Too far down with the kids

Creative and unexpected moves has always been the stock-in-trade at Rascals Brewery -- the clue is in the name -- but I really wasn't expecting their latest gambit. I'm taking it as an indicator of the ongoing decline of "craft beer" as it was once known. For one thing, the brewery logo is as small as they can make it on the packaging, suggesting not quite disavowal, but certainly a different angle from usual. And secondly, Chido is purportedly a Mexican-style pale lager with added lime zest, sold by the six-pack of 33cl clear glass bottles. For those unfamiliar with how beer is sold in Ireland, the bottled multipack format belongs exclusively to imports, at least since Eight Degrees tried and abandoned it almost two decades ago. But I'm quite prepared to believe that it's something that might work now, as beer transitions away from involved and fancy towards simple and familiar.

I began by testing it within its intended context. It was a sunny day and I was thirsty. I drank it cold from the bottle and it was fine: no more or less offensive than any of the beers it's designed to emulate. I was afraid it might have Desperados-levels of fruit-syrup sweetness, but it doesn't. Maize is listed on the ingredients, and that helps keep it crisp and bland. 4% ABV is lighter than the competition, and overall it was perfectly refreshing. Poured out, head retention is naturally not part of the spec, and it doesn't look anything like as attractive, taking on a greenish hue. The lime makes it smell rather sticky, but again, it isn't meant to be smelled. Slow and considered tasting led to increasing annoyance at the maize's corn-husk twang. The beer still isn't sticky, but it has the wrong kind of dryness, tasting cheap and overly processed, then watery in the finish. The lime is unobtrusive, but doesn't add fresh zing, more a sort of dull sourness. Cold from the bottle is very much the way to go here, take it or leave it.

One final point to add is that it isn't cheap. I paid €15 for the six-pack, which places it at a premium compared to the imports it's copying. We're not doing craft beer here, so why are customers still expected to pay the craft tax? I'm no expert on Gen Z, but if they do want this kind of thing, might they prefer it in standard cans for less money? While market analysis is really not my area, I can't see this being a success.

On more familiar ground, in late March I was summonsed to Rascals to assist with the finals of the National Homebrew Club's annual competition. Over lunch, I tried out two new offerings at the brewery bar. Pilot #148 is described as a Tropical Pale Ale, and I took it that this was a reference to the hops it used. That seemed to be the case with the big and sweet pineapple foretaste, and there was an oily element too, which I took to be coconut -- they're tropical -- but seems to have actually been lime. I often mix those two up, and assume they're chemically similar. A glance at the menu told me that this is brewed with real pineapple, and lime, and apricot too, though I couldn't taste any of the latter. It's a loud and simplistic beer, and a little heavy for only 4.9% ABV, but the citrus gives it a refreshing bite. If you don't mind a little syrup in your pale ale, it's an acceptable one. I wouldn't be surprised to see it graduate past pilot and into full production for the summer.

That the Rascals pilot scheme is actually in the business of trying out recipes, and not simply making small runs for the taproom, was indicated by the next beer. Pilot #149 is a Non-Alcoholic Pale Ale, and I doubt anyone tried making one of these just for fun. I'm guessing Rascals is gearing up to put one in regular production. Well, this is a candidate. It's not perfect, and is as watery as it looks: the wan hazy yellow colour matching a thin body and a flavour which tails off quickly. But before that, the hops make themselves known, with a fun and spritzy lemon flavour, akin to barley water or soluble vitamins. All it needs to be convincing, I reckon, is a bit more body. I'm sure there's a spare bag of lactose somewhere on the Rascals premises.

Together, a party lager and an alcohol-free beer suggest that a change of ethos may be afoot at Rascals. Or, perhaps more accurately, they're sticking close to the target market of young drinkers that they've always had, but the demands of that segment have changed. I hope there's still room for old-person craft beer in their brewing schedule.

Sugar rush

What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Look, they were in my eyeline, in the supermarket, labelled as BEER despite all other appearances. So that I could stop wondering whether they should be included on the blog or not, I bought them both, God forgive me, and here they are.

