma, to a flavour packed out with peppery spice and dank resins. 6% ABV gives it plenty of heft, though without any malt sweetness interfering with the hop explosion. Magnificent stuff, and well capable of giving the high-end west-coast IPAs a run for their money.

In sharp contrast, O'Hara's also brought a new Hazelnut Brown Ale, 5% ABV and served nitrogenated. This was somewhat less successful, being a gloopy, sticky affair, loaded up with cloying hazelnut syrup. It has very little to offer beyond the intense sweetness, and while it does taste of nut, it's very much processed and candified. It goes without saying that the nitrogen helps none of this, though it does mean there's little by way of aroma, which is probably a mercy. It compares particularly badly with the pilsner that preceded it, but even without that, I don't think it would have been to my taste.

More lager was needed. I didn't realise that Lough Gill releases an annual Octoberfest beer, and this was my first time encountering it. It's good. There's nothing off-kilter about this pale golden 5.5% ABV job. It has superb balance between the slightly souped-up chewy malt base and fresh salad-leaf hopping with a spinach level of green bittering. The süffig drinkability is helped by a lightly tannic iced-tea note in the finish, keeping the experience supremely clean. This seems like a beer that has been honed; it takes effort and skill to make a lager so casually delicious.

Rye & Coopers is a newly arrived contract brewer, seemingly making in-roads into lots of normal, non-specialist, pubs in Dublin. Good luck to them with that. That has mostly been with a lager, but there's a second beer too, called Gypsy Tongues. Initial marks off for the dreadful AI-generated tap badge, and for the reluctance to name Brehon Brewhouse as the place of production. But the beer is decent, as one would expect from Brehon. It's a straightforward hazy pale ale of 4.5% ABV, leading on vanilla, following through with tropical fruit and exiting on a mild tang of bitterness for balance. There's nothing unusual or exciting here, but absolutely no off-flavours or upsetting surprises. If the intention is to have some by-the-pint fruity haze for the pub, then they've gone about it in exactly the right way.

I didn't go especially all-in on the big beers, but wasn't going to pass by Saturnalia, an old ale from Eight Degrees. It's genuinely old too, having started as a barley wine a couple of years ago, then left to mature. The result is 12% ABV and a gorgeously smooth luxury dessert of a beer, exuding vanilla, butter and a scattering of plump raisins. The undisguised booze gives it a heavy Pedro Ximínez vinous quality, the sweet side balanced by a considerable dose of tannin. It all works harmoniously well together, doubtless due to the extra time it's had in the tank. Sadly, this all goes to Italy. It's a shame that a few nip bottles aren't left behind for Irish drinkers.

It was a pleasant surprise to find a veritable rake of new beers from Trouble Brewing. I began with Easy, a 4% ABV pale ale served on cask. It's a hazy one; light and pithy, with medium dank and a hint of garlic. The brewery does not want us to think of it as a junior version of its flagship Ambush, but I couldn't shake that impression. This has a lot in common with Gypsy Tongues above, being simple and accessible, and well built for session drinking, especially in smooth cask form.

The next one is also intended to be easy: a 4.2% ABV German-style pilsner called Alibi. They say it's unfiltered yet it's flawlessly clear, with almost the greenish tone I associate with Jever. It's not quite as full-on as that hop monster, but isn't far off it, tasting strongly of lawn clippings but not going overboard with it. There's a significant crisp edge as well, giving it a mineral-water character, which complements the hops well. Maybe a little more malt flavour would have made it more interesting, but at the same time, this beer is all about the drinkability, and it's a very quaffable affair altogether. It's not complex, but has just enough to hold one's interest as it slakes one's thirst.

They don't describe True Stereo as a west coast IPA, and at 5.1% ABV it's maybe a bit light to genuinely be one, but it certainly leans in that direction. It's clear and golden with lots of hard pithy bitterness from the combination of Simcoe and Centennial hops. And it tastes as clean as it looks, with nothing interfering with the sharp crispness the hops bring. A bit one-dimensional? Maybe. But with clean pale ale like this a rarity these days, that's not a problem. There are much worse dimensions it could be showing us.

Lastly from Trouble, a dunkel lager called Pull the Smiles Inside. It's a bit of a lightweight at just 4.8% ABV but hits the important style points well. It's big-boned and chewy, delivering the requisite flavours of bourbon biscuit, chocolate and roasted grains. That the recipe was created for, and was successful in, a home brewing competition, isn't in the least surprising. I often find the real thing to be a little too hop-forward, detracting from the dark malt fun. This is dunkel done the way I like it, however.

The other brewery bar I spent a bit of time at was Blarney Brewing. We don't see their beer in Dublin and I'm almost never in Cork these days, so it was good to have the opportunity to give some of the beers a once-over.

By pale lager shall ye measure them, and Blarney's flagship is the 4.3% ABV Hydro. It's designed to be clean and easy-drinking pub fare, and is a little lacking in character as a result. I reckon it resembles Czech pale lager most closely, and has a touch of the golden syrup aspect they show. The texture is soft and there's a mineral crispness at the centre, though little malt and virtually no hop. It's refreshing, but very much not pitched at the geek audience.

