You had to be there

When it was mentioned that 2025 was the fourth annual Mullingar Wild Beer Festival, I was taken aback. Can it really have been that long? (yes it can) This edition suffered a fit of last-minute hiccups when three of the six attending breweries pulled out on the day, citing various reasons. So we had to make do without The White Hag, Land & Labour and Ballykilcavan. Those guys can owe us.

Of those that did show, Third Barrel only brought one beer, which was extra-appreciated. It's called Princess Peach, and is an experiment in what happens when you match the sweet stonefruit effect that certain Brettanomyces strains bring to a beer, with actual peach purée. I didn't think it worked very well, but I'm told by Kev the brewer and owner that I'm wrong, which is fair enough. For me, the Brett got lost. The beer tasted very sweet, and very similar to what you might get if you simply added peach extract to a plain blonde ale. The wild side, the fact that it was also aged in a Chardonnay barrel, and the sizeable 7% ABV were all missing from the taste. It's juicy fun, but as a complex beer for insufferable chin-stroking connoisseurs (ie the whole point of this festival) it was lacking.

Everyone else's first beer was a new one from Wide Street: Cuvée Spontanée, so I had that next in case it ran out. The brewery says it's in a gueze style, though was pouring it on cask, a format generally reserved in Belgium for straight lambic only. That left it a little on the warm and flat side, which gueze shouldn't be, but it got the other basics correct. Brettanomyces is indicated in a lightly peachy aroma, while the flavour is decently sharp and tangy, with a kind of green-apple acidity to the sourness, enriched with an odd but not unwelcome smear of butteriness. It finishes cleanly, making for some very easy drinking. I assume this will be out in bottled form in due course, and it will be interesting to see how it develops with a bit of age. Some extra complexity would be good, though it's hard to fault it as it was served on the day.

Finally, there was Otterbank, a Donegal brewery which no longer has any distribution in Dublin. By way of apology, the management sent me away with a selection of bottles, so I got to try a few of the offerings in both draught and small-pack formats.

The first of these was Messers, an ale brewed with heritage barley and oats, fermented with locally harvested wild yeast for three years in an ex-Chardonnay barrel. I'm guessing the aim is to create something historical-ish, though without reference to any established style of beer. It pours a honey colour -- much paler than in my terrible photograph --  and has a very oaky aroma, with sparks of mineral spices. Perhaps in keeping with its pre-modern sensibilities, it's quite flat, with only a very faint sparkle. The white wine is to the fore in the flavour, with elements of gooseberry and lychee, plus a heaping helping of vanilla and an odd seam of coconut. The sourness is quite assertive, so it's not one for beginners, but there's a balance, too: a sweet side from its fruity characteristics and the significant gravity (finishing at 6.6% ABV) which helps it stay drinkable. It probably resembles straight lambic more than anything else, and as such is highly enjoyable.

Next is Matriarch, which is described as "our most complex release to date", being a Flanders red ale, given five years of ageing in Armagnac barrels, finishing at a formidable 9.9% ABV. That strength is immediately apparent from the first sip. It's heavy with caramel malt and lots of fortified wine: port or dark sherry, though the aroma is distinctly all brandy. There's a very clubby mix of flavours, incorporating cigar smoke, oak and old leather, making it very much a beer to sip. Surprisingly, it's not hot, however. Neither is it especially sour: you can just about tell that there's a Flanders red at the base, but not one of the more extreme ones. Think Rodenbach Classic. Come to think of it, this is a better hacked-about Flanders red than most of the ones Rodenbach has come out with. What the wild side does especially well is give it a clean finish, much like the previous beers, not letting the weighty richness become a burden on the palate. This is an all-round classy affair, and another example of getting full value out of a very complicated production process.

Not at the festival, but I had a bottle later, was Welcome To Muff, billed as a session IPA and 3.5% ABV. There has to be a twist, and it's that it's a raw ale, brewed without boiling. That technique tends to be used for beers without hops, because you won't get the proper bittering effect without a boil. However, this adds Galaxy dry. I had no idea what to expect from it. In the glass it's a dusty-looking amber colour and quite hazy. The aroma is fresh and zesty, with the orange-shred marmalade character I very much associate with Galaxy. The body is light and the carbonation soft, which puts us in English cask bitter territory. I assumed there would be some pinch of wildness in its make up, but no: other than the accent on the hops, it's quite neutral. I see this working well by the pint, as a high-quality, unfussy, drinking beer. I would never have guessed the ABV is as low as it is: it gets away with it the same way the English brewers do, with a beautifully subtle complexity. If this was an experiment, it paid off handsomely. The 33cl serving size is the only cause for complaint I have.

