Look to the skies

I don't often get to do cross-brewery sets of lager reviews, but I have one today, with new lagers from two of Ireland's most reputable producers.

Cloudless from The White Hag says "ice cold lager" on the can, but it wasn't that in my house; my beer fridge runs between 8 and 10°C -- there's no hiding place for off-flavours in there. Poured, it's a startling pale and clear colour, looking every bit like the wan and watery industrial American lagers it is presumably copying. The aroma is crisp and grainy, with a little bit of richer malt sweetness. The carbonation is busy, even though the head isn't much cop. By design, I'm sure, there isn't much flavour. The hops are so understated that I couldn't even tell you what region of the world is represented. German noble varieties? They could equally be American, they're so indistinct. That leaves us with the malt from the aroma, and it's tokenistic: a slightly Czech-like golden-syrup sweetness at the very beginning, but fading quickly to a mild lemon tang and then no aftertaste. I can see why the brewery wants it poured cold, but it does bear a warmer serving temperature, to get at least some character into it. I can't complain that it's not as advertised, but whoever they've formulated it for, it's not me.

Third Barrel scored some plaudits from me for their Hello Yes? Czech-style lager late last year. When the brewer likes lager, you get good lager. Waterloo Sunset is the first one they've released since then, and is on a New Zealand theme, although that doesn't seem to be anything more involved than the use of Motueka hops. Appearance-wise, it's a very different proposition to the Cloudless, being a rich, almost red, golden colour, with a light misting of haze. The aroma is sweetly tropical, mixing mango and guava in a most un-pilsner-like way. It's quite heavily-textured, and very much not the crisp and refreshing sort of lager; it's more of a chewer, even at only 4.8% ABV. Fruit candy is the opening flavour, followed quickly by a very serious herbal rasp, dry and acidic, with noble notes of nettle and spinach. The aftertaste is an assertive waxy bitterness. It wasn't quite what I was expecting -- I guess I over-associate the New Zealand descriptor with Nelson Sauvin, and this has nothing in common with a Nelson-forward beer. It is good as its own thing, however, showing plenty of character from both malt and hops. It's maybe a little on the sweet side and perhaps shows more in common with a modern pale ale than a classic pilsner, but we can allow such missteps from time to time.

Two very different takes on pale lager on display here. I don't think either is entirely to my taste. I appreciated the technical skill in The White Hag's one, and the punchy hops of Third Barrel's. I would have liked one's crispness with the other's flavour. Maybe I should have blended them.

Absolute slop

I'll spare you my usual rant about the bad AI-generated artwork on Third Barrel's cans. Suffice it to say, they're still at it, and it still looks cheap and terrible. I had built up quite a collection of their beers late last year, through no particular reason, and got to work on them last month.

Sitting in the fridge since the summer was Short Circuit, an all-Citra IPA of 6.2% ABV. They've used various formats of the iconic American hop, including cryo, Spectrum and plain old-fashioned T90 pellets like our grandaddies used to use. They don't tell us anywhere on the can that it's hazy, but it is: oats in the ingredients is your nod-wink signal, I guess. The aroma is a little on the oily, savoury side of Citra's lime character: it's certainly no custardy haze job, even if it's very definitely not West Coast style. There's a pleasant bitter punch at the front of the foretaste, and maybe that's why they haven't said it's hazy, because it's definitely not in the New England fashion. The flavour is centred on bitter citrus pith, with a twist of white pepper. That said, it's not sharp or harsh, and does have a certain soft side; a pale cherry-slice cakeishness. This is pretty damn decent in the reliable, enjoyable, and most of all sessionable way that Third Barrel does beers. I only had one can, but I could see this working very well as a super-charged pinter. Careful now.

A month younger, but broadly along the same lines, is early autumn's Green Light Mode, a lightly hazy IPA of 6% ABV and hopped with Hallertau Blanc, Simcoe and Cryo Pop. The aroma is on the savoury side, mixing dry grain husks with raw spinach and celery: Hallertau Blanc tends not to come across as typically German, but I think that's what it's doing here. In the flavour, that gets concentrated to a dry and crisp sesame seed or caraway effect, something I associate most with Mosaic, and do not care for. The haze gives it a pillowy soft texture, which rounds out some of the edges, and there's a seam of sweetish vanilla too, but it's really missing any proper fruit side, and zingy citrus in particular. What bitterness there is is metallic and aspirin-like. This didn't work for me, being all too serious and devoid of the fun side of hopping that Third Barrel usually does so well (see above).