You will find a review of classic Desperados here, written in 2009. These are extensions of a brand that probably didn't need any. Both are at the same strength as that: 5.9% ABV.

Desperados is (loosely) tequila flavoured, but for Desperados Tropical Daquiri they've taken pains to point out that rum is the spirit invoked. It looks like a standard lager: a clear deep golden. It doesn't smell like a beer at all, however, with sickly sweet syrup of the generically tropical variety, done with passionfruit. To taste, it's not as sickly as I was expecting, something it has in common with the original. There's a clean base that has been syruped up but not completely destroyed. Where the beer side contributes most is the finish, cleaning up the worst of the sugary excesses so that they don't dwell on the palate. The promoted rum character does not materialise at all, which suits me as a disliker of rum-flavoured things that aren't actually rum. I mean, it's not good beer, but it could be much worse. There are "proper" artisanal breweries passing off products as fruited sours that are more sticky and unpleasant than this. Though as a fan of both beer and daquiris, this doesn't really give me any sense of either.

The spirit moves once more, and the next one is Desperados Red Caipirinha, claiming to be flavoured with cachaça, though I'm not expecting to find much of that. It's a dark rosé shade in the glass and, bizarrely, actually smells like beer. The listed additives are cachaça, which isn't a strong flavour by itself, and elderberry juice, which I'm guessing is mostly for the colour. That leaves the grain of the lager base as the main character in the aroma. It does taste syrupy: sweet and generically fruity, more raspberry and cherry than anything fancier. There's absolutely no sign of the spirit and it really doesn't resemble a cocktail of any kind. This is an alcopop in all things but smell. The previous one, and standard Desperados, do at least add interesting things to the syrup; this doesn't. Its USP is that it's pink. I'm not impressed.

In for a penny, in for a pounding. The same supermarket also sells Kopparberg's Orange Ginger Beer, and what with ginger beer having a bit of a moment in these parts lately, I thought I ought to give it a whirl. 4% ABV seems to be standard for this sort of thing, likewise the pale Golden-Delicious yellow colour. To taste, it's sweet, which is hardly surprising given Kopparberg's form with cider-adjacent products. You don't get much ginger, just a tiny pinch of spice; a spritz of heat in the back of the throat. In front of that is masses of sugar, which is mostly cleanly syrupy but includes a fun element of boozy orange, like a cheeky dash of triple sec. Half a litre of this was hard work. While it's light on alcohol, there's so much sugar here that I found it difficult, and I'm pretty tolerant of sweetness in beers. The orange gives it something of an interesting twist, but ginger beer fans would be much better off sticking to the examples from Smithfield Brewing and Kinnegar. Add your own orange to taste.

Well, I'm glad that's over. If you've ever hovered at the colourful, ultra-sweet, not-quite-beer section of the supermarket, consider this your cue to walk on.

Postmodern postscript

I thought I had finished my west-to-east Dublin taproom odyssey with Urban Brewing, as reported on Monday. But having completed the blackboard there it occurred to me that Dublin does have another drink-in brewery further east still, one which has been turning out new beers almost as rapidly as the others. We set a course, then, for BrewDog Outpost Dublin.

There were three beers from the in-house kit available and I started with Dem Beets, described as a "beetroot sour" and 5.2% ABV. It's clear and purple, with a lemonade aroma which reminded me immediately of Hopfully's excellent and much-missed beetroot saison, Beetjuice. The beetroot is present but mild, bringing a touch of damp earthiness to proceedings. While there's no real sourness to speak of, it's zingy and refreshing so gets the job done.

To follow, an American-style pale ale called Camarillo Brillo. It's on the strong side for pale ale in Ireland at 5.1% ABV but is mellow and easy drinking, quite a gear change from Urban's waves of hop napalm. This is softly textured, with medium bitterness and touches of orange sherbet sweetness. It works on the level of a reliable house beer rather than a one-off special edition, but is decently drinkable regardless.