Squared - Blood Orange is more for the likes of us. This is part of a series of limited edition IPAs and claims to be west coast style, though the addition of fruit syrup is a bit off for that, as is the mere 5.5% ABV. Still, the pale amber colour fits, as does the strongly dank hop aroma and foretaste. It finishes dry and I almost didn't find the orange. It arrives at the very end and is respectful of the hops, not adding any sticky sugariness, as I feared it might. It's more of a seasoning than a tacked-on flavour. It all works rather well, providing good complexity centred on tasty American hops, in a pub-strength package. Nice.

A different limited series uses Blarney's hogshead-sized pilot kit, and on tap here was Moxee!, a session IPA of 4.6% ABV, single-hopped with El Dorado. I wasn't too impressed by this, and I blame the strength. It's thin and fizzy, and lacks any proper hop impact. El Dorado should be presenting a multicoloured fruit candy effect, but there's none of that here. There's clean and pubby, and then there's just bland. I'm afraid this one fell a bit too much on the latter side.

Onwards! Just one beer from Kildare's Dew Drop brewery, a Motueka-hopped IPA called Far Side, because New Zealand, obvs. I don't have much to say about this one either, unfortunately. It's a simple and harmless sort of murk; 5.2% ABV, and although it boasts of being double dry-hopped, that's extra meaningless here, as it doesn't taste especially hop-forward. Garlic is more prominent than any of the herbs or fruit I would expect Motueka to bring. Add a smear of vanilla and you have something very ordinary, done all the time by lots of different breweries. I'm sure it sells but it doesn't make for very interesting drinking.

The Kinnegar stand is where I finished my evening's drinking. They had another new pilsner, called Day Skipper. I'm not sure how this differs from their core-range Donegal Lager, though it's very slightly stronger at 4.7% ABV. And typical of Kinnegar, it's precision-brewed to be clean and balanced, with a harmonious mix of crisp biscuit malt and a gentle noble-hop celery bitterness. It's light-bodied without being thin, and has a soft texture reminiscent of the kind of lager you get from a side-pour tap in Czechia. I don't know where they're sending it after the festival, but I wish it well.

And the last beer is the latest in Kinnegar's regular limited edition series. Brewers At Play 52: Spruce Tip IPA is 6.1% ABV and uses its novel ingredient to good effect. It doesn't interfere with the hopping, but adds a complementary herbal note to an otherwise quite sweet IPA, centred on notes of meadow flowers and ripe strawberry. It's certainly unusual. The big gravity gives it a luscious softness, and while it runs a risk of being overly sweet, the hopping, and pine, are generous enough to add the right level of bitterness to keep it enjoyable, orthodox and gimmick-free.

That was quite a jolly set, for the most part, and it was particularly pleasing how many good lagers there were to try. Nothing had the beatings of that first one by O'Hara's, however. I hope I'll be seeing it again before long, and that there's more like it to come from the new brewing arrangement in Dundalk.

Feel the width

The best brewery in Longford, Wide Street, makes a return to these pages today, with a whole three new beers.

The first, Keller Pils, has been around since last autumn, but had eluded me until recently. This strikes me as the kind of beer a brewer makes primarily for their own consumption, and that's generally a good sign. A 5.5% ABV lager, it is only slightly hazy, and attractively golden. Its aroma is even more enticing, balancing snazzy Saaz grass with soft and cuddly candyfloss malt, plus a little hint of lemon on the end for a cheeky extra piquancy. Saaz "in its purest form" reads the label copy, and you certainly get that in the foretaste: a big bitter hit of mixed dried herbs, spicier than the damp cut grass which I more readily associate with the hop, but no less enjoyable. A softly floral honey effect follows, and then the malt is right in behind, giving it a gentle spongecake sweetness, before a clean finish with no aftertaste. There's a nicely full body, making it satisfying drinking. For a fuzzy beer, this is a precision effort, and delivers exactly what the style demands. Perfect after a long day tending to the fermenters and whatnot, I'm sure.

Ooof, it's a hazy IPA next. What happened, Wide Street? You used to be cool. The Crystal Ship is a murky amber, rather than the more fashionable beaten-egg shade. The aroma is tropical and funky, like a bowl of mango and passionfruit was left to ripen for too long. The colour had me a bit worried that it might be oxidised, but there is no staleness in the flavour. Things stay sunny and tropical, and definitely fresh, with just a hint of savoury grittiness arriving after the fruit. That's not enough to spoil things, but at the same time the beer is a little on the subtle side, and I think a bigger hop flavour would improve it. It's only 5% ABV, so perhaps the subtlety can be excused. This is probably better oriented towards pub drinking, and has more than a little in common with Trouble Brewing's classically pintable haze, Ambush. If that's a regular for you, definitely try this. And while it's well-made and tasty, I would still prefer if Wide Street didn't make a habit of haze.