Bringing us right up to date, an IPA canned in late November, called Bothered. Again, it's not labelled as hazy but it very much is; 7% ABV and hopped with Idaho 7 and Strata, two of the brewery's favourites, I think. I expected it to smell more sweetly fruity and juicy — that's what I associate with Strata in particular — but instead the aroma is quite serious: a thick and oily layer of resins shot through with sparks of onion-like spicing. It gets more orangey on tasting, but not really very sweet, showing a pithy tartness and herbal notes of spearmint and thyme. The label says to expect tangerine and grapefruit, which I sort-of get, but also passionfruit, which I definitely don't. And even though it's opaque, there's no interference from the murk; no grittiness or vanilla, and that's always very welcome. The other principal attribute, aside from the hop goings-on, is a rounded warmth, making good use of the high-ish alcohol to create something that's very satisfying when you're only having the one beer. All told, this is very decent stuff.

Brickyard in Dundrum is now the sole proprietor of the TwoSides beer brand, but is still turning out the product via Third Barrel. The latest in its sequence of pale ales is Two Yards: All Citra, and sure why not? As usual, it's a light 4.3% ABV — brewed with pints in mind — and full-on hazy. One might have expected the aroma to be citrussy, but this is all resin, pine and weed, with almost a burn going on, despite the minimal alcohol. I found the foretaste a little off-putting, giving a dry and rasping acridity, like peanut shells or pencil shavings. The citrus takes over very quickly, thankfully, and delivers hard and bitter lime pith with an edge of fried onion and a pinch more of the pine from the aroma. Despite the strength, this is serious stuff, and I'm not sure it is very well suited to pint drinking. Though hazy, there's none of the balancing softer or sweeter sides to counteract the Citra's punch. I'm sure there are those who appreciate it at the level it's intended; it was just a little too aggressive for me, lacking nuance, as single-hopped beers often do. I can't say the front of the can didn't warn me.

TwoSides gets back on the collaboration bandwagon with Bitter Sweet Symphony, an IPA produced with another pub-owned Third-Barrel-brewed beer brand, Hopsicle of Cork. They don't tell us much about it on the can, only that 5.2% ABV is the strength. It's pale yellow and very slightly cloudy, with more of the gritty savouriness from the last one in its aroma. There's a similar sort of pithy bitterness too, but it's altogether less intense, and does show a sweeter side, slightly: a little candied orange peel or Seville marmalade. A proper tang finishes it off on a note reminiscent of English bitter. A symphony this is not. Like English bitter, it's a more subtle affair, wearing its complexity lightly. I expected something more dramatic, but what I got is calm and classy. Though the hops are all-American (Citra, Cascade, Mosaic), there's a restraint in what they're doing here: punching playfully at first, then fading to a dignified silence after the beer is swallowed. For me, this is a beer more to respect than to enjoy. I think I'm entitled to expect a bit more drama from a collaboration IPA with lots of American hops on board. I suspect that the pubs in charge have reined them in, to give it more mainstream appeal.

It's hard to believe, but not everything Third Barrel brews is a hazy pale ale. The two token offerings in other styles is where we'll finish this lot, beginning on a Czech-style pale lager called Hello Yes. This is a prize-winning homebrew recipe, although isn't quality in pilsner more about the process than the recipe? I'm possibly out of my depth with that. Anyway, this is výčepní-strength at 4.1% ABV, a flawless dark golden colour and smells of all the honey and fresh-cut grass that anyone could want. The carbonation is assertive — more so than is to my taste, but for this style it gets a pass. I'm amazed that there's no compromise with the mouthfeel, and it's as rounded and rich as a significantly stronger beer. Likewise the flavour has depth and complexity far beyond my expectations. Classically Czech golden syrup meets peppery rocket in the foretaste, followed by a kick of bitter spinach, before finishing perfectly cleanly with no aftertaste nor trace of fruitiness. I have no further notes. This is absolutely bang on, and reminds me how rare top-notch pale lager is in Ireland. If it's something you've been hankering after, don't miss this one.

