Single hopped, in your area

Could it be that pale ale's dominance of the new-release beer schedule in Ireland is waning? Even allowing for the plethora of fruit beers which landed this past summer, there doesn't seem to have been quite as much of the hoppy stuff. I think that's good for diversity. Anyway, here's all the new Irish pale ales that came my way in recent months. 

After a pause of several years, the O'Hara's Hop Adventure series has set sail again, this time crewed by Nelson Sauvin. As with previous iterations, it's a 5% ABV single-hop IPA, and perfectly clear in a welcome retro fashion. The aroma is slight, but does have a little of the vegetal spice which is one of Nelson's calling cards. That's hinted at in the flavour, but a hint is all you get. The base may as well be a blonde ale, being very plain, and then there's a tiny pinch of peppery rocket on a blink-and-you'll-miss-it basis. It could be that the brewery has been somewhat parsimonious with the Nelson, which is unforgivable in a supposed showcase, or maybe heavy-handed pasteurisation is to blame. There's over a year to go on the expiry date and there isn't really much space for the flavour to fade out, so if you're at all interested, get it quick. I'm disappointed, though. There's quite a lot of Nelson Sauvin in new Irish beers at the moment, and all of them show it off better than this one. This was a missed opportunity to create something bold and delicious; instead it's an inoffensive pale ale with little to say for itself.

Another rarity follows: a limited edition can from Dew Drop Brewhouse, the production arm of the Co. Kildare pub of the same name. Normally they stick to competent renditions of classic styles but this one is a hazy pale ale. You may have begun to think of that as a classic style, but with a mere 3.7% ABV, that's a difficult case to make for this beer. It's called Cloud Nine and looks proper: perfectly opaque and a pale shade of yellow, removing any worry about inappropriate oxidation during packaging. The hops -- Citra, Cascade and Amarillo -- absolutely sing in the aroma, with the latter's soft mandarin effect most prominent. It suffers a little from a low gravity, the mouthfeel starting out full and fluffy but fading to wateriness too soon. That in turn means the all-important hop flavour is short-lived, and a bit generic. The colourful mandarin is replaced by a workmanlike lemon or lime zestiness, backed by a surprising amount of dry tannin. The aftertaste is a more typical vanilla sweetness. It's an odd one. I guess it does deliver the New England pale ale features more or less successfully, and if you want them at a very sessionable strength, here they are. But you will have to accept that they're compromised, in both texture and flavour. If it's only a limited edition then maybe the experiment was worth doing in order to find that out. I wouldn't be giving it a place on my regular drinking roster, however.

The White Hag has been commissioned to make a new pale ale for The Porterhouse: Juicy XPA. While it's certainly extremely pale, and very faintly hazy, I'm always suspicious of that juicy claim when I see it. This one pulls it off quite well, however, and I'd guess that White Hag's signature hop Mosaic is the reason. A big whoosh of chilled pineapple chunks arrives as the aroma and continues deep into the flavour. Despite a significant 5.2% ABV, it's light and refreshing -- I can see why Australia has made this its national style. It turns pithy later on, adding just enough bitterness to balance it without compromising the fundamental tropicality. Nice. There's more than a hint of Little Fawn about this, which is somewhat unnecessary since that's permanently on tap everywhere it's sold, but I'll take the percentage point ABV boost for the 40c discount and say thank you very much. Make this one permanent.

What is permanent, and had hitherto escaped my notice, is Burn the Witch, which White Hag brews for whatever the rump of the P. Mac's chain is called, now that it no longer runs any pubs called P. Mac's. I caught up with it in Blackbird, Rathmines. This is another mildly misted yellow pale ale, and while it still places tropical fruit at the centre of the flavour profile, it's not trying to go full-on juicy. The aroma is an understated and nondescript citrus but the flavour unfolds a tremendously fun bouquet of grapefruit, mango, passionfruit and guava: it's adult Lilt, basically, without the overwhelming sugar. The group has excellent taste in choosing house beers, and I had a pint of Trouble's Vietnow while here just to confirm that for myself. Burn the Witch, at 4.8% ABV, is gentler, more sessionable, but still packed with lovely, clean, new-world complexity. If it's slipped under your radar so far, stop by Blackbird or Cassidy's on Westmoreland Street to try it, even if you're not in their cool kid demographic. Yes, I felt old.

Today's third White Hag beer was created for the Hagstravaganza festival, covered here. Hopstravaganza is an annual release, this one for the brewery's 11th birthday. 6.5% ABV in 2023, 5.8% last year, and now we're down to 5.5%. Times are hard, I guess. It looks light and easy-going, despite the haze, and the cool bitter lemon aroma adds to that. As a collaboration with Yakima Chief hop merchants, it contains all sorts of proprietary hop-derived products, though the base varieties are Citra, Riwaka, Motueka, Columbus and Krush. That's quite a mix of the citric and herbal, and the dank resins are mostly in charge, given a spritz of lime and grapefruit towards the finish. Even allowing for the steadily declining strength year-on-year, this is still thinner than I would expect for the ABV, meaning it's refreshing and thirst-quenching, but lacks any real follow-through in the hop flavour, and also the fluffy mouthfeel that normally comes with haze. I found it enjoyable but unspectacular, with the savoury New Zealand hops working hardest to give it a worthwhile character. Like the O'Hara's beer up top, making a big deal of the hops on the label doesn't necessarily mean hop fireworks in the taste.