"Barrel-aged wild sour ale" is more like it. This is Passiflora, given three years in oak and then, dubiously, flavoured with passionfruit. It's 5.8% ABV and a warm red-gold in the glass. The oak is immediately apparent from the aroma, with a classy, lambic-like gunpowder spice, and the suggestion of quite a robust sourness. That's where the passionfruit comes in. The fruit helps soften the flavour, smoothing it out without dulling its edge. It tastes sour, for sure, but not harshly acidic, and the spice is still there, though now more pepper than mineral, with hints of cinnamon and incense too. I feared the passionfruit would feel artificial or tacked-on, but it's well-integrated, adding a classy perfume rather than sticky syrup. While the strength isn't apparent, it's not a beer to drink quickly. The sourness means small sips are the way to go, while the spicing that comes with each one makes for optimal enjoyment. This is classy stuff, and one of those beers I'd half expect to be delivered in a corked bottled, though a can suited me just fine.

That's a pretty good set, then. If the brewery feels it must make hazy IPA then they've gone about it the right way. But drinking pils and the wild 'n' weird is where they do their best work. Long may that continue.

Nothing naughty

A pre-Christmas visit to the Rascals taproom in Inchicore turned up a couple of new releases, their first for me since the summer.

I'm old enough to recall when microbreweries making something they described as "Mexican lager" meant a beer which was crisp and, often, a dark-ish amber colour, drawing influence from central European lager traditions. At some point they seem to have collectively decided that "Mexican" means there's lime in it, as though the habit of sticking a lime wedge in clear-glass longnecks wasn't something we beer snobs deride. Rascals Lime Light is 4% ABV and includes lime zest in the recipe. Lime and light: I see what they did there. My expectations weren't high, but they've done a good job with the concept. For one thing, the citrus is not especially prominent, adding quite a subtle tang to the whole. It's a bit of character, rather than the beer's whole deal. The beer behind it has a decent malt substance, maybe not quite like an Austrian lager, but certainly no clone of mass-market, brewed-under-licence, pseudo-Mexican crap. A lightly floral hopping is just as much part of the taste as the lime. This is a delightful summer refresher, and a ray of sunshine on a dismal winter evening.

Recently launched in cans, but on tap at the brewery, was Freewheelin', a hazy IPA with New Zealand hops. That's quite an interesting concept, and combines haze's sweet vanilla with a more spiky herbal hop bitterness. There's not so much of either that they clash, and the result is all very complementary and integrated. Although it's a substantial 5.8% ABV, I found this very straightforward and drinkable, entirely in keeping with the chosen name. Anyone looking for those big Kiwi flavours may be disappointed, but it's just not one of those beers. Think Trouble's Ambush with a bonus antipodean spicy twist. As far as I know, it's a special edition, but Rascals has form on making such things permanent. This could be a candidate.

I had just missed the apricot double IPA so was a little disappointed there was nothing properly strong to finish. Instead, there was the welcome return of Breakfast of Champions coffee stout for dessert. Something for everyone (by the pint) at Rascals.

Big can energy

Lancashire brewery Rivington is a new one to me. I don't know if they've made much headway in their time in Ireland so far, as this pair were rescued from the Craft Central bargain bin, a few days past their best-before date.

The one that caught my eye as I perusing said bin was Struck Me Down, described as a farmhouse pale ale. Intriguing. It's a hazy pale yellow in the glass, with a fine white head. There's a pleasant kick of lemon zest from the aroma, but I think it hasn't otherwise been well served by time. I believe I'm within my rights to expect more zest from the flavour, but if it was there originally, it's gone now. Instead, it's dry and savoury, with a crunch of sesame seed up front. There's tiny pinch of citrus in the middle, and then a different sort of savouriness -- a briney salinity. It's all a bit severe, and drinking it was an effort, which shouldn't be the case for any beer at 4.6% ABV. The farmhouse side of the spec is all dry and earthy, lacking any fun fruit or funk. I had high hopes for this, but whether it was the recipe or the extended storage time, it didn't live up to them.

That had me worried about the follow-up: Never Known Fog Like It. I just liked the name, but this turns out to be the brewery's flagship, and received particular praise from Katie a few years back. Well, let's see how it works a week after the expiry date. It's a cheery bright yellow/orange colour, fully opaque, with a thick and lasting head. The aroma is quite bitter and piney, which makes sense as traditionally bitter hops Simcoe, Chinook and Citra are all included, alongside Mosaic. Despite looking thick, it's actually quite light, and the easy-going texture reflects its modest 5.2% ABV. The flavour is quite a simple one, but delicious. It's pretty much all mandarin, and all of the mandarin: the peel, the pith, the flesh and the juice, sweet and tangy with a tiny bite of acidity. There's a hint of the green pine from the aroma too, but barely noticeable and easily ignored. This can seems to have weathered much better than its stablemate, and the beer is still very enjoyable. It reminds me of another brewery's flagship: Trouble Brewing Ambush, one which similarly puts high-end New England characteristics in sinkable pint form.

The final score from Rivington is a 1-1 draw. Perhaps my favourite feature of the beers was that both came in 50cl cans, which just feels more satisfying to handle and to drink than the usual 44. I'm not in a big rush to explore more of their wares, but I'll make a point of getting fresher ones when I do.