"A hefty dose of Centennial" is the promise that comes with Texture Like Sun, a brown ale. It's only barely brown, mind, looking quite red to me. There's no more than a hint of hop fruit in the aroma, mixed with dark malt's chocolate and coffee, suggesting a raisin-studded candy bar. The flavour adds a tannic bite and accentuates the coffee roast, ensuring the sweet side doesn't get everything its own way. The hops are very visible as well, with quite a stereotypical American grapefruit bite on top of all the malt. Though 5.5% ABV, it's not particularly heavy, and that further helps with the balance. There's lots of fun on offer here, whether that be from the west-coast hopping or the ramped-up traditional brown ale features. The two sides work very well together, and both are assertively present, given a perfect clean base to work from. Too often microbrewed brown ales, where they exist, end up murky, gritty and difficult. This example, however, delivers all the good stuff in discreet packages with no interference, and is highly enjoyable as a result.

The conclusion from all this lot? Third Barrel should brew more varied styles, and especially more lager.

End of the year content filling

Thank you to Alan for the title. And so, once again, it's time to take stock of the year in beer just gone, using an increasingly irrelevant template, last revised in 2013. Changing it now would be akin to re-making Dinner For One in colour HD -- completely missing the point. As usual, deliberations are aided by something from the fridge which is hopefully a bit special.

This year it's a Chardonnay barrel aged wild sour ale from Wide Street, called Réserve Spéciale. It's had two years in the casks and poured a bright golden, almost completely clear. The aroma certainly shows off the wine, and very much that Chablis Burgundy dry fruitiness. The oak is perfectly integrated into this, just like with good wine itself, and there's no tacked-on vanilla or butteriness. At only 5.4% ABV it's light-bodied and crisp, refreshing even, its flavour opening with an immediate kick of Golden Delicious apples, tart gooseberries, soft kiwi and real white grape. More typical oak vanilla arrives late, but doesn't last long, and it finishes on a light saltpetre spicing of which I would have liked more. The fruit is almost at the level of a grape ale, and I commend this in particular to my fellow lovers of that style. In the 75cl bottle it makes for an excellent special occasion beer, and ideal for proselytising the wonders of wild fermentation and barrel ageing. But there's only one special occasion on my agenda today. Time to get on with...

The Golden Pint Awards 2024

Best Irish Cask Beer: Hopkins & Hopkins Sitric
It's a beautiful pale ale, no question, but this award is in part for what it represents: it was the first beer to show up on the revived cask handpump at The Porterhouse on Parliament Street, and it has been a regular there ever since, though occasionally time-sharing with Lough Gill's beers. Neither The Porterhouse nor H&H needed to do this; it's totally out of keeping with trends in Irish pubs and beer, and I've never seen anyone but me order it. But it is massively appreciated by this drinker and adds a wonderful bit of diversity to a beer market that can feel a little samey betimes. A Golden Pint is the least I can do as a gesture of gratitude.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Otterbank Oíche Mhaith
It's probably a lot more common bottled than draught, and the keg which went on sale at UnderDog in February was doubtless a rarity. Nevertheless it counts, and I don't see any reason why 9.4% ABV vatted porters can't be sold on draught in Irish pubs as a matter of course. Everyone just needs to grow up a bit.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Beoir Chorca Duibhne Leann Láidir
Honestly, the headline beer on this post is a contender, and I'm only having my second glass of it now. But on mature reflection, West Kerry's barrel aged rye porter was the Irish bottled beer that best delivered the goods for me this year. That was back in June, so finding it may be difficult at this stage, though I bet it didn't sell quickly and that there are still bottles to be had.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Third Barrel Hello Yes
Maybe it's because I'm quite jaded about IPAs in general, and that's what most canned Irish beers are these days, but it was a struggle to find a stand-out winner in this category. The one I picked is an authentic-tasting Czech style pilsner, though you'll have to wait until next week for my review. Take my word for it, however: cans of this one are still readily available and well worth picking up.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Uiltje Pomme Pressure
I'd say I drank close to a thousand different beers in 2024, though only a handful of them taught me anything new. This dark barley wine aged in Calvados barrels had a very special flavour profile and one that has stuck in my memory as distinctive and delicious. That's enough to mark it out for an award.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Den Herberg Geus Genereus
After a sizeable hiatus, the Toer de Geuze happened for me again this year, and included plenty of beers and breweries I knew little about. The specification of this complex geuze caught my eye from the brewery's temporary festival bar and delivered absolutely all of the implied complexity. Up top, I said that I would have liked more spice in the Wide Street beer. This one had spice enough for both.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Metalhead Metalworks
In the summer I went to Bulgaria, and while the beer I found there often wasn't the best, there were some stand-out moments. Those produced by a group of heavy metal fans on the edge of the Black Sea (possible beer/album name?) were among the most memorable, in a positive way. Metalworks is a barley wine with figs, dates and spices, but pulls off the trick of tasting balanced and integrated while still being a playful novelty beer. They compensated for the frustratingly tiny can with a huge and brilliant flavour. 

