The urge

The European Beer Bloggers Conference came to Dublin a couple of weeks ago and I tagged along on the first night's pub crawl, an east-to-west trek from The Brew Dock to the far west end of Temple Bar. The route got edited a little on the way but there was no question of skipping The Norseman, probably the best bar for Irish craft beer in the city centre. I was determined to be sociable, casual: all pints and chat and no ticking. But The Norseman's blackboards got the better of me. There's a handful of new Irish beers I'd been meaning to try for ages and there they all were. Out with the notebook and down to business...

The long-anticipated second and third releases from Donegal Brewing were both on tap. Sea Sessions is a very pale ale and has a fair bit in common with older sibling Donegal Blonde, being very clean and crisp, with just enough of a pils-like hop buzz to make it worthwhile. Not a stand-out given what else it shared bar space with, but I'd be very happy with this if I were on its own turf in Ballyshannon. Atlantic Amber offers more understated quality, this time with light toffee malt and a dry roast barley bite. "Amber" is a little bit ambitious if taken as the purported style: what we have here is a solid, full-bodied, Irish red ale.

Continuing the summer theme, Eight Degrees's World Cup offering is Olé Olé, a 5% ABV witbier. Surprisingly, given the brewery's recent stellar form, there's not a whole to this. It's maybe a little bit pithier than your average witbier but is lacking in both spice and fruit. You can't argue with its refreshment power or drinkability, however. I guess it's designed to not distract from the football, in which case it works. Dublin brewery Five Lamps also has a summer seasonal out: Summer Steam Beer. The brewery, as far as I'm aware, isn't set up for lager and has its own produced at Eight Degrees. Part of me wondered if this steam beer (lager yeast with ale methodology) was an experiment to see if they could take the lager in house. And I have to say, I'm convinced. It's perfectly clear and possesses that beautiful crispness of well-made lager. The hopping is generous too, with all the waxy bitterness of a quality German pils.

Elsewhere in Dublin, I found the revamped Kill Lager by Trouble Brewing on tap in L. Mulligan Grocer. No longer a rebadged pils, this is now a proper Vienna lager. Very proper, in fact. Well... it's maybe a teeny bit pale in colour, more of a Lucozade orange than the traditional red-brown. But there's all of those lovely chewy melanoidin cake-and-biscuit malt notes with extra raisin and candy sweetness, all set on the sort of flawlessly clean base that cool fermenting provides. The finish is a very central-European grassy flavour, plus a carbonic bite from the high-ish carbonation. We don't get enough of the darker lager styles around here so it's nice to have this bit of variety, especially at the reasonable 4.9% ABV strength point.

Not one to be left out of a new Irish beer round-up, Galway Bay released a Table Beer (subsequently re-named Via Maris) last week: 3.5% ABV, produced from the second runnings of their stonking double IPA Of Foam & Fury and hopped with Amarillo, Citra and Wai-iti, in a big big way. It arrived an opaque pale orange, looking unattractively soupy with a very short-lived head. The aroma isn't massive, but there's a generous slug of grapefruit zest in there. The flavour is lots of dank followed by loads of pith: brick-subtle. Somewhere buried deep beneath the alpha acid action there's a tiny malt backbone propping the whole thing up, but it's struggling and certainly not making much of a contribution to the very thin texture. For all its palate-stripping burn, I rather liked it and had very little to complain about at €4 a pint -- over 20% cheaper than any other house beer -- but I imagine it will split the drinkers into the bargain-hunters and hop-heads on one side and the balance and subtlety fans on the other. I know which side I'm on.

Finally, a slightly off-kilter new cask ale from White Gypsy: King Cormac. I really can't fathom what existing style this is closest to, it being 5% ABV, dark brown-red and with a bizarre -- but entertaining -- spicy incense flavour. I suppose porter is the closest, though there's also a fair bit of brown-ale-style coffee and creaminess. In short, after two pints in The Brew Dock I still didn't know what it is, but I liked it. Lesser breweries describe their beer as iconoclastic but this is what iconoclastic tastes like.

Tír Chonaill a-brew

The growth in Ireland's craft brewing scene seems to be concentrating in the north west at the moment: not terribly surprisingly since it's woefully under served with drinkable beer, though it's nice to see that some people at least think there's a market for something different. Tyrone's Red Hand brewery launches its first beer at The Brewer's House this coming weekend, while nearby Poker Tree is expected to be in production later this year, but Donegal has been quietly turning out the ales for a while now.

The label on my bottle of Donegal Blonde claims a foundation date of 2011 though I understand it was late into 2012 before anything was pouring. The brewery is based at Dicey's pub and off licence in Ballyshannon, a long-time supporter of better choice in Irish beer. The bottle styling is simple, though the first note of concern came with the less than generous fill level (left). Sure enough, coaxing a head onto the beer took a bit of splash work and the foam didn't last long. The sparkle is the lightest imaginable, but at least it's not flat, and the colour is more an attractive red-gold than generic blonde.

No qualms whatsoever about the aroma. Expecting something very plain there's actually a gorgeous spring garden floral smell. If washing powder ads had an aroma, it would be this. The flavour doesn't quite live up to it, being watery for the most part, with dry grain hitting the back of the palate and those flowers just gradually infusing the senses at the end. But, surprisingly for a brewery that hasn't mastered the art of filling bottles, there are no off flavours or nasty surprises. The recipe is flawless and I suspect that a bit more fizz would do wonders to lift it. I can easily imagine settling in to a session on this at the source, or at any of the nearby pubs who have the good sense to stock it.

Meanwhile, up the other end of the county, Kinnegar Brewing has been turning out beer on a very small scale for a couple of years now. Distribution down in these parts is sparse to say the least, but Geoff from the Bull & Castle was kind enough to nab me a bottle. There are three in the range and this one is the amber ale: Devil's Backbone. No undercarbonation problems in this bottle conditioned job: it's wild fizzy so it is, hi. (Reuben found the same.) When the foam subsides the 4.9% ABV beer underneath is revealed to be quite a minerally one, reminding me in general of the better sort of English brown bitter, and Adnams's in particular. I was sort-of expecting more of a hop perfume, given that "amber ale" carries particular US connotations and the brewer is himself an American. But the hops here are all about the bitterness, adding an assertive bite to the one already provided by the carbonation. It's very tannic, which I love, with the tea effect turning a little towards earl grey thanks to the subtle hopping.

Wonky carbonation notwithstanding, if these two are anything to go by, the future is very bright for microbrewing in west Ulster. Sadly, neither brewery is represented at the Irish Craft Beer Village which opened yesterday at Dublin's IFSC and runs to Monday, but there's plenty of other good stuff to drink, including a new Eight Degrees stout, a double IPA from Carlow Brewing and a rare opportunity to taste Irish craft cider on draught.