For a limited time only

As well as meeting new beers and breweries, the other thing the Irish Craft Beer Festival is good for is the festival one-offs. With a captive market of 10,000 people and two of the four days being over 12 hours of pouring (officially -- staff afters ran into the medium-to-large hours a couple of times), it presents the perfect opportunity to throw together a special small-run batch to fill out the taps on your portable bar.

Dungarvan can always be relied upon for this kind of thing, dry-hopping or oaking the standard range and then offering a rotating sequence of one-offs on the other handpumps. You'd need to be some kind of maniac to have been at the festival all four days to catch all six of them. I was told the IPA was a re-run of the excellent one they did last year, so just the five for me.

We'll get the Session DIPA out of the way first. A neat idea: Simon wanted something big and hoppy he could drink all day, so a 3.9% ABV pale ale at 60 IBUs was born. Sadly, the execution didn't live up to the concept: while there's a hint of orange skin bitterness showing what it could have been, the rest is astringent and bleachy. Ah well. That's why the Good Lord made pilot breweries. Dungarvan Saison was my first beer on the first day. It suffered a bit from the warmth of the cask but was otherwise spot-on: nicely spicy with a dash of tangerine and an overarching refreshing tartness. The first argument I've tasted in favour of Dungarvan doing the occasional keg. The Wit IPA -- quite the fashion these days, I believe -- reminded me of the Hopfenweisse genre, and Franciscan Well's example in particular. It's weightily textured with major banana flavours but then jumps unexpectedly sideways to a sudden hop sharpness. A very pleasant glass of misdirection.

There was a lot going on in Dungarvan Amber Ale, especially impressive at just 3.9% ABV. I got spices to the fore, and unctuous oily incense in particular. This is balanced against dry tannins, plus a little diacetyl butteriness. Last year the Rye Pale Ale was developed into Mahon Falls and the Amber Ale would be my candidate recipe for further development this year. The beer I was most looking forward to, though, was Dungarvan Mild. I've never met an Irish mild before and this didn't disappoint: 3.8% ABV with a sizeable chocolate element and finishing on a gently green hop note. Simple, elegant and very drinkable. I don't want this as a festival novelty: I want it in my local every day.

The other brewery that really pushed the boat out (wait, wait: you'll see what I did there) as regards festival specials was White Gypsy. They had a genre-spanning set of four grouped under the heading "A River Runs Through It", each named for a waterway (Aha! See?) appropriate to the style. They even printed an explanatory leaflet. There was a Belgian blonde ale called Semoy: just 4.5% ABV but tasting like much more, with huge heavy banana esters up front and enough carbonation to balance it with a dry carbonic quality. Some light white pepper and hop-induced celery seasons it, and the whole is set on a lightly chalky mineral base. A lot going on considering its modest strength. I left it late to try the Danube Vienna lager, though Aoife told me it was the biggest seller at the bar. It's the appropriate shade of red amber but a little too sweet for my liking: I'd have liked more of a lagery cleanness and maybe a smidge more hopping.

I heard few good words about the English-style bitter Trent, of which Jamie pulled me a half early on Friday afternoon and I tasted on a clean palate, but I really liked it. It poured a hazy gold and smelled sulphourously Burtonish. This sat next to an assertive waxy oily bitterness which coated my palate and left me still tasting it as I wandered around the hall with an empty glass looking for my next drink. The nearest thing to that punchy bitterness I've encountered was in the likes of Timothy Taylor's Landlord. Gota Baltic Porter was the last of the set, billed as a tribute to Carnegie Porter, though even lower of ABV at 4.8%. This comes through in the texture as it's quite light-bodied for the style, though with the appropriate amount of liquorice and coffee. Its dryness lends it an air of schwarzbier, but really it's just a tasty black lager and it's best not to dwell on the specifics of style.

The beer I probably heard most about in dispatches was Eight Degrees's Amber Ella, a warm-fermented successor to last year's show-stopper Ochtoberfest. It's a similarly luxurious dark amber colour and has a heady peach/plum aroma. We swap lager lightness of touch for an aley full body and the flavour is all tangerine tang with a lacing of sharper pine resin. Just like the Ochtoberfest I'd expect this to sell out fast when it appears in bottles.

