Mission creep

I'd only gone to DrinkStore for one specific beer but forgot it had been a few weeks since I was last in, so there was lots of new and previously untasted Irish beer to try. The purpose of my visit was Crossroads, an IPA from Kinnegar which rebadges a one-off called Roadtrip brewed exclusively for McHugh's off licences earlier this year. To my shame I've never been to either McHugh's branches, but was still kinda glad that the re-release has saved me an excursion to the northern suburbs. Crossroads pours an autumnal burnt ochre colour and smells quite caramelly, though there's definitely a citrus hop element to the aroma as well. The malt and hops blend rather well on tasting: it's smooth, heavy and warming with lots of toffee, and tasting every bit of its 6.2% ABV. But the hops sing out as well, sharply assertive with lemon and pine at the front and oily resins coating the lips. Then at the back of the palate there's a softer mango and papaya fruitiness melding playfully with that sweet toffee. It's a big beer for sure, but a rewarding one to take time over.

Little Fawn is a session IPA from White Hag, and properly session at 4.2% ABV. It's a lagery dark gold colour and gives up most of its aromatic secrets as it pours: grapefruit, pine and a juicier mango backing. A sniff once it's in the glass reveals a more serious dank, so this hits all the classic new world hop notes before it's even sipped. It's a little less complex on tasting, however. That low ABV results in a certain hollow and watery sensation that I found took the shine off it. The hops burn acidly and possibly a little harsh for me, but fans of roaringly fresh American IPA will definitely get their jollies here. There's even a bit of malt balance: a hint of Rich Tea biscuit behind the intensely perfumed flavour, quickly drowned by a long, long piney finish. In summary: hops; and a beer that I found more enjoyable to sniff than to taste.

The latest from Jack Cody's is Lunasa, badged as a "summer saison". It's 5.4% ABV and a cheery clear copper colour in the pint glass, the first time I think I've ever had to pour myself a half litre of saison. The classic saison crispness is a large part of what it does, and that suits me perfectly: no hot and fruity esters, but a gentle pepperiness and a fun wisp of smoke at the end. While it's as prickly as the next dry beer, the carbonation is low which makes it incredibly drinkable -- ideally suited to the casual summer drinking it's designed for.

I finally caught up with the second offering from Derry's Northbound: 08, a Kölschalike at 5% ABV. Perhaps it was a bit too warm when I drank it (hence all that foam) but I got a lot of greasy, esters and jangling sugar or even saccharine. The aroma has a kind of sickly syrupy thing, though the crisp graininess of proper Kölsch is lurking down there as well. It's not terrible, there is a proper spinachy noble hop bitterness and flavour, but the marker pen residue it leaves behind really spoils it. If you're going to drink 08, drink it damn cold. It was much better on keg at the RDS last weekend, for example.

Last one from the haul is Rowlock, a new IPA from Clearsky Brewing which uses Hilden's facilities. It's 4.5% ABV and pleasingly pale, the pour dispelling all fears of it being a heavy, sticky malt bomb as too many Northern Irish IPAs recently have been. There's a worrying haze but that doesn't seem to interfere with the flavour. My first impression on tasting is coconut, in the classic, oily, Sorachi Ace sense. The label gives us no more clue than "interesting hop flavours" so I don't know what's actually producing the effect. Behind it, some light and floral orange blossom and jasmine, oh and there's the yeast bite, but only a small one. In a reverse of the norm, it's more malt than hops in the aroma: a rather unpleasant musty grainsack thing, but again this is a mere peccadillo. Overall, it's an interesting and fun pale ale, designed to be accessible, but sufficiently interesting to keep any drinker entertained. More actual information on the label in place of the marketing nonsense about "simple pleasures" and "trading stories" would be helpful. Is anyone actually convinced by that stuff?

A quick dash to the pub before we go, and last month saw Roscommon's Black Donkey Brewery celebrating its first birthday in 57 The Headline with a tap takeover and a new addition to the line-up. Beyond is a rye ale, 4.8% ABV and dark red. Like the first edition of Buck-It, a neutral ale yeast has been used and also like the first edition of Buck-It it leaves the beer rather harsh: a dry-grass sharpness imbues the whole thing, with a weird strawberry jam sweetness on top. I feel it would benefit from having a few of the edges knocked off, but the brewery probably thinks the same about me. Scythe remains my favourite of the Black Donkey range.

