Herd impunity

Tap takeovers? Remember them? BrewDog Dublin held them pretty regularly on Thursday evenings, back in the Before Times. I made a special effort to schlep out to Capital Dock when Western Herd was on the roster. It's one of those quality Irish brewers whose beers are seldom seen in these parts.

I started with a proper pint of Turlough, a straight porter of 4% ABV. It wasn't until I took the first mouthful that I realised how rare these are on the ever-unfolding beer landscape. No nitro, no outré additions, just porter. I can't remember the last time I drank something like it. It's dry and quite fizzy, leaning to the roast side but not severely. The finish, unsurprisingly, is exceedingly crisp, putting me more in mind of a schwarzbier than anything else. There's a complexity in the middle too; a floral flash of rosewater and a buzz of bitter liquorice. It's possibly just a bit too gassy to be properly sessionable, unless you work a pint or so in advance. It's good, though: old fashioned, wholesome and different in a familiar way.

The main event, as far as I was concerned, was a black IPA rejoicing in the name Citra Tuxedo. Even through the hefty layer of foam, the aroma promised an extreme experience, with lime, grapefruit and hot hot tar all lining up. Lummee. Sure enough the bitterness hits home, hard, early on. It's more pine than fruit -- sharp and resinous. The texture is heavier than I expected for just 5.4% ABV, and that spreads the hop napalm thickly over the palate, becoming a waxy bitterness in the long finish. The dark elements are less obvious, just a mild espresso note. I don't think I would mistake it for a pale beer, tasting blind, but that's more because it lacks IPA's fruit or dankness, not because of any perceptible chocolate or the like. This is a little one-dimensional and goes very extreme on the bitterness. I liked the jolt, though worried about my ability to taste the beer beside it.

Said beer is a whiskey barrel version of Blue Jumper, an IPA that last came my way in 2016 and impressed me, as above, with its uncompromising bitterness. Could four months in a JJ Corry barrel mellow it? It looks mellow: a deep and hazy orange. There's a booze whack in the aroma; an oaky resin, but with some bourbonish lime too. It's not severe on tasting though, retaining its essential US-style IPA characteristics -- the crystal malt in particular -- and while the hops are present, they're very nicely softened with vanilla and a gently herbal dry vermouth effect. Is it odd that the barrel has added this complexity to the flavour without in any way boosting the ABV? Yes. Yes it is. Almost suspiciously so. Anyway, this is a tasty and smooth sipper, and one of the few barrel aged IPAs I've liked. Four months is plenty, it seems.

What and where we'll be drinking in four months from now is the question.

Herd mentality

The Bite food festival has become a regular feature of the run-up to Christmas in Dublin. It's held in the RDS in late November and there's always been something of interest beerwise at it. In 2016 three breweries were flying the flag: Rye River, Galway Hooker and, of particular interest to me, Western Herd.

I hadn't really taken the time to get familiar with this Co. Clare operation's work. I missed them at the big September beer festival and several people mentioned them to me afterwards as one of the highlights. I've since really enjoyed their punchy Blue Jumper IPA. At Bite all four of the core range was on tap so I managed to fill in the gap of the two I hadn't had before.

First up I tried Fox Catcher, described as a red ale on the tap badge and I didn't notice it's a whopping 5.3% ABV, so I wasn't expecting much. It looked nice, though: a dark clear garnet colour. The massive pleasing surprise on first tasting is that it's nothing like an Irish red but is bang on style for American amber. The toffee is laced with bouncy hop fruit and there's a rich marzipan sweetness too. Before that all gets too heavy, a squeaky green bean bitterness swings in, leading to a dry and slightly astringent finish. It's very impressive and I have no qualms about Irish red ale quietly morphing into American amber, if that is indeed what's happening.

Siege Pale Ale didn't look all that different, being dark red again, though it's slightly lighter of ABV at 5.1%. There's not much by way of aroma and the sweet caramel malt flavour, while present, is in the back seat. Mostly this beer is a symphony in Cascade: it roars with the big earthy green acidity, by turns jauntily citric and sternly metallic around the edges. The bitterness level is turned way up making it remarkably invigorating and, like Fox Catcher, it finishes with a thirst-stimulating dryness.

What's particularly joyous about these two, and indeed Blue Jumper, is how old-fashioned they are. Mixing Cascade with dark malts is a decidedly retro move and something today's high-fashion brewers of Awesome Craft Beer™ don't much bother with. I for one am pleased to see someone still making a living out of this sort of beer, especially when it's this well done.

Baby got backlog

Before I went on holidays in September I made a concerted effort to clear as much as I could out of my beer fridge. This post represents that hurried few days' swigging -- an express train through some of the bottled Irish beers new to me in autumn 2016.

I started with a refreshing witbier from Wicklow Wolf. Belgian White is a fizzy beast, taking a few goes to pour and resulting in a true-to-style hazy pale orange body topped with a crackling white head. It smells of fizz too: a hard carbonic bite, backed up by coriander herbs. I was expecting a hard prickle in the mouthfeel but the bubbles are surprisingly big and the texture of the beer nicely heavy and rounded, moreso than might be expected at just 5.2% ABV.

The label description mentions bananas and I get that estery fruit thing running right through the beer from foretaste to finish. There's a substantial higher-alcohol heat as well, bringing a certain element of acetone to the taste. A lacing of juicy citrus and a dry wheaty finish do a good job of providing balance and keep the whole thing from getting too hot and heavy. You'd probably need to drink it colder than I did to get any real refreshment from this guy, but as a weighty and complex take on wit it works quite well.