Back to Mullingar, then, and as always there were a handful of kegs from breweries abroad.

Echoes of Summer by Little Earth Project was left over from last year's gig. It's a mixed fermentation beer of 5.3% ABV with a mixture of summer fruit in it. The pour was headless and the beer dark brown, with an aroma of spices and dark fruit, a little like HP Sauce. The flavour is quite sharp, and there was a certain staleness going on which made me think that the inter-festival maturation hasn't done it any good. On the plus side, there's an enjoyable richness to the taste, bringing red grape, raisin and fig. I wonder if it had more zing originally, because that's what's missing from the picture.

Cyclic is a specialist wild beer brewer in Catalonia, and they sent a grape ale called Skin Contact. This deeply purple 6.9%-er started life as a saison before the grape skin was added. The result isn't sour, but has a strong Bretty funk, of the farmyards and horseblankets variety. The grape must have gone in in bulk because there's a lusciously dense, weighty, fruit side. I got quite kriek-like vibes, with the grapes adding a cherry jam sweetness, contrasting with the more serious drier funk. It works incredibly well, and sits nicely in between the flavour profiles of wild beer and natural wine. Fascinating, but delicious too.

From the same part of the world comes La Salvatge, and they had another peach beer, called La Viu-Viu. This is a blend of two spontaneously-fermented ales which was then aged in red wine barrels with the peaches. It's 6% ABV and a cloudy orange colour. There was something a bit off about the fruit in this, tasting too sweet and slightly rancid. There's a waxy, bitter quality to the base beer, which adds to the harshness. This is a challenging creature, and while I appreciated the depth and complexity, it's too much for me.

That leaves what I thought was going to be the star of the show: Boerenerf. I didn't recognise the beer on sale from this newcomer in Belgian lambic, badged here as Gueuze: Pineau des Charentes Barrels -- the brewery might have a different name for it. I didn't even know what Pineau des Charentes was, learning it's a fortified wine from western France. OK then. The beer is rather sweet for a proper geuze, and I guess it's the barrels which give it a tropical character, suggesting mango and passionfruit in an odd but not unpleasant way. Though sweet, it's not gloopy, and has a gorgeously crisp Champagne sparkle. The sourness is assertive without being aggressive, and when it warms there's a growing incense spice in the taste. As such, it performs as a lambic ought to, and confirms further my admiration for this new producer.

While it's a shame we didn't have three more breweries on the day, I fully used up my afternoon on the beers that were there. Thanks as always to the organisers and brewers.

Wild Westmeath

I wasn't counting heads, but the third iteration of the Mullingar Wild Beer Festival seemed a little more subdued, and I somehow doubt that the audience for wild fermented beers from Belgium, Britain and Ireland was being poached by Taylor Swift, who played Dublin the same evening. I don't know. I do hope that it was still worth the organiser's and brewers' time. It was certainly worth my time.

As always, the venue was down the back of Smiddy's Bar, where four Irish breweries had set up stalls, with a separate international selection of taps. I began with Brett & Forget, a Brettanomyces-fermented lager from Dublin's Third Barrel. The titular yeast, it turns out, is an unreliable carbonator, so this came out flat which, for a pale lager, is unfortunate. Still (ha!), there was a quite delicious flavour profile, accentuating the ripely tropical aspects of Brett: big on lychee and pear, with a dusting of coconut. It's hefty stuff, at 6% ABV, but very satisfying drinking. I will definitely be back to this once it's fizzed up, if given the chance.

Otterbank was launching a new core beer, a Bretted pale ale of 4.1% ABV called The Internationale. This is intended to be dry-hopped with rotating varieties, and the first is Kiwi hop Superdelic. It's a light touch on the hopping, and only a faint trace of lemon in the finish suggested it was there. The rest of the flavour is the other side of Brett; the musky, musty, foetid horse-blanket and mulch so familiar from Orval in particular. It's lightened by a sweet and heady floral perfume taste, all violet and honeysuckle. In short, it's far more complex than any core beer has a right to be. It may be low strength but I can't see it working as a session beer. It's one to take in slowly.

