Inchicore blimey

With the Rascals brewery, taproom and pilot kit going full tilt these days, it's an endless game of catch-up for me. The cliff-hanger last time was Das Beaut kölsch-a-like. It was half of a set with its cherry counterpart, Das Beaut Cherry, which I got to on my next visit. I was expecting a clear red fruitbeer tint to it and was not prepared for the milkshake I was served. It's an almost grey shade of pink. So not just a squirt of cherry syrup, then. The realness of the cherries continues on tasting: it has a perfumed foretaste, an intense but brief sweetness with real maraschino skin, not sugary extract. Amazingly, the underlying beer survives all this: there's still a crisp finish and a waft of hops on the reflux. The fruit becomes a bigger part of the picture as it warms, shading its flavour towards the yogurt it resembles. It's remarkably well integrated and not just a novelty. I'm glad I came back for this. Perhaps I should be less sceptical about fruit beers in future.

The latest in a long line of Rascals fruited pale ales is Fruitropolis. This 4.3%-er is fruitier than most, thanks to the inclusion of passionfruit in with the apricot and pineapple. Passionfruit dominates in that sorbet/Calippo way it has, making it very sweet and tangy. The hops are left as background players, contributing little more than a twang of peppery bitterness in the finish. If you like your tropical and juicy beers to taste actually tropical and juicy rather than attempting it with hops, this may be the pale ale for you, though I understand that subsequent batches have the passionfruit dialled back.

On this occasion I had arrived just as the new stout, Cereal Killer, appeared, on nitro and via a brand new cask engine. I got to try both. The name comes from the inclusion of granola in the recipe and it really does have that crunchy oatcake effect, bringing a dry grainy quality, especially in the finish. But this is balanced by lots of milk chocolate. Although nirogenated, there seems to have been a light touch on the ol' N2 as there was plenty of sparkle to push the flavour compounds out, including a seriously rich and desserty aroma. The richness is more apparent in the cask version, and there's a summer fruit complexity too: tart strawberry and redcurrant. The chocolate is still there, as is the sparkle, but the dryness is reduced. Cask stout wins again, but the nitro version is barely compromised.

A couple of weeks later I was back for a whole new round. Tartness on the Edge of Town started me off, an opaquely milky sour beer of 3.4% ABV. The texture is soft, and as light as one might expect from the ABV. Fresh mint or rosemary blends with light lemon cordial to create the effect of something you'd drink from a big jug on a summer's day. Not lemonade because it's not fizzy enough, but maybe a non-alcoholic punch of some sort. The ice-cold serving temperature accentuates this further. What lets it down is the yeast burn, bringing a savoury kick that really doesn't belong. A bit more time in the tank is needed to fulfil its refreshment potential.

Rascals joins the micro IPA party with Microwave, at just 3.2% ABV. I think this may be the first clear example I've seen: a limpid amber-copper. With that comes a charming burnt caramel foretaste before the hop resins take over. You'd miss the alcohol, though. After the initial burst of flavour it turns quite hollow and watery, while the oily bitterness means it doesn't quite work as a thirst-quencher. Another interesting pilot-kit experiment, but I can't see this going mainstream.

A cream ale next -- you don't see many of them around. It's called Yale, is 5% ABV and a bright and shining gold. It was nice to have a bit of substance back after the sub-4%ers but the flavour isn't up to much here. There's a mild tang of marmalade or orange jelly and the rest is silence. Cream ale is a tough style to impress with, and I don't recall any that did better than making the best of it. This one fits in there too.

They've added Grapefruit to their inevitable Brut IPA, something that has the potential to jazz up this often pedestrian style. It didn't really work. The stripped-out brut IPA flavour is still there while the fruit adds a savoury, smoky, wax-and-plastic overtone: definitely not an improvement. For 6.3% ABV the texture is unforgivably thin. It's still entirely within the spec of brut IPA, so if you like them you'll like this. For me, the hacking just didn't move it far enough away from the style's inherent flaws.

Guest beers still feature regularly, and the most recent I tried was Baniwa Spring from Hopfully, a sequel to the original Baniwa Chilli saison from last year. The ABV has gone up to 5.3% but it looks the same and the flavour profile matches: a grainy crispness contrasting with banana esters, a generous dusting of chilli pepper and tropical hints of coconut as it warms. With all that going on I'd definitely describe this too as a saison more than a wit, though I also think the chilli has been laid on stronger this time. While I enjoyed the full-thorax warmth, the banana sweetness is just a little too full-on for my liking. It's a brave recipe, but one with room to be cleaned up a little, I think.

Daring recipes, varying styles and high turnover: exactly what you'd want from your local taproom.

All over the shop

I'm giving up any semblance of order in this final post from Alltech Brews & Food 2018. It's just stuff I found to drink.

