Doubles and quits

It's the last post of 2014, a very busy year for beer and for Irish beer in particular. New breweries popped up all over the place and I paid overdue visits to Carlow Brewing, Porterhouse and Galway Bay. Dublin has been a little slow to catch up with the rest of the country but I'm expecting that to be somewhat rectified by the end of next year. The slew of winter seasonal beers has been bigger than ever and, for the second year in a row, Eight Degrees has released a trilogy of strong brews. One of them is a re-run of last year's Imperial Stout but the others are brand new and I caught up with them when they went on tap in The Norseman.

First up, a 7.2% ABV Belgian Dubbel. It's the appropriate shade of chestnut red and poured quite clear, though not completely. It's big on banana esters and heavy on the caramel too for an unsubtly sweet boozy banoffi effect, the heat rising to a slightly off-putting hint of marker pens at the finish. Thankfully the heat and markers don't build and the end result is a reasonably decent take on the dubbel style. While I got a little bit of a savoury yeast bite in the flavour, I suspect that this would be even more present in the bottled version and would help balance the intense sweetness. It's certainly one that will be interesting after a few years' maturation.

Eight Degrees wowed us in spring with The Full Irish IPA (and not just because of that photo) and have followed it up with a double IPA version named, topically, Double Irish. I didn't get much of an aroma from it, but that could have been the glass: those trumpet-shaped half-pints really should be banished from decent beer bars. Cut grass eventually wafted out of it when I'd drank down far enough. On tasting, the bitterness strikes first and while the flavour is complex, it's not a fruity one. There's everything else, mind: dank oily resins, grassy sharpness and a mouth-watering dry spicing. While carrying the full weight of its 9% ABV it's not at all sugary. It's a little more grown-up and serious than Ireland's other double IPAs and you can decide for yourself whether or not that's a good thing.

And speaking of comparisons, with all of my beer reviews done for the year, that means it's time for:

The Golden Pint Awards 2014

Best Irish Cask Beer: Full Sail
What happens when you take an already strong and hoppy pale ale and then dry hop it as far as physically possible. This is a face melter that goes through hoppy and out the other side. I'm hoping the expanded capacity at Galway Bay will make it a more regular sight.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Black Boar
We’re not worthy. Oh wait, yes we are. Where the hell has this been until now, White Hag? A silky knock-it-back 9% ABV stout that's so easy to drink they had to name it after a dangerous animal to remind us of the risk. At the opposite end of the hydrometer, a major tip of the hat has to go to Trouble Brewing for Graffiti: more of this, and this sort of thing, please.

Best Irish Bottled or Canned Beer: Independent Pale Ale / Dublin Brewer IPA
I first drank this way back in February but have been caning most of it under its Dublin Brewer guise at The Larder. I didn't realise they're the same beer but I have it on good authority that they are. Another big blousey whack of hops: invigorating, refreshing and great with a feed.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Het Uiltje G&T Radler
Wiper & True's Mosaic pale ale was a major contender in the pupil-dilating stakes this year, but the Dutch contract brewers take the prize for me. All the wonderful things about my two favourite drinks in a single package. It's quite possibly the oddest beer I drank this year, and perhaps that alone deserves recognition.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Black Eyed King Imp
The second imperial stout to take a gong, but it couldn't be more different from Black Boar. BrewDog's limited edition special has a convoluted back story but when you meet it it's entirely integrated: one piece of warm, sumptuous liquid comfort.

Best Collaboration Brew: Crushable Saison
There have been lots of great Irish collaborations this year, thinking of Goodbye Blue Monday and Horn8's Nest in particular. But I'm giving this one to the Americo-Belgian saison made by Tired Hands and De La Senne because it best represents what both countries are great at, which is a good thing for collaboration beers to do.

Best Overall Beer: Het Uiltje G&T Radler
It has to be the weirdo, I'm afraid. That's just how I roll. But you knew that. Seriously, though: drink this beer and tell me it isn't amazing.

Best Branding, Label or Pumpclip: Jack Cody's
Gotta love that goat.