We conclude this tour at the Trouble Brewing stand. The headline here was Ormeau Dark, third in a sequence of homebrew competition winners scaled up to commercial level. Technically it's an oatmeal stout: a style I've never been much of a cheerleader for but this captures all the smoothness of oatmeal with none of the putty flavour I tend to dislike. The hopping is very generous giving it an air of urinal cake on the nose but transforming into a gorgeous combination of dark fruit, marzipan and rosewater on tasting, plus some lovely creamy chocolate. The other headline was a collaboration Trouble did with Galway Hooker. Sadly they couldn't find a better name for the result than Troubled Hooker. It's a 6.3% ABV pale ale and a deep orange in colour. Bitterness is relatively low and instead the hops contribute a sweet and perfumey character. Combined with the heavy texture it narrowly avoids soupiness. Interesting as a festival one-off experiment but nobody's go-to beer. Lastly there was Kill Lager: not strictly speaking a Trouble beer as it's brewed for, and by, Dublin's Dice Bar on the Trouble kit and normally badged as "Sparta Pils". It's pale gold and lacks much by way of malt or hops, dominated instead by a major apple flavour. Acetaldehyde? Maybe, but I wouldn't count it as an off-flavour: it's actually quite refreshing in this.

That's it for this round of the festival floor, but if you fancy making a bit of cash while helping the Trouble guys make more beer, you can do that here.

Out to launch

The Irish Craft Beer Festival rolled in to the RDS in leafy Dublin 4 last weekend, the second time it has been held here. A combination of great weather and Leinster playing at home in the stadium next door ensured a brisk trade, with somewhere over 6000 punters crossing the threshold over the three days, easily accommodated in the spacious Victorian splendour of the Industries Hall.

Alongside a couple of the new-wave cider producers (McIvor's, Tempted? and Stonewell), some homebrew show-and-tell from the Beoir fermentationists and assorted ancillary food and drink retailers (Pieman Café, I bloody love you), most of the country's independent breweries had a stand. And lots of them were using the event to launch new products or limited specials. Lots of scooping potential, then.

There was one totally new beer brand in the form of Bo Bristle, the Co. Offaly brewery formerly known as BrewEyed. Bo Bristle IPA is the flagship, a big sticky-sweet 5%-er in something of an English vernacular. Lagery golden syrup is the heart, lightly laced with citrus and finishing floral. Bo Bristle continues to brew Carrig under contract and has produced a new beer to go with the pale lager: Rower, an Irish red. Yeah, I know: Irish red, yawn, but it's one of the better ones, with lots of toffee plus a solid hop bite. This extra oomph means it does get a bit heavy as it warms up, but overall a decent take on the style.

The O'Hara's range had two new additions, making appearances on draught: Natural Blonde is a dark golden ale loaded with weighty banana esters, far away from the thinner paler lagerlike blondes one normally sees. O'Hara's Winter Star is their first ever seasonal, a lurid orange-coloured winter ale of 4.3% ABV. Orange peel, cinnamon and coconut provide the excitement here, and while I got a hint of marmalade in the foretaste, the aroma and finish are coconut in a big way. The cinnamon has completely disappeared, and it's light on malt and hops, so a little bit one-dimensional, but simple and interesting.

And much as the new ones from Carlow were the centre of my attention, there was also an oak-aged version of Leann Folláin stout on cask. This was beautiful: massive vanilla wood in the aroma but with plenty of rich and smooth chocolate stout flavours still making themselves felt in the flavour. Great balance and one of the best oak-aged beers I've tasted in a while. Less convincing was one of the American guests at the festival: Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. It's not unpleasant, per se, it just tastes powerfully of whiskey, shooting its 8% alcohol right up the back of the nose. You'd be better off with an actual glass of bourbon, to be honest.

