Radical move

The distribution arm of Carlow Brewing Company, Radical Drinks, has added a couple of high-profile American breweries to its line-up, including Firestone Walker. Back in October they held an event at Urban Brewing to celebrate the visit of head brewer Matt Brynildson and it was a chance to taste a few of the FW beers I'd never had before.

That began with Luponic Distortion, specifically number 13 in this ever-evolving series of IPAs. Unlucky for me? No! They don't disclose what combination of hops go into each version but I'm guessing Sorachi Ace or something very similar plays a big part in this because here comes the coconut! When that fades there's a softer melon buzz, set on a body that's smooth and quite weighty for just 5.9% ABV: chicken feed as Californian IPAs go. There's even a little malt stickiness to balance the punchy hops. It's not a world-beater but it is a very decent, no-messing, American IPA.

Fashion caught up with us immediately afterwards, in the form of Mind Haze, the hazy IPA that has to be in everyone's portfolio. They've nailed the texture here: it's beautifully soft and fluffy. The flavour is quite muted, however. I got gentle wafts of peach, orange sorbet, and mild vanilla. The fruit builds a little as it goes, though forms nothing more intense than a mandarin orange by the end. Comparisons with Sierra Nevada's all-conquering Hazy Little Thing are inevitable, and I definitely don't consider Mind Haze to have the beatings of it. Maybe Luponic's aggressive hops spoiled me for it in advance.

The evening's wow factor was brought by a beer that I don't think is part of the import portfolio: Firestone Walker XXII. This is the annual release of brown ale devised by the winemakers whose farms surround the brewery. My history with it goes back a decade, to the bottle of XII that Chris brought to the 2009 Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival. This year it's 12.7% ABV. The caramel and coffee of the brown ale are still there, providing a baseline richness. It's then overlaid with an oaky Shiraz spice, floral Oloroso and herbal hippocras. A smooth alcohol heat turns the whole concoction into a glass of winter warmth. The barrel-ageing expertise is very apparent here.

While I was there, of course I tried what was new from Urban Brewing itself. These are long gone from the taps by now, but for the record:

Urban Grapefruit IPA is 6.2% ABV and arrived a clear golden colour. The aroma was a little off-putting, with a harsh sweaty character pervading. It tasted much better, thankfully. High carbonation and lots of real fruit give it an orangeade feel -- the traditional sort made from actual oranges. A sharp tang of pure grapefruit brings this to a crescendo in the finish. But before that there are hops too: nothing distinctive, but bringing a different kind of bitterness to the picture. I'm not normally a fan of these, but this was decent.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Urban Kveik IPA, not because of the farmhouse yeast, but because this was a mere 3.1% ABV. It's another clear one, and this time the aroma left me thinking of appleade. The texture of this was beautifully soft and silky while the flavour, though not massively complex, showed deliciously juicy nectarine and apricot. For the strength, it was a superbly satisfying beer and unlike anything else I've encountered. More beer of this density at this strength would be very welcome.

By way of postscript, brand new to the Radical Drinks range is a selection from New Belgium. These arrived shortly before news of the Colorado brewery's prospective takeover broke. It's just a handful out of the core range, and I was a bit excited as it's the biggest American craft brewer who had hitherto not been distributed in Ireland. The only packaged one new to me was Citradelic. This is a pale ale of 6% ABV, brewed with tangerine, orange and orange peel. It's a perfectly clear orange-amber colour in the glass. The carbonation is high but the flavour disappointingly muted. The two may be related. A dry crispbread effect is the first thing I taste, then there's a perfume waft -- not so much citrus as a concentrated floral quality. It tastes quite artificial. Fortunately it fades quickly and the best feature arrives: an aftertaste showing a buzz of real juicy tangerine, with an angry kick of bitter hops on the side. As with my first Fat Tire a few years back, I thought this would be better.

On draught we also get Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA. I thought I'd missed this on the initial release so was pleased when it showed up on the bar at The TapHouse. I was less pleased to find there's no juice, though it is at least hazy. Its taste is all savoury seeds -- sesame, poppy, caraway -- with a mild touch of vanilla. The texture is thick and cloying but not sweet, with lots of boozy heat from 7.5% ABV. This can't have been in the country more than a few months but it tastes stale. I'm blaming the recipe. Regardless, I got no brightness or freshness from my glassful, and this is absolutely not what one would expect from a beer calling itself juicy and shipped from Colorado. Dull, blunt and deeply disappointing.

Thanks to the folks at Carlow Brewing and subsidiaries, and Firestone Walker, for the hospitality. Among other things, I hope the production of more interesting beers at New Belgium lasts long enough for some to be exported in this direction.

Mixed feelings

A chat with Séan and Laura at the bar of the Porterhouse made me realise how odd the whole thing is: we have no problem accepting that everyday drinks like tea and coffee can be mixed with other things to make them more palateable. Cocktails and kirs are classy. But somewhere along the path to industrial homogenisation we decided that beer had to be just beer: consumed as it is poured. The very notion of putting something else in there tends to garner weird looks. And yet, our draught stout was once a blend of stale and fresh beer, the abolition of which led Guinness to invent their pointless two-part pour in the 1950s. Is there anything to be gained from thinking of beer as something other than ready-to-drink?

This month's Session is hosted by Beer At Joe's, and is on the subject of Beer Cocktails.

I chanced upon my subject by accident. It was at the Easter Festival in Cork a couple of weeks ago, to which the TheBeerGeek brought along a bottle of Firestone Walker XII for disposal. It's a wood-bomb; a powerful brown ale which simulates the sensation of licking the inside of a bourbon barrel. There was more than a hint of cough syrup about it and I found the whole thing a bit sickly and hard to drink. As it happened, I was holding a half of Porterhouse Chocolate Truffle Stout when Chris poured me the Firestone Walker. It made perfect sense to dump the woody dregs in with the smooth bittersweet Irish stout. And it worked quite beautifully, I think: the overpowering bourbon barrel character was smoothed by the mellow chocolate notes, while any nitrostout blandness got a firm kick from the rich boozy vanilla flavours. Result: a harmonious mingling of two very different beers into a deliciously balanced cocktail.

And I was going to leave it there, until a week later when I returned to Cork for the ICB Brew It Yourself gig. The aftershow pub crawl took us to the dinky bar above the Abbot's Ale House where I spotted an oddity on the blackboards: Picon Beer €5. Whatever could that be? When it was explained that it was a cocktail of Bavaria lager and a French orange liqueur, I can't remember if it was Dave dared me to order it, or the other way around, but I didn't need much encouragement.

It works really well: you get the clean refreshing fizz of a pint of lager, but there's also a sweet rich orangey flavour too. The liqueur is only 18% ABV so a dash isn't going to make your pint dangerously alcoholic -- just more interesting. When I got home I went in search of more information on the stuff and was rather surprised to find it is actually intended as a beer additive.

So, positive experiences all round on the beer mixing front. It's not something I plan on making a habit of, but there are times when it just seems like the right thing to do.