Les étrangers

Am I a bad beer tourist for going to France and being interested in beers from abroad instead of doggedly sticking to documenting the local scene? Yes, probably, but there's nothing you can do about that. Today's beers are ones I bought in Bordeaux but which got there from elsewhere.

First up is a couple of Brooklyn Brewery beers, brewed by their partner Carlsberg Sweden, beginning with The Stonewall Inn, a session IPA. At only 4.6% ABV it walks the walk for an American recipe, undoubtedly in a straight line. It's a clear golden colour and smells nicely peachy, though not madly different from the brewery's flagship floral lager. It's definitely not a lager, however: the mouthfeel is weighty and thick, while the hops move along from the colourful soft fruit to a more serious dank quality; funky and vegetal, lacking an uplifting tang of citrus typical in an American IPA. I found it a little shocking at first, but warmed to it by the half way point. The flavour is largely Citra's doing, I read, and I think this may be primarily pitched at the Citra fanatic. I made my peace with it eventually, but it would be a challenging sort of session with all the boiled cabbage notes in evidence.

Pulp Art is another European contract job, this time a hazy IPA and 6% ABV. There's a similar fruity character to the aroma, and it suggests that more of the same resins are to come. Luckily it reverts to style on tasting with a big hit of, yes, pulpy orange: a mix of sweet juice and bitter pith. The pithiness even introduces a slight coconut note, making me think of Sorachi Ace, a hop that Brooklyn was responsible for popularising in the craft beer world. It is, however, an all-American superteam of Strata, Simcoe, and Citra again. I guess Strata is on juice-mongering duties here. Anyway, it works really well. A bit like with Sierra Nevada's Hazy Little Thing, an established player has taken the new fashion, put their own stamp on it, and created something very tasty in the process.

Given its long trading ties with Britain, it shouldn't be surprising that Bordeaux has plentiful English-style pubs. I first stopped by The Starfish, which has a sizeable range from Brewpoint, the pseudo-craft label of Bedford's Eagle brewery which used to be Charles Wells, including a bitter on cask.

I did check that other people were drinking John Bull English Ale (possibly previously called "Johnny English"), and they were. They must have come away with a poor impression of cask bitter, however, because my pint was thin and vinegary. There's a slight hint of raspberry about it, but the rest is a way over-attenuated mess, too cold, too fizzy and with an utterly inappropriate sourness. 5.3% ABV should have provided something of a safety net against such things, but not enough, it seems. Usually, I'd try to find the redeeming features; the beer the brewery meant me to have. I'm at a loss with this, however. Drop me a comment if you know how it's meant to taste.

To follow, Ink Well, an oatmeal stout. It was served on nitro but has plenty of flavour, opening on slightly-sweetened filter coffee and building on the sweetness with rosewater and milk chocolate. A bitter counter-melody plays next to this, adding liquorice laces and crisp green cabbage leaf. There isn't much else that a 5.2% ABV stout needs to do. I was very impressed, especially after the John Bull fiasco.

Brewpoint also has the beer concession at another pub in town, The Charles Dickens, down by the river. Here I went for Hop & Heart, their recent take on New England IPA. It's no such thing, of course, and although it hits the gravity full square at 6.2% ABV, is an easy-drinking and refreshing orangeade style number. There's a sherbet-like spritz, a mild kick of Orangina pith, and then a very quick finish, reflecting the almost watery texture. So as far away from proper New England as, well, Bedford is, but it works: a clean and super-suppable, Skittles and Starburst, simple delight.

Yet another Wells pub is The Houses of Parliament. Here I had a half of the 9% ABV Scotch ale, Hop Scotch. This one is a clear garnet colour and was tricky to get the measure of at first, since it was poured extremely cold. Given a few minutes to acclimatise, however, it reveals itself as a very good exemplar of the style, built on a firm foundation of creamy Highland toffee, adding a red liquorice complexity, with a lacing of burnt caramel and a spritz of raspberry tartness. It doesn't taste as powerful as the ABV implies, which may be in part down to the temperature, but I'm sure the excellent balance plays a role too. A half on a damp winter afternoon was just the ticket, recalling similar encounters with The Porterhouse's late lamented Brainblásta, and a reminder why it's a terribly civilised idea to have something like this on any brewery's roster of regulars.

They had a stout I hadn't seen in the other branches, called Genesis. It's served on nitro and is the GB Guinness strength of 4.1% ABV, so it's pretty clear what market they're aiming for. Again, my pint needed a bit of time to warm up to get anything from it, so at least that bit's accurate. Even then there's not much: a broad toasty, bready characteristic, and possibly even a touch of Big G's lactic sourness, but I'm reaching here. It's a very plain, roast-led, low-strength stout and isn't meant to do anything other than save the chain from having to pay money to Diageo. Job done. "A Guinness for people who don't even like Guinness," observed the wife.