It's back to the more unusual beer styles next with a roggenbier called Seth, Joe & Co, which almost works as a pun. For some reason I expected it to be stronger than 4.7% ABV but that's where we're at, and a turbid ochre colour to boot. The next surprise was an aroma of bitter dark chocolate, while the flavour melds rye's spicy grass with an amber ale's sweetness, including milk chocolate and orange essence. I'm sure the hops are involved in contributing both bitterness and citrus elements too, but it was hard to pick them out in the rest of the blend. It's fun and characterful and not at all as serious and difficult as I feared it would be. Roggenbier doesn't have to be harsh; a new lesson for me there.

I couldn't resist adding one beer from headquarters to the list, namely Farmhouse Cartel, a bière de garde that's 10% ABV and aged in tequila barrels, just like the French farmers don't make them. It's bright orange in the glass and smells powerfully strong and sweet, giving it liqueur vibes more than beer. And that's how it tastes too: Cointreau, Malibu and other sticky bottles from the back of the cupboard. It's a tragic irony that in trying to make a classy tequila beer they've ended up with a lot in common with Desperados. The dry and spiced side of farmhouse character is completely missing in this hot mess of a thing. I'm not keen on the name trading on cheap Mexican stereotypes either. BrewDog gonna BrewDog, I guess. At least I can't blame the brewers in Dublin for it.

And that is indeed the end of the tour and a cross-section of what Dublin's taprooms had on offer over a couple of weeks during the summer of 2022.

Midnight sunny

I'm sure they value their summers in Iceland at least as much as we do down here. Three season-appropriate beers from Einstök arrived recently, all new to Ireland.

Arctic Lager looks like a straightforward 4.7% ABV pale job but the can tells us it's dry-hopped with Citra, which should add something beyond the norm. The aroma certainly shows a pale-ale level of fruitiness, gentle rather than sharp though, with peach and lychee. A proper Citra bitterness punches through in the foretaste: lemon rind plus a certain tannic astringency. It doesn't let go of the stonefruit, however, and that lingers in the background. What's missing is the lager side. As often happens when new-world hops are involved, the crispness disappears and the drinker loses the benefit of it being a lager. Still, it's decent and flavourful, packing a lot into a modest package. I have little to complain about here.

That's an implied summer seasonal; the next one is explicit. The viking on the can is wearing sunglasses! Arctic Berry Ale is described as a "white ale brewed with bilberries", or "blueberry witbier" as one might call it more economically. I though the berries would give it a blue tint but it poured quite a plain deep yellow colour. Mind you, the aroma is packed with blueberries: sweet and tart, to the point of smelling concentrated and jammy. That sweet, slightly artificial, candy perfume effect forms the backbone of the flavour. I feel there ought to be some wheaty softness to base it on but it's surprisingly thin for 5% ABV. The underlying beer doesn't really feature as flavour or texture. It's fun and refreshingly summery, though at the same time it's a bit of a one-dimensional novelty. One could even validly level the accusation of tasting like an alcopop at it. Stolidly nordic it ain't.

Things get weirder with the final one: Lime & Juniper Pils. Our viking is wearing a bowler hat (as historically accurate as his horned helmet, in fairness) which suggests they're going for a gin-and-tonic vibe here. Instead it ends up closer to Desperados. The juniper doesn't get much of a look-in, maybe a faint perfume in the finish, and neither really does the pils: no crispness, no fresh grass. End-to-end it's sticky lime cordial. A thick biscuity base accentuates the sweetness and is what makes this a different proposition to the clean and dry Rascals lime lager from earlier this summer. While only 4.8% ABV it feels much heavier, a lot more like an ale than a lager. This doubles down on the problems found in the Arctic Lager above.

Given that Einstök's beers are produced in a big factory which mostly churns out lager, it's strange that they don't seem to have got it right. Their reliable and unfussy porter remains the best thing they make, and possibly also the cleanest and most lager-like. Go figure.