The branding of the next one gave me a proper giggle: Grapefruit Peelers, on which Bullhouse leans into its home city's reputation, with a police Land Rover on the label. It's what people think of when they think Belfast, so why nat, like? It's quite densely hazy, with lots of froth on top, and a citrus aroma that's all hop and no syrup. There's a little bit of sweet-sharp grapefruit extract in the foretaste, but otherwise it's quite a straightforward affair with a hazy softness and a gently bitter dessert quality, like a lemon meringue pie. I feel a bit gypped on the lack of novelty, but the balance and approachability on display here is excellent. It's clean and refreshing, and completely devoid of syrup stickiness, swapping it for properly tangy hop zing. All told, this is nicely put together, combining Bullhouse's love of haze with a somewhat more classical bitter side.

Daylight Atheist, new from Lineman, sees the Dublin brewery going all in on the haze, producing a 5.4% ABV pale ale which is about the most extremely dense-looking pale yellow I've seen, presenting like dregs, or something paintbrushes have just been washed in. When handed a beige pint of it in The Porterhouse, I was dubious. A happy surprise, then, to find the beer is delicious. The brewery lists Citra, Mosaic and Riwaka hops, so only one-third Kiwi, but it has a huge New Zealand character. The aroma demonstrates both the ripe tropical fruit and mineral sharpness typical of New Zealand varieties, making the beer smell like a diesel fire at the pineapple farm. There's a stark herbal bitterness at the front of the flavour, all heady damp grass and spicy rocket leaves. The texture is soft and there's a lightly vanilla-flavoured custard finish, which is the only sign of the haze in the flavour, which is good. While the tropical fruit element promised in the aroma is absent from the flavour, it's still beautiful, both in its sheer boldness, and the mix of softness and spice it offers. Something for everyone here, and I recommend it to all the haze-dodgers in particular. Let your guard down for this one.

Bierhaus in Galway is 20 years old and has commissioned a celebratory beer from O Brother, called Fiche, the Irish for twenty. I found it a long way from Galway, at The Harbour in Bray. They claim that this is a West Coast IPA, and it is broadly amber coloured and nicely clear, but the hops are rather low-calibre, with no proper bitterness or resin. There's a tiny lemon spritz in the aroma, and the 5.8% ABV gives it plenty of density and heft. It's just a shame that the taste doesn't deliver a whole lot. I would have thought a birthday beer would have more wallop, especially from O Brother who aren't usually shy with the green. Oh well. It was a satisfying pinter on a warm afternoon, even if it didn't set the world on fire. Happy Birthday to Bierhaus!

Good News! Third Barrel has stopped using bad AI-generated art on its cans. Only joking: it's still cringingly awful. Their latest is a 6% ABV IPA and uses an American hop called Elani, which I don't think I've encountered before, alongside stalwart Citra. There's a medium haze here, just about passing as opaque in a pint glass. The aroma has a spicy fruit effect, like grapefruit rind, with a little pink peppercorn and savoury onion, plus a separate resinous funk. That's intriguing. It's light for the strength; almost a bit watery, but in a refreshing and drinkable way. That lack of body means the flavour isn't as punchy as I thought it would be. Fizz is the first impression, then a basic pithy bitterness, and then the onions. And that's kinda it. There's a light and fairly inoffensive rasp of plaster dust, and a certain unwelcome alcohol heat, but none of the pineapple and peach promised on the label. You need softness for that, and this is pointy. The flavours aren't strong enough to be unpleasant, but at the same time it's all sharpness and not much fun. Good News? Not really.

A mostly-kiwi hop line-up on Lough Gill's Tropic Tempest "juicy IPA" is instantly appealing. Along with the Riwaka, Rakau, Wakatu and Motueka, there's a bonus serving of American El Dorado. It's quite a dark orange shade in the glass, fully hazy, of course, and with lots of lasting foam on top. The aroma is enticingly peachy with some added melon and pineapple, so again a beer with "tropic" in its name might actually taste of tropical fruit. It does! Not really in a juicy way, though: the beer is a little too thick and dense for that. Instead it's a pineapple and mango dessert, one with generous amounts of cream and candy sprinkles. It works, mind. It's quite tasty, in a subtle way. As ever, I'll nod to the roll-call of typical hazy IPA flaws and tell you that none are present. While it's heavy, it's not hot, which is good for 6.3% ABV. And even the candy-and-cake sweet side behaves in a mannerly way. This is no silly, soft-drink-copying, novelty beer: it's an excellent take on hazy IPA, and a reminder that while I dislike the style's continuing dominance, it does have a place.

I don't normally have cause for complaint about the service at The Black Sheep, but landing me with a pint of Forbidden Cats when the advertised measure is 33cl was an unwelcome surprise. My 50c Beoir token took some of the edge off the yikesworthy €8.40 pint price, but I was experiencing a bitter taste before I even sat down with this IPA. "Oat cream" they say, which is presumably why it's extremely murky and pale. While it looks like dregs, it smells bright and fresh, of mango, passionfruit and ripe mandarin segments. Yum. At first I thought the tropical cleanness carried right through to the flavour, and it almost does: the beginning and middle are soft and fleshy pineapple and guava, but towards the finish the murky grit asserts itself, bringing both chalky plasterboard and a burn of allium acidity. This grows, so that by sip three the harshness is occupying the palate and smothering the sunny fruit. That said, I got used to it, finishing the pint with an impression of yet another mediocre garlicked-up hot haze job. I'm sure it does what its brewers want it to, but not me.