Best Collaboration Brew: Sofia Electric / Põhjala Väga Suur
And I'm as surprised as you are to find another Bulgarian beer at the races this year. In fact, this was originally picked for best overseas bottle, but with an absence of other suitable collaboration beers among the year's highlights, it made more sense to slot it in here. It's another complex barrel-aged barley wine which has been skilfully blended to create a unique drinking experience. Bulgarian brandy barrels get filed along with Calvados as ones to look out for. 

Best Overall Beer: Metalhead Metalworks
I look at the eight champion beers and try to think of the one that made the strongest impression on me; the one I can still taste and react to, just by reading its name, and that's the Metalheads of Burgas this year.

Best Branding: Kestemont
Back to the Toer de Geuze, and a visit to a brewery I'd never been to before, nor tried any of their beers. Kestemont has only been going since 2022 and doesn't try to pretend to be a vintage institution making old-timey beers. The branding is clean and modern, though also conjuring a more primitive age, for example the woodcut-like dashing hare on their Oude Geuze.

Best Pump Clip: Fat Cat House Ale
I remarked at the time that the house bitter at The Fat Cat in Sheffield is better than it needs to be, and the artwork on the clip is also a cut above. I don't know if it's based on a real cat or, if so, if said cat actually wears a monocle. I just enjoyed his stoic reaction to the shite Yorkshire weather, as seemingly rendered by Frank Miller. 

Best Bottle/Can Label: Lacada Out On A Shout
Lacada cans are always beautifully designed, but the one that stood out for me this year was a beer I've never had, a pale ale produced as a fund-raiser for the RNLI and making wonderful use of the beneficiary's particular turn of phrase. There's something about how it brings the reality of lifeboat work to the prospective beer purchaser that made it instantly memorable to me. Maybe I'll get to drink it at some point.

Best Irish Brewery: Galway Bay
While the company's pub end took something of a battering through 2024, the work done by the folks on the production side has been excellent. They've cornered the market in Irish-brewed Catharina sours and also rocked the dark and strong styles with Baltic porter, pastry stout, doppelbock and imperial porter of superb quality. And the schedule has been delightfully relentless, with new beers for me to try at The Black Sheep every few weeks. Throw in some excellent lager, which they did, and that's nearly everything I want a brewery to do.

Best Overseas Brewery: Dok
I had some fantastic beers at this Ghent brewpub when I visited last month, particularly the cherry and grape ale, and the black IPA. They narrowly missed out on the individual beer prizes so I'm happy to award this one for their output collectively. Their whole approach is cheerfully upbeat, and the creativity is matched by the quality of their beers. 

Best New Brewery Opening 2024: Smithfield Brewing
I mean, the beers aren't brilliant, being very much designed for mainstream pub-goers at the venues run by the brewery's owners. Rather, this award is for the project: the return of brewing to the old Dublin Brewing Company site in Dublin's north inner city. It looks like they're planning to open for visitors, being centrally located not far off the tourist trail with a bar just inside the entrance. And the old redbrick soap factory they're in is a lovely bit of Dublin's historic industrial architecture. In short, there's a lot of promise, and I hope to see it realised in 2025.

