This calls for a session

Forcing us all to buy three beers instead of one, DOT came out with a matching set of session IPAs recently. All three are 4.5% ABV and brewed with oats and rye, plus a varying combination of hops.

Hop lets us know from the outset what to expect, the hops in question being Hüll Melon and Vic Secret. It's a fuzzy orange colour and has a subtle aroma, with only a faint echo of Vic's anise-infused-kerosene bitterness. Sure enough it's sharp, and doesn't really have the body to carry its generous bittering quotient. Hüll Melon should be bringing some luscious white grape, in this drinker's opinion, but I don't get it. The initial bitterness is followed only by a different sort: resinous and spicy into the finish. It's not a bad beer but was a bit of a workout, and not something I'd consider entirely suited to session drinking. Let's hope for something mellower to follow.

The second one is called Drop, and uses what I thought was quite an orthodox combination of Centennial, Mosaic and Simcoe. I wasn't prepared for how intensely tropical it is. The aroma is like a sorbet: cold, a little sharp, but with an underlying succulent sweetness. This unfolds in the flavour into a very real passionfruit effect, flooding the palate before fading quickly, just like an actual piece of fruit would. A slightly harsh resinous bitterness forms the finish which here makes for an interesting contrast. Although the taste is a bit all over the place, it amounts to a pleasant experience, and certainly packs in a lot of complexity for the modest ABV.

Finally, of course, we Roll: this one with sweetie El Dorado, and The Bruce, a hop blend from New Zealand I've seen around but don't really know. It's a deeper amber than the previous, while the rye is quite apparent in the aroma -- that familiar grassy spice. There's a fair bit of fruit candy as well, though. Its mouthfeel is nicely light, fitting for a very juicy flavour: mostly fresh-squeezed orange, but with a touch of more exotic mango and mandarin. There's white pepper too, which I'm guessing is rye-derived, and dries things out considerably, becoming almost chalky by the end. That mix of juice and dryness makes for something very refreshing, exactly what's required of a beer like this.

I can't accuse DOT of turning out samey beers here, despite the labels. These each have their own character and demonstrate well how a beer's whole nature can be changed by tweaking the hops. As well as buying a session, you're buying an education.

The DOT train rolls faster than most in these parts, and no sooner had I dispatched these than seven new releases arrived more or less simultaneously. The range of styles and strengths is prodigious so I'll take them in something resembling order. That makes Early Bird the starting point, a 2.8% ABV micro IPA. This is hazy but not wan-looking as low-strength IPAs can be, being a full and rich orange colour. What is typical of the style is the mineral dryness, here given a fun twist of peppery spice. Both are seasonings on the main juicy satsuma character, and there's a little dankness in the aroma. Citra, Centennial and Vic Secret are working away in the background though I couldn't really pick out their individual features. Overall, it's a pleasantly complex and full-flavoured job, while still light and refreshing as befits the strength.

That's enough IPAs for the moment. The ABV scale takes a jump up to 6% next, and the style a jump sideways to saison. It's still dry-hopped, though, so we're not out of those particular woods yet. The varieties are from New Zealand, hence the name: Maui. It's a beautiful clear golden colour with a fine white head. The aroma goes heavy on white pepper and dry straw, so very much a classical saison nose, free of hop gimmickry. The hops are present on tasting though not in a gimmicky way. The ripe white grape of Nelson Sauvin is entirely complementary to the dry saison spice, rounded fruit offsetting the almost acrid dryness. The base beer is saison the way I like it, and the hops are a well-chosen subtle twist. I recommend it to saison purists and the farmhouse-curious alike.

As a St. Patrick's Day special, the latest barrel aged pale ale created exclusively for the Teeling Distillery is Green With Envy. White port and Calvados filled the barrels before the whiskey before the beer. Intriguing! It's 6.2% ABV and quite thick with it, sluggishly forming a head as it poured; a bright and opaque amber colour underneath. The foretaste is heavy and sweet, all orange cordial and Jolly Ranchers. There's a little hint of spirit behind this; that mild oaky tang you get from highly involved whiskey cocktails. That's about it as far as the complexity goes. It's fine, but nothing special. My preference lies with lighter and more barrel-y takes on this sort of thing.