I was back at The Black Sheep for the latest from Brehon. Stronger again at 6.8% ABV but clearly advertised as by-the-pint, and only(!) €7.30 for that. It's in that not-quite-a-style "Mountain IPA", and with appropriate Monaghan humour is called Drumlins. It looked New Englandy to me: not opaque, but thoroughly misted and yellow. The aroma pulls us zestily west, and there's a crisp texture to it, so definitely not the pillowy fluff of the east. The flavour put paid to my initial scepticism: this really is a half-way point. There are lots of west coast elements, and a strong lime bitterness in particular, plus some sharper grapefruit. Yet this sits next to, and contrasts with, the softer vanilla sweet side of New England. It's a combination nobody asked for, but I give the brewery full marks for creating a true hybrid. I'm not fully sure that the flavours work together especially well -- at risk of being both harsh and sticky -- but it's a fascinating exercise and one I don't think even the American originators of Mountain IPA have executed as convincingly.

Whiplash's new IPA is the same strength, and called Full Body Yawn. Your hops today will be Motueka, Citra and BRU-1, with a substantial haze and a slightly darker than expected orange colour. The aroma is sweet and citrus, like lemonade or drizzle cake, and it's surprisingly light of body, with a dangerous lack of alcohol heat. On the downside, the hops don't perform so well in the flavour. There's a contrast of murky vanilla sweetness and a harsher herbal bitterness (thanks Motueka), but no central fruit flavour, something that would round it out nicely. Am I complaining again that today's Whiplash beers are lacking high-end hop wallop? I fear so. This one's blend of custard with thyme is certainly distinctive, but not terribly enjoyable. It's a full body shudder from me.

It's customary to round off these round-ups with a double IPA, but we've been short of those lately. Luckily, Whiplash has stepped into the breach with Gold Is Up, an 8.2% ABV job, single hopped with Superdelic. It's quite the emulsion, yellow-orange with a dusty grey element, topped with a loose-bubbled white head. Maybe there are people who find beers like this visually appealing, but I'm not one of them. I don't buy beers to look at them, however, and the aroma here is very promising: oily and resinous; spicy and vegetal, with a little hard-candy fruit. The texture is beautifully smooth and again with little sign of all that alcohol. We're definitely in New Zealand for the flavour, which has a noble and grassy Germanic quality, allied with a sweet vanilla side in keeping with its New England sensibilities. Given the appearance, I was actually surprised that there's no unpleasant plasterboard grittiness, because it looks like one of those sorts of beers. Instead, it's nicely balanced, with a lot of classy old-world lager character for something that is very much not one. As with the above, it offers no wallop of hops, but I think I'm coming to appreciate the more subtle and nuanced approach that Whiplash seems to be taking these days. If ever a style needed to calm the hell down, it's hazy double IPA, and this one does. An example that you can relax into is very welcome as I approach my dotage.

Reading back, that's quite a run of New Zealand hop varieties from the eleven breweries represented here, and I really like the spicy herbal and mineral flavours they bring. Just don't skimp on the Nelson, yeah?

Who's bringing the hops?

I couldn't let the odometer flip into another year without clearing the backlog of assorted Irish-brewed pale ales that has been accumulating since late summer. Here's what I've got:  

Electromode from Lineman is a straightforward pale ale in the American style, hopped with Azacca, Simcoe and Columbus. It's pretty hazy, but dark with it: a warm sunset orange. I associate Azacca with chewy fruit candy, and I get that in the aroma. The flavour goes more for juice: naturalistic notes of apricot, satsuma and Golden Delicious apples. Simcoe's harder bitterness represents at the end, giving a more assertive, grown-up, finish. The haze doesn't interfere with any of it: all is clean and clear despite appearances. This is veey much a typical Lineman beer, precision engineered for both complexity and accessibility.

"If I brewed a Pliny clone I'd be happy if it came out like that" said Dave in the pub of Underline, a double IPA by Lineman in collaboration with said pub, UnderDog. It's a little stronger than the California icon at 8.3% ABV, but Dave's not wrong, inasmuch as I remember Pliny. This is very much in the west-coast genre, a paleish clear amber and going big on the dry citrus rind set on a background of lightly caramelised malt. After a moment, a more intense bitterness emerges, of pine resin, leaning towards raw hop leaf but stopping short of harsh. Stopping short of everything, in fact: the finish is clean and there's little sign of all the booze. We're in dangerously drinkable territory here, as perhaps befits a strong beer made for a pub. I commend it to everyone hankering after the double IPAs of yesteryear, or all the youngsters wondering what their grandparents drank in the craft beer bars of 2012.

But back to the more sessionable stuff, and Sunrise In The Clouds, the latest hazy pale ale from Cork's Hopsicle brand, still brewing in Dublin at Third Barrel, as far as I'm aware. Sure why would you change? This one is 4.9% ABV and hazy as you like (or hazier): a dense custard yellow. The name comes from the use of Pacific Sunrise hops, along with Citra and Motueka. That seems like quite a diverse combination but it works really well, starting juicy as advertised before adding balanced herbal and citric bitterness: contrast without conflict. Despite the appearance, there's no mucky dregs anywhere in the taste, and the mouthfeel is as full and soft as any decent hazy pale ale. This is very good, honest, by-the-pint, fun. It's highly unfashionable to find something so on-trend at a sub-5% ABV but it can be done without compromising the experience, and maybe more brewers should give it a go.

Is there something a bit Sierra Nevada going on with Northwest from Lough Gill? It matches that guy's classic 5.6% ABV and is the same deep copper colour. The aroma gives me a little resin, but not to the extent of the original. If that was the intention, the flavour makes it clear that it failed. This is a rather dull affair, offering caramel and a twiggy malt base. What hops you get are earthy, suggesting Cascade, with citrus elements but no fun zest. It's a slog: you have to pile through crystal malt toffee and hard-bitter American hops,  and I don't think it's worth it. Sierra Nevada includes a clean drinkability that's missing here. The sharpness is fun but it doesn't deliver on any other fronts. Perhaps trying to copy a classic isn't a great idea.

