Press pass pilsners

Camden Exchange has been open since the beginning of the summer. It's the latest addition to the strip of bars running down Camden Street in central Dublin, already known for its late-night pack-'em-in superpubs. It's big but not huge (have a walk round) and a bit of money has been spent on the faux-industrial interior. The best feature is probably the generous beer garden out back. The food is good and the beer choice extensive, with a mix of craft and macro, Irish and imported, spread across 20 or so taps. But, on my first visit, a €6.50 pint of Metalman Pale Ale left a bitterness that had nothing to do with Summit or Cascade and meant I wasn't in a rush to go back.

In August, Camden Exchange held its gala opening and the management kindly invited me along. The beer was free and the food was free so it was all rather jolly. I started with a beautifully refreshing pint of Camden Hells and left on a fabulously juicy Punk IPA, but in between, in the hope of getting a blog post out of the freebie, I scoured the taps for something I'd never reviewed before. There was just one: Birra Moretti. I'll have a pint of that, so. Stick it on the boss's tab.

Heineken's headline Italian offering is definitely doing its job up against arch-rival Peroni: it has the same watery core and the same unpleasant metallic tang, though is perhaps not quite as gassily vapid. It's still pretty terrible and certainly a totally different species to the Hells which preceded it.

If you're going to Camden Exchange on your own dime -- and do give the food menu a go -- it's probably best to pick your beer a bit more carefully than I did here. Cheers to the team for inviting me.

More recently, I was invited out to a launch evening at Box Burger in Bray. This venue, from the owners of Platform Pizza next door and the Harbour Bar across the way, is situated in part of what was once Bray railway station and has been lovingly stripped out to reveal lots of the original brickwork. The burgers are damn decent and there's a distinct Wicklow tilt to the drinks offer, with beer from Wicklow Wolf and O Brother plus cider by Craigie's. But there are imports too, so my tick of the evening was Camden Town Pils. As I mentioned on Monday, straight-up good-quality lager is something of a stock-in-trade at Camden Town so I was expecting a sharp and refreshing pint here, but that's not what I got. For one thing it was hazy, looking an unhealthy wan yellow, though thankfully the taste was not upset by any yeast interference. But its flavour isn't exactly the profile I associate with pils, being full of soft lemon sherbet rather than grass or herbs. It's smooth and very tasty, just not especially pils-like in my estimation.

Thanks to all the Box Burger crew for the evening's hospitality. It's well worth checking out if you're down Bray way, and that's not just the free truffle-oil-and-parmesan burger talking.

The gaze of Janus

Hidden Agenda joins Graffiti and Vietnow in Trouble Brewing's OMG All Teh Hopz family of pale ales, this one at the 4.5% ABV mark. Australian varieties Vic Secret and Summer are providing the show here but it's not really one of those soft tropical fruit jobs you often get from Aussie hops. Prepare yourself instead for a major blast of fresh, sharp citrus and pine resins. Only in the finish is there any more rounded fruit taste, a swift suck on a mandarin but nothing more. I assume some malt has gone in here from the orange colour but I couldn't taste its presence: it's actually a little watery at its heart, especially when arriving cold. Still, I welcome the clean zippy hop bang and hope they make more like it.

White Gypsy's cask winter seasonal is a big 5.7% ABV dark ale called, appropriately, Dark Night. There's lots of chocolate in here but it's not overly sweet and, while rich and warming, doesn't taste all of its strength. When acquired fresh in The Brew Dock there was an extra bitter bite in the background, for a sort of Wrasslers effect. I couldn't be sure if it was generous hopping, a yeast bite or even an immature greenness I was tasting, but it added an extra dimension to the flavour, one which was gone a few days later when the pub was clearing the cask for the Christmas break, leaving behind some unseasonable but tasty strawberry sweetness.

And across the Galway Bay pub estate we're starting to see the appearance of Heathen, a 3% ABV sour black wheat beer. I've got through a lot of this since it first appeared in The Black Sheep: it's light and clean and super quaffable. The puckering dark vinegar tang is shocking at first but once you've settled in to it the flavour and high carbonation make for a refreshing oxyclean scrub for the palate.