And so up we go to the higher reaches of beer strength, our next stop being an 8.2% ABV double IPA called Rip. Juice is promised, though it's a surprisingly clear rose-gold colour in the glass. There's a heavy dankness in the aroma, which doesn't say juice to me, and I can't say there's much in the flavour either. It is sweet though, but it's a malt sweetness, of the toffee and golden syrup sort. This is tempered by a hard citric bitterness -- lots of pithy grapefruit and beeswax. The alcohol makes its presence known too: very warming, though thankfully never tipping over into hot or difficult. This is a pretty solid west-coaster, all told. Forget the juice and enjoy the zest.

The herald of darkness is The Barrel Aged Adventures of Extra Stout, which I'm guessing is a barrel-aged extra stout (it's actually several, blended). It's hefty for that, at 8.6% ABV, and is another thick pourer. There's a light roast in the aroma though not much else. The flavour is subtle too, no big booze or concentrated chocolate. There's a gentle caramel and coffee, with a little whiskey-ish honey and a bite of burnt dryness in the finish. Really, this beer is more about the texture than the taste: it's beautifully smooth, making for dangerously easy drinking. Not DOT's best work in this genre but an enjoyable start to this black set.

Earlier this year, DOT recalled a beer due to excessive carbonation. I began to wonder if they've over-compensated in the opposite direction when I poured 2021 Contains Nuts. This was very nearly totally flat, and while it's a style you wouldn't expect to be fizzy, it could have done with a little more condition. I don't recall how much the recipe has changed from the previous annual iterations, but what we have is a blend of imperial stout and red ale, both barrel aged, coming out at 9% ABV. I'm not sure I would have identified the praline extract unprompted. There's a general nutty, chocolatey, caramellish candy bar effect: boozy Snickers, in short. A dry finish helps balance the sweeter excesses. Like the previous one it's smooth and easy going, but I was hoping for a bit more distinctive novelty. Don't go all classy on me, Contains Nuts.

At the end of the road, a beer from which I was hoping for something properly crazy: BA Imperial Sherry Milk Stout. Where to start? Well, it's black, and fairly flat again. I thought it would be sweet but instead it's delightfully herbal, with a bitter aniseed and pine kick from the get go. The alcohol warmth is the next most prominent feature, quite subtle given the stonking 11% ABV. A floral element of lavender and rose petal builds as it goes, though it never quite conquers that bitterness. A residual waxiness is the beer's calling card. It's interesting how little sign there is of milk, sherry or whiskey here. It's its own thing, though: a hard sort of imperial stout for the grown-up palate. As such, I rather enjoyed it.

A further new one arrived a few weeks after I'd finished this lot. Barrel Aged Imperial Pale are the beery words DOT has appended to this one, exclusive to Redmond's of Ranelagh. Behind the label is a rather dense and murky pale ale of 6.9% ABV, utilising ex-Madeira casks in its formulation. It smells strongly of raisins: a concentrated grape effect, err, because that's what raisins are. The flavour is softer and fruitier, with white grape, lychee and apricot, plus a gentle oak spicing. It does get a little sweet after a while, adding a slightly sickly cordial vibe, so maybe a 330ml can would have been more appropriate than 440. It's like the flavour profile is designed to be fun and easy but the high gravity has put the brakes on that. Overall though, it's very good, and an excellent melding of fresh hops with barrel-aged complexity. The sort of thing DOT does best.

How does one even begin to sum up? DOT has something for everyone, I guess.

Aladdin Sainsbury's

I took a trip north on the bank holiday Monday a few weeks back. The euro was riding high against sterling so I had very few qualms about going to the beer section in Sainsbury's and putting some strain on a trolley axle. They have quite a few own-brand ales and I think I came away with one of most of them.