They've also bopped out a session IPA called Sesh, a name freed up by the tragic demise of last year's Sesh Beer Project. It does the fundamentals, being 4.2% ABV and clear gold, looking for all the world like a pale lager. And the taste doesn't exactly break the mould, but it gets everything right, going bitter and classical with grapefruit and lime rind. It's clean, refreshing and assertive, and fulfils a bitterness niche that Scraggy Bay, Little Fawn and Ambush have left unoccupied. I wish it well.

The latest wild-fermented and barrel-aged special from Wide Street will be reviewed in another post in the near future, but they also recently launched a hazy IPA called The Sequence. It's an ordinary looking affair, promising lots and lots of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops, landing at a medium 5.4% ABV. It looks pretty medium too, a very standard hazy orange, though with a prodigiously huge bouffant of white foam on top. The aroma offers that highly-prized combination of orangey icepop and vanilla ice cream: yes, we're in The Supersplit Zone. The vanilla doesn't come through to the flavour, however, so this isn't one of those fluffy and sweet hazy jobs. Instead, the texture is light and crisp, and while the flavour is very juicy, it's more like high-end orangeade with bits in it, than actual pulpy juice. But that's OK: it gives it a very refreshing character, providing a ray of summer sunshine in the depths of this winter. All three hops are playing their part, but to me this tasted like a showcase for Galaxy in particular. And that's no hardship.

Rascals steps in next, with a collaboration IPA they made with Bullhouse of Belfast, called Dubfast 2.0. I appear to have missed the first iteration. This is 5.8% ABV and the hop-boosting grape by-product Phantasm is employed. It's translucently orange and smells quite savoury, of crisp fried onions and flinty minerals, with a backing of seriously dank funkiness. The sparky, ozone-and-saltpetre effect is to the fore in the flavour -- Nelson Sauvin, of course, here combined with Pacifica -- but because it's not a very heavy beer, that doesn't stick around. It fades quickly, letting a sweet apricot candy effect come through, though again one that's light, breezy and easy-going. The combination of sweetness and zest reminds me of the filling of a Jaffa Cake: this is similarly fruit flavoured but not in any real fruit sense. I liked it. The spicing is the highlight for me, though the zing from the hopping is an entirely complementary bonus feature. It's certainly a step to the side from mainstream hazy IPA and, for me, the Nelson is the making of it. I'm very glad to see that hop is still both available and in fashion. Long may its reign continue.

I missed this year's Hagstravanganza festival at The White Hag brewery, but of course I picked up the official festival beer. Also at 5.8% ABV, Hopstravaganza 10 is, I think, the lightest of the four or five of these they've released. It's badged as a hazy IPA although wears it lightly, being quite translucent and quite a deep orange colour, shading to amber. The aroma doesn't have much to say, only a mild suggestion of pineapple and peach: soft and ripe but not very assertive. The flavour is more full-colour 3-D, lightly spiced at first, with white pepper and nutmeg, then a centrepiece of bright and fresh tropical mango and cantaloupe. That doesn't get too comfortable and is quickly in competition with a harder pithy bitterness which makes for some very well-done balance. Plenty of breweries wouldn't describe this as "hazy" and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't like the more extreme custard-and-garlic iterations. Frankly I think it's better suited to a nice big can than a festival snifter. I'm all about the optimisation.

They have also created a barrel-aged tripel IPA, fermented with Brettanomyces, called Benandonner. It's 9.9% ABV and comes packaged in a half Champagne bottle with cork and cage, from which it fizzed busily on opening, forming a tall, stiff head. Beneath that, it's a deep orange colour with considerable murk, and smells both fruity and funky, like fresh Orval. The flavour goes a similar way, blending sweet floral notes of lilac and lavender with a twist of orange peel and a waft of spicy incense. The finish makes it very clear that it's a strong beer: while the flavour combination is familiar from other hop-forward Brett beers, the alcoholic burn at the end is unusual, and not entirely welcome. Still, it's a triple IPA, so I can't complain when it tastes like one. The complex flavour is interfered with a little by its overactive carbonation, which is unfortunate. I found it quite hard to explore everything going on while the bubbles scratched at my tongue. At €10 the bottle, the price is spicier than the taste, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I did enjoy it, however, and found it delivered everything promised in the specs.

There's usually something a bit more trad in these round-ups, and this time it's the turn of Hope to provide it. Limited Edition No. 34 from them is an Extra Special Bitter. I've drank enough bitter in England over the past year to be able to say they shouldn't look like this: a muddy ochre. I'm immediately thinking of mediocre homebrew, rather than the polished pinnacle of Victorian brewing science. The aroma is sweet and full of caramel and strawberries, very much at the point where English bitter meets Irish red ale, inasmuch as they can be said to be different things. The foretaste concentrates that sweetness into toffee and nougat, but balances it in the finish with a tangy, tongue-pinching, throat-scratching, mineral bitterness, turning to boiled green veg at the very end. It's as full-bodied as you might expect for 5.9% ABV, but as the appearance makes clear, it lacks polish. Being non-filtered does give the taste a welcome signal boost, and as long as you don't mind that slightly amateurish feel, it works well. This is good, wholesome, winter fare, and a perfect antidote to all the juicy haze, if one be needed.

Permanent Holiday is the first contribution from Galway Bay to this round-up. Do I detect a conjuring of the New Zealand lifestyle? That's how it felt to me when I visited. This is an IPA of 6.2% ABV, hopped with Kiwi varieties. It's a dense and eggy yellow in the glass, though smells light and clean, of fresh peach and tinned pineapple. The flavour stays on that tropical theme, layering on the cool pineapple and adding some mango and lychee. This is the more frivolous side of the New Zealand hop character and there's little by way of the minerals or bitterness you sometimes get too, only a very faint fresh-grass buzz, right on the end. The murk, and the strength, give the mouthfeel a thickness but it's still pristinely clean and all about the fruit. More than anything it reminds me of the brewery's own excellent Catharina sour beers, and I can't pay it a higher compliment than that.

