Sibling rivalry

The lovely people who do PR for Aldi invited me to their Christmas drinks preview event thingy last month, which involved showing up to the swish function rooms at Fire on Dawson Street and wandering round with your Tom Doorleys, your John Wilsons and your Ross Golden-Bannons, sampling all the wines (46 of them) they're promoting for the upcoming drinking season. The beer offer was relegated to a side room with the port and dessert wine. Alongside the Irish beers below there was the solid Bateman's Rosey Nosey and the execrable Wychwood Bah Hambug which I swear is even worse now than it used to be.

But what really drew my attention was the two Kings of Tara beers that Aldi has commissioned from Alltech's Station Works brewery in Newry. Station Works has had a few personnel changes since it was bought over, not least the addition of Andrew Jorgenson who previously did some great work at Carrig. (Here he is chatting to Emmet about what he does.) The beers are sold in four-packs of 33cl bottles for a fiver, which I suppose is reasonable but I've never been willing to invest to find out. Now I don't have to.

So, Kings of Tara Lager first. Station Works has had a fairly serious diacetyl problem in the past, and it reared its buttery head on the first sniff of this. Mercifully I couldn't taste it, however. What you get is a pretty decent but unexciting budget lager: there's a firm waxy bitter bite up front and a quick clean finish. It's 4.5% ABV, intended to be served cold and I'm sure would work perfectly well as a party lager.

Its fraternal twin, Kings of Tara Pale Ale, is the same strength and has a similar busy fizz -- something that doesn't warrant comment in a lager but does kind of interfere in this. It opens on a sharply astringent note which mellows slightly into a hop bitterness complicated slightly with a bit of perfume spice. Everything is quite muted, though, and we're looking at something much closer to an English-style bitter than anything more modern, but the high carbonation takes even that credential away from it. There's nothing specifically wrong with it, but I can't see it thrilling experienced pale ale fans or newcomers.

Duty done, I went back to the tokaji -- the one Aldi have in for €25 is superb. But also on the table was the O'Shea's range, produced for Aldi by Carlow Brewing. Meanwhile, O'Hara's Winter Star is Carlow's own winter seasonal, and it returns this year as a 5% ABV "spiced rye ale". A bottle was sent to me by their PR folks, with a press release setting the RRP at €2.99. The O'Shea's beer range retails at €1.89 and for the first time there's now a Spiced Winter Ale. There's not much information on what they've added to it by way of spices, though we do know it's lighter than the O'Hara's at 4.3% ABV. So, if you're in the mood for a spiced winter ale, is it worth trading up? I thought it would be interesting to compare them side-by-side.

The pour revealed both to be copper coloured, though the O'Shea's is a deeper red, while Winter Star is brighter and more polished looking. Neither has much going on in the aroma but a deep inhale gives me a wisp of spices and brown sugar from Winter Star and a warmer caramel malt smell from O'Shea's. Carbonation is quite low in both, with Winter Star being particularly sluggish about forming and keeping a head.

I tasted O'Shea's Spiced Winter Ale first. A big pull immediately hit me with a blast of sweet cinnamon. There's not a whole lot behind this: a slightly harsh bitterness and some dry, shading to burnt, dark grain character. It's also quite thin. But the happy cinnamon keeps on coming and it's quite enjoyable for that. It's not overly sweet or overly spiced, and the light body means it works quite well by the pint. Cheap and cheerful, I guess.

O'Hara's Winter Star makes good use of its extra heft: there's a mature smoothness to the texture that the other lacks. The cinnamon is there again, but it's not as clear as in O'Shea's, competing as it does with quite a heavy and long-lasting grassy bitterness from the rye. We're told there's orange zest in here too, but I think that has been thoroughly drowned out by everything else. A second mouthful and that rye acidity is starting to bug me. I'm surprised to find myself writing this, but I think I'd prefer if the sweet cinnamon were more pronounced.

On balance, I have to award winter's crown to the O'Shea's. Winter Star does give you more things for your extra money, but perhaps this is another one of those trite seasonal lessons about how the simpler things are better.

As a postscript, O'Shea's Spiced Winter Ale appeared simultaneously with O'Shea's Dry Hopped Amber Ale. It's also part of the O'Shea's Seasonal Series but it doesn't say which season, though I guess the fallen leaves depicted on the label are a clue. It's very sweet, with lots of chewy toffee dominating a lightly spicy and spritzy jasmine and satsuma hop character. Sitting in the middle of this is a weird coconut flavour that's bizarrely incongruous. Like the Winter Ale, it's a light 4.3% ABV and suffers from thinness for a beer that should be full and warming. To be honest, I was wishing for a dash of cinnamon all the way through.

Nevertheless, if you're knocking around Aldi looking for beer this Christmas, some Kings of Tara Lager is no shame, but the O'Shea's range is a better buy. I'd probably go for the Stout above any of the rest of them, mind.

Selection box

Christmas Day draws to a close. I was fortunate enough to make it to a Sainsbury's yesterday, where I picked up a variety of seasonal beers from their compact but bijou range.

The first isn't at all appropiate to this season: Try'd & Tested was brewed by Harviestoun for the rugby world cup back in the autumn. It pours a beautiful deep red colour and delivers lovely porter-like coffee and chocolate notes. True to the Harviestoun way, it's mostly very smooth with just a slightly unpleasant bitter buzz at the end. Nevertheless, it was just the sort of thing I was in the mood for and I enjoyed it.