Clock this

I'm used to Irish breweries having a long gestation, from the first announcement by some ballsy entrepreneur to actually being able to drink a pint they brewed can be a long stretch, and often the second part never actually happens. So I was agog at how fast things moved with Changing Times. The news that a consortium of prominent Dublin publicans had bought the old Kepak warehouse in Glasnevin and were planning to set up a brewery in it only landed last July. Since then we've seen Franciscan Well co-founder Shane Long and former Trouble and Hope brewer Mark Nixon become associated with the project, and now only four months later, there's actual beer pouring.

The consortium of owners includes The Palace pub in Temple Bar, and that's where I went on the day after the high-profile launch to try out the first two. Any excuse to visit such a fine establishment.

Daydreamer is the lager, described on the badge as "snappy". It's a very pubbable 4.2% ABV and arrived extremely cold, with a €7.60 tab -- priced on a par with other independent beers. There wasn't much to say about it at first: lots of fizz and a tiny amount of haze on the pale yellow body. Given a moment, there's a pleasant cracker crispness (snappiness? sure, why not), and a moment later brings some Germanic hopping. That adds a different sort of crispness: crunchy green vegetables. With the pint half empty and warmed a little, there's a threat of butteriness in the aroma but the flavour stays clean and dry. This has the basics of decent lager, and certainly isn't a clone of the cut-corner big brands. At the same time, however, it's no connoisseur's lager and only hints at the fun you can have with good pilsner, Helles or the like. If the mainstream lager drinkers aren't completely tied to the familiar labels, this offers an alternative of acceptable quality. I'm guessing that's what it's meant to do.

Launching alongside is the pale ale, After Hours. They've put "hazy" on the badge, but it's not really much cloudier than the lager. Sorry, hazebros: nothing for you here. It's 4.2% ABV again, which puts in a competitive space with Little Fawn, but it's nowhere near that quality. The aroma is broadly about American hops, with a certain amount of pine resin, though nothing overboard. The texture is thin, and fizz is again central, something much less acceptable in a pale ale than a lager. In the flavour, the hops make a valiant effort to be heard, but can't quite manage it sufficiently. There are token quantities of juice and dank with minimal bitterness, so it fits the hazy profile in the most basic way but, to me, comes across like an Ambush that's been run under the cold tap. It's not offensive, bad, or poorly made, but it tastes cheap and dumbed-down. This sort of beer was radical in Ireland a decade and more ago. These days, I think even mainstream pale ale drinkers will find it lacks character. I wouldn't be fully confident that it's a trade-up from fresh Hop House 13.

So... I don't really know who these beers are for. I can't see any drinkers of the big brands making the switch, when they've already turned down the pre-existing alternatives. And this goes even more for the third in the range, Clockwork stout, arriving soon. Equally, there's not much to attract the seasoned drinker of microbrewed beers. I see After Hours working as a distress purchase, but I think most of us would prefer a Little Fawn, Ambush, Scraggy Bay or Galway Hooker. It's disturbing to hear already of independent breweries' taplines being removed from pubs which are part of the brewery consortium.

A brand new brewery means lots of new potential, but I'm not seeing that realised to any great extent in the first two beers.

An assortment of foreigns

This is the final post from my recent trip to Vienna for the spring meeting of the European Beer Consumers Union. The meeting venue for the first day was Del Fabro Kolarik, a drinks importation and distribution company which has close ties to Vienna's Ottakringer. The company's ancestry also includes a spell as the local outpost of the Budvar brewery, not long after it was founded and when they were all part of the jolly Austro-Hungarian empire. Budvar is still a major feature of its portfolio, and for the meeting they kindly tapped up a keg of Budvar Nealko.

I went in a little conflicted: non-alcoholic lager rarely floats my boat, but this is Budvar. Could they pull it off? Yes and no. It is still a non-alcoholic lager with much in common with the other major brands at large. It's a bit too sweet and has an off-putting sticky wort taste. But there's also a little of the Budvar class: a solid poke of freshly grassy Saaz hops, which goes some way towards putting manners on the malt. If you absolutely must drink one of these, this is probably about as good as it gets. I wouldn't be about to trade over from the real thing, however.

The Swedes, normally such a cheery and upbeat nation, were in mourning for the Stockholm Brewing Company, which has apparently changed hands, and with it a change in ethos. Its more interesting beers are for the chop, including its take on geuze: Max Cuvée. A bottle had been brought along for one last outing. Its demise is a real shame, because this was absolutely on point, packed with the gunpowder spice which I particularly enjoy, and with an assertive sourness which veered towards vinegar but stayed on the good side of that line. I would be distraught if something this good disappeared from my local beer scene.

Not for the first time, the Polish delegates brought cans from Trzech Kumpli. New to me was Misty, one of their hazy IPAs, or "contemporary", as the brewery labels it. A very normal hazy yellow colour with lots of foam, the aroma is all about the vanilla and you have to wait for the hops. They arrive in the flavour. tasting appropriately fresh and zesty. It's a charmer, offering nothing that lots of other beers like this don't also have, but without any of the unpleasantness hanging on. It's very clean and there's no heat, presumably since it's only 5.5% ABV. For haze fans, I think it would be well suited as a fridge filler or go-to pub IPA, much like our own Ambush.

