The bottle of the Boyne

I can't believe it was all the way back in January when a bunch of us from Beoir visited Boyne Brewhouse. They were just getting ready to commission the packaging lines in the cavernous former car showroom outside Drogheda -- bottling and canning for their Devil's Bit cider and the forthcoming range of beers. Production on the latter had begun last October with head brewer Áine O'Hora at the helm. It's a big plant, intending to hit the microbrewery limit of three million litres from year one, and incorporating the Boann Distillery, which Áine will also be running. The project is owned and operated by the Cooney family and pater familias Pat took us around, to show where the barrel stores will be, as well as the visitors' centre with restaurant and theatre. It's an immensely ambitious project, but at the same time the sort of perfectly normal attraction you might expect to find abroad, but never here in Ireland. After the walkabout we got tasters of the beers, most of which were still not ready for public view, and I vowed that I'd come back and write about them properly after their release. Ridiculously, and entirely by my own fault, that has taken five months.

Born in a Day was already on the market in draught form when we visited, and I'd previously reviewed the first iteration last summer, when it was still being brewed at White Gypsy, but this is my first proper sit-down with a full bottle. It's an attractive clear and slightly coppery gold, with the loose topping of big bubbles that tells me it won't be over-carbonated. There's a pleasingly beery smell: nothing more complex than orange peel and iced tea. On tasting it's the bitterness that strikes first: orangey in that characteristically Australian way, though without any juiciness. The ethos here seems to be more the invigorating English best bitter than anything new-worldsy. A tight astringency on the finish might put some off but it left me coming back for the next mouthful. There's a toffeeish twang in the background that grows as it warms, creating a risk that it will get a little sickly if allowed warm too much. It's an Australian-style pale ale, so is best consumed damn cold, I reckon. An unsophisticated beer, perhaps, but with a definite no-nonsense charm.

Occupying the red ale space is Pagan's Pillar, badged as a "sparkling copper ale" with a slight nod to Cooper's (why all the Australian references? Áine used to brew at Matilda Bay in Melbourne). The use of Mandarina Bavaria hops for flavour gives a lot of the same orange-and-tannins effect that we found in the pale ale. The difference is a toffee edge sweetening things up a little. It's still ultimately quite a dry beer and there's a light touch of the roast found in better Irish reds, but it's really only a small sideways step from Born in a Day, and is even the exact same strength at 4.8% ABV. To my mind these are essentially the same beer pitched at slightly different markets: the pale ale for the youngster with a global outlook on beer, and the red for their dad, looking for something more familiar. Both are safe solid beers, well made but not likely to excite. Most Irish brewers have a core range like this and they're the ones that pay the mortgage on the breweries.


And finally Long Arm, either a pilsner or a Dortmunder export, depending on whether you believe the front or the back of the label -- Áine insists that export is just pils brewed with hard water. This was nearly finished, but flat, when tasted at the brewery, yet showed enormous promise. It has grown up into a very handsome lager, not too fizzy and bursting with grassy Saaz, the only hop used in it. The bitterness is perhaps just a little high for me, making a somewhat waxy, plasticky distraction, but it's quite effectively drowned out by the aforementioned hops and a smooth golden-syrup malt sweetness. Classical drinkability is the name of the game here and it performs very well at it.

The names, in case you were wondering, are all drawn from Celtic mythology, in keeping with the brewery's location near Newgrange and other points of archaeological interest along the Boyne Valley. I do think it's a little bit of a shame that they don't really speak to the sorts of beers they've been assigned to, being entirely interchangeable.

I think Boyne Brewhouse will do well, and I take it as a positive sign that this cider-maker with designs on the whiskey trade decided it should produce beer as well. It didn't have to. The initial products aren't likely to win them armies of geek fans, but they're three quality offerings being produced in enough quantity to make a noticeable, positive, impact on the market.

Feel the strine

We do very badly for Aussie beer over here. I'm told that some of the Little Creatures range have been spotted in Dublin off licences, but other than that it's the usual yellow muck from the House of Foster, Toohey's, and the like. In general, the Cooper's range is the best we can manage, though I'm not keen on their stout and find their famous Sparkling Ale highly overrated. The last of their beers that we see in these parts is the Original Pale Ale.

Well, it's pale all right: a translucent light yellow with loads of gas creating a steady shallow head. There's not much on the first sip, just more gas and a crisp dry bitterness. After a while the malt profile begins to come through but it's hard to get a handle on it around all those bubbles.

In an effort to get a bit more flavour out of the beer I've just bunged the yeasty dregs into the glass. This turns it more of a lemony witbiery shade and adds a bit more body, but really does little for the overall taste.

An ice-cold six-pack by a barbecue supplying endless amounts of greasy meat: yes, I can understand that. Sitting in on a dark northern-hemisphere winter evening, however, I'll have something else, thanks.

