Wotta lotta DOT

Over the last few months, DOT has been releasing beers literally faster than I can track down and drink them. It's time to clear out the fridge. This may take a while.

We begin with Barrel Aged Just Peachy Milkshake, more a rebrew than a variant on the original from 2018 (reviewed here) as it too was barrel-aged. The ABV goes up to 6% from 5.5. The ex-bourbon barrel is very obvious from the aroma: there's a vanilla heat from the get-go. The fruit asserts itself in the flavour: a succulent peach tang arrives first, followed quickly by the candybar lactose and then the more grown-up whisky. It's a fun combination and works really well. Each part makes a contribution without dominating or unbalancing the overall picture. It should be a silly gimmick, suggesting something created for the name rather than the resulting sensory experience, but the resulting sensory experience is superb. I notice it's not badged as an IPA, which is fair as the hops play no part in here. It gets sweeter as it warms, but thankfully it's drinkable enough for this not to be a problem. This one is exclusive to the Molloy's chain. Go there and get some if there's any left.

There's a new DOT/Redmond's exclusive, A Barrel Aged Amber Ale. "Very good, if I do say so myself" said Jimmy Redmond as he swiped my debit card. It's 7.8% ABV, and a murky brown-red. Madeira and bourbon were the original purposes of the barrels that it aged in. Unsurprisingly given all that, there's a rich butterscotch aroma, with sparks of liquorice and clove. That's not the first flavour: I get strawberry jam, warm white bread, and a less-welcome gritty yeast note. The bourbon vanilla comes in behind this, and a little of that Madeira richness and warmth. A traybake of caramel, biscuit and chocolate forms the finish, sprinkled with some surprise desiccated coconut. To me this tastes a lot like DOT's other barrel-aged reds, and the Rum Red Dark series in particular. While I appreciate the depth of flavour on display, it's just too sweet and butterscotchy for me. I'd like more of a spirit kick from the barrels and, in all honesty, probably for it to be a stout.

I only had to wait a few weeks for that wish to be fulfilled. Redmond's and DOT  present: Amburana Stout. I hadn't heard of amburana before but it seems to be a wood commonly used for cachaça-ageing. There's some ex-bourbon barrels involved here too; sure why not? It smells classically stouty: roast and bitterness, with cocoa and coffee grounds. There's a milky sweetness at the front of the flavour, though lactose does not feature in the ingredients and the can tells us that sweet vanilla is an amburana signature. Well then. The fade-out comes quickly for a 10%-er, bringing milk chocolate, condensed milk and a cheeky twist of the bourbon's sour citric side. It's a straightforward offering: no crazy somersaults or random twirls, just smooth sailing all the way. While sticking to the norms of strong sweet barrel-aged stout, it does bring a bit of a fun twist. Whatever one thinks about DOT's output, one is never bored.

Not to be left out, Craft Central also has new DOT exclusive, a sherry and bourbon aged pale ale called Central Perk. A murky orangey-brown, it smells quite sharp: an eye-watering solvent note, doubtless from the barrels. There's some gentler fruit in there as well, a fruit salad of pear and mandarin segments. It's quite juicy on tasting, the wine and whisky cask flavours subsumed into fresh pineapple, lychee and white plum. From the aroma I thought there was going to be a big boozy kick to it, but it's actually very smooth and easy-drinking, the flavours well integrated. There's maybe a little grape character from the sherry, but none of the brash lime and vanilla that often comes with bourbon. This is a delicious, mellow sipper, just shy of 8% ABV. Take your time with it.

Celtic Whiskey / Craft Beers Delivered is a first-time bandwagon-jumper with Hibernation Sensation, an imperial stout aged in Pedro Ximénez and rum ex-whiskey barrels. It's 9.7% ABV so there I was poised for the weight and the coffee and the cocoa. Nooooo... This is highly attenuated to the point of being thin. There's a distinct brisk sourness, lots of vermouth-like herbs, dry raisins and then maybe a crumb of very dark chocolate on the end. Old Uncle Pedro has been very busy in here: it's not a style of sherry I buy on the regular but I remember how it tastes, and this beer has quite a lot of it. In short, it's weird but it works. Fans of big, diabetes-inducing imperial stouts may get a sharp shock; I liked the sharpness, the acidity, and ohh there's the coffee now.

