Belfast bookends

Today's post is a short companion piece to Monday's run-through of the beers I drank at the Jubilate festival organised by Boundary Brewing last month.

Glider efficiency meant we were some minutes early for the gig, and fortunately the Boundary taproom across the yard from the venue was open and serving. It seemed appropriate to open my account for the day with the beer created to commemorate the event: Jubilate, brewed by Boundary in collaboration with nine festival participants from the island of Ireland. It's a pale ale of 4.5% ABV and hazy in the way that Boundary likes to make them; as do most of the other breweries involved, in fairness to them. Everyone must have brought a big sack of hops to the kettle because it is absolutely saturated in them, giving the beer a harsh and hot garlic character which I wasn't keen on. This clashes with another haze cliché: thick vanilla custard. There's a little orange juice lurking in the background, but I wouldn't classify the beer as juicy, the way the brewery does. It's bang on for the fashion, is absolutely the sort of thing that Boundary has a name for, and it will have fans for sure. For my part, I didn't think it was awful, but definitely isn't my kind of vibe. It's at least part of the reason that there weren't many IPAs in Monday's blog post: I reached my haze quota early.

We had a couple of hours between kicking out time after the early Saturday session and the train home from Belfast's shiny new Grand Central Station. It would have been rude not to drop in at The Crown while passing it, and we shared a snug with some Americans, upset that their stew arrived partially frozen. Pfft. Tourists. I had a pint of overly sweet English cask cider and an excellent one of Timothy Taylor Boltmaker, and on we went.

There was still time at the station. Time to exercise some morbid curiosity about the new BrewDog Belfast, situated on the mezzanine above the station concourse and about which I have yet to hear a good word said. It's a poky little space, all width and no depth (make your own BrewDog joke here) but it does serve White Hag's Little Fawn on draught, so can't be all bad.

Nothing so sensible for me, however. I spotted one potential tick among the BrewDog beers so opted for a pint of Wingman Tropical Storm. I quite liked the session IPA this is based on, and indeed found it to have a happy tropical flavour from the hops. Here, they've boosted the ABV to 7.2% and boosted the tropicals with mango and passionfruit extract. Or at least, they've tried to. The hop side gets utterly drowned out in a sticky confection of fake-tasting syrup. The sweetness is at that needle-bending end of the scale where it starts tasting hot and metallic. I will say the alcohol is well hidden, but it's hidden by something horrible. Still, I finished my pint and caught the train anyway. I doubt I'll be making BrewDog Belfast a regular stop on visits to the city, but I am glad that it's there and that it serves drinkable beer, something I'm increasingly glad of as the multinationals flex their muscles. Better this than somewhere pouring mass market rubbish.

The above is, of course, not representative of Belfast as a beer drinking city. (You can read some better recent experiences here, for example.) Boltmaker is already a magnificent beer, but it takes on an extra level of reverence in this sort of context.

You can't say Leeds without smiling

Work brought me to Leeds for a few short days a couple of weeks ago. Pubbing time was limited but I got a bit done; places both new and familiar from my last visit.

First stop was Assembly Underground, a down-with-the-kids dude-food basement hangout, a large section of which is dedicated to a Vocation Brewery (and guests) 50-tap bar.

Warm evening, long day: pilsner please. Vocation's own Yakima Pilsner, as it happened. As with many a high-level new-world-hopped pils it ended up tasting more like a pale ale than a pils. There's lots of peach in the foretaste, followed by a leafy dankness, the bitterness intensifying to the point of pine resin and tin. Despite the oiliness it doesn't linger, leaving the palate respectably quickly. Something plainer and more Germanic would have suited me better at that exact moment, but this wasn't half bad. I do like a peachy hop.

Cornish brewery Verdant seems to have become a byword for great beer in recent UK discourse. I'd never tried any of their beers, and since there was a sour IPA on here, that seemed like the obvious next choice. My elation lessened on seeing It's Friday Almost Tomorrow is an unreasonable 8.4% ABV and a weird opaque pink colour. Turns out rather than souring an IPA with a bacterial culture they've simply dumped blackcurrant and lime juice into it. It's an approach, I suppose. The first taste gave me creamy coconut, something I often confuse with lime. The warmth of the alcohol and the burn of the bittering hops sit behind this, sulking, probably. It's all very simplistic, as you might expect from an IPA watered down with juice. I don't really see the point. It's fine to drink, though: refreshing in a juicebar sort of way. Can't help thinking it's a waste of IPA, however.

Winding my way back to the river I dropped in to the Head of Steam for a pint of Boltmaker: a beer which I swear is different -- darker and less hop-driven -- than when I last tasted it as Timothy Taylor's Best in York a decade ago.

Anyway, one new tick while I was here: a half of Tinderbox IPA from Fell Brewery in Cumbria. "Classic West-Coast Style" says the pumpclip, without specifying which west coast. It is 6.3% ABV, though, so maybe that's a clue. It's a beautiful northern-bitter shade of clear gold. The aroma mixes a gentle citrus with crisp biscuit while the flavour begins on fruity chew sweet then turns waxy, in a very definitely northern TT-Landlord sort of way. It's not a hyperloop to San Diego but it's a bloody nice IPA, clean flavoured, with a definite punch coming from the strength but by no means hot or soupy. A great session-finisher.

