Urban sprawl

Florida brewer Cigar City provides the beers today, and a lot of them at that, across a happily diverse range of styles.

On the lighter end, we have Paloma Gose at 4.2% ABV. This differs from the classic Leipzig recipe by dropping the coriander and, in line with modern craft takes, adding fruit -- grapefruit and lime in this case. It's a hazy orange shade in the glass, with not even a suggestion of a head on pouring. The aroma is very soft-drink-like, a Liltish citrus-meets-sugar effect. You get the soft and briny texture of a real gose, and a salt dryness that helps offset the sodapop sweetness, though only a little. This is very Lilt-tasting, leaning towards syrupy in the foretaste before a super quick finish. Of course it's meant to be thirst-quenching, and it is, but as with sugary soft drinks, the days when I could neck a few in sequence are long gone. I appreciated the childhood charm of this one but I couldn't make a habit of drinking it.

There's more fruit and more salt in Citrus Siesta, though the brewery is calling this one a golden ale. It's not golden, more a coppery amber colour, and still modest in strength at 4.5% ABV. Outdoor summer drinking is still the use-case, I guess. It smells nicely fresh and zesty, with the orange coming through strongest. Perhaps the lime would show itself on tasting. It does, but only a little: it's that concentrated, almost herbal lime-peel effect, and then merely an echo of it. The rest is very plain: a little orange cordial in the finish, but no flavour contribution from the salt, malt or hops. The texture is quite nice -- it's big-bodied and satisfying to quaff, with a honeyish feel even if the flavour isn't there. That wasn't enough to endear it to me, however. When you insist on using novelty ingredients they need to make themselves felt more than they do here.

Invasion is called a "tropical pale ale" but this one doesn't have any daft ingredients, unless you count Motueka, Galaxy, Simcoe, Pacifica and Amarillo, all of whom sound perfectly reasonable to me. A hazy orange in the glass, it smells funky and dank, with heady aromas of sandalwood and incense. The flavour is sweeter. That spicy wood thing is still there, but it's joined by a hard grapefruit bitterness and a lighter fruit zest set on a honey and biscuit malt base. That sounds busy but the texture is light so it gets away with all of it without becoming difficult. It's possible to enjoy this on the Sierra Nevada level as a tasty resinous bitter American pale ale, but it has a fun extra dimension as well that I really enjoyed.

The sole dark beer in today's set is Cubano-Style Espresso, and although it's a brown ale it's very dark indeed, almost but not quite black. The lack of a head wouldn't qualify it for porter or stout status and the rich coffee aroma certainly says it's a brown ale. It looks thin but it's not, thanks to the inclusion of lactose which, in conjunction with cacao and vanilla, gives it a milk chocolate foretaste on a creamy mouthfeel. That's nicely balanced by the coffee, which is strong and heavily roasted, bringing a grown-up bitterness to an otherwise candyshopped beer. The seesaw of sticky sweet chocolate and clean dry coffee is rather enjoyable. This is another beer with an understated complexity. It's only 5.5% ABV but is deliciously full and warming. One to come back to in winter, perhaps.

The upper echelons start with Tocobaga, a 7.2% ABV red IPA. It's not my favourite beer style and it looks downright ugly in the glass: a swampy red-brown with some disturbingly big floaty bits suspended through it. The aroma is much more attractive: Citra bringing a fresh and zesty kick, backed by a little toffee sweetness. Dirty look vs clean aroma: who wins? The look, unfortunately. There's an immediate grittiness on the first sip, accompanied by a dreggy yeast bite. The hops are in rapid pursuit, however, bringing an astringent lime-rind bitterness, with a fun twist of pink peppercorn. It goes a little grassy towards the end, suggesting dry hopping that's gone on too long, and that's joined by a tannic rasp indicating that the mash too was not quite right. After the poise of the previous beers, it's weird that this one is so rough and amateurish. It's not unpleasant: big hops and big malt mean a good time is had, but at the same time it's strangely blurry round the edges which I would not have expected from a tight ship like Cigar City. Moving on...

Space Pope is our finisher: always good to see a Futurama reference in a beer name. It's the same strength as the last one but looks much happier: a bright amber gold. Our hops are Mosaic, Citra, Galaxy and CTZ, which hop-doctor Google tells me is a blend of Columbus, Tomahawk and Zeus. All of that gives us a very pleasant mix of the fruity and the bitter. Both aroma and flavour have the classic pithy grapefruit kick we all come to American IPA for, but with a lighter side of tangerine and mango, all of it sprinkled with resinous weedy fairy dust. It's very obvious that this has been assembled in the same house as Jai Alai, in that it offers a very similar approachable punchiness. It's an excellent expression of the classic American IPA style, or "west coast" as we're now obliged to describe it, even though that's very much not where it's from.