Another Teeling Distillery exclusive follows that: Rising From The Ashes, which is a blend of red ale and imperial stout aged in barrels which, by the looks of things, previously held the Blackpitts peated single malt whiskey Teeling's launched recently. It's 7.4% ABV and pretty imperial-stout looking. The aroma is sweet in a toffee-meets-chocolate way, suggesting the red hasn't been buried completely. You have to wait for the flavour to get the smoke, and it's not smoky-smoke but phenolic whisky smoke: seaweed and Elastoplast. That tang fades and a rich coffee comes in behind it, with a squirt of cream and a sprinkling of chocolate to soften the phenols. The overall impression is of a beer that's smooth, rich, strong (stronger than the ABV) and with some classy sippable whisky characteristics thrown in. For a beer aficionado it's a bit of fun, while I can see a whole new world of flavour opening up for the dedicated whiskey fan. Most importantly, I could taste the fun DOT had, playing with barrels Teelings provided.

Nothing so simple as a brewer-retailer collaboration next: Over A Barrel is an imperial milk stout created for Two Sides, itself a collaboration brand of 57 the Headline and Brickyard. We're back on the tall cans, lads. Hooray! This is 8.2% ABV, and cognac barrels provide the evening's entertainment. I enjoyed the flip-like aroma of warm brandy and cream, and it really doubles down on the boozy cream effect on tasting. Think Irish coffee, think egg nog. There's a little roast to remind you it's a stout and a seam of vanilla ice cream to point out that it's a milk one. It's not cloying, however: I liked how the spirit sharpness clears all the stickiness away, leaving a clean and spirituous warmth. The end result is a lovely combination of liquored-up casks with soft and gentle strong dark sweet beer. I don't know if it's even possible for something like this to become a regular-production beer, but I'd love to see it.

Another tie-in of a sort is the Brú Brewery collaboration Well Rounded Individual. This takes a red ale aged in Amarone and dark rum barrels and mixes it with a bourbon-aged amber ale. At this point I'm not sure there's a difference between R&D at DOT and the absolute sesh. Anyway, it finishes up at 7.25% ABV and is a murky reddish-brown colour. The bourbon makes itself felt in the hot vanilla aroma which had me braced for something harsh on tasting. Surprise! This is beautifully smooth and mellow, opening with red grapes and raisins, then silky chocolate and mild-roast coffee, before a tangy lime and jaffa finish. It's for swirling and sipping and savouring, displaying all the warmth and depth of a beer close to double its strength. The can and its abstract art suggest craft daftness, but three mouthfuls in I was imagining it served in a cork-and-cage bottle. Red ale gets some bad press, but if more of them were made at this boss level it might get more respect. 

I'm on record as not being a huge fan of DOT's straight IPAs so can't help but feel a little trolled by one called IPA IPA. IPA squared. The quintessence. It's 7% ABV and combines Simcoe, Amarillo and Galaxy into an opaque orange package. The aroma is strongly pithy with a little rotten and funky tropical fruit behind. It's a while since I tasted garlic in an IPA -- I thought it had gone out of fashion, but here it is back. There's a kind of plasticky twang, sharp lime rind, and all set on a thick base of vanilla. IPA IPA is thoroughly modern milkshake, and I don't really care for it. It's the wrong kind of bitterness and the wrong kind of sweet, the flavour elements fighting each other and me getting caught in the melee. It'll have its fans, of course, and I will respectfully leave them to it.

