Where they do things differently

The Glider is a modern marvel. Belfast's metro-like bus-with-notions runs transversely across the city, from west to east, passing plenty of the city's beer destinations on the way. A new curiosity has arrived at the eastern G1 terminus in Dundonald. As has been reported far and wide, Lidl NI has chosen to open a fully-operational pub in the same building as their supermarket, to subvert local licensing restrictions. I went up to have a look.

Knowing, presumably, how much of a curiosity The Middle Ale would be, and the potential for positive publicity, the chain has gone to more effort than it strictly needed to. Although there's nothing distinctive about the exterior, the inside has been designed to a definite theme, based on the old-fashioned Irish pub-grocer, as befits a kind of modern day equivalent. The shelves are lined with decorative versions of Lidl food and homewares, not to advertise them seriously, but to fit the theme. With that goes shiplap-style painted-wood walls and ceiling, lighting in the style of early electrification, and even little vestigial drawers behind the counter, as though for storing loose produce. That it's all garishly coloured in the company's red, yellow and blue, rather than more realistic earthy ochre or olive green, takes away from the effect and reminds one that it's all a bit of set dressing. But it's fun, like drinking in the on-stage pub from a pantomime.

The drinks offer... well, they've made a bit of an effort. For the most part, the draught options are what you might expect to find in a mainstream Norn Irish pub with a tie to C&C: Tennent's, Heverlee, Bulmer's, Bud Light, Guinness and the one surprise, Estrella Damm. When I lived in the province, such a basic array would absolutely have included C&C-brewed keg Bass as well, and it was a little jarring to see it's not part of what's plainly an out-of-the-box factory-settings beer line-up. I bet the marketing wunderkind who came up with "The Middle Ale" didn't think to ask if the pub would sell any ale. It doesn't.

While you can buy Lidl-brand wine and spirits behind the bar, the logistics of doing the same for draught beer would have been impractical. This is where the effort shows, though: an additional beer tap is badged as the own-brand Crafty Brewing Lager, and while I strongly suspect it's hooked up to a keg of Rye River's Bidin' Time, I also have my suspicions about whether or not those are two different beers in any meaningful way.

None of this was getting me any new ticks, however. I had to turn to the bottle options for that. Now, you know I love a bit of knock-off branding from the German discounters. I had never taken a punt on either of the main rivals' Corona clones, because they're only in six-packs and that's too much commitment to a beer that's likely undrinkable. At The Middle Ale, however, they'll do you a single of Camaro, and even shove a wedge of lime in it.

I understand that the lightstrike-proof hop substitute that big-brand clear-glass lagers are made from is quite expensive. That it's not in use here is painfully obvious, even sniffing through the tiny aperture of a longneck. The pub hasn't been open long but this was still skunked from its time in the glass-fronted fridge. That's present in the flavour too, but is far from the worst thing about it. There's a horrific cooked-sweetcorn savoury quality, turning to popcorn husk in the finish. The little jet of real lime from the wedge does genuinely help by masking some of the awfulness, but it's a bad time from start to finish. The mainstream versions of this type of beer are mostly very bland and treated a little unfairly in the discourse; the Lidl one, however, tastes as bad as all the jokes about them say they do.

A better drinks offer might have had me spending a little more time there, soaking in the Disney-does-country-grocer ambiance, but nothing took my fancy. Back on the Glider, then.

I didn't have any to-do list beyond that, although I'd never had a pint in the downstairs bar of The Ulster Sports Club, so decided to fix that next. It was quiet and cool in there, and downstairs was the only option as the Out of Office brewery taproom on the upper floor hadn't opened yet. I had a pint of their session IPA: Pencil Pusher.

This is a modest 4% ABV and pale yellow with a light but definite haze. The flavour is crisp at first: plain and a little grainy, before the hops kick in, bringing a fresh and pithy citric bitterness. It took a moment for anything else to appear, beyond the initial grapefruit, and that's a sweeter and slightly sticky stewed peach effect. It remains zippy and refreshing, however, and well-chosen as a regular on the more mainstream downstairs bar. There's little to dislike about it.