For herself, a bock, called Crafty Seadog, a whopper at 8.5% ABV. It smelled a little sour and vinegary, which was off-putting. In the flavour that tartness becomes a fruity balsamic and raspberry effect, which is interesting but not so bock-like. I think I would have struggled through a half litre of this. Luckily my wife is made of sterner stuff. It's no Duvel, I'll tell you that much.

Acquitaine has historic links to the Basque country too, somewhat represented by the fair amount of Basque beer on sale in Bordeaux. I picked up a couple from Laugar, where I suspect the brewers or branding people have a bit of a thing for the heavy metal music.

Funeralopolis is an actual tie-in to the "doom metal classic" of the same name, by Electric Wizard. No, me neither. It's an imperial stout of 10% ABV, with added coffee, tonka beans and lactose. Tonka doesn't dominate the aroma for once, and there's a nice mix of roasts here: the coffee and the heavy dark grain. You have to wait for the flavour to get the tonka, and it's right there in the foretaste, the signature Christmas-cookie spice. It's fairly sweet in general, in a most non-metal way, the coffee giving it an overall tiramisu vibe, including a dash of vanilla. The alcohol heat is kept well in check and the finish is surprisingly quick, leaving no aftertaste. Its mouthfeel is quite light, with plenty of fizz and zero gloop. All-in-all it's a cuddly, playful little thing, which I very much doubt was the intention, but I'll go with it.

The devil music theme continues with Midnight Harvest, another imperial stout, this time with smoked cocoa, which is a new ingredient on me. It's 10% ABV again, and again we get some lactose to take any edges off. It smells broadly chocolatey, but not particularly strongly. The flavour has a little more to say, and it's mostly chocolate. I guess it's the lactose's fault that it's very much basic milk chocolate rather than anything fancier. There's a tiny whiff of smoke in the finish, resembling what you get when chipotle or paprika features in beer -- a slightly chemically, plastic, twang. It doesn't ruin it but doesn't really add anything positive either. For all the camp drama of the label, it's a fairly plain chocolate milk stout, decent but unexciting. Rock out with your choc out.

And there we sign off from 2024's first trip. Bordeaux isn't all about the beer by any means, but there's plenty of good stuff, should you want it.

Big swinging langer

Our beer culture in Ireland is, to a very large extent, pub based. Even when we're not in the pub we tend to prefer approachable beers in the 4-5% ABV range. Below that is perceived as low-rent pisswater; above it is crazy loopy-juice. It results in a fairly limited range and it's impressive that our native brewers manage to do as well as they do inside it. But breaks in the pattern -- in both directions -- are always welcome. The microbrew revolution hasn't yet produced any iconoclastic new breweries making excitingly strong beers, so we have to depend on the more established reliables. The Porterhouse's Brainblásta and Celebration are plenty to be going on with; O'Hara's Leann Folláin is a tasty bonus. And now we welcome the latest of the 1990s craft breweries to start bottling strong beer: Franciscan Well and their Shandon Century extra stout.

Rebel county rules dictate that not just any bottle will do, so they've gone for hand-numbered one-litre swingtops. The beer inside is 7.5% ABV, so it seems we're a long way from the cosy confines of the pub session here. Although that said,  it's also available on draught in the Franciscan Well brewpub in Cork city.

And on tasting I can see that it really would be quite pub-compatible. I've never been the biggest fan of Shandon, but this is definitely a cut above. Smooth, with lovely smoky overtones helped out of the main, lightly chocolatey, flavour by a gentle carbonation which adds further to the smoothness. Of all that alcohol there's very little sign: dangerously so, in fact. I can't see any stout drinker having difficulty sinking a pint of this which, as an exercise in trust, is wonderful indication of the maturing Irish beer market.

In short, I'm delighted to see the Franciscan Well do this, and the format has wonderful potential, even if the first outing is on the solidly-drinkable side of things rather than the awe-inspiring. But we're getting the previously-extinct Bell Ringer winter ale next. I'll be in the queue.

A boutique festival

Tuesday of last week saw the Bull & Castle's beerhall given over to the first Deveney's of Dundrum Beer Festival, a modest affair: just 240 punters and a mere three hours of drinking time. Ruth had invited in the major distributors to hawk their wares from tables around the hall, and the varied crowd was as interesting as punters at Irish beer festivals always are. It's only at events like this that you get to stand behind someone inspecting the label of an exotic IPA and remarking to his friend how amazing it was that the beer had come all the way from India. Bless.