I'm sure there's a reason why this one is called A Throw Away Play, but damned if I know what it is, or where it's brewed. I can say it's a double New England-style IPA of 8.2% ABV, hopped with two stone-cold heroes, Citra and Vic Secret. It's a rather off-putting mucky ochre shade and smells very resinous: savoury and almost smoky. This is going to be an intense and serious experience. Sure enough it's dense, a little hot, and plenty bitter, in a most non-New-England way. I had to let the acidity run across my tongue a few times before I could pick out any flavours. Vic's aniseed buzz is there, and a particularly concentrated showing from Citra's lime peel. After these nuances there's a rough plasticky finishing twang and that's your lot. It's possible this is a cruel practical joke on drinkers of fluffy vanilla-flavoured New England IPAs. It is an absolute hop-beast, and while I can make room for that sort of thing when done well, this one is just too rough and dirty for my refined palate. The same thing with a clean and flocculent yeast could be a winner, though.

OK, that's quite enough of that sort of thing. Let's get back to the barrels and the blending and the imperial stouts. State of Mind is another one which mixes the stout with a red, but also an oatmeal stout. It's also another where a barrel of "peated single malt Irish whiskey" was involved, again suggesting Teeling Blackpitts. This is a chunky 10.2% ABV and looks quite brown in the glass. The stout side of the equation is surprisingly low. It's creamy and sweet with lots of runny caramel, giving an initial impression of an Irish red. There is little sign of the barrels or all that booze, and it's remarkably thin. The third sip was where I finally got the spirit side, a muted vanilla and a tiny hint of that peat. And then it all tails off into vague milk chocolate and water. It's not a bad beer but it talks a much bigger game than it ends up delivering.

The last beer for today is a relatively simple offer. Magnanimous imperial stout is a mere 9.5% ABV and involves just one type of beer, aged in a sequence of barrels which previously held cognac, bourbon and Irish single malt. It's a deep and opaque black in the glass, cola-brown at the edges. I've probably used the word "rich" too much in this post already, but this is rich: a sumptuous and warming mix of Christmas pudding and red vermouth with bonus aniseed, sultana and cocoa. It's a beer that rewards slow sipping,the flavours unfolding gradually, but steadily. An earthy farmyard funk provides the bassline to everything else. This is one where I was still writing about it when I got to the end of the glass so if you want the full picture, buy two. It's certainly not your typical imperial stout, transcending style boundaries in a very typical DOT way. For me it's a fitting endpoint to what has been an adventure in oak and whatnot.

Take a deep breath. More from DOT soon, probably.

Hot to DOT

My collection of DOT Brew tasting notes has grown shamefully large. Time to share them with the world.

They begin back in mid-March with an event in the Teeling Distillery, pairing whiskey, beer and cheese -- big thanks to DOT's Shane for comping the tickets. The first beer out was Single Grain Cabernet Sauvignon Session Ale, Batch II. The modest 4.9% ABV belies the immense complexity in this pale amber beer, beginning at the rich white-wine aroma, all tropical mango and apricot. The flavour is correspondingly massive, piling in tonnes of berries and stonefruit, alongside drier raisins and some light wood. The whiskey barrel was an ex-Napa Valley red wine cask and I was amazed at how the wine character survived, though without the tannins. Overall an absolutely superb opener.

Later on we had the début of B8 D8, over a year in the making and involving a convoluted blend of pale, amber and dark Belgian-style ales, matured in eight separate types of barrel. The style is recorded simply as "Dark Ale" and it's 7.7% ABV. "Dark", here, means a deep red. There's a lot of alcohol in the aroma, both strong red wine and whiskey spirit, as well as some drier cocoa. Stout-like roast is where the flavour starts, picking up buttery toffee and raisin fruit after it. There's an edge of oakiness in the very finish but it's no vanilla bomb. I found it a little confusing at first; it's hard to find something to compare it to. Once you get used to it it's less troublesome, offering a smooth and quite easy-going mix of chocolate and dark fruit, harmoniously melded into each other. Tasting it later on draught, the red wine element is much more pronounced at the expense of the chocolate. On a different day and a different mood I might suggest it tastes of other things entirely.

