Once more round the park

The other row of festival bars at Big Grill 2018, you'll be pleased to hear, was smaller than the one I wrote about on Monday. It still had its highlights, though.

I began at the north end with DOT, which had a rapidly rotating selection of barrely specials. Early doors on day one it was Double Down, a 9.5% ABV double IPA given time in a single malt whiskey barrel, from Teeling's, one assumes. I was amazed how the fresh and fruity hop flavour was preserved even when exposed to wood and liquor: it still has a bright lime and apple character, with a touch of herbal coconut, in with the dry oak and slick vanilla. I was also amazed how easy drinking it was, given the strength and complexity. If you saw me wandering around the field looking dazed at any point, the flavour of this beer was definitely the reason.

Returning to DOT the following day, I found it had been replaced by Dainty Wood, a very different proposition at 4.2% ABV, though still barrel aged. The base here is a tart pale ale, spicy and fruity, showing bags of juicy white grape and oily black pepper, with a puckering pinch of sourness and a mild oaky twang on the end. Phew. Quite a workout for session-strength drinking, but definitely my kind of beer.

Moving right we come to Five Lamps and their barbecue special, a crystal wheat beer called Meat Our Wheat. I didn't like this guy at all. The title implied something easy and clean, and the 5.5% ABV isn't excessive. Then it began with a funky aroma, which turned sweaty on tasting, at least at first. This grew in intensity as it went, getting sharper, saltier and nastier until it resembled a flinty Italian cheese. I like flinty Italian cheese but I do not want to drink one. I could do without seeing this beer outside of the festival grounds.

Boyne Brewhouse was turning heads with its Raspberry Sour, revised since this year's Alltech festival, and now even more flamboyantly coloured and flavoured. New for me was another Pilot Series offering, the Belgian Blonde. This is a middle-of-the-road 6.5% ABV, and gently hazy blonde, of course, and serves up all the flavours one would expect from the real thing. Warming fruit esters are a big part of it, though they're balanced by clean and dry vegetal notes: celery and courgette. It's very smooth and easy-going, one for swirling in a balloon glass and taking time over.

There was gold at the Sullivan's stand too: Irish Gold to be precise. This new 4%-er was badged as part of the Kilkenny brewery's taproom series, though was actually brewed in a bigger batch in Boyne, where the red ale is produced too. I wasn't expecting a lot from it, but it was genuinely nice: denser than it looked, bringing in sweet notes of honey and golden syrup. You'd be a long time looking for hop fireworks in here, but it's a flawless version of a clean yet weighty golden ale, and very satisfying to drink.

The Porterhouse marks the end of the line this time, and their latest is Early Ryzer, a rye pale ale at 4.6% ABV. It's no Rustbucket, that's for sure. While there's a touch of fun grassy bitterness, it's mostly quite harsh, the acridity enhanced by a cloying buttery quality. I found even a small sample to be hard going.

Those were all the new beers I could find in the main drinks tents. As always there were a couple of standalone satellite bars as well. At the top of the field, an incognito Heineken pavilion was serving their new "wild lager" H32, made with yeast they found lying around in the Himalayas somewhere. It's 5.1% ABV and has the same estery buzz as its Patagonian predecessor, but with a worty sugary quality that reminds me more of an alcohol-free beer than a proper medium-strong lager. A clean and crisp finish redeems it somewhat, but I think I'd find it just too heavy for drinking much of.

Away at the far corner of the festival, Founders and Lagunitas were standing shoulder to shoulder under the banner of their common distributor Grand Cru. It was the first Irish appearance of Founders Honey Wheat, a beer I expected to taste of honey and wheat, but which includes noisy coriander in the recipe. This really dominates the taste, almost turning it soapy but instead giving it an invigorating bathbomb quality with a refreshing ginger-like spice. At 5.5% ABV it's substantial, yet still deliciously gluggable: well suited to one of the rare days on which it's legal to drink in a sunny Dublin park.

And with that I'll wander off into the sunset after another Big Grill. This used to be the opening act of a late summer double-header which included the Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS. I'm glad one of them is still standing, giving us an excuse for a day out. Or two.

Still rolling

The middle post from Alltech Brews & Food concerns the more familiar brewers, the ones I drink a lot, and now just happen to be drinking them here.

On the first evening there was a tasting for media types where a selection of brewers (and distillers) brought samples to talk about. Aidan from Galway Hooker opened the proceedings with the new Galway Hooker Honey Beer, brewed with locally sourced honey. Though presented as a brown ale it didn't look very brown to me, more a medium amber colour. The aroma was similar to that of a quality pilsner, grassy and floral, making me wonder if that's attributable to the special ingredient. It turns into more of a brown ale on tasting: thickly textured and leading with toffee, followed by wheaty cereal and a crisp roast finish. There are no way-out bells and whistles, and the honey is easily missed, but it's still solid, and doubtless deserving of a bigger sample than I had.

Not to be outdone, Wicklow Wolf also had a honey beer at the gig, this one with added elderflower and brewed with international brewing celebrity Anders Kissmeyer. Wolf Kiss is the name: 6% ABV and a clear darkish gold colour. The aroma was a little off-putting, being funky, with an edge of ammonia or even urine about it. The texture is thin and the flavour intensely sweet, adding up to something that reminded me of plain, straight, white lemonade. A mild peppercorn spice offers some contrast, but overall it just didn't work for me, on any level.