And on the tap around the corner, a new one from Trouble: Ripcord red ale. It being Trouble I wasn't expecting a standard Irish red, but that's pretty much what this is, unfortunately. In the absence of bolder flavours a nasty yeasty bite opened it up and just sat on the watery texture refusing to move. As it warmed there was some lighter red fruit added but nothing to make the beer interesting. The spec says there's supposed to be a US twist here, Cascade and Centennial, but it completely passed me by.

I'll have to award this round to the bottled beers, but draught will be making a comeback when I get to writing about what I found at this year's Irish Craft Beer Festival last weekend. Coming soon. Ish.

To the Kingdom

Ireland got a major new addition to its beer calendar this month with the first Killarney Beerfest, staged by the experienced events organisers of the Irish National Entertainment Centre at the Gleneagle Hotel. The sun mostly shone, trade was quite brisk among the tents and the live entertainment was excellent. Saturday saw an all-star team of international judges put 81 of Ireland's microbrewed beers through a rigorous judging process, with young James Brown taking the grand prize for his Chocolate Orange Stout. But I did a bit of unofficial judging myself too...

First and foremost, Black Donkey's Buck-It comes off the naughty step. This beer really rubbed me up the wrong way back in February, but a switch from a neutral American yeast to something a little more estery has taken those pointy, musty edges off it and given it a smooth rounded fruity character. Well worth a re-visit if you were similarly unimpressed previously. The Roscommon brewery was also pouring a new one: Scythe, a 4.6% ABV... er... well I'm not sure what style category it belongs in. I suppose pale ale is a start: it's a murky orange colour and the aroma is pure peach flesh. That fresh and zippy New World hop thing extends to the flavour but it's joined there by a very Belgian yeast spice. If I recall correctly, this uses the same yeast as Black Donkey's Sheep Stealer saison so possibly could count as the same style. Either way, it's a very fine hoppy sessioner.

Sticking with them peaches for a moment, Black's of Kinsale had a new Pils on tap: slightly hazy but still properly clean-tasting and with a subtle sprinkling of peach and mandarin flavours. It's done with US hops but really put me in mind of those mouthwatering Australian varieties they have now. Overall this is a decent, but not shocking, re-imagining of quaffing lager.

From lager to stout and a second beer from County Limerick's only brewery, JJ's. Abbey Stout is a roasty one, vaguely sweet but pouring on more of the dry notes. There's not much other complexity but then at 4.2% ABV I guess there's not supposed to be.

Jack Doyle's beer is rarely seen outside its native Wexford so I was delighted to find it at the festival. Jack Doyle's Premium Stout is another straightforward one: 4.2% ABV and served on nitro. Its special move is a lovely whack of chocolate and cocoa right in the heart of the soft, smooth texture. This is plainly designed to take the big boys on and I'd certainly pick it when faced with that choice. I'm a little less convinced by Proper Order, a pale ale at the same strength. Like the stout, it's simple and drinkable with no brewing flaws, but it's much more of an Irish red than a hop-forward pale ale. Sure, it's a pale amber colour rather than red, but the light body, the toffee, and the low-impact hops all say something other than pale ale to me. But again, in a pub with nothing better, I'd be content.

Local boys Killarney Brewing also malted up their Scarlet Pimpernel IPA. It's very nearly red and decidedly sweet, justified by a pleasant buzz of orange sherbet though let down in the finish by a harsher medicinal note. Some sort of phenolic invader, perhaps? Nothing like that in the stout though. Casey Brothers is yet another easy-going nitro job, though it does make good use of its extra strength at 5% ABV: there's a creamy richness plus a mild hint of blackcurrant right on the finish.

Neighbours Torc Brewing have been a little more adventurous with their newest offerings. Torc Wheat Beer doesn't sound that off-the-wall, especially at just 4.2% ABV, but they've used Cascade and Centennial hops to add a juicy citrus bang without losing the classic bubblegum sweetness. There's a decently full body for the lower strength too. Torc Amber Ale is a tiny bit stronger but less hoppy too. If Proper Order and Scarlet Pimpernel had Irish Red qualities, this tips over into that style fully. There's a dusting of red fruit, more than a hint of toffee, and a clean mineral quality that stops it from getting too sweet. But disappointingly little by way of hops.

Two pale ales to go out on. The first is The Dreamer, a summer seasonal from O Brother and based on their regular The Fixer, with the ABV dialled down a notch to 4.3%. It's pale and hazy, the Willamette hops imparting bright floral flavours but with a more punchy playful bitterness on the end. There is a bit of a bleachy bum note spoiling things a little: I guess something this light leaves no place for such off-flavours to hide, but at least the beer's merits aren't obscured by this flaw.