They're a decent bunch, in general, with just one out-of-character misstep among the six. As usual I'll give a particular endorsement to the darkest one and request more along those lines in the next shipment from Tampa.

A riot of colour

Limerick's Treaty City Brewery seems to have found a new gear in recent months. Their output of seasonal specials has seen a big increase at a time when others have been putting the brakes on somewhat. Now they've also taken the opportunity to refresh the core range with three bright and distinctive cans, and were kind enough to ship me a set.

Outcast is the first of the new bunch, a very pale session IPA of 3.8% ABV, hopped with Columbus, El Dorado and Idaho-7, in generous proportions, according to the label. I liked the appearance, particularly the way the head looked like it had been freshly poured from a pub tap. The promised juice, or at least an orange squash effect, is right there from the start in the aroma. It's light without being watery, and quite heftily bitter: pithy; maybe even a little waxy. The sweet orange is still present too, tasting like a juicy segment of the fruit rather than actual juice. Where it falls down a little is the murk. There's an unpleasant dirty grittiness, particularly in the finish, which the hops can't quite overcome. This is nearly very good but will have to settle for an OK.

The one survivor from the original range is the pale ale, Harris. It's still 5% ABV, amber in colour, and hopped in retro fashion with Cascade alone. The earthy side of the hop comes out in the aroma, alongside caramel from the big malt base. Just as the appearance is pin-bright, the flavour is completely clean. Interestingly, crystal malt doesn't feature on the ingredients list, but it has that toffee quality which crystal normally brings. On top there's a pinch of lemon and a sprinkling of cedarwood spice. It shows that this is a recipe well-honed over many iterations. The flavour intensity isn't much higher than the previous beer, and I think the alcohol boost warrants a bit more than is delivered here. Again, though, it's fine, and even delightfully old-fashioned. I don't know of any other similar Irish beer on the market at the moment.

The former Shannon River IPA has been superseded by Invasion, coming in slightly stronger at 6% ABV. Once again it's single hopped, this time with Centennial. In the glass it's a clean and clear golden shade, with a wholesome biscuity aroma, which I'm crediting to the Vienna malt. The mouthfeel is nicely full, but far from overdone or sticky, reminding me more of a bock lager than an IPA, which I'm perfectly happy with. Hop character takes centre stage in the flavour, bringing a straightforward sort of bitterness with elements of lemon and pine. It's very much in the west-coast style, and while not madly complex is likely to provide balm for the palate of anyone fed up with haze. Perfect core beer material.

In with this set was one of their specials from last year, Savage Beour milk stout. The brewery has been rightly called out for the sexist imagery deployed on the can and has done a woeful job on social media trying to defend it. I've certainly been disinclined to buy any of their beers while that remains the response.

Turning my attention to the contents, it doesn't smell sweet or milky, but quite dry, with a lot of toasty burnt roast. The flavour is similarly serious, with coffee and high-cocoa dark chocolate to the fore. There's a background complexity going on as well, a little floral, with a hint of coconut too. This isn't the rich and sweet stout I was expecting but I appreciated its balanced restraint.

That's it from me on Treaty City for now. There'll be more if and when they get round to fixing their branding.

An Italian job

The lovely people of Associazione Degustatori Birra (Lazio branch) were kind enough to invite me out to Rome for a few days in mid-March, in exchange for some words on Irish craft beer at their St. Patrick's Day event. My last visit to the Eternal City was just a couple of years too early for the rise of Italian craft beer and it had been on my return-visit list for a while so I leapt at the chance.

An early start had me in downtown Rome by late morning on the 17th and I took advantage of the fine weather to do some exploring of historical sites I missed last time round. Returning to my hotel in the afternoon I called in to Domus Birra, the city's best-known bottle shop. A boggling array of Italian craft beers were on offer so I picked a reasonably priced one more or less at random, and because of the name.

So, Turan's Dry Hard 2 was my first beer of the trip, a 6% ABV IPA. It poured an unpleasantly murky brown amber colour and the dry hopping certainly makes its presence felt in the aroma: a powerful blast of white plum and lychee. The texture is smooth and the flavour begins with a rather harsh bitterness. It tastes as clean as it looks, some lightly spicy orange and grapefruit flavours buzzing about in the background, but nothing distinctive. The aroma keeps on giving, all the way through, but I'd like a bit more zip.

Zip aplenty I found a few hours later down at Il Maltese a fun little craft beer shack on Piazza Epiro which was hosting my talk. Brewfist's Bionic amber ale was on tap. Like the foregoing, and like most Brewfist beers, there's a waxy bitter punch at the start. However what follows is a tour de force of citrus hop flavours: spritzy, juicy and very moreish, shading towards heavier weedy funk at times as well.

