Lotta bottle

Some recent bottled additions to the Irish craft beer scene today, starting with two from Mayo brewery Mescan. I'd had their blonde previously but so far missed its companion beer until now. It's a red tripel. In fact, it's probably the Red Tripel as I don't think I've seen the style designation before, in Belgium or beyond. It's a bit of a misnomer, though, pouring more of a garnet-amber than the bright red I was half-expecting. Lots of very typical Belgian fruity esters in the nose, plummy like a dubbel rather than spicy like a tripel. All of the 8% ABV can be tasted: it's hot and fruity, in a sherryish kind of way. The darker malt really does bend its flavour profile more towards the darker Belgian monastic styles and there's none of the spice or honey of tripel to redress the balance. I like it; it's warming and very flavourful, but I'm not sure I'd put the T-word on the label.

The previous two Mescan beers are unmistakably Belgian-influenced in their taste and style. So I was highly curious when it came to Westporter Stout: a more Irish than Belgian 5% ABV. There's a slight yeast whiff, and lots of foam, which add to its Belgian credentials, but underneath it's all Irish. The texture is light and very sessionable and the flavour is dry, with the little sparks of gunpowder spice you sometimes get from roasted barley or black malt. Some lovely coffee and caramel finishes it off, and I'm reminded of both Dungarvan's Black Rock and Carlow's Leann Folláin, which is to say a thumbs-up from me. Those Belgian beehive bottles are very pretty and all, but I'd appreciate a pint of this.

Dungarvan's summer seasonal for 2014 is Mine Head, a 5.5% ABV American-style pale ale. It has been dry hopped with Cascade and there's loads of lovely juicy peach and passionfruit in the flavours, complemented by a sweet, but not sugary, nectarine aroma and finishing on a sharper bite of lime zest and orange pith. Where I think it falls down, however, is in the bottle-conditioning.  For one thing it's very fizzy, and the carbonic bite is one element interfering with those delicate hops. The yeast is another: I poured as carefully as I could and left a couple of fingers in the bottle but still got a hazy glassful and a definite earthy cheese-rind tang right in the middle of the taste. It's a good effort, but you'd need to be a sucker for natural conditioning to rank it above most of the other beers of its style sold in Ireland.

To Kerry next, and the spring and summer specials from Beoir Chorca Duibhne, which I drank in reverse chronological order. Riasc Gold is very much a rose-gold colour rather than yellow, deriving its colour, I'm guessing, from the addition of rosehips. There's an earthy, yeasty aroma plus an underlying promise of fruity bubblegum malt. The first hit on tasting, however, is a lovely peppery spice, like fresh rocket. This is followed by mild floral notes and a crisp, wholesome grain husk character. It's very much not the wan, insipid golden summer quaffer I was expecting. At 5.5% it's an ale to take a bit of time over. There's maybe a hint of oxidation, but not enough to spoil the experience.

If the Gold is nearly red, Riasc Red is almost brown. This spring seasonal is also 5.5% ABV and has yet more rosehips in the mix. A comforting waft of milk chocolate and Turkish delight comes from the aroma. Despite busy fizz at the beginning, it settles down into a smooth weighty red with lots of cuddly caramel, more milk chocolate, and a more assertive herbal bitterness. While technically an Irish red I suppose, if a little strong for the style, there are lovely elements of porter and brown ale in the flavour profile. All-in-all a class act from the guys in Dingle.

I've just noticed that all of this week's bottles have been bottle-conditioned. While I appreciate the wholesome, down home qualities it imparts, I think all that fizz and that yeast does have a tendency to cover the more subtle elements of the flavour. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Jury duty

I confess to having done a little jumpy-up-and-down dance when Adrian, festival organiser for CAMRA Northern Ireland, asked me to judge the Champion Beer of Belfast at their festival this year. I'm usually at the festival on the Saturday and have often missed the most interesting beers. An excuse to go up on the Thursday was very welcome. To see a CAMRA awards process from the inside was a bonus.