Best Irish Brewery: Eight Degrees
The same winner as last year, with no qualms at all because, while 2013 Eight Degrees was excellent, 2014 Eight Degrees surpassed it with a never ending stream of daring hop-forward beers. As the Irish microbrewing industry expands, the issue of quality -- and whether newcomers are up to scratch -- is raised again and again. Anyone looking for a benchmark on what quality tastes like can grab a handful of whatever the newest Eight Degrees releases are. A very honorable mention goes to Trouble Brewing for excellent beers reasonably priced: everything that's required of a local brewery.

Best Overseas Brewery: Siren
There was no particular outstanding beer that won this for the Berkshire brewery, but they kind of insinuated themselves into my drinking this year, in locations as diverse as Rome, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Bristol and my own kitchen: wherever top-notch beer is served, basically. A varied range of styles and all of it very good indeed. Word has it that importation into Ireland is imminent, which is great news.

Best New Brewery Opening 2014: The White Hag
Well duh!

Pub/Bar of the Year: 57 The Headline
The Norseman ran it pretty damn close, both of them having taken the mantle from the Bull & Castle as ground zero for Dublin's beer obsessives. If pushed I'd say The Norseman probably has a better beer offer, but the quiet, comfortable neighbourly feel of The Headline makes it a better pub, which is what this prize is about. My top international finds this year were Open Baladin in Rome and The Bag o' Nails in Bristol, but neither is a 20-minute downhill stroll from my front door, so they lose out there.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2014: Alfie Byrne's
With JD Wetherspoon totally dropping the ball on the cask ale front, there aren't very many candidates. Alfie's opened in February and then we had a long wait for The 108 and The Back Page, which both appeared in late autumn. Alfie's gets a bit of stick because, through no fault of its own, it's a hotel bar. But the staff are great, the draught selection always includes something inspiring, and whereas you might see a lack of "atmosphere", I see a choice of places to sit. Away from you for a start, if you're going to whinge.

Beer and Food Pairing of the Year: Venison & Ale Pie and Leann Folláin
Always a tricky one for me as conscientious beer and food pairing is really not my thing. But down at The Pieman on Crown Alley a while back they had a venison and red ale pie on special, which I ate with a bottle of O'Hara's Leann Folláin, and it was lovely, and amazing value for a tenner. So there's my nomination.

Beer Festival of the Year: Quartiere In Fermento
Borefts was fantastic as always; The RDS September festival was huge and did not have a bad beer at it, that I tasted. Franciscan Well Easter Festival also took things to the next level this year. But the charming random oddness of the Wallace winebar chain's celebration of Italian beer gets my vote for 2014's festival highlight.

Supermarket of the Year: Fresh, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7
As usual I did very little supermarket beer shopping, but I did pick up the odd bottle or two in Fresh. They do seem to keep a good range of locals and quality imports in stock.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Martin's of Fairview
I was wowed on my first visit to this northside offy: a fantastic range, all nicely spread out for ease of browsing. I still buy most of my beer in DrinkStore, but I will be back to Martin's.

Online Retailer of the Year: The Homebrew Company
It doesn't say this category has to be about beer does it? Anyway, I don't buy beer online, and I do like the service from HBC, so they get this Golden Pint.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: Sláinte: The Complete Guide to Irish Craft Beer and Cider
This is an actual contest for the first time in Golden Pints history. I love flicking through Ron Pattinson's Homebrewer's Guide to Vintage Beer, while Boak & Bailey's Brew Britannia was the most engrossing read of the year. But a book on the current state of play in Irish beer and cider was badly needed, and Caroline and Kristin have done a marvellous job of documenting it in an accessible and visually appealing way.

Best Beer Blog or Website: The Beer Cast
I am not alone in commending Richard for his forensic unravelling of the bullshit that Scottish brewers Brewmeister cloaked their brand in. The whole saga made for fascinating reading as well as demonstrating the real practical benefit of this blogging lark. Tremble in fear, ye quacks and charlatans. A pat on the back and a jolly-well-done goes to Mr Brissenden for his sweetly crafted observations on the production end of brewing, and to Belgian Smaak which has done fantastic work documenting rural Ireland's new breweries this year.