From the bottled selection I got to try Cogs coffee porter by Laboratorio, much lauded by my hosts. Unfortunately it was a dud, infected with nasty acetone nail varnish flavours. Underneath this it was just about possible to detect a pleasant mild milky coffee flavour and hints of lavender and chocolate, but nothing earth-shaking. I was more impressed by Urbe from Eternal City, a local contract operation. This cloudy orange number is an approachable 5% ABV and has lots of lovely soft cuddly peach flavours. A beautifully refreshing sessioner.

We were joined briefly by the brewers behind a brand new start-up. I may be among the first anglophones to encounter the brand though was far too polite to point out the inadvertent hilarity of their chosen name: Superbum. Still, quality will carry them a long way and that they have. Blondie is a 5.2% ABV wit-like blonde. The wit spicing is missing but the orange peel is very present, enhanced by the generous addition of orangey Styrian Goldings. What it lacks in veracity to the witbier style it makes up for in refreshment power.

The other one to emerge from Superbum is called Invasion, a pale ale of 5.5% ABV. Not so pale, however, more a dark amber. The aroma is all fresh oily hops and there's no mistaking the heavy use of Sorachi Ace in the flavour: coconut and lemon pith in abundance. It's perhaps a little too intense to consider drinking a second, but nice for one.

Top of my hitlist for day two was the city's best-known beer specialist Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fà in Trastevere. The poky two-room pub was in the middle of a German-themed festival and I'll cover the good stuff from that in the next post so the only Italian beer I had there was Lambrate's Robb de Matt. This is a near-perfect recreation of a pale 'n' hoppy English bitter, if a little strong at 5.5% ABV. The aroma is a gentle citrus which translates into a lemon sherbet and peach flavour, with some light herbal notes and just enough bitter punchiness. The cask serve gives it a beautiful soft effervescence.

I trekked deeper into Trastevere next, to eat at Brasserie 4:20, home of the Revelation Cat brewing company. It didn't quite live up to the hype for me. The décor is very high-concept designery, with banks and banks of taps, some suspended overhead at the bar, and cask handpulls aplenty. But the menu is not much more than burgers and crisps. Filling in a slip with your choice of sauce and topping does not a classy dining experience make. From the spendy beer menu I selected Bombay Cat, a double black IPA. Lordy. This is powerful stuff: 9% ABV and jet black. One sip delivers a green blast of fresh crunchy spinach and cabbage, lots of acid and odd herbal bath salts overtones. Behind the hops there's masses of heavy thick chocolate too: all the features of double IPA and imperial stout writ large. I almost felt abused by it, but thrilled as well.

Just time for one pub on my third and final day in Rome, but I made the most of it. Open Baladin is the local outlet for Piedmont's Baladin brewery, a large and rambling pub-restaurant with a vast tap and bottle selection. Here the food is something to behold, specialising in Piedmontese meats. The steak tartare was spectacular. Open is the name of the house beer, a 7.5% ABV IPA. It's a clear middling orange colour with an clove aroma. The flavour mostly consists of artificial candy fruit, mixed with an unpleasant musty staleness on a heavy body. Not something I'd want as the flagship beer in my pub.

Hoping for something a bit like the previous day's feline black IPA experience, I chose del Borgo's Hoppy Cat Cascadian dark ale. 5.8% ABV and dark garnet in colour, topped by a creamy ivory head. It lures the drinker in with a mild mandarin aroma but there's a sucker punch of bitterness in the first sip, next to a different sort of bitterness from the roast grain. Overall a simple and pleasant brew and very different from Revelation Cat's soundalike.

Sticking with del Borgo, I realised that I've never tasted their original beer ReAle, and since it was here on cask I decided I'd put that right. Another English beer clone, this time a quality brown bitter, it's a clear burnished copper colour with all the proper nutty flavours, waxy bitterness and refreshing tannins. Only the massive 6.4% ABV strength detracts from its balanced sessionable qualities.

On the basis that you should never pass up a beer with your name and ethnicity on it, I went next for Nut Irish Jinn from Black Barrels in Turin. It was listed in the sour section of the menu but I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the style: there's a lot going on in it, starting with a sweet lactic perfume aroma, a sort of floral balsamic effect. Dry hopping in the barrel has given it a light citrus zest and there's also a savoury ambergris resinousness peppered by sparks of incense, all this set on a clean refreshing sour base. Phew. It's a workout for the palate, and the notebook, but well worth it.

One last glass before running for the airport bus and I wanted to make it count. Say hello, then, to Baladin's Xyauyu barley wine. This 13.5% ABV version has been given time in rum casks and arrives dark brown and completely flat, smelling like all of its strength plus brown sugar and marker pens. The barrel has certainly left its mark as it tastes like nothing so much as aged dark rum: hot and woody. The beeriness is almost lost, with a caramel malt sweetness just peeping through. A tasty drop, but mostly it left me wondering what the unaged version tastes like.

We'll retrace our steps in the next post, looking at the non-Italian beers on offer in Rome.