The second Galway Bay beer is our only double IPA, another collaboration with Sibeeria of Prague, this one called Whisper Shouts. There's an almost west-coast clarity here; brightly golden, if a little lacking in polish. The aroma is warm (unsurprising for 8% ABV) and a little savoury, with a raw rubbery note meeting sweeter apricot or nectarine. The texture is heavy, and a pull on the glass requires serious effort of the drinking muscles. And I'm sorry to say I'm not sure the exertion is worthwhile. A syrupy texture, which this has in spades, ought to be a platform for fun hop flavours. This one continues the very serious chemical rubber bitterness, adding only a token streak of pith, and a fruit candy sweet side that does nothing to help its drinkability. The hops are a combination I've never seen before: Azacca, Talus and Luminosa, and it doesn't work well. There's something promisingly fruity and joyous around the edges here, but the centre is all heat and acridity. I hope the meetings between these two breweries are enjoyable, because the beers it has produced, so far, haven't been up to Galway Bay's standards of late.

Finally for today, Rye River has collaborated with Swedish brewer Poppels to create Round Feet, a 7% ABV IPA. They've taken a gamble on experimental hop HBC 1019 and in my amateur opinion it has very much paid off. The aroma gives a subtle mix of tart lemon juice, sweet mandarin and, oh, is that coconut? On tasting: yes, yes it is. There's a very Sorachi/Sabro quality at the heart of this; dessertish but herbal, and quite delicious. Behind it you get a slightly more conventional new-world peach and pear fruitiness. In all the hop fun I didn't notice the alcohol, which is very well hidden. It's all quite light, and a bit fizzy, helping the hops zing their zingy thing. Nice. Put 1019 on your list of yet-unnamed hops to keep track of.

Some last-minute Christmas shopping ideas for you there, I hope.

The Hag beckons

It's Hagstravaganza season again, with the fifth festival of the name taking place at the White Hag brewery this Saturday. To maximise my time drinking the guest beers, I made a point of going through all of the host's own new releases that I could get my paws on in advance.

"Blackcurrant-flavoured beers always taste like Ribena" was my thought going into Púca Blackcurrant, the latest in a long series of fruited mixed-fermentation sour beers from The White Hag. This one doesn't look like Ribena, however, being a pale hazy pink colour in the glass. They've included ginger with the berries, and that turns out to be the most distinctive part of the taste, complemented nicely by a serious and sharp tartness which is rare enough in "sour" fruit beers these days, so both literally and figuratively refreshing. Is there any fruit, though? A hint of berry, but it does get a bit lost with the overall tartness. Certainly there's no Ribena or anything else sugary. For me, this doesn't quite have the beatings of original lemon Púca, but it's not far off either. 

On to something rather hoppier next, with Dagda, a 4.8% ABV pale ale. It's pretty hazy, though not advertised as such; an eggy yellow colour with a fetching tall head of loose foam. I get a very modern, tropical-esque, aroma of pineapple, mango, nectarine and the like, achieved with a busy blend of Idaho 7, Citra, Cashmere and Motueka. The texture is New-England fuzzy, though light and cool, on foot of the low gravity. The flavour is softly spoken and stays on the fruit side, perhaps bittering-up the tropicals a little, to the level of peach skin, mandarin peel and candied lemon. There isn't a huge amount of either, really, and it's easy drinking. The massive demographic of Irish people who drink nothing but hazy IPAs will welcome this one which meets all their required points but in a schoolnight-compatible package.

The Answerer is apparently third in a series of fruited IPAs but I have no memory of what the previous ones were. Anyway, it's 5.8% ABV, a mostly-clear pale amber and infused with grapefruit. Well, grapefruit syrup, I suspect, because it smells very sweet and sticky, like sticky sweets. There is at least a solid poke of bitterness at the front of the flavour, one which hangs around drily on the palate, which is nice. The hopping -- Cascade, Simcoe, Mosaic and Idaho 7 -- emphasises the first two of those, adding a different kind of bitterness, all herbal and resinous, rather than anything tropical, finishing on a bite of alkaline minerals. The mouthfeel is full which helps those hop resins stay in the picture. Overall, it works rather well. The added ingredient adds something positive to the taste without lessening the extent to which it's still a proper, if slightly old-fashioned, American-style IPA. Even if it smells like a bag of Skittles.

And then came number four: Aonbarr, with pineapple. While it's the same strength, it's a pale translucent yellow and very quickly loses its head, ending up looking more like a fruited sour ale than any kind of IPA. Initially it smells dry; crisp, bordering on papery. After that, again, there's a fruity side which could easily be either the hops -- just Idaho 7, El Dorado and Azacca this time -- or the tropical syrup. More Skittles, basically. There's a disturbing amount of fizz, which makes finding the flavour a bit tricky, but sure enough, there's the pineapple. Syrup being syrup, it's more like an ice pop or soluble vitamin than actual pineapple. There's a sticky, concentrated candy, element in the finish which adds nothing positive. As with the above, however, there's a decent IPA bitterness too, bringing an altogether more grown-up vibe.  It's not my kind of thing, though, and I'm not sure pineapple works as a complementary IPA flavour in the same way that grapefruit can, for obvious reasons.