Best Beer App: BeoirFinder
And while Belgian Smaak has been tearing around the country, I rarely do. However, it's comforting to know that BeoirFinder is there if I end up somewhere unfamiliar and in need of a decent beer.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitter: Chris Hall
We all want witty and informative, and thankfully there's plenty of it out there in the beery tweetosphere. Chris has been on top of it more than anyone in 2014, which is why I invite him to take a bow and receive my Johnson.

Best Brewery Website/Social Media: White Gypsy
Lots of current information on what's available and where to buy it, plus some lovely pictures of the brewery's hop garden, White Gypsy were really making the most of their Twitter account this year.

And that's your lot. Thanks as always to Andy Mogg and Mark Dredge for devising the Golden Pints and to everyone in the beer brewing, selling and commenting industries, especially here in Ireland, for making 2014 the busiest and most interesting year of my drinking career. See you in 2015 for the next round.

New pubs for old

Dublin city centre is hardly saturated with good drinking opportunities though you don't need to look as hard as you once did for something decent on draught. We're not quite at the stage where you can walk in anywhere and find a good beer, but I also don't think we're far off it. Meanwhile, the hoppy fingers of independent brewing are reaching into the suburbs and providing more options to the thirsty people there.

The newest addition to the craft beer scene beyond the canals is The 108 in leafy Rathgar. Once a pleasantly shabby corner bar, this was demolished some years back and rebuilt with apartments on top. The pub returned as The Rathgar and retained its shape though I can't say if the atmosphere came back too as I never visited it in this incarnation. As of the beginning of this month it has been re-re-branded and is called The 108 once more, this time as part of the Galway Bay Brewery chain, the tenth in its estate and the sixth in Dublin.

As it happens the brewery had a brand new beer ready on opening night, an amber lager called Steam Boat. I confess I wasn't expecting a whole lot from it but brewer Chris has definitely worked his magic on it. His magic and a whole heap of Galena, Columbus and Citra. It's a murky red-brown colour showing the rawness that Galway Bay likes to present in its beers: no filter, no fining, no mucking about. The aroma is sharp yet fruity, all peach skins and grapefruit. While properly bitter to taste there's a lovely hop complexity, with mango flesh and a touch of the medicine cabinet -- eucalyptus in particular -- too. Best of all the lager yeast gives it a lovely clean finish, making way for the next mouthful. My only real beef with this beer is that the strength is a little high at 5.4% ABV. I'd prefer something I could tear through at a percentage point or so lower, and Galway Bay lacks anything hoppy in this area. That said it's nice to have something with all the character of the house IPA Full Sail with just a little less alcohol.

Meanwhile on the northside the former Red Windmill pub on Phibsborough Road has been acquired by the Bodytonic group, best known for the likes of The Twisted Pepper and Bernard Shaw. The new sign over the door proclaims it to be The Back Page and it is that rarity: a craft beer sports pub. The refurbishment has been done sympathetically and the front bar retains its cosy pubby feel while the bright back room is where the big screen action takes place. There's even a games room upstairs for those more interested in participating than spectating.

Bodytonic's brewing arm has a new beer out to mark the opening, created at Rascal's Brewery with recipe design by homebrew virtuoso Rossa O'Neill. It's badged as a dark mild, is 4.5% ABV and goes by the name Whopper. It's a simple but high quality beer with lots of silky milk chocolate at the centre of the flavour and some chalky mineral dryness around the edges. Maybe it's just because they've decided to call it a mild instead of a brown ale but I couldn't help wondering if there might be more complexity in a cask version of it. Certainly the coldness and fizzyness of keg dispense did it few favours on a rainy November evening.

It's great to see both the Galway Bay and Bodytonic empires expanding, and bringing damn good beer with them as they do. The revolution will not be centralised.

More pours

Day two of catching up on Ireland's recent new and special release beers in honour of Irish Craft Beer Week 2014.

Usually ahead of the game for such things, The Norseman in Dublin was an early adopter of Smokey Bacon, a new special edition strong ale from Bo Bristle. This arrived a murky brown-amber colour and exhibits lots of Belgian-esque alcoholic warmth from its 6.8% ABV. The smoke makes its presence felt right from the start: a harsh and heavy acridity. Lots of caramel malt comes in behind it and the two elements battle it out for control of the palate, well into the long finish. While I'm sure it'll have its fans, it just didn't work for me, lacking in the balance and cleanness I enjoy in German rauchmalz-based lagers and also in the fun flavours found in peated dark beers. Reddish ales with a minority percentage of smoked malt just don't float my boat.