Pub/Bar of the Year: UnderDog
Ho hum, right? Where else would a thirsty person go for a quality selection, constant turnover, and an opportunity to rub shoulders with the cream of Dublin's beer geekery? UnderDog is the place and that's all there is to it, really.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2024: The 108
Strictly speaking this is a change of management rather than a new opening, but enough changed after Galway Bay vacated their Rathgar footprint that I'm counting it as a new opening. While there's a more mainstream appeal to the offer these days, there's still a good choice of quality beers (hello Kinnegar), and getting that out in the D6 boondocks is a rarity to be treasured. I'll throw in a most honourable mention for Bier Draak in Norwich which opened in May this year. It's an extension of the Sir Toby's market stall, but with worthwhile innovations such as a roof and a toilet. The beer list is impeccable.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
It's been a while since De Molen's two-day shindig has troubled my Golden Pints, and nothing much has changed with it in a few years now. But it's my call, and I had a wonderful time at this year's gig. I'm sure the great weather had a lot to do with that, and the fact that I missed last year. It's still a bit overcrowded and some breweries are overly fond of making punters queue for timed special releases, but mostly it works brilliantly, the exhibitors are well chosen and the whole thing is a quality affair. I'm looking forward to next year already.

Supermarket of the Year: Lidl
This year, it's an award for reliability and dependability. Aldi had the turnover of beers, but I bought more in Lidl because they have such solid reliables on the shelves permanently: fridge-fillers like their Crafty Brewing IPA and American Brown Ale, but also modern classics including Little Fawn, Scraggy Bay and Rustbucket. Grabbing a handful for a weekend of unfussy drinking has become a regular habit.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Molloy's
Specifically this goes to the Francis Street branch which has done best at offering me beers that I didn't see anywhere else, and all without having to go outside the canals. Yes, your Martin's and your Redmond's and your Blackrock Cellars have better ranges, but for the convenience/price/selection criteria, Molloy's on Francis Street covers things best.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
And Captain Obvious's Retail Recommendations continue here. Just as UnderDog is the place where gobdaws like me sit in to drink, Craft Central is where we get our cans of whatever was just released or imported. I don't (often) touch the stupidly expensive ultra-rare imports, because haze is haze and they don't make it magically better in Illinois or wherever, but CC has a proper devotion to Irish beer and even stoops to selling Irish breweries' bottled beers on occasion. As well as this award, I present them with the encouragement to do more of that sort of thing.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Devil's in the Draught Lines
We have two books in contention this year, but I think the prize has to go to this wide-ranging, deep-diving and wonderfully person-centred account of women's place in the beer world, past and present, commissioned by CAMRA and written by our own Dr Christina Wade. It's a story that needed told and a document that will stand witness for future writers on the subject.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Belgian Smaak
My runner-up book was Breandán Kearney's Hidden Beers of Belgium, which is genuinely excellent, so I'm very happy to award this equally prestigious Golden Pint to Breandán for his website. Output isn't exactly quickfire but the quality is worth waiting for. Claire Bullen's delving under the skin of Brouwerij Boon, and Breandán's own telling of the Eylenbosch/Boerenerf saga, were literally my two favourite pieces of beer journalism I read this year.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @articnead
I think Simon would have been quite happy for us to include Bluesky under the remit of this award now, and although I'm doing that, and Sinead does have an account on The Nice Place, this is still mostly a Twitter thing for probably the last time. Our winner does a marvellous mix of nordie snark, righteous outrage and old-school good-time bants, often within the same 280 characters, and generally gives proper vintage-era Twitter vibes, the way Bluesky is supposed to but doesn't. I very much doubt she reads this, so you can pass on the good news for me, Sean. Thanks.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Ballykilcavan
And also in the fractured social media space, we have Ballykay shining a light of positivity, interesting happenings, more righteous outrage, and fleeces, into the swirling maelstrom that is today's beer internet. More Irish breweries should be telling us what they're up to and what's on their mind via a held up phone in a working brewhouse. Casting a new Cleo the spaniel will be a tough task, however.


Is that it? Have we only 25 categories? Cuh! I could have gone on all year. Congratulations to all 2024's deserving winners, and shame on you who got nothing: you've seen the bar, now get planning how you'll raise it. Me, I'm still very slowly getting through the tail end of 2024's Irish beer releases. You can expect opinions about them arriving here well into January. No rush with whatever you breweries have in store for us in 2025.