The last of the new breweries to send beer out in 2014 was O Brother in Wicklow. They made sure I got some exercise by keeping the two first-run beers on opposite sides of the Liffey in L. Mulligan Grocer and The Norseman. Believe it or not the two glasses of The Fixer here presented were both poured from the same keg within seconds of each other. It's described as an American Red and it's very bitter: green cabbage and metal, plus some chewy toffee. There's more of a strong English bitter feel to it, I thought, than anything stateside. The cloudy version was actually a little softer, though still rather acrid.

I much preferred their pale ale The Chancer. Startlingly pale and with every right to claim the "'n' hoppy" that goes with it. Bright fresh lemon zest is the principal flavour; malt sweetness steers it towards candied peel, though it does build, becoming a bit piney floor cleaner by pint's end. Overall, a very good quality effort and it will sit well alongside more established luminaries like Metalman and Black's of Kinsale pale ales.

Irish brewing is in fairly good nick, then, if this lot are anything to go by. The current renaissance in international beer styles, starting in 2006 with Galway Hooker, is well documented. But it's the story of Irish brewing before that that I'd love to see told, in answer to Alan's question for this month's session: What beer book yet to be written would you like to see published?

I remember, and drank, the Irish craft beers of the early 2000s, and have seen tantalising glimpses of the extinct breweries which dotted the country in the previous five centuries through the work of Barry, Martyn, Ron and others. But while I'm sure all the information is out there somewhere, and that there are plenty of wonderful stories to be told, nobody has yet taken the time to write a properly wide-reaching history of Ireland's beer. I'd even settle for Dublin's.

In general I'm quite happy with where we're going in this country. I'd just really like to know more about where we've been.

Back in the race

On Saturday last L. Mulligan Grocer celebrated its second birthday and I dropped in to eat lots of free black pudding sausage rolls celebrate with the guys, who had also just scooped Licensing World's first ever Craft Beer Pub of the Year award. Cask Fraoch was a little disappointing, lacking much of the subtle complexities of the bottled version. All-new Waterford-brewed Metalman Pale Ale was in magnificent form: a darker, funkier version adding a nice edge to the previously light and fruity quaffer. But the big occasion for me was the first sighting of Clanconnel's new beer, one with which the Co. Down brewery pulls itself up onto the pale ale bandwagon at last.

There's nothing immediately striking about McGrath's Irish Pale Ale: a par-for-the-course orange-amber body topped by generous foam and a manageable 4.4% ABV. I was a few gulps down before the pint glass began trapping any aroma for me: all sharp and slightly acrid. It's a theme which is borne out by the flavour too. No innocent breezy summer fruits; instead it has a rather harsh acidic edge: a squirt of grapefruit to the back of the palate; a teeth-cleansing rhubarb squeakiness.

I'm sure it will find its fans but it was a little severe for me. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, a bit of dry-hopping would do it no harm at all at all. By coincidence, Steve has a review of this on his blog today too.

A "white ale" is also on its way from the new Clanconnel line-up. More on that doggy when it comes around the track.

Thorn on my side

Inevitable, really. Only a year ago I passive-aggressively ask the trade where the Thornbridge stuff is, and now there's more of it coming in than I can keep up with. So, this is a clearance of some stuff that's been sitting in my fridge for too long, plus some more recent acquisitions, all from the über-classy Derbyshire brewery.

I didn't get Kölsch until I went to Cologne. From the bottle and keg it had always just tasted like a dry pilsner to me, and a very plain one at that. What's the fuss about? That changed when I got to drink it closer to the source. The smoothness offered by the version served from wooden barrels in the better Cologne pubs adds a vital dimension to the Kölsch experience you just don't get any other way. So I was intrigued and more than a little suspicious when I got hold of Thornbridge's bottled take on the style. Would bottle-conditioning make that all-important difference?

Tzara pours a clear limpid gold. I was careful to avoid any sediment, but really there was very little to be found. The mittelfrüh hops are very apparent in the aroma: the heady fermented grassiness of warm silage. The flavour is sweeter, though, making the most of the carapils malt to balance the green flavours with a bit of residual sweetness. And most importantly of all, the carbonation is light. Not cask-smooth, but far from being pale yellow burp-water. I think they've done a good job here, and are showing the joy of Kölsch much better than, say, bottled Früh does.