Beoir's 2014 AGM happened in Kilkenny a month ago and coincided with the first appearances of a new local beer brand, Costellos. Mr Costello himself invited us along to Billy Byrne's pub after the meeting to try it out. Diageo recently closed the landmark Smithwick's brewery in the city and this is an attempt to bring the local element back into Kilkenny beer, though for the moment it's brewed two counties over at Trouble. Still, a 3.8% ABV red ale can't but attract parallels with Smithwick's, and it does combine several of that beer's better elements, showing lots of lemon-tea-like tannins for superior thirst-quenching power. As it warms there's a sizeable amount of buttery diacetyl added to the mix, which wasn't to everyone's taste but which I thought sat quite comfortably with the cleaner parts of the flavour.

Thanks to Gerald and the team at Costello's for the hospitality, and check out Billy Byrne's if you're in Kilkenny: the Bula Bus kitchen parked out back does excellent street food.

"No new Galway Bay beer yet?" I hear you cry. Of course there is. Before the brewery packed up and shipped itself across town to a new standalone facility it produced a 6.6% ABV IPA called Goodbye Blue Monday, in collaboration with Begyle Brewing of Chicago. It's got oatmeal in it. I don't know why and I couldn't detect any effect it had, but I thought I should mention that it's in there. It is thickly textured, but so are lots of non-oatmeal IPAs so I doubt that's oatmeal alone. The colour is a bright copper and its flavour is immensely complex from just the hops: spicy and greenly bitter; weedy and dank, but also zesty and juicy. Basically it's a walking tour of new world hop flavours. Malt? Keep walking, stranger. If you want something with a bit more impact than Full Sail but smaller than Of Foam & Fury, here it is. But otherwise I don't really see the point of trading up or down from either of those perfectly enjoyable beers.

Last month there was much fooferaw around the launch plans of Sligo's first brewery, The White Hag, at the Fleadh Cheoil. What got lost in the kerfuffle about licensing and strongarm tactics and whether craft beer is a fad was any mention of the beer. White Hag's first release was a special edition created specifically for the event: Fleadh Ale. Fortunately a stray keg managed to roll as far as L. Mulligan Grocer where I got to try it. I'll admit I'm a little prejudiced when it comes to the beer from new rural Irish breweries. "Safe" is a word I may throw out from time to time, and no criticism is implied in it. But Fleadh Ale is not safe. Quite the opposite, I think. It's the clear dark red of an amber ale and starts with an innocent aroma of toffee and oranges. Mandarins flash past on the first sip, then stronger hop resins and incense spicing leading to thumping great dank earthy pine flavours set on a thick toffee stickiness. That hop-blasted chewiness is an effect I associate most with big US double IPAs and I'm not sure I entirely believe the Hag's claim that this is a mere 6.8% ABV. It is a stunning beer and though brewed for a summer music festival it would make a magnificent winter warmer. I hope we'll see it again.

A second new Connacht brewery to finish on: Black Donkey from Roscommon. They've daringly opted for a saison as the first release and the official east-coast launch took place in 57 The Headline recently. Sheep Stealer is the latest of a growing sub-genre of quite sweet Irish saisons, packed to the gills with mouth-watering orangey fruit. There's some level of dryness and spicing in here too, in both flavour and aroma, but they're more akin to the kind of thing you'd find in a witbier rather than a continental saison. I get a definite poke of coriander in the aroma especially, though as far as I know, no spices have been used in the recipe. The lack of sharp edges makes Sheep Stealer an insanely drinkable beer, as witnessed by the first keg being drained on the night in about 40 minutes.

Another round of new Irish beers tomorrow? Ah go on then...

The local news

Irish Craft Beer Week rumbles onwards, leading us to the final destination of the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, kicking off in the RDS tomorrow afternoon and running through to Sunday. The beer list is exciting and intriguing in equal measure, with lots of new beers to tick so I've been doing my very best to get to as many as possible beforehand.