Marking brews 1000 and 1001 at the nearly-nine-years-old brewery is a pair of light (7.5% ABV) double IPAs called Centennial Millennial. East Coast certainly looks and smells the part, exuding fresh mandarin juice from what appears to be a glass of orange juice. There's a fun and spicy nutmeg edge to this as well. Though the ABV is minimal for the style, it's densely bodied, and where I was expecting something as easy-drinking as orange juice, it requires a bit of pulling from the glass. Perhaps due to that density, it doesn't taste as bright as it smells. The juice turns to cordial; full of oranges but slightly claggy with it. A sweet stickiness begins proceedings, followed by a more savoury onion and garlic effect, about which there's a slightly dreggy, mucky vibe: not uncommon in beers like this, but most unwelcome. It's not awful: the aroma is great fun, and its happy fruitiness returns as the aftertaste. The middle needs cleaned up, however.

Centennial Millennial West Coast, then. It's clear and amber-coloured, so that's good, though lacking in aroma in general. I guessed this would be the sharper-hopped of the two but it was hard to get any flavour from it at all at first. Given a little time to warm, it becomes a kind of fruity-candy IPA: Skittles and Starburst, not grapefruit and pine. The bitterness level grows too, but never quite reaches what I would consider a proper west-coast grade. On the one hand it's clean and inoffensive; on the other it's a little insipid, and unworthy of being a celebration beer for a brewery milestone. A couple of years ago, any IPA in the west-coast style would have been regarded as a treat. With a steady revival in place, however, the standard is higher than this. Full nerd points for the use of the einstein "hat" tile on the labels of this pair, though.

And to finish, the traditional house beer of the festival: Hopstravaganza. The brewery seems to have invented a new style this time around, "Extra Pale IPA". What does that mean? Not much, I suspect. It's not particularly pale, being medium amber, and just a little bit hazed. 6.5% is a fairly middle-of-the-road ABV. There's a bit of promotional bumf on the can for Crosby Hops's CGX lupulin pellets, the Amarillo and Cashmere versions being used here. I can't say I can smell or taste any major difference they contribute. Still, the beer is very decent for all that, softly textured with a peachy/melony effect that I'm well used to from The White Hag, with a bonus poke of hard pithy bitterness. Not for the first time I'm comparing a new release to a beefed-up or toned-down version of Little Fawn, in this case the former. There's a fair whack of boozy heat lurking in the finish after the fruit, but the festival is for considered sipping of quality beers, so this will fit in perfectly.

Right so. See you in Ballymote. The usual drill.

It's a box social!

The White Hag tried really hard to get their birthday festival running again as normal for 2021 but couldn't quite manage it through no fault of their own, so instead of Hagstravaganza 4 we got Boxtravaganza 2, marking seven years in business for the Sligo brewery. That entailed a box of 24 beers from themselves and their mates, and a rare opportunity to drink cross-sectionally and internationally, just like at their festival. Here's the first tranche of what was in the box and new to me.

We begin light, with a Summer Ale from Canediguerra in Piedmont. It eases us in with 4% ABV and a sunny, hazy blonde colour. The aroma is certainly summery, all bright and juicy mandarin, while the flavour is gentle and subtle: orangey fruit, yes, but not overly sweet and kept refreshing by the light texture. There is just a tiny hint of earthy, dreggy bittering in the finish but nothing too dramatic or upsetting. This is bright and and happy fare; undemanding but far from boring. Bang on for summer.

Logistical annoyances meant there was but one American beer in the set, thanks I'm sure to the heroes at Grand Cru. It probably helped that it was a wild ale rather than a freshly fragile IPA. Sierra Nevada Estate Farmhouse Ale is one of a number of beers created from ingredients the brewery grows itself (funny how the label bigs up how special this is when there are several breweries on this island who do it as a matter of course). It crackled as it poured so I had to snap quickly to include the fast-disappearing head in my photo. Beneath it is a clear honey-coloured ale of 6.3% ABV, spontaneously fermented and wine-barrel aged, so I guess we're in Belgian territory. It smells rather sticky, like sweet white wine or bad strong lager. The flavour continues that to an extent; definitely sweet and not sour, with merely a brisk tartness running behind the sugar. More than anything it reminds me of faro, the sugar-sweetened lambic blend, and I can't help wanting to clear the extraneous syrup away to get at the pure sour beer underneath. The wine side contributes oak, mostly, with a touch of Chardonnay butter in the aftertaste. It's certainly interesting, and I've never tasted anything quite like it, but I think it's trying to do too much. Calm that sweetness down, ferment it out, and it could be a much better beer.

The second in White Hag's Duo Series is El Dorado & Cascade. Pale golden, clear and 5.5% ABV. The fun and tropical side of El Dorado has control of the aroma, and is most pronounced in the flavour too. The Starburst fruit candy effect is very much the distinguishing feature, to the point where I'm wondering what the Cascade was supposed to contribute. It's not bitter, or earthy or grapefruity. It's a perfectly decent beer, though, and if the brewers learned something useful from the experiment then that's to the good.

For the third year running there's a hazy IPA especially brewed for the festival, and this iteration of Hopstravaganza sees the ABV boosted to 7.7% to mark the brewery's seventh birthday. The aroma is sweetly juicy, with mandarin in particular, and this turns to peach and lychee on tasting. That alcohol is deftly concealed and the beer is dangerously easy to drink as a result, almost resembling a fruity soft drink with its light body and busy sparkle. Here's another happy, sunny beer, perfect for a celebration.