My beer of the weekend, however, was the new Eight Degrees summer seasonal Grand Stretch. Created with the needs of the brewery workers in mind, this is just (again!) 4.2% ABV but jam-packed with Vic Secret hops. A grassy, resinous spice bumps up against classic New World mango and nectarine leaving no doubt that this beer is all about the delicious, refreshing, fresh hops. Yet it's not overly bitter and nor is it thin: the body is full enough to carry everything that's happening. Complex hop-forward session beers of this quality are all too rare in Ireland. It's great to meet another one.

Killarney may not be the biggest or geekiest of beer festivals in Ireland but it's one of the most enjoyable I've ever attended (living on-site for the duration may have something to do with that) and the setting amid the majestic Kerry scenery really adds spectacle to it. Keep and eye out for the announcement of next year's dates.

The West...

A couple of weeks ago I took up the invitation from Aidan of Galway Hooker to visit the new brewery site in Oranmore with a group of fellow Beoir members. It's a hell of a set-up, all shiny and automated in a space that's more like an aircraft hangar than a typical Irish microbrewery, and certainly a long way from the cramped block-built shed where the brewery started in 2006. There's even a cosy tasting room on site where I got the chance to taste Galway Hooker Dark Lager for the first time.

This follows the Pale Ale and Stout to be the third permanent Galway Hooker beer and, for the moment at least, exists only in bottled form. I think I was expecting something black and schwarzbier-ish so was surprised to find it's much more on the Vienna or Alt side of the house: copper coloured -- not dissimilar to the Pale Ale, in fact -- and with a light, clean crunchy grain backbone overlayed with subtly green German hops adding notes of fresh rocket and raw spinach leaves. All very approachable, and sessionable too at just 4.3% ABV.

Another brewery on the grow is Beoir Chorca Duibhne in west Kerry who upgraded last autumn from their toytown half-hectolitre kit to a grown-up 5 barrel job. We've certainly been seeing the fruits of the expansion here in Dublin in recent months, with a sequence of bottled seasonals and beers on keg for the first time.

The latest of the latter was simply titled Dark Winter Ale and is a blend of Carraig Dubh porter and Cúl Dorcha dark ale with a finished strength of 5.7% ABV. Its appearance is true to its porter roots: brown-black with a creamy head. Yet the first thing I thought of on drinking it was pilsner and I suspect that's the German hops from Cúl Dorcha at work. Of course it's still malt-forward, but it's a particularly lagery crisp, wholegrain biscuit sort of malt. The hopping behind it shows lots of cut grass. Only when it warmed did I start getting hints of chocolate from the foundation porter but the sharp hop acidity still dominated. It's all just a bit too severe for my liking and I think I prefer drinking both beers separately.

This was in 57 The Headline which had another new western beer on tap just after New Year: Black Donkey's Belgian American Amber Ale, the first from the Roscommon brewery's pilot kit to hit the market. I won't sugarcoat my words here: I did not like this beer one little bit. It's massively musty, with the sort of dry rot stank you get in the less fancy charity furniture shops. Is it an oxidation effect? Might the grain have just been off? Is it something about the way the ingredients are combined? I don't know. But it didn't taste Belgian to me, and certainly not American. It's too dry for either and the only trace of fruitiness I could find was a tiny hint of red berry right on the finish. I'm all for playing with ingredients and styles but I wouldn't have been happy with a beer like this going out under my brand, though Richard the brewer tells me he got lots of positive feedback on it. Did anyone else out there try it?

Edited June 2015: This beer has since been relaunched under the name Buck-It. A change in the yeast seems to have fixed the perceived flavour issues.

A bit of a hop kick to go out on. Marcus from Reel Deel gave me this sample bottle of his second beer, Jack the Lad, at a do in 57 organised by his distributor, Vanguard. It's a 4.5% ABV IPA, a darkish clear gold colour and smelling pleasantly perfumed, with fabric softener and lemon cordial notes. The first sip delivered a big and pleasing dose of citrus hops but I think my palate adjusted almost immediately and subsequent mouthfuls were more muted. It's still hop-driven, showing sharp grapefruit and lime in particular, but there's a soft cake-and-candyfloss base behind it. Much like good ol' Galway Hooker Pale Ale, this is an easy drinker with plenty of hop complexity to hold your interest too. The suggested Irish cheese match on the label is a nice touch as well.

So that's some of what they're up to out west. The next post looks at a handful of new beers from points east of the Shannon.