I don't think I've ever been so disappointed with a beer as I was with Fuller's Old Winter Ale. It's dark enough, but is packed with very harsh, dry, bitter flavours. There's tonnes of alcohol in the taste, despite a mere 5.3%, but a total absence of spice or sweetness or body. Rarely have I been so looking forward to opening something else at the end.

Fortunately, the something else I had to hand was Meantime's Winter Time. This is full-bodied and full-flavoured, with slightly bitter dark winter fruits to the fore. The triumph of this rich and warming number is that it manages to be heavy, satisfying and sippable without being for a moment cloying or difficult. Another hit from the folk in Greenwich.

And so to the day itself. I picked two beers to go with my pudding: the first being, imaginatively, Young's Christmas Pudding. This is one of those ales that I really enjoyed but which wouldn't be to everyone's taste. It's very strange, possessed of an odd spiciness which tastes vaguely fruity but not at all Christmas-pudding-like. It's an easy going and rather quaffable beer, but it's not one to buy in large quantities if you've never tasted it.

Finally, having been disappointed by Wychwood Bah Humbug, I decided to give them a second chance with their Plumduff Christmas ale. I'm glad I did: it's lovely. It's a sweet red beer, light of body and loaded with real plum flavours, putting me more in mind of a Belgian fruit beer than anything English. If I had to fault it, it would be because it lacks a heavy, malty, bready character which would have made it genuinely puddingy. Still, very tasty.

And that's it all over for another year. Apart from the box of beery goodies Santa left me. Compliments of the season to all readers.

The best fest in the west

The Black Box is a slightly shabby theatre/function room in a retail park on the edge of Galway city. Yesterday it played host to the first Great Irish Beer Festival, an event viewed with no small amount of scepticism by the Irish online beer community, mainly because so few of the country's brewers signed up for it. The Porterhouse and Galway Hooker had their own stands, but most of the rest were run by importers and distributors. With the emphasis on bottled product, then, it was clear this wouldn't be in the style of a UK real ale festival. It was still highly enjoyable, however.

While waiting for the doors to open, I noted with trepidation the Macnas van in the car park. It must have been there in some other capacity, however, and there were mercifully no giant papier maché pints dancing in formation through the venue. You just never know in Galway. Inside, attendees were issued with a starter pack of beer chips and a surprisingly decent plastic beer receptacle. This could be rinsed between drinks at the various water coolers around the room, which was just as well since a burst pipe cut off the building's mains water supply for a couple of hours in the middle of the event. Some time after it came back, the slops bins all disappeared from the floor, making glass rinsing very difficult indeed.

As I mentioned, just two Irish brewers were running stalls, though there was also Moling's and O'Hara's on tap. Lithuanica, distributors of the Švyturys range, were handing out mini-basketballs and guides to Vilnius: European Capital of Culture 2009. InBev had the best swag, though: Leffe glasses and Beck's hats. In fact, the InBev stand had an extensive range of glassware on display. Play to your strengths is the lesson here, I guess...

The entertainment was mercifully acoustic, and the only Heineken and Guinness taps on show were for display purposes only, as part of a keg hire company's exhibit.

To the beer, then. I mentioned on Friday that the promise of Budvar Dark was one of the major draws. It took some concerted searching to find it, the relevant barman having at first denied stocking it. Thankfully one of my ICB colleagues persisted, and there was a brief roaring trade in the Czech black lager. Like most of the bottled beers, it was being served inappropriately cold and I was at first surprised by how sour Budvar Dark is. After a few minutes of warming this mellowed and an almost stout-like roasted grain flavour came through. The other eastern European I tried was Švyturys Baltas, a wheat beer. It's served with lemon and is quite sparkly: hallmarks of a Belgian wit, but the flavour is fruity, not spicy, with distinct banana notes, edging it closer to the German weiss style. An odd and interesting beer.

Aussie beers seem to be growing in popularity in Ireland, though as yet we have few decent ones. I tried a Boag's Strongarm at the festival: a powerfully sweet and malty golden lager with a dry bitter hops bite at the end. Surprisingly, given the taste and the name, this weighs in at only 5% ABV.

Most of the rest of what I drank was English. I have little to say about Wychwood's Goliath: it's rather sugary and not to my taste. BeeWyched gives off a pungent hops aroma, though this doesn't come through in the strong perfumy taste. Interesting, but you couldn't drink a whole lot of it. Finally, Bah Humbug is Wychwood's Christmas ale and is much lighter than a Christmas ale has any right to be. The flavour is sweet, but there's not a whole lot else going on. I wish now I'd spent more time sampling the beers on offer from Black Sheep, which are rare in Dublin but apparently quite common in Galway's bottle shops. The only one I had was Riggwelter, a marvellous black ale, with a strong caramel aroma and a complex taste full of sticky malt and bitter chocolate.

Everything else I tasted I'd had before, though it was the first time I tried the reformulated Árainn Mhór Rua, now down to 5.2% from 6, due to a tendency to knock punters on their arses rather too quickly, which in turn was adversely affecting sales. It was great chatting to Aidan and Ronan of Galway Hooker as well. Thanks for your hospitality, guys.

All-in-all, a few organisational wrinkles to be ironed out, but generally a positive start to what will hopefully become a regular event. And here's hoping the next Great Irish Beer Festival will properly be a festival of great Irish beer.