The most interesting bottles had been muled in by the Icelandic delegation: three bottles of spontaneously fermented ale bearing the maker's mark of Grugg & Makk.

First open was the 2020 vintage of Svörtuloft, a pale and hazy yellow beer of 4.7% ABV. There was a pleasant soft peach element here, suggesting that Icelandic microflora contains nothing more exotic than the good old Brettanomyces that you get everywhere else. The finish is dry and crisp. That was all well and good, but plonked in front of it, spoiling the vista, was a horrible phenolic twang, suggesting that there are either evil bugs in the Nordic air as well, or that something went wrong in the brewing or packaging. I would have been annoyed if I had paid whatever doubtless eye-watering price this goes for in Iceland. Fortunately there was also a bottle of the 2023 version of the same beer to hand, and it didn't have the same thing, giving the peach free rein and allowing also for a more subtle pear nuance. It was maybe a little sharp and vinegary, perhaps due to its youth, but overall was rather good.

Employing yeast from a different part of the island was Djúpalónssandur. I'm guessing the recipe was otherwise the same, because this was a very similar beer, and not infected. It maybe seemed a little drier and less fruity, with a snappy cracker centre, less of the ripe fruit gumminess and also no suggestion of vinegar, I'm happy to say. As such, it was more subtle, and more interesting to drink as a result. I still don't even want to imagine the price tag.

One last beer for completeness, back in the cosy cellar of Café Bendl, where I brought you for Puntigamer on Monday. It's a Heineken house, and also sells their Czech lager Starobrno. This puts in a workmanlike performance, far from the Republic's best, but with enough of the core elements to keep me happy: crisp grain husk and a little tea. The absence of decoction mashing's signature richness and the Czechs' favourite off-flavour, diacetyl, means it's probably deemed unacceptably bland by the discerning drinkers in its home country, but it did the job for me.

The trip wraps up there. I went in in the full knowledge that there's much more to drinking in Vienna than lager after lager (not that there's anything wrong with that) but I don't think I was expecting to find quite the varied range of taste experiences that I did. Stay curious, Austria.

Go fish

Lough Gill features regularly on these pages. It's a brewery which turns out a lot of product, and one which appears to have an eye on the US as its target market. As such, it tends to go big: high-strength IPAs, barrel-aged imperial stouts and smoothie-like "pastry sours" feature prominently. Today, however, it's a change of tack, with two rather more sessionable beers, both appearing on draught at UnderDog recently.

The first is Horizon, a pale ale at 4.7% ABV. It looks like the straightforward proposition it is: a mostly-clear pale amber with only the slightest cast of haze. They describe it as a "California IPA" without elaborating on what they mean by that. One might be expecting piney hops in the west coast style but it goes for gentler peach and melon instead, suggesting to me that Mosaic or its ilk have been employed. The texture is as light as the sessionable ABV suggests but comes with a heavy dose of fizz which I found slowed my drinking down. This is simple and decent stuff, and will hopefully find its way to being a permanent offering in places that don't already have the likes of Little Fawn, Ambush or Scraggy Bay on tap.

I neglected to take a photo of the other beer, which is a shame because it looked well in the Lough Gill Willibecher pint glass. Black Wave is a stout, nitrogenated and 4.2% ABV so very much made for pub drinking, and as far as I know that's the only way it's available. It performs the task well, without doing anything too unusual, for good or ill. For the most part the flavour is dry with a medium level of roast, enough to satisfy a regular drinker of such stouts without causing problems for those that are wary of it. There's a countermelody of milk chocolate which gives it a character of its own, and then a herbal echo, suggesting spearmint freshness to me. That sounds odd but it fits the rest of the profile seamlessly and is barely noticeable unless you look for it. I would say that getting a beer like this into pubs is a very hard sell and I wish the brewery luck with it.

This new turn towards more accessible beers is a welcome one, so long as it doesn't interfere with the regular production of fancy cans. Either or both of the above would be a welcome addition to the line-up in a pub seeking to give mainstream drinkers quality options from a small independent Irish brewery.

Thiols and barrels and bears, oh my

"Does it have thiols in it? I'm not drinking anything without thiols." This appears to be what brewers are banking on their end users demanding these days, because there's a lot of thiols-as-marketing around. What's a thiol? I don't know, I've never seen one. Third Barrel's Electric Eyes has them, though, according to the can. It's a hazy IPA, though modest at just 5.6% ABV. The thiol-optimised hops are Idaho 7 and El Dorado and they come through quite intensely in the aroma, especially El Dorado's tropical-flavoured chew sweet impression. There's tropical juice aplenty too, and a mild bitter spicing. The flavour is an odd mix of bitter and sweet, presenting aniseed, jaffa pith, garlic and orangeade, set on a light and fizzy body, missing the fluff of most sweetly hazy jobs. Oddness aside, it's quite good, brightly fresh and enjoyably complex, showing off aspects of its two hops I'd hadn't found before. That's because of the thiols, you know.