Speaking of which, Milan's Lambrate marks 25 years in the business via Atomic, an IPA of 6.2% ABV with Mosaic, Chinook, Citra and Simcoe: all those classic Americans. It's a medium gold colour with a touch of haze but not hazy as such. It smells of fruit candy, sweetly citric with a kind of artificial tropicality. I was afraid that it wouldn't turn out as west-coast as I'd hoped, but on tasting there's a very pleasant balance of the sweet malt and hoppy high notes with a bitterer resin and citrus. The end result is easy drinking and just complex enough to stay interesting. Anniversary beers are often loud attention-seekers; this one is gentle, relaxing and fun. Maybe the alcohol level is a little overdone, and the flavour complexity could have been rendered at a few points below. I won't quibble, however. The hops are shown off beautifully and cleanly, that's quite enough for me thank you. Happy birthday Lambrate!

It's back to the oul sod next and Boundary's Imbongirific, an 8% ABV double IPA take on their hazy IPA Imbongo. This is the opaque yellow of pineapple juice, in keeping with its claim to be "tropical". I found the aroma a little harsh, with an unpleasant twang of solvent in with a concentrated fruit syrup. In the flavour that translates to a smoky, iodine seaweed savouriness, very much not tropical and decidedly north-Atlantic to my palate. I looked behind that for fruit but found little, with an oily coconut the most tropical part, and an artificial mango/passionfruit syrup or cordial. I don't think it was infected, just that combination of hops, malt weight and New England yeast by-products didn't suit me. Despite the name it's quite a serious beer though one I didn't relish taking time over.

Let's see how the Danes fare in the same space. Alefarm's Inferno In Paradise is also 8% ABV and yellow and hazy, but just a little darker. It certainly smells cleaner, though with a spicy effervescent sherbet kick rather than sweet and juicy. "Embrace the unknown" says the label, but also tells us that Citra and Amarillo are the hops, which is nice of it. The booze kicks in from the first sip and it immediately feels a little soupy. There's no spark of hops, no zing, just smooth marmalade and sticky cocktail syrup. Where did the sherbet go? It's pretty average, all in all -- an uninspired sort of strong New England IPA. It would be easy to believe that everything of this nature tastes like this but there are so many of them about that I know that's not the case. This box alone gave me a very broad outlook on the sub-style, which is one of the most gratifying parts of letting someone else pick one's beers.

I don't get access to decent French beer anywhere near as much as I'd like so it was good to see Piggy representing. Galaxy Cartel is the beer, a double New England IPA of 8.2% ABV. It's a very bright yellow in the glass; a minimal yolk to its egginess. The aroma is very typical for this sort of thing: vanilla and garlic for the most part. Would the titular hop get a look-in? A little. There's a tang of marmalade in the foretaste which says Galaxy to me, and includes both the sugary jelly and a more acidic shred side. But that's it as regards individual characteristics. Beyond it we're back to ordinary alium and custard, with a dry chalkiness from the haze. All of these effects are buoyed up and intensified by that hefty ABV. The end result is something that haze enthusiasts will doubtless be all over; for my part I'd prefer a cleaner beer, and I know that's possible, even within the strong and hazy genre.

And finally, the Hungarian Mad Scientists are back with another daft dessert beer, this time an apricot-flavoured 10% ABV job called Rákóczi Túrós, named for a sort of cream cheese and sponge cake which you can Google pictures of if you wish. In the glass it's an innocent hazy sunset colour but the aroma is very dessert: all that jammy processed apricot and sugar thing with elements of vanilla and eggy cake mix. It's super thick and there's a reminder here that its a beer. As it slowly crawls its way across your palate it delivers a dry cracker grain flavour plus a slightly funky resinous bitterness, though finishing on sweet, possibly botrytised, white wine. Despite the name, this isn't one of those beers trying to pretend it's not a beer. That isn't to say it's any good, however. The beer side is sharp and difficult, and is followed by an intensely cloying sugar syrup thing, like drinking a lurid confectionery ingredient that isn't meant to be consumed raw and was probably made illegal in 1987. At no point was I able to relax into this or get used to its idiosyncrasies: it's an absolute assault on the palate and isn't very enjoyable as a result. the Mad Scientists should have left it in the lab.

Looking back, it's not a great starting set, and I'm not sure it's at all representative of the state of beer these days. Let's see if the next post can balance the scorecard any.

Third time's the charm

Just the one post from me for Hagstravaganza 2019. I was flying solo for this the White Hag Brewery festival's third outing in Ballymote, although that was offset a little by the extra hour of drinking time thanks to a change in the Sligo to Dublin rail timetable. With this 7.20pm departure, Irish Rail, you have us spoilt!

The brewery's barrel stores are really filling out the vast space where the festival is held. That constrained the bar a little this year, but it still had the full complement of 60 taps, with breweries from Ireland and further afield.

I opened my account with one of the new releases from the hosts: Hopstravaganza, a New England-style IPA of 6.2% ABV. It's a properly murky yellow with a greenish tint. The flavour divides neatly into a vanilla side and a garlic side, and the combination is oddly pleasing. While I found it a little shockingly sweet at first, the dank burps it engenders help to counteract that. On the one hand this is nothing special: very much a true-to-style typical NEIPA; while on the other, it delivers exactly what the style is supposed to, without any of the off flavours which too frequently come with it. In the few weeks since the festival I've seen tall cans of this out and about. They're well worth your while when fresh.

As usual there was also a barrel-aged festival special. Hagstravaganza 5 is a bourbon-aged barley wine which they were serving directly from the oak cask. It looked rough: a murky red-brown and completely headless. But it turned out to be beautifully smooth, with gentle toffee, a buzz of espresso and a classy port oak finish. Despite the massive 13% ABV there's no heat, just richness. I suspect it spent a long time in that barrel as the only thing resembling an off flavour I could find was a dusting of autolytic umami, though barely noticeable. This was definitely one to have late on in proceedings and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

Otherwise, regarding Irish beer, I kept it sour and funky. That's where the really interesting things are happening. Boundary isn't a brewery I would associate with microbial creativity, but here was 2019 Cuvée. No information was provided beyond that it's mixed fermentation and, from the name, presumably a blend. It's a pale and hazy yellow colour with a bright yet funky farmyard aroma. The flavour mixes juicy white grape and peachy Brett with dry wood, finishing on a pinch of white pepper. The sourness is teeth-squeakingly clean. It's only 5.1% ABV and that seems to have left it a little thin; allowing the intense acidity to unbalance it slightly. It's still very decent overall, and shows a brewery well in control of this genre of beer.