First up, Basics Bitter, a whole 2.1% of alcoholic goodness goes into this red-amber affair. It's very fizzy but, on first impressions, is convincingly beer-like. Give it a few seconds, however, and the facade starts to crumble. That caramel sweetness is probably not malt-derived but is more likely down to the addition of actual caramel (there's no ingredients listing, so no way to find out). Most of the rest is wateriness, but dig deep and you may just find a whisper of an echo of a trace of hops bitterness.

Honestly I don't know what the point of this beer is. Something for non-drinkers to torture guests with? It's too thin even to cook with.

Onwards and upwards to the "Taste the Difference" range. Shepherd Neame's porter wasn't an option, but I did take a punt on the Kentish Ale. In the comments of a previous Shep rant, arn pointed out that this is probably a rebadge of Early Bird, a beer I didn't have a great time with a while back. I couldn't say for sure if this is exactly the same, but it certainly has the fizz-to-skunk ratio right. Lots of pungent green crunchy vegetables, a massive carbonic dryness and plenty of burps. All that said, it tastes like nectar next to the Basics Bitter: the joy of actual real hops and (somewhere) proper malt. Not that I'll be buying it again or anything stupid like that.

For real hop action I turned hopefully to the Taste the Difference India Pale Ale. Brewed by Marston's, of whom I'm not a big fan, but at 5.9% ABV it should at least have been interesting. But it wasn't, really. The hops are only just detectable and have to share the stage with Marston's distinctive sulphurous Burton flavour. And even these meagre talents get buried under the boozy malt weight. It's a lot of work to drink and the rewards for doing so aren't up to much.

People round these parts tend to regard Sainsbury's as a cut above in the beer stakes. And yes, in the trolley with this lot there was also a significant quantity of Clotworthy Dobbin and Old Peculier: stalwart favs of mine. But then when I read what Tesco UK are up to with their own-brand beers I think that beer shopping up north is perhaps best done at more than one venue. Or, y'know, a proper off licence.

Going mainstream

It looks like the puritans at Shepherd Neame have taken their hatred of beer to a new level. Time was, their crazy clear-glass bottles were shipped in a box, so there was an outside chance you could dig into a fresh one and get a beer that hadn't been lightstruck. Lidl occasionally get Shepherd Neame beers in on special and I've noticed with the last few that they've been stacked on cardboard trays, wrapped in clear plastic, letting the light have its evil way with the hop flavours through two layers of packaging. That's devotion to the cause of ruining beer, Shepherd Neame. I salute you.

Latest in the pile-'em-high, skunk-'em-fast series is Early Bird, a very pale and watery-looking ale of 4.5% ABV. The label makes great claims of hoppiness, and while hops are definitely present, they're not the dominant feature. Above all, to me, this beer is carbonic. The nose is a blend of noxious CO2 and pungent lightstruck hops. It's a bit calmer on the palate, tasting primarily of fizzy mineral water infused with a stinging acid bitterness, plus just a smidge of toffee malt somewhere in the middle. This is no way to put a beer together: little more than fizz and skunk. My guess is that Shepherd Neame are not, in fact, sending teams of tasters around to supermarkets to assess the quality of their finished product. If it involved drinking beers like this it probably counts as an unsafe working environment.

Sticking with supermarkets, I gave another one of the new Marks & Spencer range a whirl recently. After a yucky experience with the Cropton's Yorkshire Bitter I had passed over the Lincolnshire Best Bitter, until I noticed that it's brewed by Bateman's. I don't think I've ever had a Bateman's beer I didn't enjoy. This one is lighter than 4.9% ABV would suggest and, despite the lovely caskalike loose-bubbled head, is actually quite gassy. I had to walk around the earthy flavour a couple of times before I got what it was: this beer is very similar to the excellent Bateman's XXXB, only lighter of body. There's some sweet caramel at the front, but the funky depth is what really stood out for me. The problem, then, was I wanted it to be fuller and stronger; to be, in short, XXXB. However pleasant a beer may be, it's never a good thing when it reminds you how much you'd prefer to be drinking a different one.

Still, it's good to see that M&S are heeding my continued wheedling and putting the English ales from their new range out on the shelves of Irish shops. I mean, it's only a matter of time now until we get the Cornish IPA, right?