Manic Stout Porters

I'm going through a bit of a black beer phase at the moment. Stout and porter, when done properly, offer a highly complex texture and flavour experience. The way the different elements work in harmony is quite similar, I think, to how a piece of music works. Since this month's Session is on beer and music I'm wondering what it would be like if the international stouts and porters I've had recently were bands.

To England first, and Wychwood's Black Wych. I'm never quite sure what to expect with Wychwood, having had very good and very bad experiences. Despite the name, this is a good wych. It pours to a thick, tight head and gives off a disquieting sweet estery aroma, like cheap and nasty chocolate. There's very little trace of it in the taste, however. Instead there's a sharp dry tang of roasted barley followed by a lasting aftertaste of mild and milky coffee. Best of all is the silky smooth mouthfeel, nearly worth the price of admission alone. If it were a band, Black Wych would be one of those hard-working groups who are head-noddingly good live, that you are always glad to see as a support act, but you're not likely to own any of their records.

Beer does flow and men chunder in the home of the next candidate: Cooper's Best Extra Stout. Like the Sparkling Ale from the same brewery, this stout is full of yeasty floaters, occasionally visible in the deep gloom of the beer. Texture is the strong point here: a lovely creamy mouthfeel and amazing head retention, with a centimetre of parchment-coloured foam lasting for all of a slow tasting. Alas, this beer doesn't come through on the flavour. It's incredibly dry and unsurprisingly yeasty. It's not bitter, however, and without some sort of hops or roasted grain element I can't warm to it. In the music industry it would be a very well-equipped band capable of an amazing sound, but utterly lacking in talent.

The US is next on the hitlist: Sierra Nevada Porter, to be precise. Again the head is thin but resilient and the beer has a promising malty nose. Typical of an American, however, it's inappropriately over-carbonated giving a prickly mouthfeel instead of smoothness. And it tastes of bugger all. It's half-heartedly dry and has these metallic off-notes at the end. As a band, I'd expect it to be a motley assembly of teenage buskers demonstrating little-to-no understanding of tempo, melody and harmony.

The Basque country's Pagoa Zunbeltz brings us back to Europe. This is quite an undemanding stout: light and fizzy with coffee notes in the ascendant. It's a high quality craft beer but I can't imagine growing to love it. That elegant lady singing standards to a light jazz backing is what it is.

We finish back in England with a bottle of Fuller's London Porter, a beer of very great repute. Dark brown in colour, it's smooth yet sparkly, but without much by way of head, relatively speaking. The aroma carries the rich promise of malt and chocolate. It's not overly flavoursome, but letting it sit on the tongue for a while brings forth milk chocolate with a bitter hoppy twang at the end. I was expecting Hendrix on the Isle of Wight, but got present-day Springsteen instead. I can live with that.

(Incidentally, if you were expecting a post about Irish music, all you need to know is in this short film.)

Sedimental journey

I hadn't intended for my weekend's drinking to have a theme, it just turned out that way.

On the roster were three beers I'd been meaning to try for ages but hadn't got round to, and all with their gritty little secrets.

First up was Hen's Tooth. I'm a big fan of Old Speckled Hen, so I thought it only just to give the reserve beer a go. I wasn't disappointed: it's incredibly smooth and delicately flavoured, very similar to the best pints of draught cask ale I've had in Britain. And it has a hefty 6.5% strength, so much more satisfying than the 3-4.5% that ales tend to hover around. And surprisingly, the sediment didn't get in the way. I did my best to keep it out of the glass, but some of it ended up suspended in my pint. Didn't affect the flavour though, or at least not unpleasantly.

Continuing on the enhanced editions theme, I tried a bottle of Aventinus Eisbock. Schneider Weisse is my favourite German beer, and their Aventinus is great too, so I figured the concentrated Aventinus was definitely worth a go, despite the €5.50 price tag. No strength on the label was the first black mark. I read, however, that it's around 12%. This is the same as Bush, Belgium's strongest beer, and the taste was similar too: ultra-heavy and very cloying. After a few sips I managed to get into it, but it's hard, chewy work. A 330ml bottle and a considerable quantity of sediment meant that at least the experience was curtailed slightly. This stuff is an acquired taste for sure, and given the price I'm not sure it's wholly worth the effort.

Last up was a beer I've seen many times but hadn't considered buying because it looks so unassuming: Cooper's Sparkling Ale. Australian beer for me is limited to Toohey's Extra Dry and Carlton Cold, and even then only when I'm actually in Australia and have limited choice (though I do recall a great Carlton Cold drinks promtion in an Irish bar in Hong Kong some years back). Recently while trawling the Internet for beer suggestions I happened across a review of Cooper's Sparkling that made enormous claims for it -- a true connoisseur's beer, a proper ale from a country where beer terminology is badly abused. However, while it does stand above its compatriots, this stuff just can't cut it in a European context. The taste just isn't bold enough, leaving it watery and having an annoying fine sediment. I can completely understand why one would turn to this if VB or Toohey's New was your only other option, but otherwise I don't get it. One for the ex-pats only, methinks.