Red ale with Sorachi Ace hops is a new one on me, I think, but that's what Wicklow Wolf's Sorachi Red is. It's a clear dark copper colour, almost more brown than red, and topped by a stiff off-white head. The two sides of the equation are present right from the aroma, showing lots of toffee but also the distinctive lemon rind and powdered coconut of Sorachi Ace. There's a very Irish red sort of burnt roast in the flavour, something that successfully pushes against both the crystal malt sweetness and the obstreperous hops.

It's almost classically traditional, if a little strong at 5.1% ABV, and only at the finish is there that cheeky pinch of lemon. Definitely not a mad banging craft beer oddity, but rather a fun modern twist on a quite old fashioned style. Grandad's bought a fixie. Good for him.

Combining witbier with the east-Asian theme brings us to Thai Wit, new from Dungarvan Brewing. It's a whopping 6.4% ABV and rather dark for the style, a kind of amber brown. There's a lovely sweet Thai perfume, the lemongrass particularly prominent. It's rather more style-typical on tasting, the coriander coming through loud and clear on top of a dry wheatiness with lots of fizz. I'd swear I can taste the orange peel but no orange is listed on the ingredients. Perhaps it's the kaffir lime leaf giving it that citrus quality. The herbal finish lasts long, an oily coriander residue left on the lips.

It's a fun and interesting version of the style, not startlingly different but ramping up the flavours and offering a few extra bells and whistles. I didn't have any Thai food to hand but I reckon it would work very well as an accompaniment.

I'm writing this in the aftermath of the 2016 Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS and one of the stars of that show was Western Herd on their first visit to a Dublin festival. Apparently, anyway. I didn't get around to actually visiting their stand -- more fool me. I do have a couple of their bottles in the backlog, however, and I'm starting with yet another witbier: Back Beat.

This is a more orthodox orange colour. I had the option of leaving the yeast out but thought to hell with it and dumped the lees in as well, so you can add hazy to the appearance description. The fruit is off the charts in the aroma: bananas at first, then jaffa and mandarin, like a fruit salad (the dessert, not the chewy sweet). It's rather drier on tasting, with a sulphurous note I tend to associate with immature wheat beers. The coriander brings soap, the yeast an earthy grit, and all the lovely soft fruit from the aroma has evaporated. In the end it's a rather harsh beer, perhaps needing to be served very cold to smooth it out. It's complex, sure, but not in the right ways.

The other one of theirs I picked up in DrinkStore is Blue Jumper IPA. At 6.2% ABV a bit of poke was expected and it delivers in the aroma all right, a smack of fresh grapefruit with a definite heavy crystal malt toffee sweetness behind it: American-style IPA the way your momma used to make it.

It's extremely thick, to the point of being almost difficult to pull from the glass. At first there's a harsh and raw vegetal flavour but this opens out shortly after into zestier orange sherbet before settling back into the earthy tones of Cascade, with a more grapefruit and a metallic edge to remind you that this hop is descended from Fuggles.

Poke? Yes, it has that. This beer is extremely hoppy, in way that went out of fashion a couple of years ago but is genuinely fun to drink, as a 33cl serve anyway. The pencil sharpener finish is a bit much, but that gooey orange-toffee centre more than makes up for it.

Some more IPA to go on top of that? Sure why not. Amarillo is number four in Eight Degrees's series of 5.7% ABV single hoppers, each of which has gone all out to show the hops at their banging and bitterest best. This guy is no exception. I had a bit of a cold when I got to it so I think the full effect of the aroma was a little bit lost on me. It didn't smell of all that much anyway, just a faint candy-citrus that could be any hop.

However, there was nothing wrong with my flavour sensing apparatus: one sip brings a dense orangey oiliness, the exact same sort of hop density and intensity found in the beer's companions. Where you'd normally expect the malt to sweep in and spread the load, it doesn't. Instead there's a dry and quite tannic bitter finish, bringing Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter incongruously, but pleasingly, to mind. An acidic greenness hangs around on the palate afterwards, waiting to be swept away, temporarily, by another gush of citrus. Like the Galaxy and Mandarina Bavaria versions before it, it's a bit strange to have hops normally associated with juiciness bringing such a hard bitter edge to a beer, but also like those two, it's wonderfully invigorating and at the end of the bottle I was wishing I'd had a pint.

And finally, with the bags packed and the taxi booked, DOT's Sour Cherry Apricot Ale. It's a muddy brown colour with an odd sort of aroma: over-ripe squashy summer fruit and an enticing Orvalesque funk. Though it looks weighty it's only 4.5% ABV, with a corresponding lightness of texture. The flavour is quite light too and I sat perplexed at the keyboard for the first few mouthfuls, trying to find something to grab on to. The apricot is certainly there, as a sort of candied fruit flavour, then there's a kind of cherry skin bitterness and behind it the melanoidin biscuit flavour of the Belgian malt, and also a quite Belgian gritty yeast flavour. It all tails off quickly, leaving just a faint trace of that cherry bite.

It's definitely a disconcerting beer. Unsettling, even. Part of me wanted the flavours to be bigger and bolder, but I also wouldn't want it to be a hot sugary yeasty mess, which I'm sure would be all too easy to do. At the other end it has too much going on to be a refreshing quaffer, nor is it clean enough. So no constructive criticism from me, but I do think the recipe, while promising, needs work.