Not a lot

"BEHOLD the arcane mysteries of Magic Hat No. 9!" said everyone to me, "What convoluted esoteria lie at the heart of its profoundly enigmatic taste? Also: WooOOOooo!" [waggly fingers]. Like the sullen eight-year-old watching a weekend conjuror, I was prepared to be unimpressed. But I opened the bottle anyway.

It's an innocent, pleasant clear amber colour, 5.1% ABV with lots of busy fizz and described on the label as a "not quite pale ale" [waggly fingers]. It comes from a big factory in upstate New York. The aroma is carbonic at first: the fizz leaps out and pinches my nose, and underneath it smells of sweet, rather artificial, apricots.

My perceptions, I regret to say, were not fundamentally altered upon the first sip. What struck me at the beginning is how thin it is, all that fizz has free rein to trample everything else. The main flavour is a sherbety candy sort of thing: Skittles would be my nearest approximation, the wife opted for Kola Kubes, but either way we're firmly in the pick 'n' mix aisle. There's no real finish or aftertaste to speak of.

Part of me would like to think there's some potential in the recipe, that it could be interesting if given a bigger malt base to work from with less interference from the carbonation. But in all honesty I think this is another of those not-quite-really-beer beers, to be filed next to the Desperados and Crabbie's.

Can I have cake now?

Geneva conventional

I spent the Christmas and New Year holiday in Switzerland, visiting a friend who lives in Geneva. There was plenty of opportunity to sample the good, the bad and the mediocre of the local beers so you can expect a full week of guff on the subject.

As always, my first priority was the brewpubs and I'd been warned in advanced not to expect anything out of the ordinary. Local practice appears to dictate that every brewpub must produce a blonde, a blanche and an ambrée, and that variations outside this are rare.

And it was certainly the case at venue 1: Brasserie des Grottes, situated in, and named after, what passes for a bohemian quarter in straight-laced Geneva. From the barroom at the front it rambles back into a vast sequence of chambers including other bars, kitchens, service areas but as far as I could see: no brewery. There's even a big empty front window, the kind of place that pubs like this often use to display their shiny equipment. So, I have my suspicions about whether or not they're actually brewing on site.

The other thing that had me suspicious was, having heard their beers were undrinkable rubbish, finding them actually quite palateable. Grottes Blonde is approachable and dry like a lager rather than sticky and sweet the way continental blonde ales often are. Its strength in being clean and lagerlike is also its weakness: it gets boring very quickly.

Grottes Ambrée wasn't too exciting either. Sweet, with shedloads of caramel but that's it. The dark malts aren't overdone, but they don't offer any real depth or complexity either.

Pick of the bunch was Grottes Blanche. It's jam-packed with loads of spicy coriander, which is just the way I like it. No off flavours again, and the bonus of something to hold my interest.

It's this bland absence of flaws or character in any of these beers which, in combination with the invisible brewkit, have my alarm bells ringing. I find it hard to believe that a small scale brewer with this level of technical expertise would make such one-dimensional recipes. But then, the brewer is probably Swiss. I'm not a racist but...

Across the river and nestling quietly among the high-end designer shops and blingtacular watchmakers is Brasserie du Molard. It was an English theme pub in a recent life and still has lots of the knick-knacks that come with that playset. They're definitely turning out their own here, and the character shows through.

There's a slight haze to Molard Blonde. I thought it was going to prove difficult to finish, from its big perfumey aroma and massively thick mouth-coating texture. But the hops come to the rescue, dialling in oodles of bittersweet orange and lemon notes. Such thirst-quenching power is unusual in such a heavy beer and I really appreciated it.

Molard Blanche is another spicy one. It's quite similar to Grottes's, in fact, though heavy, like the blonde. I wonder have they a problem with their mashing regime, to be turning out such big-bodied beers? If so, I hope they don't go fixing it.

And lastly, Molard Ambrée. Proof that they're human, this was quite badly oxidised: the musty backdrop not doing anything to complement what seemed to be a very sweet amber beer.