I arrived in a dark and rainy Belfast with just enough time for a swift half in The Bridge House, just a few metres from the festival venue. This is a vast JD Wetherspoon I've never enjoyed visiting before, but CAMRA NI have seen fit to elect it their pub of the year for the last two years so I thought maybe a reappraisal was in order. For a Thursday lunchtime it was surprisingly quiet, mostly office lunchers and a fair few tables of spillover from the festival. All very mature and civilised. My half of Old Empire was pretty good too: peachy with a pleasant sulphurous bite. 93p well spent.

I reported for duty at 2 and met my fellow judges: 8 of us in all. Branch chairman Philip ushered us to the tasting room in one of the Ulster Hall's beautifully renovated salons and led us through the final six beers which had been whittled down by the festival volunteers from all those available. The process was ably assisted by Steve, running with the jugs of beer from bar to judges. The panel were tasked with grading each finalist with marks for appearance, aroma, taste and finish, weighted in favour of the final two criteria.

All tasting was, of course, done blind, with only the broad style designation revealed in advance. And they were a mixed bunch: bitters Peter's Well (Houston) and Pale Beacons (Brecon) were rather insipid, being done no favours at all by being decanted from cask to jug to glass, knocking most of the condition out of them. I had had Blue Monkey's BG Sips high on my hitlist having heard great things about it, but scored it last when it showed up. This golden bitter was almost entirely flavourless and I reckon I'd only go near it on the hottest of days, and only then if it was at lager temperatures with lager levels of carbonation.

The two dark beers claimed joint second prize. Mordue's Newcastle Coffee Porter was definitely in the ha'penny place for me: a thin and rather boring porter with little sign of any coffee at all. There was a bit more substance to Otley Oxymoron: a bitter spicy middle which made up for the waft of cardboard oxidation on the nose. It turns out they've designated this as a black IPA and while I'm not an outright supporter of the thesis that black IPA is simply hoppy porter, this beer presents blind tasted evidence that this may in fact be the case.

The winner left the rest of the crowd for dust: though inauspiciously pale and hazy, Dark Star's American Pale Ale was a symphony in citrus. At 4.7% ABV it's weighty enough not to be too bitter, adding some beautiful sherbet substance to the fruit, and the end result is insanely drinkable and moreish. I can't imagine there was any surprise when Adrian and Philip (on stage, right) announced the result.

The day's work done, it was down to the main hall to see what else was on offer. I made a beeline for the newest Irish beer, of course: Ballyblack stout from the spanking new Ards brewery. It reminds me a lot of the excellent Dungarvan Black Rock: that same roasted dryness tempered by ripe dark fruit and a similar spicy gunpowder tang in the finish. Brewer Charles Ballantine was on hand for a bit of after-sales service and a good natter about the complexities of setting up a brewery in NI. I'm definitely looking forward to more from Ards.

My experience with BG Sips notwithstanding, I hit up the other offering from Blue Monkey next: 99 Red Baboons. This was much darker than I expected: almost black with mere hints of ruby around the edges. It's a very tangy beer, sweet-sour with a sort of baking soda softness. Interesting, but I couldn't say if I liked it or not. Along the same lines but much better was Leeds Midnight Bell. This ruby mild had me thinking of Rodenbach, with an almost puckering sourness, but it made it eminently refreshing and one I could have had a few more of.

Wolf Brewery's Norfolk Lavender Honey is another for the too-odd-to-like bracket: sweet and spicy with a powerful honey aroma and flavour, but very little by way of lavender. It could have done with some floral lightness to balance the sticky honey, I think. Summer Wine Barista Espresso Stout also goes all out with a speciality ingredient, but while Mordue may be wasting good coffee, Summer Wine are laying it on too heavily. The end result is too dry, too roasty and too thin, with the poor condition doing nothing to dispel the impression of a glass of cold coffee. I had higher hopes for Gorlovka, a 6% ABV stout from Acorn and it's a solidly drinkable beer but one which should be doing more at that strength. I could happily neck this, but that's not what it's designed for.

Steve gave me a couple of recommendations of beers I probably would have passed by otherwise, and very good they were too. Bowman Elderado is a summery little number, pale gold and just 3.5% ABV. The not-so-secret weapon is elderflower and it adds an amazing piquancy to it, like a Chinese spice mix. A dry, almost chalky, feel keeps it drinkable and wonderfully thirst quenching. At the opposite end of the scale, there's Elland 1872 Porter: 6.5% ABV and massively chocolatey; sweet but beautifully smooth and to complete the circle, showing that gunpowder finish I enjoyed in the Ballyblack.