All roads lead to The Sunflower, and it was busy in the sunny beer garden, though a little quieter indoors, before the Friday after-work crowd fully descended. Galway Bay makes the house beer here: Sunny Lager. It's pretty unchallenging fare, though well made. It's a crystal-clear golden colour, looking like lager perfection, and is softly textured, the body full for something only 4.3% ABV and likely brewed to a price point. Where I cynically expected it to be bland, the flavour has a colourful floral quality, tasting of summer meadows and tasteful bouquets. Maybe the appropriate weather we had enhanced my impression of it, and it wouldn't be as engaging on a dismal grey afternoon. Quality is quality, however, and I would come back to this.

On the guest cask was El Dorado, a pale ale from Manchester brewery ShinDigger. They had it served nicely cold, which was appreciated. This is another pale and clear one, and has much in common with the lager, being plain and decent, with a subtle hop flavour. Here, that's a light zing of orange and grapefruit, though without any proper bitter kick. It's hard to dislike, but I had turned to the cask in search of complexity, and attracted by the name of the beer being the name of a hop. There's an element of false pretences about it: it's far from the hop showcase one might think it would be.

And with that it was back home to Dublin. I didn't get any proper exploring of Belfast done but felt I did the city's beer scene a little bit of justice. Whether it's worth gliding out to Dundonald to see how Lidl does a pub isn't for me to say. Don't go for the beer offer is all I have to add to the conversation.

Heverlee body

A trip north to see family brought me to the local hotel for some simple-but-decent Saturday evening grub. I was bemused to see here, in a near total deadzone for interesting beer, that the menu had a range of offerings from Station Works brewery and even a simple pairing guide, for matching your choice of food to seven styles of beer, including hefeweizen and brown ale. I wasn't going to get involved in that, so just a Foxes Rock IPA for me, please. "Oh, no, we don't have anything like that" replied the waitress. On asking what beers they did have, I was faced with a choice between Guinness, Smithwick's, Carlsberg, Tennent's, Heverlee and Stella. The Northern Irish draught beer market is largely sewn up between Diageo and C&C, so it shouldn't have been surprising to see here a 50/50 split between the brands the companies distribute. I overcame my disappointment by ordering a pint of the one from that list I'd never tasted before.

Heverlee is rarely seen south of the border. C&C only seems to roll it out in places where they're blocking a range of taps in a bar where they've bought counter space by the metre. It's quite commonplace in Northern Ireland and Scotland, presented as a sophisticated option by dint of being named after a suburb of Leuven, while actually being brewed in Glasgow alongside the Tennent's. The evening's pleasant surprise was that it's actually quite good. I found it very true-to-style for a helles, with that full and almost chewy body and flavours of spongy white bread and celery fresh from the crisper. It achieves this at just 4.8% ABV too. The beer it reminded me most of is Spaten: the same smooth drinkability; easy without being boring. Maybe it just caught me on a good day, but I'd happily have a few more of these, and it's streets ahead of the lagers C&C have been turning out down in Clonmel.

Beer fanatics of Mid-Ulster (hi Steve!) have their work cut out for them, but a readily-available Spaten clone would certainly take the edge off for me.

No rest for the ticker

Irish Craft Beer Week is upon us once more as the nation girds its collective loins for the craftquake that is the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, now in its fourth year at the RDS Industries Hall, from Thursday.

To whet your appetite for that I thought I'd run through a few of the recent releases from Irish breweries. Bear with me: this may take a while.

The Porterhouse's Pale Ale Festival ended in late July but nobody seems to have told Eight Degrees who had yet another beautiful hop monster on tap at the Temple Bar branch -- and several other pubs besides -- shortly afterwards. Simcoe Rye Ale is the latest in their single-hop series, 6% ABV once again. It's a hazy dark amber colour and the aroma offers a heady cocktail of grassy rye and weedy, spicy hops for the overall effect of a summer meadow on steroids, or getting your head stuck in a pile of damp lawn cuttings. First in the queue on tasting is a dry and punchy bitterness, sharp at the front and then with a longer resin finish, plus just a modest burst of juicy mandarins coming into it as it warms slightly. Behind these is a dense crystal malt base, though the caramel sweetness is felt more than tasted, if that makes any sense. It's a sort of heavy smoothness and brings balance and drinkability to what's an unmistakeably intense hop-forward beer.