We retrace our steps up towards the station for the last of the central city's three brewpubs: a branch of the Les Brasseurs chain found all over Francophone Switzerland. There was a blonde, a blanche and an ambrée *yawn* but there were seasonals! Hooray!

L'Agave et Citron Vert? You mean you've microbrewed a Desperados clone? Seriously? I'll have one of those please. It's far from Desperados, however, I'm sorry to say. While there's not much trace of the underlying beer there's lots of lime and some tasty spices which are not at all what I'd associate with the agave. The main thing is it's very drinkable and refreshing and not alcopoppy at all.

And they had a Bière de Noël on too. If there was an attempt to give this some festive seasonings they didn't really take, with just a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon in the background. Mostly it's quite a plain murky brown beer with some dry roast elements and a bit of caramel banana in the aroma. Not particularly warming, as it goes, but passable.

Passable is about the best summation I can give of Geneva's brewpub beers generally. But there's plenty more beer produced in the vicinity...

Alsation once again

A last-minute substitution has landed this month's Session in the capable lap of Mr Steve Lamond from Beers I've Known. "Guilty Pleasures" is the topic so I had to scour my assembled beer stash for something I hadn't tried yet but which looked like it might induce some pleasant sheepishness in me, the drinker. In doing so I happened on Fischer Ambrée Reserve, a red beer from Heineken's French subsidiary, better known for its dry lager, though also the home of artificially flavoured travesties like Desperados and Adelscott -- beers which I wouldn't be surprised to find on someone else's guilty pleasures list this month (it is a well-known fact, for instance, that Dredge is mad for the Desperados), though definitely not mine.

The clear-glass bottle of this Fischer came my way via Stephen of The Beer Club, and the random Aladdin's Cave of odd beers he seems to accumulate. I think there was some Adelscott in there too but I demurred. On pouring, the Christmas cake waft leaves us in no doubt that, like its stablemates, this too is aromatisée. Uh-oh. I'm feeling guilty already.

But actually, I rather enjoyed it, straight from the fridge and with a thirst on me. The nutmeg and cloves are properly spicy and don't taste like an ersatz version of themselves, and there's also a very pleasant citric fruit punch which gives it wonderful quenching power, despite a hefty 6.3% ABV.

More than anything, it tastes to me like mulled wine, minus the wine. I shouldn't like this, but I think I can handle the guilt, especially as we get into winter properly.

Écosse we want to

From the same chemistry lab that brought us Desperados, Heineken France present Adelscott. The tagline "Bière aromatisée au Malt à Whisky" might lead one to believe that this is an innocent affair, made using a whisky malt. Marston's produce something similar brewed with Golden Promise and it's quite harmless. Except there's more to the aromatisée here than just malt. The next ingredients listed are maize, sugar, flavouring, colouring and, lastly, hops. It's not looking good.

The colouring does its job well, giving it an attractive russet shade. The first hint of the sugar comes on the nose, and spreads on tasting. Maybe not as intensely sweet as Desperados, but not far off.

Then there's the "flavouring". It's a sickly sort of artificial wood thing, with a hint of smokiness. Perhaps close enough to remind the drinker of whisky, while not actually tasting of it.

Despite claiming both beer and whisky as its ancestry, we're very much in alcopop territory here. If you thought Desperados was an interesting way of presenting tequila as beer then you might be fooled by this as well. If you actually enjoy the taste of beer, however, steer clear.

El Corte Alemán

You have to love El Corte Inglés. Well, if you're a beer lover and you're in Spain you do, because as a ready source of commonplace quality beers, and the occasional oddity, it's hard to beat.

Where I found it most interesting on my recent trip to Madrid was the German selection. There was a range from Hofmark and Schwaben Bräu, neither of which I'd ever heard of, and all of which were standard German styles. But look: swingtops!