This year saw the first time a separate cider bar operated at the festival and I had a couple of halves for the road there. Northern Irish cider is undergoing a well-overdue boom and it's great to see apples from my native Armagh being put to better use than baking.

Final thanks to Adrian, Philip, Steve and all the crew at CAMRA NI. This gem of a festival really is a credit to you all.

All 'Well and good

Easter weekend once again brings the centrepiece of the Irish beer calendar at the Franciscan Well in Cork. This year, the Easter Festival featured 13 guest breweries from around Ireland, including newcomers 8 Degrees, based in nearby Mitchelstown.

The company is the result of a trans-Tasman détente between Aussie Cam (right) and Kiwi Scott, playfully branded and with big plans for its entry into the market proper. The primary product will be 33cl bottles of three different beers, most likely sold by the six-pack. It's not a standard method of beer delivery for Ireland and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. There will also be draught, and the first to arrive on tap is Howling Gale, a blonde ale hopped up on Chinook, Centennial and Amarillo. Aren't there a bazillion craft beers like this in Ireland already? Well, yes and no. At 5% ABV, Howling Gale is weightier than most, with a full wheaty body, despite the absence of wheat. It's arguable how well it'll work as a sessioner, given those extra few strength points above most by-the-pint beers, but I can see it performing in the 33cls as long as they get the pricing right. Its other distinguishing feature is the lack of filtering. Only the finest of haze is visible and it more than pays its way with the extra citrus flavours being delivered. Howling Gale is a promising start for the new brewery, and its unusual vital statistics could well be the beginning of a new spin on the craft beer revolution in these parts.

While I'm banging on about filtering, a word on Galaxy Pale Ale, brewed by Trouble as the grand prize in their Trouble Maker competition last year, the winning recipe provided by Rossa O'Neill. You can read his account of his day at the brewery here. I liked the finished product, honest I did: a gorgeous shade of garnet, super-light cask-like carbonation, a firm bitterness and a subtle biscuity follow-up. But I couldn't help feeling there should be more to it, that a fruit and citrus contribution from the hops should be at the centre of the flavour but has been stripped out by the evil filter. No amount of limpid sparkling beauty can make up for a beer that has been gutted like this. If the flavour is bold enough to cover any yeasty tang -- as is the case with most any of these US-style Irish pale ales -- I don't see why the beer can't be cloudy. Rant over; comments welcome.

A smooth and calming glass of stout next, and my first try of Dungarvan's special edition Coffee and Oatmeal Stout. Cormac tells me the recipe is very different from Black Rock, but I couldn't help but notice the similarities, a function of cask's tendency to smooth out distinctive flavours, I reckon. Anyway, it's a rock-solid stout, well-balanced between roasted dryness and plummy fruit esters. I couldn't say I was able to pick out the coffee, but I'm guessing the dry aspects of it were down to this in some measure.

I had a good natter with Seamus and Liam from the ever-expanding Carlow Brewing Company. Liam has begun a series of smoked beers in half-batch runs, and the first example was on their bar at the weekend. O'Hara's Smoked Ale No. 1 is a reddish-brown bitter, with chocolate malt in the ascendant plus hints of raisins. The smoke infuses this with a subtle kippery tang. A few fellow-drinkers were hard pressed to identify this as smoke but it was familiar to me from my own experiments with rauchmalz. Liam was a little disappointed that it didn't come out smokier, expecting more of a bang for the substantial bucks the brewery spent on the speciality grain. The frustration looks like it may well lead to some messing about with peated malt later in the series: then we'll be talking serious smoke. Can't wait.

After many years of sharing a bar, Messrs Maguire were totally separate from former host White Gypsy at this year's festival, serving two beers that Melissa brewed in Dublin herself, plus the sublime leftovers of Barrelhead's Franciscan Well-brewed Pale Ale: eight months old and tasting fabulous, like Harvey's Best on steroids. Meanwhile, White Gypsy was twinned with its new protégé Metalman, making their first appearance at the Easter Festival with their second beer: Windjammer, on cask. Three different New Zealand hops have gone into this (Pacifica, Southern Cross and Nelson Sauvin) and the result is a punchily bitter pale ale which calms down quickly, presenting the palate with a basket of pineapples, mangoes and nectarines. I only had a half, but I want more. Once the palate has adjusted to the bitterness, I'd say the second pint is a marvel. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long to find out.