From the off licence I picked up a bottle of Amarone Amber, which I think is my first Amarone-aged beer, though again the barrels became whiskey receptacles in between the wine being done with them and the beer going in. It's another fairly light one at 5.6% ABV, and seemed thin on pouring, coming out a handsome dark copper colour nonetheless. There's a spiced orange aroma and the flavour doubles down on this, offering a surprise mix of juicy jaffa segments and spicy peppery oak. Though it is a little watery, the finish is decently long, tailing off into honeyed Irish whiskey and citrus pith. I liked that the fresh hops were still making a big contribution, contrasting nicely with the wood seasoning. I would have liked more of a wine character, however. As-is it's a neat little beer and, as the label says, surprisingly refreshing.

And then came the main event: DOT's second birthday party, held at UnderDog. Three new-release offerings were in the line-up and I began with Just Peachy, combining peaches, honey and barrel ageing. It came out an opaque red-orange colour with a lightly woody aroma. The flavour, however, is very forward with the fruit, dominated by the sweet peaches and then seasoned with light oak vanilla and spices. I couldn't find any trace of the whiskey or honey. At only 5.5% ABV it's probably not meant to be a total palate pounder, but there was plenty in there to enjoy.

Funnily enough I got a bigger honey aroma from the next one, Tutti, despite there being no honey involved in the recipe. It's 7.2% ABV and a blend of amber and rye ales aged in both bourbon and Irish whiskey barrels, and I'm guessing it's the latter contributing honey to the nose. The flavour is drier than I expected after that, suggesting cool clean Fino sherry, with hints of hotter sweeter Oloroso. It's a difficult contrast to describe; like B8 D8 above, it's a sensory chimera, with radically different facets of flavour blended together yet still contrasting each other. "Markery but fresh" it says in my notes. Useless. Just try the beer, yeah?

I was on steadier stylistic grounds when a keg of Olly's Barrel Aged Imperial Stout went on. The eponymous Olly is DOT's honey supplier, and there's no mistaking the stuff in this one. While it's a thumping imperial stout through and through -- 11.1% ABV, densely textured with lots of milky coffee flavours -- the sticky honey sweetness laces the whole thing. A balancing bitterness arrives on the end, with the light runny honey turning to dark treacle, finishing on a stimulating kick of espresso. This was a great one to end the evening on.

Year three of DOT began just last Friday with a tap takeover up at Brickyard in Dundrum. I arrived to find Andrew had kindly set me up with a glass of Olly's Barrel Aged Imperial Stout with Morello Cherry. The fruit doesn't improve it any, giving it a cherryade sweetness in the foretaste which combines with the thick beer and turns it to sticky liqueur or, less kindly, cough medicine. For all that, it's not unplesantly cloying: the texture is remarkably light and it slips back easily as a result. It is quite unbeery all the same, and doesn't really give the drinker the benefit of the base stout or the honey.

Bourbon Dark is a DOT offering that's been around a while but which I'd not been able to get hold of, and here it was on tap. This is a relatively modest 6.5% ABV and poured a dark chocolate-brown colour. The aroma offered a gentle waft of coconut, and that's very much what I got in the foretaste too. Behind, there's some rough and woody oak sawdust and a sharp shot of espresso. The combination works quite well: starting out sweet ahead of a long dry finish. Something for everyone there. I didn't get any specific bourbon taste but it's definitely warming and smooth so perhaps the whisky was working away in the background somewhere.

Another dark one to finish, the Barrel Fermented Dark Saison. This presented like a stout -- pure black with an off-white skim of foam on top. The flavour is unmistakably saison, however: dry and crisp and its core but livened up with juicy white grape. After a moment or two, something more uniquely dark emerges, a layer of milk chocolate counteracting the dryness, complementing the fruit and generally offering a deft twist on the style. There was a considerable alcoholic warmth going on as well so I wasn't completely surprised to read that it's 8.4% ABV, far stronger than saison normally is. And yet it's not heavy or any way difficult to drink, all being very well balanced and integrated.

That's everything DOT which passed my way this spring. Shane tells me there's an IPA on the way, though in what form remains to be seen.