Raven, Thornbridge's black IPA, doesn't mess about. From the opaque black-brown body comes a bolt of pithy aroma preparing the way for intense bitterness on tasting. Dominating the proceedings is flinty Nelson Sauvin in its dry, less fruity, incarnation. I get a lot of the harshness I associate with Sorachi Ace in large quantities but none of the fruity peachy fun that I feel the Centennial ought to be supplying.

The wife really enjoyed it, and got a good roasted dark ale flavour from it. I couldn't detect that under the citric punch: it's another one of those black IPAs I would swear is pale when drinking with my eyes closed. There's no doubt Raven is complex and interesting, but I just feel a bit abused by it. Too much of a workout for my weak and feeble palate.

Next up, Versa, the puntastic weissbier. It comes out a lovely, almost red, shade of gold and only slightly hazy given the style. At 5% ABV it's on the weak side, and offers very little other than wateriness on the nose. What it loses in welly, however, it gains in drinkability. No overpowering banana esters or other heavy flavours. Instead it's mildly zesty with an easy-going sherbet effervesence rather than full-on fizz.

I'm sure it's a perfect summer refresher but I've no objection to it in the depths of winter either.

For the proper chilly evening sipper I've reserved a bottle of Bracia, Thornbridge's super-limited strong dark ale brewed from a whole host of malts, including brown and peated; a plethora of hops including Sorachi Ace and Pioneer; and with a bonus addition of Italian chestnut honey. It's a beer to take very seriously indeed.

It pours slowly and unctuously, lazily forming a dark tan head. The aroma is odd: lots of roast, but the dryness is sweetened by a floral character which I'm guessing comes from the honey.

It tastes weird. Intense perfume pervades the whole thing and makes it hard to get at the beeriness beneath. I can just about detect the peat, and the roast barley is present on the finish. There's possibly a bit of chocolate buried in there too, but overall it's quite difficult to take. Still, I suppose when it's €10 for half a litre you don't want to be charging through it. I'm not at all sure I'd buy another bottle, and the price is only part of the reason.

And that concludes the beer reviews for 2011. All that remains for this the last post of the year is the handing out of...
The Golden Pint Awards 2011

Looking back on the 2010 awards (2009 is here), I think I can safely say I achieved my ambition for 2011: to travel. 12 countries and 4 of them new to me is a personal best. And the beer scene in Ireland has moved on quite a ways in the past year. I'm excited at the thought of similar progress over the next 12 months. Anyway, here's how it's all panned out:

Best Irish Draught Beer: Metalman Windjammer
A brewery that was no more than a logo this time last year stormed out of the blocks with a kickass flagship ale and this stunning summer seasonal. All kiwi hops made it a pineapple and mango flavour grenade. I'm limiting the award to the cask version, however. It all fell a bit flat when filtered and kegged. Caskless Irish pubs: start your engines.

Best Irish Bottled or Canned Beer: Knockmealdown Porter
Lots of Irish beers made an appearance in bottles this year, including old favourites such as Trouble Dark Arts and Galway Hooker. I give the prize to another brand new brewery for 2011, however: Eight Degrees and their hefty-yet-drinkable porter Knockmealdown, though Franciscan Well's Shandon Century was a close second.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Wild Esra on Cherries
Even at a festival where imperial stouts, barrel-aged rarities, sour one-offs and weird fruit beers abounded this one from De Molen had enough character to stop me and make me pay attention. It's the whole picture. The world of beer geekery in a single glass.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Great Divide Smoked Baltic Porter
They say Great Divide ain't gonna be exporting no more. I'm willing to donate one of the last bottles of this in the country to a local brewery for cloning purposes.

Best Overall Beer: Wild Esra on Cherries
No question. It's not a drink-all-year sessioner. It's an unforgiveably room-dividing one-off of the sort that shouldn't get awards from people who aren't insufferable rarity-chasing spoogebeerians. But it's just too damned tasty not to take the prize.