My final bit of scooping was at the UCC Pilot Brewery bar, once again giving it the whole Teutonic thing, with pretzels, dirndls and Tyrolean hats. Inevitably, the beers were a lager and a weizen, though it doesn't look like much work has gone into the names: Traditional Bavarian Beer (an alleged Oktoberfestbier) and Fruity Wheat Beer. The latter really doesn't look like much on coming out of the tap: murky brown and headless, but as I may have said before, how a beer looks doesn't matter. There's a lovely spice to it alongside the bananas, putting it in the same general end of the weizen spectrum as Schneider-Weisse and that's definitely a good thing. A bit more condition would have lifted these great flavours a bit more, however. The lager was another fruity one: miles and miles from any helles or Oktoberfestbier I've tasted, other than those you sometimes find in wonky brewpubs. Still tasty, though, and clean enough to stay drinkable and refreshing.

Trade had been brisk from the moment the doors opened and the festival yard was jammed by 8pm when I left for my train. It would have been nice to go back and spend another leisurely afternoon pinting my way round the plethora of summery beers I'd been sampling, but that'll have to wait until someone (anyone?) more local to me starts running a great event like this. In the meantime, thanks as usual goes to the Franciscan Well team and the 13 visiting breweries for making it all happen.

Looks aren't anything

The way Americans talk about breweries -- the physical beer-making bit -- can be quite jealousy-inducing. It seems to be generally taken for granted that breweries are visitable attractions, rather than merely functional workplaces. So, for this month's Session, Maine-based The Beer Babe has asked us to go along to one of our newest local breweries. Now, we're not short of new breweries in Ireland this year, I'm delighted to say. But you don't just roll up to an Irish craft brewery and expect the door to be open and the tasting bar set up. And you certainly don't expect it to be pretty.

Irish breweries look like this:

(White Gypsy)

or this:

(Galway Hooker)

or this:

(The Porterhouse)

You get the idea. None, as far as I'm aware, has ever won an architectural award. And it's only on special occasions or by prior arrangement that anyone other than the staff see the inside.

Fortunately for the timing of this Session, both of the newest breweries had such open days over the summer. Trouble hosted a delegation in July, and just a couple of weeks ago the Dungarvan Brewing Company (right) rolled up the shutters, fired up the barbecue, and invited some visitors in. They even threw in an historical walking tour of the town.

Production is running at full tilt at the moment, which is very encouraging. With the three main beers -- Helvick Gold, Copper Coast and Black Rock -- becoming increasingly well-established, especially locally, attention is turning towards specials and seasonals.

The first of these made a brief appearance at the open day. The brewery has been working with a restaurant in the next town over to produce a special beer and curry menu. From what I've heard, the first few have been huge successes and are about to become a regular occasion at O'Brien Chop House in Lismore. While I'd be very surprised if there were any complaints about the fitness of Helvick Gold to match spicy food, Cormac has put together a Lime and Coriander Wit. It had only just gone into the bottle, so was perhaps a little green still, but it packed a big sharp citric punch -- tangy yet with a definite fruity softness, reminding me of lemon meringue pie. I doubt it will have any difficulty cutting through even the hottest curry on offer. I hope to find out first-hand some time.

I'm also really looking forward to more seasonals and specials from both of the new kids, and even more to the next brewery bringing craft beer to the Irish market. Inishmacsaint Brewing Company is due to have beers at the Belfast Beer & Cider Festival in November. Can't wait.