No thiols are listed on the session IPA Day Drinkin 4: The Dank Knight. It might still be worthwhile, however. Like the previous three in the series it's 4% ABV and hazy yellow, but this time we get Idaho 7, Mosaic and Columbus for hops. Dank? Not really. That word implies resinousness to me and this is precisely as light as the ABV implies. There is a slight herbal spice thing, however, which could be classified as dank if it showed up in a weighty US-style IPA, but this ain't one of them. Enough on dank. What you do get is lots of fun citrus zest, lemon in particular, with touches of orange and grapefruit. For a session IPA that's perfect. It's fun and flavoursome while unfussy and very drinkable. No complaints here.

There was another new one from Third Barrel client Crafty Bear in mid-November called Colour Change. This is a very hazy pale ale, its opalescence putting me immediately in mind of Trouble's iconic Ambush, though it's a tad stronger at 5.4% ABV. Once that was in my head there was no escaping it. The aroma, too, sang of mandarins and vanilla, though with perhaps more of a bitterness than the Kildare lad. The flavour, it turned out, didn't swing that way, and instead it's a beautifully smooth and sweet affair, piling in the fruit and brushing it with just a cheeky hint of savoury garlic on the end. Overall it's very good, though. Crafty Bear is a sporadic producer and I don't know how permanent any of its beers are, but I could see this one being a steady seller, just like Ambush.

Loose on the Juice has been around even longer, and the fact it was still around in January and was tasting banging-fresh on draught in UnderDog suggests I wasn't drinking the first batch. The ABV goes up to 6.3% ABV and the body is quite dark for something hazy. While the previous one smelled of mandarin but didn't taste of it, this follows through fully on the same promise: bags of juicy mandarin, though not a lot else. A tiny hint of coconut in the finish is its only nod to complexity. There's very little heat for the strength too. Again, this is a great example of how to bring out the good side of hazy IPA, and could also be a go-to if it sticks around.

A late add to the Crafty Bear set is Shape Change, a session IPA.  It's a sort of a beige colour in the glass topped by plenty of loose white head. The aroma is fresh and very New-Englandish, showing lots of lemon curd with a rub of garlic. This is no weakling at 4.5% ABV and the body shows off that full-sized gravity, being round and fluffy, carrying the flavour all the way through to a long finish. Said flavour is an uncomplicated mix of citrus and candy: not quite juice, but definitely fruit-based and sweet. It doesn't do much, but you do at least get plenty of it. Though designed as a session beer, this hits pretty much all the points required of a bigger American-style IPA. I'm not a huge fan of this flavour profile in general, but I think they've made a great job of it here.

Back to Third Barrel for some stronger stuff to finish on. First up: Dubbel Impact, only about the 13th commercial beer to use the name in recent years. Like Van Damme himself, it's a big boy: a full 8% ABV and looks a darker brown than most dubbels. The head is half-hearted and doesn't last long, somewhat spoiling the appearance of what should be a foamy, hearty ale for jolly monk types to quaff. Without the froth it looks a bit Calvinist. In the flavour, the Belgium factor is quite low: not much by way of fruity esters; no plums or figs, and surprisingly little heat. What you get instead is a rich cakey chocolate effect with a little clove spicing, some sugary toffee and floral topnotes. A dry roasted edge finishes it off neatly. It's good, but not exactly what I'm after in a dubbel. I really miss the dark fruit. Far be it from me to ding a beer purely on stylistic grounds, but this is one of those. Close your eyes and think of porter.

Lastly a stout with salted caramel called Set To Smooth. Set to fizzy, more like: lots of foam on this as it poured, and quite an actively sparkly mouthfeel. The beer behind the bubbles seems a little thin too, given the not-insubstantial 7% ABV. Still, the salted caramel is absolutely there in the flavour, sweet with a mildly sweaty tang. There's a bit of complexity with that as well: hazelnut, coconut and a dab of hop resin. While it tastes good, as long as sweet is your thing, I find the thinness hard to get past. It really ought to be bigger and stickier, and just seems a little vapid without it; a pastry stout for slimmers. Them's the breaks, I guess.

I should be grateful that Third Barrel is turning out more than an endless stream of hazy pale ales, but that does seem to be what they're especially good at, on this showing at least. Maybe the dubbel needs more thiols? Just a suggestion.

Play to your strengths

Wicklow Wolf has got right into gear for 2022 with a bunch of new releases: permanent, seasonal and one-offs. The full-spectrum craft beer experience is what we come to them for.

First up is a new core range beer, hazy and hoppy, called Tundra. It's badged as a "tropical" IPA, though the label doesn't tell us what hops they've used, only that they're "tropical". Since it's joining the core range I guess they want to be able to swap those tropicals as and when they need to. I got a significant kick of alcohol heat from the aroma, more than I would have thought for 5.6% ABV. The flavour is much more accessible, however, with a light orangeade sweet side beefed up by dank and resinous hopping. Tropical not so much. There's an altogether more serious savoury element, some fun peppery spice and a pinch of proper citric bittering. In combination that's quite enjoyable, but I think "tropical" is overstating it a little, given some of the roaring juice-bombs currently on the market.