My first port of call was the California Wine Imports stall, debuting three new American beers, albeit from New Jersey rather than the more usual left-hand coast. River Horse Belgian Freeze was proferred first, a dark red-amber winter ale. I wasn't so keen on this. At 8% ABV it tastes very hot and boozy, with a bit of an unpleasant syrupiness added on to unsubtle banana notes. Hop Hazard was next -- a sessionable 5.5% ABV pale ale, in which the hop fruitiness is slightly jarringly set against a harsh bitterness, though there's not really enough of either for my taste. River Horse were zero-for-two until Hop-a-lot-amus was poured. This is an 8.5% ABV double IPA and has that intensely resinous hop bitterness I love. Harsh? Yes, maybe a little, but it works beautifully.

Over at Premier International, Dean McGuinness was showcasing Harviestoun's Ola Dubh 12, one of the barrel-aged versions of Old Engine Oil. There's a definite hit of marker-pen phenols in this, but I don't think it interferes with the rich and smooth chocolate flavours -- I'm looking forward to spending some more considered drinking time with this, and to trying the others in the range. After my recent shockingly-sweet experience with Maisel's Weisse, I gave the Maisel's Dunkel a go late in the evening and quite liked it. There's a decent bit of caramel without it being at all sugary. And at one point Mrs Beer Nut thrust a mystery beer at me, an amber affair which tasted weirdly porridgey. It turned out to be Hambleton's gluten-free GFA. Interesting, but not something I'd choose to drink unless I had to.

Anyone who asked me for recommendations got sent to the table where Goudenband was being poured. Next to it was Liefmans Cuvée Brut kriek which I'd never tried before. For some reason I'd thought it would be a bit more mature and sour but it's actually very sugary with just an underlying current of Rodenbach sourness. I'm not sure I approve -- it made my teeth hurt.

Grand Cru were serving 3 Monts, a French blonde I'd not had the pleasure of in ages. I like the soft fluffy texture and the not-too-bitter yeasty character: a lighter and more easy-going Duvel. Wally's team were also showcasing the latest from The Porterhouse bottle-conditioned line in the form of their strong ale, Brainblásta. I really enjoy the toffee-and-apples kick off this 7%-er, and the new version is wonderfully smooth and drinkable, toning down any harshness that may be present in the cold fizzy kegged edition. I noticed at the weekend that The Porterhouse have printed up beermats to promote the new release of their Celebration imperial stout. That'll make a welcome addition to the line-up for their annual stout festival in March.

It's great to welcome another new event to the growing Irish beer calendar, and it's extra good when they happen on my doorstep. Venues are always going to be difficult, but I'd love to see this even bigger next year.

Master blasta

I have to confess that my weakness for multi-lingual puns is behind my choosing An Brainblásta for this month's Session. It's not a new beer, having been part of the original Porterhouse line-up from nigh-on twelve years ago. I'm no stranger to it either, but I've never mentioned it here, partly because I haven't tasted it in the years I've been writing this. Today's barley wine theme prompted me to go back for a reappraisal.

These days, Brainblásta is Ireland's only regularly-produced barley wine. Until a few years ago Diageo made something branded a barley wine under their Smithwick's marque. I never got to try it, but at only 5.5% ABV one has to question how barleywine-ish it really was. Back in the mid-1990s, when I was working as The Worst Barman In Dublin, our pub's stock of Smithwick's Barley Wine was consumed exclusively by one very elderly gentleman who would buy one bottle per week on a Saturday evening on his way home from Mass. This, I suspect, was representative of the beer's main demographic and isn't a terribly sustainable economic model.

It was the year I worked in that pub that The Porter House microbrewery opened its doors in Temple Bar (it later became The Porterhouse and moved the brewery out of town). The connotations in English of the name Brainblásta reflect how shocking a 7% ABV beer was to a country where beers of 5% or more were almost unknown. As part of the marketing gimmickry, the pub made a big deal about only selling Brainblásta by the half pint. This policy didn't last, though there seems to be an effort to revive it judging from this image (right) on the pub's web site (though despite this I was served a pint of it, having asked for "A Brainblásta". I'm not complaining). Nevertheless, judging from the media, the government, and the lumpen commentariat there's little enough evidence of much maturity in Ireland's beer drinking habits, and yet here we have a very strong, cheap beer on sale in Temple Bar for over a decade without civilisation breaking down completely. Civilisation outside of Temple Bar, I mean.

An braon blasta is Irish for "the tasty drop". Does this beer live up to its punnage? I think it does. It starts out with a powerful bitter punch which manages to avoid the harshness sometimes found in strong hoppy ales. It's followed immediately afterwards by a sweet candy caramel flavour which is similarly uncompromising yet delicious. Sipping Brainblásta -- bitter then sweet, bitter then sweet -- produces a taste sensation akin to eating a toffee apple from the inside out.

The trend among Ireland's handful of craft brewers is still for sessionable beers of 4.5% or under. The stronger stuff only shows up as special editions from the Porterhouse, Messrs Maguire and the Franciscan Well. It all makes me very glad that the novelty of Brainblásta shows no sign of abating, even after a dozen years.