Back to black and back again

Session beer is the subject of this month's, er, Session. It seems to be a bit of a preoccupation among the brighter sort of American beer enthusiast: why is all our good stuff ABV'd up to the hilt? Why can't we have top-notch flavoursome beer that you can stay with for a whole night's drinking and not end up bladdered before bedtime? I can't really speak to that motion, but am very happy that it's not an issue here. In fact, I wish the reverse -- that there were more beers outside the 4-5% ABV range available on the bar in Ireland. In both directions. I suppose I could write about Porterhouse TSB and Smithwicks, representing, respectively, the best and worst of sub-4% Irish beer. But that would bore me. Instead, I'm writing about stout because you can't beat a good stout session. Last night's Dungarvan shindig at the Bull & Castle, featuring sumptuous Black Rock on cask proved that beyond any doubt.

Much as I'd love to have more Irish session stout to write about, I'm looking across the Irish Sea and a couple of British ones that have crossed my path lately.

We kick off with Hopback Entire Stout, a case of which landed with a friend (hi Peter!) recently. It's 4.5% ABV and carries the hallmark of a good session beer: balance. The main flavours are sweet caramel and dry coffee, but not too much of either. The body is quite hefty -- entire, you might say -- but nowhere near filling enough to make you think twice about opening a second bottle. It's just the right level of chewwiness to show the flavours at their best.

Since I rarely have the attention span for the same beer twice in a session, next up was Night Beacon from the Breconshire Brewery, a company I've had an unpleasant encounter with previously. This started off worryingly by pouring almost completely flat. There's a very slight tingle of carbonation, but otherwise it's a pancake -- a dud bottle, perhaps? So the flavour compounds are not in any hurry to create an aroma and it doesn't smell of much as a result, just a hint of dry roast. The flavour is also dry, but in a crisp and minerally sort of way, with a slight background of chocolate and tobacco. The lack of condition leaves it on the thin side, but that adds to its sessionability: not exactly a lightweight at 4.5% ABV but definitely good for more than one if the flatness doesn't put you off. Redemption of a sort, then, for Breconshire. (I should add also that I tried their Golden Valley golden ale too a while back and quite liked it -- another understated plain sessioner).

Low ABV, balance, light fizz: all these elements go in to make beer properly sessionable. Any colour and flavour profile will do. Getting this right without making the beer dull is one of the challenges for the brewer. I reckon the guys at Hopback and Breaconshire have it down, however.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

My poor beer fridge was neglected while I was writing all about Copenhagen this last couple of weeks. It's time now to get a few of the beers that have been languishing in there into a pint glass and down the red lane to immortality.

Top of the list is Black Rock Stout from Dungarvan Brewing Company. They didn't have this at the Franciscan Well festival last month, but I subsequently had a sneaky sample from a rogue bottle that wandered to Dublin all on its ownio. I didn't write it up at the time because I was, quite simply, stunned by what I tasted and needed to double check. As a session-strength stout, Black Rock should be unremarkable. Bottled stouts at the 4.3% ABV mark aren't exactly rare in Ireland -- I can think of six others straight off -- so a new one shouldn't be making much of a splash. Black Rock's USP is being the only one which is entirely unfiltered and 100% bottle conditioned, but so what?

So an awful lot, as it turns out. I had been waiting for a bottle to myself to confirm this, but this is dry Irish stout with the volume turned up to 11. Following directions to have it south-eastern style ("from the shelf", ie at room temperature) the nose is fresh coffee and a herbal complexity which the label describes as aniseed, and I concur. The body is light, with a fairly gentle fizz. It wears its hops up front -- fresh, green and definitely bitter rather than any way fruity -- then a quick burst of chocolate and a long long dry roasted finish, with those bitter herby hops running alongside.

I have a nasty, pessimisitic suspicion that what I've been drinking will some day be regarded as the "classic" Black Rock, back when Dungarvan were a six-barrel plant and still bottle-conditioning everything. It would be a crying shame if they changed the specs on this to make the sort that's just acceptable as an Irish stout, like everyone else. Filtering and pasteurising really do suck much of the life out of bottled session stout. Black Rock, I hope, will lead to a few palates being awakened down Waterford way.

More about the brewery, and the unique beer culture of south-eastern Ireland, from Séan here.

New and improved

I've only been going to the Easter Beer Festival at The Franciscan Well in Cork for the last three years. But even in that small space of time it has improved noticeably. While in 2008 there was still a fair bit of space allocated to importers and wholesalers, it's now wall-to-wall breweries, with the only absentees being Whitewater (oddly) and the two which neither keg nor cask: Clanconnel and Galway's Bay Brewery.