As usual, the Bull & Castle has been doing sterling work in this department of late and is still my routine destination for new stuff from Irish micros. Although that said it seems like a lot -- a hell of a lot -- of new Irish beer is coming from the one plant: 8 Degrees in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork. So with great fanfare last month we had the Dublin launch of Kinsale Pale Ale. Sam Black is in the process of setting up his own operation, with premises acquired and building under way. If you fancy getting involved in his project you can join in with his crowd funding effort on IndieGoGo. Meanwhile, he's brewing at 8 Degrees, though very much his own recipe.

It's safe to say Sam is comfortable around hops. Kinsale Pale Ale is a 5% ABV symphony in Citra. I wasn't all that impressed with the bottled version when I tried it at the Alltech Gathering -- and that's a bit of a theme with 8 Degrees beers for me: the bottles are very often duller versions of the draught, sometimes downright wonky -- but on keg it was powerfully flavoured, perhaps even a little too much for my taste. Masses of pine resin and freshly chopped mixed herbs form the vanguard; a little bit of the medicine cupboard and a little of the urinal cake. Once my palate adjusted -- which is why it really deserves to be served by the pint rather than the 33cl bottle -- it opened out into a more nuanced peach and pineapple experience, much more my sort of thing. I'm sure it'll change once production moves to Kinsale, but this first effort show that Sam knows what he's about and wants to keep the hopheads happy.

The Dublin-based 8 Degrees contractee is Five Lamps, who came out of the traps last year with a fairly plain but acceptable golden lager. The boat remains unrocked by their follow-up, Liberties Ale. In stark contrast to the super-sweet Sweetman's red reviewed on Monday, this is very dry, with an almost stoutlike roastiness going on. It reminded me quite a bit of the excellent Traditional Irish Red that Carlow brewing used to make for Aldi, though I've yet to find anyone who agrees with me on that observation. This swings a bit too far in the opposite direction from Kinsale Pale Ale for me; a few more hops would be appreciated, but I'm sure there's an audience out there for it. The rumour mill has it that Five Lamps have recently secured a premises in Dublin (embarrassingly on the other side of the city from the Five Lamps) and will be setting up a real live brewery in due course. (Late edit: In fact, the brewery was already up and running and Liberties is brewed there. The lager will continue to be brewed at Eight Degrees.)

With this lot going on it's hard to believe that 8 Degrees have time to brew anything with their own label on it, but the recent big news was the arrival of a competing pair of IPAs brewed to the same recipe only differing in the hops. The starting point for both recipes was the brewery's standard 5% ABV pale ale Howling Gale, so they have retained an anemological name for the new ones, though intensified to signify the higher 7% ABV. The northern hemisphere hops Simcoe, Citra and Mosaic went into Hurricane, while antipodean Motueka, Pacifica and Ella feature in Cyclone. I set them up blind to try them side-by-side.

The first thing that struck me in these supposed grist twins is that they're different colours from each other. What's going on there? The second is that for pretty strong brews they're both a little on the thin side. This does make for easy drinking, but it also leaves the hop flavours in both rather muted: I expected a much bigger punch on the first sip. The golden one to begin and it starts with a very floral perfumey nose, but turns sharply bitter on tasting, though not unpleasantly so. There's a lot of pithy zest here: orange rind and dried lemon. It was the one where I felt the understated flavour most acutely and I would have liked to savour it a bit longer than sharing a small bottle allowed.

Turning to the amber one, the hops were much more eager to please here, sending out keen aromas of mandarin peel and herbal dank. There's a little more to the mouthfeel here too: it's rounder and smoother and the flavour flashes a beautiful grapefruit and nectarine juiciness, but suddenly dies off leaving next to nothing in the finish. It tastes better than the first one, but not for long enough to make it a better beer. My vote went to the paler offering, which turned out to be the southern hemisphere Cyclone. A fun experiment, and two beers I'm really looking forward to trying in draught form.