Some of it came via Simon, who brought along a selection from Lacada, as is his wont. First out was a brand new sour beer called Oonagh's Secret. Though a little on the strong side at 5.5% ABV, it's pale and clean with just enough of a tart and fruity punch to hold your attention, while still being light and refreshing. It's the sort of thing that ought to be in every brewery's core range.

That was followed by Zostera, a black IPA. This is a meaty 6.4% ABV and pumps out all the taste and aroma in an assertive, confident way. It smells spicy, of nutmeg or allspice, and tastes bitter and tarry. The creamy texture helps offset the more severe side of that, and while the hop flavours don't pop with complexity like in some black IPAs, it's still a solid version.

Half Hung rye IPA has been around since the autumn but this was my first chance to try it. The colour is murky brown and the flavour matches it with a sludgy, dreggy yeast flavour. Neither the hops nor the rye make much contribution. It's certainly no Rustbucket, and at 6.2% ABV it definitely should have more to offer.

New from Hopfully was Baniwa Chilli, a saison that takes its name from the added ingredient (with pineapple and mint) and the Amazon tribe that grows it. It looks like pineapple juice, all murky and white. The flavour is surprisingly dry for all that, true to its saison roots: crisp cereal and a hint of banana ester. It takes a moment to unfold, but the pineapple and mint arrive eventually, adding a note of summery fruit punch, and then there's just a subtle scorch of chilli on the end. At a mere 3.8% ABV it's more a beer for drinking than sipping, built to quench a thirst rather than for considered analysis.

Foreign beer wasn't at all a priority for me, but I did nab a quick (generous!) half of Stone Brewing's Ripper pale ale. It's a bit of an odd one, I thought, beginning with the sugary, syrupy aroma. The flavour brings a rapid burst of zesty grapefruit before turning sweet again. There's a thick and gummy texture making the weedy hops extra resinous. For an American pale ale, albeit one at a biggish 5.7% ABV, it's quite intense and involved. I think I liked it though, for all its show-off acrobatics.

Tallaght's finest, Priory Brewing, was offering two new additions to its core IPA range. From the standard Original Sin, we go down first to Venial Sin session IPA (pictured). I wasn't impressed at first, finding it thin, which isn't terribly surprising at 3.8% ABV. It improves as it warms, with emerging flavours of spiced red cabbage and black pepper. There are no sensory loop-the-loops here, but I can see it working very well for a pint or several.

Up the other end of the peccatorial scale is, obviously, Mortal Sin, at 8% ABV. It's every bit as serious as the name suggests: heavily textured yet similarly spicy, and packed with funky hop resins. A real old-school job, it has no truck with fruity high notes, going all out for that bitter bite. After a few pints of Venial, this is one to finish your night on, but be sure to go to confession in the morning.

That leaves just our hosts to round things out. Of course Alltech's own beer was a major part of the offer at the festival, and as usual the Kentucky Ales bar was the centrepiece. Tucked away in a corner, however, there was another bar for the pilot-batch beers from Alltech's Irish brewing arm, Station Works.

The way-out experimental recipes on offer included, er, Station Works Lager. It was lovely, though. A middle-of-the-road 4.5% ABV, opening on fresh lemons and based on a super-clean base of crusty white bread, The hops reassert at the end of a bitter finish. A classical rendering of all that's good and holy about German helles and pilsner.

For something with a bit more wahey!, here's a Sherry Cask Red Ale. It didn't taste to me of sherry, exactly, but more a mélange of red wine and sweet liqueurs, showing notes of chocolate, vanilla, cherry and raspberry. The oak brings a little harshness, so perhaps longer ageing is required. Overall it's pretty good, for a taster of a novelty. I don't think I'd object if it showed up for sale in small bottles.

Next is Damien's Peanut Porter. I was sceptical, to say the least. It's a tough beer to be angry with, however, offering freshly-baked cookies as well as some properly grown-up bitter roast. The balance is excellent and, unlike so many pastry stouts, the ABV is modest at 5%. It's another one I probably wouldn't drink a lot of, but one sample clearly showed the brewer's skill.

It's back to the press room for the last one, which conversely was the first beer I had at the festival. Station Works Imperial Stout is 10.5% ABV and barrel-aged. I got lots of red wine from it: tannic and fruity. There's a thick layer of very strong coffee and an umami element suggesting that this one probably got quite enough time in the barrel, if not too long. An almost total lack of carbonation let it down, so it wasn't quite as enjoyable as the others, but still pretty decent for a big stout of this kind.

That's Alltech done for another year. Well done to all involved. Beer festivals are getting thinner on the ground in these parts, so I for one am happy that this fixture is here every spring. Long may it continue.