Making their debuts as commercial breweries last Saturday were Dungarvan Brewing Company and Trouble. Dungarvan's emphasis is going to be on bottled product, though they also have a limited cask capacity and were serving two of their three beers from the handpump. Copper Coast is a fairly standard Irish red, ticking the biscuit and caramel boxes appropriately, though with an added dose of bittering hops and a slightly unfortunate touch of phenol at the end. I'm sure that'll be ironed out in later versions. Next to it was Helvick Gold -- about as far from plain, lager-substitute blonde ale as it's possible to get. At 4.9% ABV, Helvick is full-bodied and quite powerfully bitter with a waxy fresh honey flavour. Not a quaffer; more a thinking man's blonde. Black Rock stout did not make an appearance, and by early Saturday evening all the Dungarvan beer had sold out. They must be doing something right.

Next door to Dungarvan, the Trouble Brewing crew were resplendent in their lurid orange uniforms: observe the pride with which Stephen wears his (right). The first beer to emerge from the three-man operation is another blonde ale, called Ór.This is simpler fare than Helvick: lightly fruity with just a little hoppy complexity and a nice clean refreshing fizz from the keg. It'll be a good one for outside summer drinking, I'd say.

This year also marked the first appearance of Beoir Chorca Duibne at the Easter Festival. As well as Cúl Dorcha, which I sampled back here, they had a hand-written pumpclip marked "EasterFest Special". Oh dear, I thought, a batch of something went wrong and this is their attempt at off-loading it. I ordered a glass anyway and felt immediately guilty for being so cynical. It was a rock-solid chocolatey dark ale with an interesting sourness on the end -- something Séan tells me is from the incongruous German hops. Some very tasty rule-breaking there.

Barrelhead was back for a second year. The cuckoo brewery has moved out of White Gypsy's nest and its newest Pale Ale was brewed at Franciscan Well, I'm told. It was a lovely sherbety number, ripe with orangey zing and equally good on cask and keg. Unfortunately I've no idea where this will be available, but it's well worth looking out for.

As always, the UCC Pilot Brewery brought their Germanic stylings to the festival. I've not been massively impressed by these in the past, but things definitely improved this time round, with a golden fruity lager called Hansel and a delicious companion weissbier named Gretel. With White Gypsy Amber and Galway Hooker Pilsner also available, festival-goers were very well served for quality Irish lager.

At the White Gypsy stand, Cuilan was introducing people to Melissa who will be taking over from him as the brewer for Messrs Maguire in Dublin. Hers is the unenviable task of turning the under-used, under-promoted brewkit into a feature that will work for the owners and draw the crowds into the pub. I'll be keeping an eye on how things develop at MM, and not just because they're currently serving a very fine pint of White Gypsy Amber, badged as MM Munich.

Six White Gypsy beers were available at the festival, including Raven, the first commercial release of the Vintage Imperial Stout I went to see being casked last year. Raven is a blend of the unoaked version and the one from the French barrel. It's quite well balanced, being light on general aroma, heftily woody in the flavour but completely missing any off-putting phenolic notes, and without any trace of the astringency which dominated the beer prior to aging. Things got really interesting when Cuilan pulled out a bottle of each of the four versions: original, French oak, American oak and ex-Bushmills cask. After a brief struggle with a mangled corkscrew and a pair of pliers, the beers were poured and the differences between them were amazing, with subtle vinous notes from the French oak, massive Bourbon vanilla from the American one and heady whiskey aromas from the Bushmills. When the American and Bushmills versions were blended the result was stunning: rich, complex and aromatic. Plans for the final destination of the beer(s) are still sketchy: Cuilan's not in any rush to make a decision and seems to be enjoying the learning process of finding out what different woods do and how they can be blended -- a skill which would once have been common among Ireland's stout-makers but which now has to be re-learned from first principles.

And that was the festival for another year: hopefully a sign of a building critical mass of Irish craft beer. Thanks as always to The Franciscan Well for affording the hard-pressed Irish breweries an opportunity to sell their wares, and the equally hard-pressed drinkers an opportunity to enjoy them.