Last of the new Irish offerings was a sort-of grape ale from Land & Labour, though one with a near 50-50 ratio of wine and beer, which is unusual for all sorts of reasons. It's called Puro Salamino and the wine component was produced by the brewery from Lambrusco Salamino grapes. 8.5% ABV and dark maroon, it was being served on cask. I was quite taken aback by the flavour, a strongly savoury herbal character, tasting of oily rosemary in particular, though also dill and marjoram. A subtle lacing of cherry and raspberry were the only nods to north-Italian red wine that I found in it, and I can't say any of it tasted much like beer. While it's odd and unsettling, it's delicious too: the sort of thing I expect they served at the better kind of medieval banquet.

Land & Labour also had a canned imperial stout open for tasting. This was Torched, a 10% ABV job brewed by Catalan brewery Garage in collaboration with Land & Labour. It's intended to be a fully unadorned imperial stout, with no additives or ageing. And while I respect that, the result was rather harsh: very heavy, and with a concentrated roasted bitterness that came across ashen and acrid. Wax, tar and liquorice all feature in my notes, scribbling as I rushed to finish it off and find something lighter. Straight-up, old-school imperial stouts don't have to be outright evil. I'm a fan in general, but this one was too much.

Brussels microbrewery L'Ermitage had sent two beers along. I was dubious, and haven't really got along with this brewery's output, finding it on the rough and gritty side of IPA and saison. I hadn't had much of their beer in the wild and barrel-aged area, though, so was willing to extend them the benefit of the doubt.

First out was Cureghem Kriekland, and as the name implies, this is a cherry-flavoured beer. The recipe is quite straightforward: 75% young saison blended with 25% wild-fermented, packed with cherries and barrel aged. It's 6.5% ABV and deep purple in colour. I like the natural-tasting cherry notes but it's no candified fruit beer. There's a very serious earthy and funky side to it, with a slightly unpleasant plastic tang in the background. The fun and spritzy tartness of kriek lambic was never meant to be there, I'm sure, but I missed it all the same, as it has so many other features in common. This wasn't the beer to change my opinion of L'Ermitage.

And neither was their grape ale, Le Grand Œuvre. This is again a blend of straight and wild fermented beers, with the addition of Muscaris grapes before three months of barrel ageing. It's 7% ABV and a hazy gold colour, giving me an early warning sign with its vinegary aroma, sitting next to softer and sweeter honey. It's heavily sour on tasting: dry and astringent, with more of the artificial plastic twang I found in the other one. Some zesty lemon cleans things up in the finish, but overall it didn't really work for me, tasting too unsubtle and immature.

Some beer was left over from the 2023 event, so I got a belated chance to drink Little Earth Project's Echoes of Summer. This is a mixed fermentation red ale with redcurrants and four types of berry. A muddy brown colour in the glass, it has the red-wine-like aroma of Flanders red ale. Similarly, the taste has a cherry and strawberry base, plus some sweeter mellow raisin notes. While tart, it shows the maturity lacking in the L'Ermitage beers, though perhaps spending a year ageing in KeyKeg helped with that. There's lots of oak, but smooth and balanced. It may not be exactly a to-style Flanders red, but this has enough in common with the well-made ones to attract the same sort of appreciation from me.

My last new tick before I went off in search of a beer to relax over (Wide Street's Saison de Pyrénées) was Thank You For The Day, a barrel-aged saison dry-hopped with Saaz, from Scatterlings, a side project of the brewer from Two Flints brewery in Windsor. The result is beautiful, with a fresh and light white wine aroma followed by a flavour which mixes juicy white grape with a pinch of citrus zest, sprinkled with coarsely ground black pepper. There's a lot of beautifully balanced complexity here, especially given the ABV is only 5.6%: a reminder that beers of this nature don't have to be >7% ABV to be worthwhile. Thank You, Mr Scatterling.

I said the festival felt smaller, but now it's written down, that's actually a decent afternoon's drinking. None of it was meant for quaffing, and I'm glad I didn't need to rush any of them. I'll have the same again please.