I had an unprecedented three beers from Land & Labour. The fact that they're so rare has a lot to do with that. First on the board was Panta Rhei, a foudre-matured saison. Hazy yellow and sharply sour once again. This one has some extra spicing -- all saltpetre or gunpowder. A cool green-apple-skin bitterness finishes it off. It's an unusual set of flavours but works incredibly well.

That was followed by Coolship 2018 Blueberry, a bright red-coloured 6.3%-er, spontaneously fermented. I found it convincingly kriek-like, with the right level of dry funk and sweet fruit. Vanilla oak complements the latter, and then there's a slightly harsh vinegar burn at the end. The distinct blueberry flavour is missing from it, however: that could be any of several berries. I liked it, but it's not up there with the best of blueberry lambic by any means.

Just before leaving I managed to catch the unadorned Coolship 2018 for comparison. This is much better. The funky flavours are cool and refreshing; the oak spice adds an extra-quenching spritz. Its sourness, meanwhile, is restrained and refined. Above all this is accessible, showing all the great features of this style of beer, but in a gentle and balanced way. Not that it's a lightweight: 5.8% ABV gives it plenty of substance. I would love to see something like this in regular production at an appropriately accessible price.

We'll transition from the funky Irish beers with a funky foreigner: Azimut's Barrel Brett IPA. This is a pure golden colour and has a gorgeous honey texture. From this there follows luxuriously sticky-sweet apricot and a huge farmyard funkiness. There's just enough hop character to qualify it as an IPA, but I'm not complaining about the Brett being in charge. The brewers of the wild-fermented stuff really did well at this festival.

A downgrade to a basic kettle-soured beer next, Garden Brewery of Zagreb's Kiwi Sour. It's still pretty good, though, with a real and distinct kiwi flavour at the front, turning to a juicy roundness in the finish. The satisfying mouthfeel is aided by 5% ABV. There's just enough tartness to make it interesting and refreshing, while the Citra hopping both balances the fruit with some bitterness, and complements it with lemon and lime flavours. This is an ice lolly more than a full meal, but great fun to drink.

My second Pressure Drop beer that month, and indeed second ever, was Ida, a Berliner weisse promising added raspberry, elderflower and basil. Well, the raspberry is there: it's never a very shy fruit when used in beers. But elderflower and basil? Nope. There's a vaguely sweet herbal tang, but nothing distinct or identifiable. Worst of all is the texture: horribly thin and watery. Yes it's 3.8% ABV so was never going to be a chewer, but this is just offensively dull. At least it wasn't much effort to drink: I'll give it that.

Several people recommended an alternative sour pink beer: Amundsen's Cosmic Unicorn. No messing here: they come right out and describe it as a "pastry sour". I shuddered and went ahead anyway. It's not watery, at least, but it's horribly sticky, like drinking a glass of raspberry jam. There's a concentrated and cloying vanilla flavour too, while the strength is an unreasonable 6.5% ABV. I suppose if you like very sweet fruit beers this will work for you, and as I said, it certainly had its fans there on the day. But it wasn't for me, and I dearly wish brewers would stop using the word "sour" on beers that aren't remotely sour.

Time for another IPA, then. It was great to meet the representatives from Pilot in Edinburgh, and their sales patter landed me a glass of their India India double IPA. The special ingredient in this dark amber 8.5%-er is jaggery and that adds a definite brown-sugar density to it. And I'd say it was plenty dense enough already, being a big and chewy west-coast job, packed with resinous hops. This certainly isn't built for fans of the modern juice-bomb approach to double IPA, but I liked the wintery stylings of it; the warming alcohol making for refined sipping.

Compare and contrast with Higher and Betterer, a double New England-style IPA from Brasserie du Grand Paris at the same strength. This is the appropriate opaque orange colour. The aroma is worryingly funky but its flavour is bright and clean; spritzy with mandarin and satsuma. Here the alcohol is very well hidden. While great fun for the first sip or two, it is a little one-dimensional, offering little beyond the initial citrus. A beer of this strength should have more going on.

With the train home beckoning it was time to score some imperial stout. My first was called Imperial Cosmic Cocoa, coming from Sibling Revelry in Ohio. As the name suggests, it has chocolate in it, and this was the bourbon barrel-aged version. While dense looking it's quite light of texture, reflecting an ABV on the low side for this kind of thing: 8.5% again. There's some good pastry complexity, however: wafer biscuit, gooey caramel and Turkish delight all feature. I don't think they got their money's worth out of that barrel, but the end result came out fine.

The big finish was a Cloudwater job called The Act of Chewing. The blurb said this was nitrogenated, but if so it didn't take, pouring with only the thinnest of loose-bubbled heads. Though 10% ABV it had very little heat going on. The main flavour was a lovely liquorice bitterness of the kind found in too few modern imperial stouts. It could be that my palate wasn't up to tasting any further complexity at this hour, but I'd still have thought I'd get more from a bruiser like this. No matter; it was enjoyable and carried me out of the brewery and onto my train.

Another great show from the White Hag team. The whole event was handled efficiently and professionally, crucially keeping the service moving even at the busiest times. All going well I'll be back for the 2020 gig.