This is, I guess, what qualifies as mainstream these days: built to be repeatable and cost effective, unlike some of the uneconomical art-piece special editions you get. As such, and what with the blue can, it puts itself squarely in the same category as Trouble Ambush, and I don't think it quite measures up, needing more softness and sweet fruit. But if you like Ambush and aren't fervently loyal to it, here's something else to try.

Latest in the Endangered Species series is an IPA hopped with New Zealand varieties Nelson Sauvin and Moteuka. This sort of thing has been around for yonks but that's no reason to stop brewing them. Far Far Away is 6% ABV and a standard hazy orange. There must be an IPA template these guys are working from. I get nothing especially kiwi from the aroma, smelling much more American, with citrus dominant. Nelson's diesel mineral side is apparent from the foretaste in a most enjoyable way, softened by orange pith and juice. I get a little herbal grass from the Motueka but it's mostly restrained. In fact, that's true for the beer in general: although it's heavily bodied and built for sipping, the hops aren't very loud and it's up to you whether that's a point in favour or not. I would have preferred a bit more welly, especially in a one-off, but couldn't help enjoying the balance. If it really is built around an IPA template, it's one that works. 

Their new stout is a 6.6% ABV export-style job called After Midnight. Taking a sip without bothering to read the label I thought "Oh, they've done another coconut stout. Fair enough." They haven't, though. This uses an experimental variety (HBC 472), a close relative of Sabro. And boy is it Sabro-like, with an even realer dry coconut-husk rasp. It takes moment before any further complexities emerge. That takes the form of a plum and raisin fruit side and an old-fashioned green-cabbage hop bite. That last bit is a reminder that beyond the cutting-edge experimentation, this is really a very traditional stout, of the kind mainstream brewers have long since stopped making. It's dense and smooth, pure black and topped with a beige head. The texture is silky enough to have me seeking oats in the ingredients, but there aren't any. Yes, I would prefer this sort of thing without the experimental element, but I don't resent it either: the stout's intrinsic quality shines through.

As the brewery's new pattern of Locavore single-estate beers settles into an annual cycle, I detect an intensification of the process. This time last year, the spring Locavore was garnet coloured and 9.8% ABV. For Locavore Spring 2022 we're looking at something jet black and all of 11.9% ABV. Approach with caution. Officially it's still a barrel aged farmhouse ale with Brettanomyces, and like last year's it pours quite flat. The aroma suggests autolysis: that sweet/savoury point where melty chocolate meets soy sauce. The flavour veers away from the savoury, with raisins, quince and sage all featuring. There's a general medieval vibe, of spiced wine and roasted meat. I like it. While it's not hot as such, you know you're drinking something strong. Approach with caution, but enjoy: there's a lot to have fun with here.

I'm sure I've said this before, but Wicklow Wolf is building a very decent reputation for itself as a stout brewer. There's enough hazy IPA coming out of the Garden County already so I wouldn't object if this became even more of a specialism for them.

Slow start

In my last pale ale round-up in mid-November I noted that the release rate had slowed down significantly. Even then I wasn't quite prepared for the effective cessation of new beers from Irish breweries in January. What follows, then, are a handful I acquired, mostly, at the end of 2021. 

To begin, we pick up another from the revived Post Card brand, now brewed at Farrington's in Kildare. The Spire is relatively close to the original version which I drank, and didn't particularly enjoy, back in 2015. It's still an IPA and the ABV has climbed slightly to 5.4% from 5.2%. It has a lot in common with its stablemates, being slightly hazy in the glass and rather lacking in carbonation. For whatever reason, possibly just my mood, I found that less of a problem this time round, enjoying the gentle cask-like sparkle and finding it quite sufficient. There's some lovely tropical fruit in the aroma, making me expect something sweet and soft, but the citrus gets in first: a pithy bite that pinches the palate playfully at first, before growing into a more acute and lasting bitterness. There are notes of orange peel and hard candy hidden within that, but mostly it's all about that west-coast kick of pine and wax, plus a bonus naughty dankness. As long as you like them punchy, this is quality stuff.

It's great to be able to include a black IPA in one of these: I don't get to do that often enough. This one is called The Echo Chamber and is from Heaney Farmhouse. It is indeed very black -- they often aren't -- and there's a generous stout-like head on it. The bitter and spicy red cabbage aroma immediately tells me this is BIPA done properly. 6% ABV gives it plenty of substance, providing a stage on which the hops and roasted malts can perform. An uncompromising bitterness is where the flavour begins. That fades and softens gradually, becoming aniseed and spinach first, then burnt toast and tar: all classic aspects of the style and quite delicious. There's a sweeter side too, a little dark caramel and praline which provides a modicum of balance. I get a sense that this is black IPA designed by someone who really likes black IPAs. It maybe leans a little to much on the punchy-bitter side at the expense of flavour complexity and subtlety, but not every beer needs to be complex and subtle. When you want a proper hop wallop with a side of roast, here's your man.