I was back for a quick one on the Friday: Ilkley Summer, a 4% ABV golden ale. It's bang-on for the style, maybe a little more bitter than normal: another one that's unmistakably northern. But there's bubblegum and wafer biscuit too. A little more fruit character would have summer-ised it further, but no complaints. Such stuff as sessions are built on. Not that I had time for any of that sort thing.

Pushing on, next stop was Stew & Oyster at Call's Landing, a nice little riverside place, built for eaters and jumping weekend crowds, but perfectly pleasant on a Wednesday.

I learned something from the name of the Kirkstall lime beer on tap. Turns out a Verdita is a mix of juices and spices designed for drinking with tequila. This one is a more innocent 4% ABV and brewed with lime (obvious), mint (I'd believe it), pineapple (OK), and coriander (what?). But the lack of distinctive cocktail flavours means it all integrates very nicely into a single thirst-quenching summery piece, part lemonade, part straight Berliner weisse. It's fun, it's silly, and perfect if that's what you're in the mood for.

A nightcap, then, at BrewDog. I thought Beatnik Sticky Toffee was a guest beer but it turns out BrewDog makes it themselves. It's a 9% ABV imperial stout and actually not as sweet as the name suggests. Yes it's sweet, and yes there's toffee, but it doesn't tip over into that metallic treacle sweetness that too many of these do. Pastry stout with nuanced flavours gets a pass from me, and there's even a hint of ginger at the back to dry it out and  -- God forbid! -- balance it. A sticky beer that is only slightly sticky. I'll take that.

Next day, Tapped was handy, so I nipped in there once, despite not having had a good experience with their beer last time. Second chance, thy name is Zlato. It looked a little bit dull and hazy, not the usual pin-bright pilsner colour, nor the colourful opaqueness of an unfiltered example. And it doesn't taste right. There's a vinegary twang and a hard plasticky bitterness. I'm guessing it's been brewed in that harsh north-German way which I'm not a fan of at the best of times, but even even I don't think it's a well-made example. So that's Tapped cancelled.

Finally, for this post, I dropped in to Whitelock's after work on the Friday. The crowd had packed into the alley outside to enjoy the sunshine, leaving the saloon relatively free. Picking randomly from the casked selection I went for Glass Light, a pale ale with Azacca hops from Bad Seed Brewery. This'll be a pint of summer, I thought. It wasn't really. While it is a perfect gold colour with just a slight coppery tint, and does have a touch of Azacca's tropical chew-sweet in the flavour, it's otherwise dusty and dry. A rubbery twang adds unpleasantly to the harshness. Thankfully it's smooth yet light-bodied, making it quite easy to drink, despite the terrible taste.

I switched to keg for my last half, the Unfined IPA brewed by Kirkstall as the Whitelock's house beer. Despite the name it's very clear. The ABV is 6% and it's suitably thick: boggy with dank hop resins and overlaid with a heavy lemon and lime bitterness. This means it's wanting for zing, but maybe that's not always necessary. What we have here is a decent, chewy, slow-and-steady-wins-the-race west coast IPA; one with an uncompromising character all its own.

The only other place I went for a drink on this trip was Little Leeds Beerhouse, and I'll cover that when I get around to reviewing the beers I took away from it.

Flight of the wolf

The Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company was kind enough to invite a Beoir delegation down to its headquarters in Bray for a look round and a run through the range. Established in 2014 by ex-home brewers inspired by the Colorado way of life, the compact ex-bakery near the station is now turning out 1,650 litres of beer at a time, 12 times a month, supplying 50 pubs and 200 off licences (yes, I took notes) with a range of four core beers and varying specials, all delivered unfined and unfiltered.

The brewery has been kitted out well for its new use, and particularly impressive is the tasting bar at the front: the sort of thing you'd be more likely to see in the US or London than Wicklow. Sadly it's not open for general public use. Stupid licensing laws.

I had been hoping to get a taste of the latest Wicklow Wolf seasonal, Falconer's Flight Blonde, but Quincey informed me that it had all left the brewery at that stage. Luckily, I happened across a bottle in DrinkStore a few days later and snapped that up. I still had a bottle of their last seasonal Blonde, Locavore, knocking around so I decided to open them side-by-side for comparison.

Six months on from brewing, Locavore has calmed down a little. The bitter lemon-and-wax effect I perceived when I first drank it has mellowed and there's more of a gentle sweetness going on. The new kid, however, has all of that wax in spades. Though the same colour and a tiny bit stronger, Falconer's Flight Blonde is assertively bitter, almost heading for a metallic tang. I noticed the fill level on the bottle was lower than on the Locavore and I'm putting the lighter carbonation down to that. After a moment or two at room temperature the malt starts to make its presence felt, adding an insistent honey and bubblegum complexity. The end result is something that tastes very much like a northern English golden bitter. Maybe not quite Boltmaker, but close your eyes and wish and you're nearly in the zone. The Falconer's Flight hop blend may be classically American, but this beer is a long way from Colorado.

Cheers to Quincey, Simon and the team for entertaining us. Wicklow Wolf has already expanded since our visit, with new tanks installed a few weeks ago. Though space is tight I completely agree with the management that there's a tangible benefit to being part of the neighbourhood rather than  occupying just another anonymous industrial unit.