That didn't stop me from heading straight to the Wicklow Wolf bar first thing on the Saturday afternoon. They were also pouring a new-release coffee porter called Black Gold, the fourth beer of that name to feature on this blog, fact fans. This is a bit of a stonker at 7.8% ABV. I'm usually fairly well-disposed to coffee as an ingredient in dark beers, but this takes the complementary flavours to a whole new level. There's a beautiful melding of the two kinds of roast, plus the chocolate from the beer meeting the sweet and oily coffee beans. That leaves a long finish, aided by a gorgeous creamy texture, as well as providing an invigorating pure coffee aroma. Great stuff.

Black's of Kinsale had an impressively long bar, featuring two new sour beers. Both were 4% ABV and, tasting side-by-side, I couldn't pick much difference between them. Solero Passion Fruit should have had a sweet fruit character, but didn't, turning out quite savoury with lots of chalky minerals. Wild Thing, then, tasted like a very basic Berliner weisse, dry and plain, and while perfectly thirst-quenching it has little character beyond that.

That must have left me in the mood for something else sour because my notes go straight to Lough Gill next, and their Sligose oyster and seaweed beer. Top marks, first of all, for a "gose" pun that actually works. It's as pale yellow as one might expect, 5.6% ABV and tasting very witbier-like at first, going big on bittersweet herbs and crunchy wheat. I waited for the sourness to kick in but it never happened, the herbs intensifying to a kind of minty humbug flavour. It's a lovely beer, complex, engaging and tremendous fun. I missed the gose element of the taste, however.

Something more down to earth from the same bar next: Lost Armada, a pale ale. I don't know what hops they used in this but it must have been a lot. It has that raw and leafy quality of pure hops, beyond citrus fruit and into crunchy green veg; al dente sprouts and broccoli. And yet it's not harsh or acidic, showing a balanced bitterness and no more. You can forget about malt though: what's there is purely structural.

I saved the 9.5% ABV barrel-aged barley wine until the end of this visit. Old Coot served its time in a Speyside whisky barrel but to me it tasted of wine: dark and fruity, like black cherries in particular. The aroma is tart and the flavour dry, so no malt-driven sugar-bomb here. The texture, however, is appropriately heavy without turning cloying. A proper Bigfoot-like hop bitterness forms the finish. It's a beer of contrasts, immensely complex and rewarding of considered sipping. Not that that was likely to happen in the midst of a festival like this.

Moving on, I noticed Carrig had a poster up for its Cael & Crede red ale which it bottles for the US market. It's a blousy 6.5% ABV but that's probably the most interesting thing about it. Beyond that it's a fairly simple sweet and sticky, toffee-laden Irish red. I wouldn't be too offended if that's what its demographic thinks Irish people drink.

From the hoppier side of the brewery's whiteboard comes Alexanderplatz, a mid-strength IPA (5.5% ABV) showcasing Mandarina Bavaria hops. It arrived lovely and clear, though the aroma was a little sweaty, giving off the expected oranges but a bit of a funk as well. Unlike most recent Carrig offerings it tastes quite sweet, with a fair whack of gummy vanilla and a lacing of coconut. Thankfully there's just enough bitterness to cover it and the end result is decent and modern, if a little lacking in old-fashioned punch.

A year after their first appearance in Dublin, Bridewell of Cliden were back with a third beer: Festus. The slightly odd formula here is a dark lager recipe brewed with an ale yeast and carrying elements from both. It has the crisp and clean roast of a schwarzbier, and some funky hop resins: Mandarina at work again. The ale side of the equation is in the texture, a certain greasy fullness as you'd find in some English dark ales. It's pleasant and would certainly do in a pinch if one is stuck in Connemara craving mid-European black beer.

The other western brewery with a new beer with a short name was Reel Deel, bringing Recon. This is a brown ale (fashionably unfashionable!), all of 6.5% ABV, due in some part at least to time spent in Connemara Whiskey barrels. It really blends the two sides beautifully: all the sumptuous chocolate of a smooth and chewy brown ale overlaid with the bright meadow honey of good Irish whiskey. The texture is suitably thick and the finish long and warming. A gorgeous celebration of malt, all-in-all.

I think Boyne Raspberry Sour is my first sour beer from the Drogheda brewery. It's 4.9% ABV, bright pink and going all out for the fruit, very much at the expense of the sourness. "Hot jam" say my notes, meaning it has all the taste of the sugar and the raspberry seeds. I'm reminded of the fruit-heavy sour beers Open Gate has been brewing. Maybe there's a market for this sort of thing -- all those Belgian brewers can't be wrong -- but I can't help feeling nobody wants to actually brew beer like this.

Between Black Gold and Recon I thought I had picked my top beers of the gig, but on one of my last circuits I noticed the Chardonnay Sparkling Ale, tucked away at a right angle on the Rascals bar. Wow. I found it hard to believe this started out as Happy Days session IPA: the barrel really did a number on it, beginning at the striking champagne aroma, all light toast and dry white grapes. The flavour is a bit more lary, bringing floral bathroom-cabinet lavender, chamomile and jasmine, though there's also more subtle and classy wine tannin too. Despite the big flavours it's very refined, reminding me in particular of DOT Brew's magnificent Champagne Beer from 2016. And like that one, it seems like a beer that won't be around long. Grab it while you can -- this Saturday at UnderDog would be a start.

One more spin around the Convention Centre to come on Friday.