And outside of 8 Degrees? Yes, there's plenty happening. The Porterhouse have bottled their stonking American style barley wine Louder and I suspect it'll be a great one to leave for a couple of years to age. Galway Bay have installed their new bottling machine and so far I've brought home their Full Sail pale ale -- my go-to when I'm in their tied pubs. It's quite a raw beer: cloudy and unrefined with lots of big citrus hops right in the middle of the flavour. A good return on one's hepatic investment too: all this hop power comes at a very reasonable 4.8% ABV. And Dungarvan's Comeragh Challenger bitter has re-emerged for another late summer run. It was showing a bit murky when I tried it on cask in the Bull & Castle. Does it ever drop bright?


We also have a new one from Metalman -- a rare full-brand beer rather than another Chameleon edition. It's a style-defying 6% ABV amber lager using (why not?) Sorachi Ace hops, called Sahara. On the strength and hop choice I really was expecting a clone of Kiuchi's Nipponia, but it's not that at all. It's a paleish red-gold and overwhelmingly dry (hence the name, I've only just realised): tannic and bitter like an old fashioned nut-brown bitter served in a dimpled glass by Bet Lynch. The signature lemon notes from the Sorachi Ace slowly unfold as the beer warms, and on that dry, almost astringent, base it acts as a grime-and-lime scrub for the palate. But even this bitterness gives way in the finish to those all-conquering tannins. It's an intriguing beer and one I'd be very willing to explore further if it were a more sessionable strength.

And with those cheery beery notes made it's head down for the big push and off to the RDS. I'm volunteering / getting in the way for all four days so give me a wave if you see me.

Irredeemable

Oh no! Pete Brown wants us to write something for normal people, a piece on Beer Moment expressing the joy of beer in a way that ordinary, social, humans will understand. The trivial minutiae which concern the obsessive beer geek or ticker are not for this Session.

Well tough titty, Mr Brown, 'cos you know what my Beer Moment is? My "moment to savour, a moment of mateship, potential, fulfilment, anticipation, satisfaction, and sheer bliss"? Spotting a beer tap I don't recognise. Ha! Get it up ye! Score this one for the anoraks!

So recently I dropped in to Dublin's newest beer specialist (they crop up like weeds these days), The Brew Dock over by Connolly Station. There's a slightly New England-ish maritime feel to all the painted wood, though at least three centuries have passed since the site faced directly onto the waters of Dublin Bay. As one might expect for somewhere between the bus station and a railway terminus, it has never been the most classy or welcoming of venues. Fortunately the new owners have a proven record of turning such places around and it's well on its way to attracting tourists and the office crowd from the adjoining Financial Services Centre over the bus depot derelicts who haunted its former incarnations.

Said owners are the Cottage Group, and naturally enough The Brew Dock stocks beer from their own brewery: Galway Bay over in sunny Salthill. They've been twiddling the recipes of their three lately, but it looks like they may have finally settled, since experimental "Strange Brew" is gone, replaced by Full Sail Pale Ale.

I had to squint at the tap to notice the lettering had changed, but when I did: here comes the rush. A new beer! A new Irish beer! In recent years this has become less of a rare phenomenon than it used to be: the new wave of Irish breweries keep us plied with seasonals and special editions, and there are enough festivals and guest taps around the country to afford the opportunity to try them (the brewery's own annual festival kicks off in Salthill tomorrow, just FYI). But it's no less exciting for all that, and the prospect of a new full-time beer is an extra thrill.

Part of me feels I should end the post here. Because despite the joy of discovering a new beer and the warm afterglow of having ticked it off, Full Sail really isn't very good. It's a lightly-carbonated orange-amber affair and strikes early with a sharp, almost gastric, foretaste. This theme continues in the middle where there's just a touch of pithy fruit in amongst plenty of sharp waxy bitterness. And then it all just tails off. It leaves loads of room for some lip-smacking high-hop citrus flavours but they're entirely absent. Uncomplicated and sessionable is the plan, I suppose, but a pale ale like this really needs more late hops to be a  success, in my estimation at least.

Lucky I got my money's worth before the first sip then, eh? That was the moment I savoured.

2013 update: A change of brewer has seen Full Sail reformulated into something which does really give you a proper bitter bang for your buck. Recommended.