International booze behemoth C&C invited me to the launch of their first Irish beer, Clonmel 1650, brewed at the plant best known for turning out the world's supply of Magners. They rented the entirety of swish Dublin superpub The Church and packed it to capacity, adding insanely loud music for extra atmosphere. Still, two free pints is two free pints. First impression of the first pint was of a very dry lager, the flavour evolving into an earthy, mushroomy, dusty, musty unpleasantness. I guess that's why they gave us two. The second was better, with more of a fruity estery vibe, though still pretty dry. Already in C&C's portfolio there's Tennents, Staropramen, Heverlee, Stella Artois and Beck's Vier. Regular drinkers of any of those will find little to surprise them here.

Clonmel 1650 will not be available at the RDS this weekend.

Before the 1650 gig I dropped into the nearby Twisted Pepper to try a new house beer in their Brewtonic series. I missed the first one, brewed last year at 5 Lamps, and this new one came from Rascal's (here's the official making-of blog post). It's a golden ale utilising Magnum, Summit and Cascade, and they've called it Relax the Cacks, for summer and that. It arrived very cold, which I was glad of that particular July evening, showing a slight craft haze in the gold. There's a sweet nectarine aroma, powerful enough to almost pass for Belgian. You get a massive whack of tropical fruit on tasting: peaches mostly, some pineapple, a bit of mandarin. The body is full enough and there's sufficient alcohol heat to keep the Belgian thing in mind, with definite elements of the first-rate sort of Belgian blonde ales. I got the impression it might start to get a little sticky if allowed to warm but there was little chance of that on this occasion.

The Brewtonic guys also had a bar at the first Big Grill barbecue festival which happened in Herbert Park a couple of weeks ago. As well as imported beers, it was serving some welcome leftovers of another one-off that Rascal's did for them, for a different event earlier this summer. Brewtonic Belgian Wit, said Rascal Emma, is a close relation of their own Wit Woo but utilises a little extra Munich malt. Wit Woo is fairly big on the citrus orange notes and while there are definite echoes of that here, this one drops the bitterness levels and adds in masses of extra soft and fleshy tropical fruit, mangoes in particular. There's a small burn of sulphur and the coriander spice levels are low, but they're really not missed with all the juice action going on. An ideal outdoor summer beer, this, and the festival wasn't long in being cleaned out of it. Brewtonic's boss says they're planning a brown ale next. It has a tough act to follow.

Rascal's doesn't have the monopoly on house beers for yoof-oriented Dublin pub chains. The Cassidy's/P. Mac's/Blackbird group have commissioned their own from Trouble Brewing, a 5.5% ABV pale ale called Vietnow. I explored it sitting among the junkshop furniture on Blackbird's terrace. This hazy dark orange beer smells very dank with heavy sandalwood notes as well. Expecting a dense resinous affair I was very pleasantly surprised to get a burst of mandarin on the first pull followed by a dankness that only comes from fresh hops in quantity. There's a thick mouthfeel and lots of that incense-like spicing. While a certain amount of resin lingers late, most of its hop action happens right up front. It was created as a cheaper alternative to Punk IPA, though at €5.40 a pint in Rathmines it's not exactly going for a song. Much as I enjoyed it, I felt my fiver in the Twisted Pepper above was better spent.

Meanwhile, under their own brand, Trouble have released Oh Yeah!, badged as an "American Black Ale". It's an inky black-brown colour with a fairly sedate aroma of spiced oranges and crunchy green veg. It's lightly textured with lots of prickly fizz, something that complements the spicy bitterness which is the centrepiece of the flavour. There's little by way of fruit complexity, in marked contrast to Eight Degrees's recent Vic Secret, instead it's veg and spice all the way. The dark malt contributes a little bit of chocolate and a little bit of roast, but not huge amounts (in the keg version at least; on cask it's understandably smoother and richer). At 5.8% ABV my liver felt somewhat cheated by the lack of complexity, but it's still a very tasty beer, and at just €5.10 in Against the Grain, my wallet was of the opinion that my liver could shut the hell up.

More pint action tomorrow, including a couple of brand new breweries.