Hofmark's trademark is a supreme sort of tooth-rotting sweetness that overwhelmed all of their beers. Hofmark Original Hell, for instance, is a dark amber gold with a nose redolent of honeycomb ice cream and a taste packed with butterscotch. This is accentuated by a thick and sticky body. Definitely not a beer for everyone, but with my sweet tooth I quite liked it. There's more of a candy nose from Hofmark Original Weisse and none of the banana or clove flavours one might expect. Instead there's a sort of brown sugar light caramel flavour and, after a while, the slightest trace of hop spice at the back. Another tooth-rotter and one to horrify weissbier purists. Hofmark Dunkel Weisse is appropriately dark but with a surprisingly short-lived head. This is far more typical of the style, with big ripe bananas balanced against some very tasty dry and crunchy alt-like malt flavours.

Schwaben Bräu take an authoritative approach to their beers, labelling each according to its style with just the definite article appended to the front. So it's not just any old helle, it's Das Helle. This is pale gold with a touch of honey about the nose, but otherwise quite hop-driven, in that quite bitter but vaguely spicy way that German noble hops have. I liked this, though it's very different from the Hofmark which preceded it. Das Weizen is the first dullard of the bunch -- a promising clove nose is followed by nothing very much, other than a hint of yeasty spice. The body is full, and it's satisfyingly quaffable, but really quite a let-down in the flavour department. Das Schwarze isn't much better. The brown translucent shade of Coca-Cola, it gives off a sour and gassy aroma and is dry but otherwise again quite tasteless, I thought.

A far better proposition came from Kaiserdom in the form of their Alt Bamberg Dunkel. This very very dark red lager has a gives off a pupil-dilating hit of coffee on the nose but calms down a little when it's time to taste. There's a kiss of sweet caramel to tempt you in, followed by a long, luxurious dry roasted flavour that lasts and lasts. I was well impressed with this and reckon it's one of those beers that could make it so much easier to survive in Germany where dark ales are thin on the ground. Barry?

A silly beer to finish, filed in Corte Inglés next to the other silly beers, like Desperados. Cannabia is a hemp beer, and I genuinely like hemp beers. I was very impressed by the couple I picked up in Switzerland at the beginning of the year. However, this one clearly isn't handmade by a Swiss craftsman. One clue is the scratch 'n' sniff label. Really. It appears, funnily enough, to be marketed at teenage stoners rather than drinkers who actively enjoy the flavour of hemp in beer. Appropriately, it smells skunked. The flavour does have that white-pepper-mixed-with-grapefruit-rind that I was looking for but, it's unpleasantly artificial, like they've injected a rubbishy lager with some nasty hemp extract, and then sprayed the label with it too. And I'm only guessing that it's German -- the company appears to be German, but no more accurate brewery address is given than "the EU". Even for hemp beer fans I wouldn't recommend this one -- it definitely deserves its place among the kiddie novelty beers.

Speaking of which, I really should try and get hold of that scary looking chilli lager that's just appeared here recently. I'm told it's awful.

Won't you come to your senses?

I can't think of any beer that attracts the revulsion which seems permanently attached to Desperados. Admittedly, the concept of a beer laced with tequila isn't likely to sound attractive to anyone with a mental age over 14, but just because it sounds hideous doesn't mean it's necessarily going to taste awful, does it? I detected a bit of adjunct snobbery going on here and, eventually, I took the time out to buy a bottle and drink it.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. Desperados is not utterly disgusting. I'm not sure I'd even go as far as to say it's unpleasant. What it is, is very very sweet. The flavour is dominated by a sugary lemon cordial flavour which is indistinguishable from the sort of artificial fruit character found in luridly-coloured spirit-based alcopops. Mrs Beer Nut claims there was a hint of something medicinal, eucalyptus or suchlike, but it was completely lost on me.

Searching hard, there is a beer hidden under all the syrup: a very thin watery one, for the sake of appearances only. My feeling is that this is a "beer" for people who don't like the taste of beer, or tequila, or alcohol in general. It's a girly alcopop targeted at boys by giving it a macho name and a recipe which only just qualifies it as beer. It certainly disappears far too easily for something with a whopping 5.9% ABV.

So now I have officially joined the ranks of those who scorn Desperados, but not for the reason I thought.