Rascals goes unapologetically for the hazy with Southern Cross, a very opaque orange number with skeins of murk surging through, making it look more like a glitter beer as it poured. "Chewy" is written in large capitals on the back, and while I wouldn't go quite that far, it is a big-textured fellow; a cuddly teddybear of an IPA. The aroma mixes savoury garlic oil with bitter liquorice, meaning it's not one of your tooth-rotting juice jobs, being rather more serious and grown-up. I think that's in its favour. A herbal bitterness is the centrepiece of the flavour: liquorice again, some thyme and some mineral smoke. The southern hemisphere hops aren't named on the can, but I'd be willing to bet that German-derived New Zealand varieties are involved, and Motueka in particular, with perhaps a dash of Nelson? Overall, it works very well as an unorthodox take on hazy IPA. Leave aside your expectations of clean tropicality and embrace the weighty -- OK, chewy -- herbal mineral savoury bitterness.

O Brother had a relatively quiet 2021 but, late on, its output did include Ghostkeeper, an IPA brewed with Strata and Idaho 7, 6.5% ABV and hazy, of course. The aroma is middle-of-the-road American citrus and the flavour is muted too. While I'm unpacking what's there, props to the texture which is full without veering into sticky, making for satisfying, chewable drinking. Back to the flavour, then. It delivers the basics of American-hopped beers: a little pith, a little resin. While it has the softness of the hazy varieties it's thankfully missing the off-notes of vegetable or earthy dregs that too often accompany the murk. I quaffed through it pretty swiftly and enjoyed it as a sinkable sort of heavy IPA. There's not much to consider here, but that's not always a bad point. It's clean, it's decent, and I think that's enough.

Keeping it Kilcoole, new to Larkin's's Curious Society range is a 7% ABV IPA called BitterSweet. It's a bright and cheery pale orange colour, hazy but lightly so. That does make it look a little watery, but the gravity ensures there's plenty of body. Citra and Mosaic are the hops and, as seems to be the case with these, Mosaic is doing all the heavy lifting. It smells totally tropical, of pineapple, mango and guava, all of them ripe and mushy. There's a tiny hint of Mosaic's dark side -- raw green onion -- but it's fleeting and not at all present in the flavour. Here the juicy joy continues with only minimal bitterness for balance. With the thickness and sweetness it does run the risk of turning cloying, and one 440ml can was plenty for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed that all the way through. If you're a juice-chaser when it comes to IPA, there is no better €3 you can spend. Indeed, other Irish breweries are charging more or less double for beer of similar quality.

The Porterhouse brings us into double IPA territory with DNEIPA at 8% ABV, brewed in collaboration with the MINAW art collective who provided four different designs for the cans. As the initials suggest, it's hazy, the aroma showing the classic juice and vanilla effect so prized in the style. The citrus is emphasised more, perhaps down to the Citra and Simcoe hops. There's also Sabro, and that's very apparent in the flavour with an early buzz of coconut. The citrus bite follows that, giving it a long and bitter middle and finish. While the texture is decently soft, there's none of the sweeter vanilla I was expecting, nor any garlic unpleasantness or alcohol heat. There are those who will deem this not to style, but I really enjoyed its undercover west coast moves. IPA has never been a mainstay style for The Porterhouse, but while this one is no thriller, it is very well made and tasty.

And then it's back to O Brother for another 8%-er: Yume. This one is unusually clear and golden for the hazemeisters of Kilcoole: a touch of bittyness but no actual murk. It still smells pretty sweet, mind, of both tropical fruit and tropical-fruit-flavoured candy. With Comet, Citra and Centennial advertised I felt I had a right to some citric bitterness, and while it does deliver that in the flavour to an extent, it's not clean and sharp. The malt buries it somewhat under a thick and quite hot syrupyness. In better examples, a big bitterness would balance that, or at least provide a punchy counterpart to distract you. Here the lime and grapefruit notes peep meekly around the dense sweetness, trying not to get in its way. I can't believe I'm criticising O Brother for not putting enough hops in, but that seems to be the issue here. There's a nod to old-school American double IPA, but not in a good way: all the burn and none of the zing. For those who'd like their DIPA to also be a winter warmer, I guess.

A late add comes from Brú in the form of their Xtra pale ale, pinted at The Beer Temple on Saturday night last. It's not a new beer, having been launched in the autumn, but cans seem scarce and that was the first time I encoutered it. It's broadly in the New England style, a lightly hazy yellow, soft-textured and predominantly sweet. There's a very decent juice quotient in with a balancing pithy bitterness and a surprise dusting of coconut. The body is a little bit lacking, but it's one of those than can be described as refreshing rather than simply thin. It would make for an ideal thirst-quencher were it not for the overclocked ABV of 5.7% -- you need to be careful if knocking it back. Overall though, it's a well-made beer, not a million miles from Trouble's Ambush, and well suited to the brewery's core range.

With normal trading back in the pubs, and dry January turning to moist February, I expect the supply lines to start kicking into gear again. I'll be waiting, as always.