Whitewater were also at the barrel game, with a limited supply of their oak-aged Clotworthy Dobbin for sale in bottles. I sneaked a taste before I purchased and it really lives up to the hype: big Christmas cake flavours with sweet cigar tobacco, all on a very sippable lightish body. From their beer engine there was Down Pilgrim, a new cask ale. The USP here is all-local barley from a neighbouring farmer coupled, as the name suggests, with Pilgrim hops. You get a light-coloured pale ale which begins with a little bit of toasted biscuit, following it up with a sharp bitter finish. One of those sessionable beers with character that are always great to settle into. I wasn't so keen on Whitewater's McHugh's 300, a 3.5% ABV keg blonde brewed for the Botanic Inns chain, a big customer of the brewery's. I found it just too sharp -- pretty much acetic -- to be enjoyable.

From the Odd Experience file, we have my first ever taste of Beal Bán from Beoir Chorca Duibhne. This blonde ale had a weird phenolic twang, and apparently a dash of smoked malt went into the recipe, which would explain things. There's also quite a bang of boozy heat from it, at 5.3% ABV: another golden ale that's anything but bland. And then there was a dry-hopped version of Dungarvan's Copper Coast. You know the ad for Best Western that they show on Dave? Where the brewer says his beer has "A hint of coffee with a nice green apple finish"? That.

Dungarvan provided three of my favourites from the whole gig, as well as a chocolate stout I could take or leave but seemed quite popular. Standout star of the show -- of the festival -- was Rye-PA. Normally I'd run a mile from rye in beer, disliking the harsh grassiness it normally creates. But there's only a hint of that in here, the cloudy orange beer being awash instead with massive succulent nectarine hop flavours. Of course there wasn't enough of it to keep the punters content and both casks sold out soon after being tapped. There were also limited supplies of a 6% ABV IPA which I only got a taste of (thanks Oblivious!), another mouthwatering full and fruity one. And briefly we had an unnamed dark beer with a wonderful bitterness to it. It's one of those where I couldn't tell it was dark when tasting with my eyes closed so could probably be safely badged as a B***k I*A, were the brewery so inclined.

The beer I heard most good reports about was the new one from 8 Degrees, a Märzen called Ochtoberfest: celebrating the number eight and in no way, shape or form connected to any trademarked seasonal German beer event. I was wary at first as it's quite a dark shade of orange, the same colour as all those undrinkably sticky American Märzens and Oktoberfestbiers. However the proper bready aroma set my mind at ease, and on tasting: wow! They've pulled the usual 8 Degrees trick of taking an established style and moving everything up just a notch. Or maybe two. So from a big dose of Saaz and Hallertau there's a nettle flavour rising to a rocket-like pepperiness, as well as all the rounded and filling Munich malt. Proof perhaps that you don't have to be VLB-trained to make kick-ass lager, but it helps.

Staying in Cork, another festival favourite of mine was Franciscan Well's Mi Daza. This stout is a commission from the owner of several pubs in Cork city so isn't meant to be seen elsewhere, and certainly not in the posh end of Dublin. But there it was, and splendid too: light of body but with a strong vegetal hop tang, like a lighter, more sinkable version of Porterhouse Wrasslers XXXX.

Time was, getting a new Irish beer onto this blog meant drinking a glass of it and writing down how it tasted. Increasingly these days it has become a multi-stage project. So it was with the latest one from Metalman: Moonbeam. The first version of it I tasted was served from the cask and had some bonus cranberries added dry. It was nice as it went: a smooth and dry dark ale with a tart finish and just a whisper of sweet red berries. Later I got to taste the unhacked keg version and found it quite different. The tart finish spreads throughout the flavour to become a full-on bitter hop tang. The hops also leap out in a wonderful spicy green aroma which is sadly absent from the cask edition. Another one the brewers could go calling a *lac* *P*, y'know, if they wanted to.

A bit of a dry account of the new beers at the gig there: such is the nature of this blog. I also had plenty of old favourites, including Hilden's Barney's Brew: first time I'd met it in Dublin, and some fantastic dry-hopped cask versions of Franciscan Well's Rebel Red. I haven't even mentioned the splendid new bottles from White Gypsy, due to hit the off licences in the next couple of weeks, but since I took one home with me (thanks Cuilán!), those notes will be coming later.

Above all, my abiding impression was that the Irish Craft Beer Festival was not simply a big hall with beers for sale, nor a three-day piss-up, but a proper celebration of beer in Ireland as it is now, with plenty to excite both wary newcomers and jaded old hacks like me. I'm looking forward to many more years of this event.