Best Pumpclip or Label: De La Senne Equinox
The wife spent a fair few days in Brussels on business this year, which meant a Belgian beer bonanza for me. Ordering by remote control can be a dangerous game but I've never had a problem in saying "Just anything by De La Senne. You'll know them by the labels." From a brewery with a wonderful eye for design, brooding Equinox is one of my favourites.

Best Irish Brewery: Metalman
You want to know what I think is missing from Irish beer? Bravery. With just a few exceptions, mostly from the established companies, we're still stuck in the Stout-Lager-Red Ale Beermuda Triangle of traditional Irish styles, only now we have a hoppy-but-sessionable pale ale thrown in too. Metalman, while sticking to a solidly reliable pale ale to make a name for themselves, haven't been afraid to play around with other ideas for the limited editions. So we had the antipodean-hopped not-quite-amber ale mentioned above for one, and second up was a peppered witbier made with saison yeast: Alternator. Beer is all about diversity and Metalman get this gong for giving us that from the very start.

More of this sort of thing, please, Gráinne and Tim.

Best Overseas Brewery: 1516
Back to the very top of the year for this one, and one of the highlights of my trip to Vienna. Breaking the lagerland mould with hoppy pale ales and plenty more besides. Bravery and diversity once again.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Bowe's Lounge
I haven't ventured too far from my usual local haunts in 2011: The Bull & Castle, Against the Grain, The Porterhouse, L. Mulligan. Grocer: chances are, that's where you'll find me. But we've seen an interesting development in Dublin pubdom this year. An increasing number of "normal" pubs -- some of them guidebook classics -- have started stocking beers from the independents. The bright green light on the O'Hara's IPA keg font is the most welcoming sight in any Dublin pub. It says "Yes, you can stay here for a drink".

The Palace on Fleet Street has long been ahead of this curve, but this was the year they went cask and got a Dungarvan beer engine installed. The Long Hall now has Hooker; there's Carlow bottled and draught beers in The Church on Mary Street. But one of the most enjoyable evenings I had all year was the Sunday night session in Bowe's Lounge. O'Hara's IPA on tap, Fuller's ESB bottled, and a casual yet wonderful trad session in the corner.

Bowe's is a decent, untouristy, unpretentious boozer that happens to take its beer a bit more seriously than most. We need dozens more like it in this town.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
I think the local highlight was Bloom in Phoenix Park back in June, but the geektastic Borefts festival at De Molen in September was something else entirely.

World-beating beers aside, it was the most enjoyable drinking session I had all year. Thanks to Derek, Ron, Lexie, Mike, Chris, Dom, Evin, Menno and Her Outdoors for making it so.

Supermarket of the Year: No-one
Looking back, I realised I've bought next to no beer in the supermarket this year. None of the offers have really caught my eye. The only one giving us any decent amount of diversity is Marks & Spencer, and their stuff is just too expensive for what it is. I've been pleased to see off licence chain O'Brien's really raise their game beerwise this year, with Carlow, Dungarvan and Eight Degrees all now in stock. But really, only the independents have been meeting my needs in 2011.

Independent Retailer of the Year: The Beer Club
Partly because it's headquartered on my doorstep, but mainly because manager Stephen has shown an incredible enthusiasm for the whole speciality beer segment. It has been a delight to deliver the tasting sessions in the basement (and if you were at one of them over the past few months -- thanks for being such a great crowd) and even more of a delight to be at the sessions where other people did the talking. I'm looking forward to more of those in the New Year.

And extras like this aside, I love that I can just nip around the corner to buy beers I've never had before. I never thought I'd see the day.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Oxford Companion To Beer
Simply for existing, and being a huge sign of beer's growing stature in the culinary world. The errors and ommissions, while they should never have happened, provide a new opportunity to help right the historical wrongs that have been done to beer. As such, The Oxford Companion to Beer is the antigen in the beer writing system, and Alan's wiki shows a healthy immune system.

Best Beer Blog or Website: DrinkStore
Yes, it's a shop that sells beer online, but I'm giving it this award for its role as a  reference source. New beer comes and goes on the Irish market quite quickly, and not everything gets reported by drinkers in the field or the responsible retailers like Bradley's in Cork and Jay at Hollands of Bray. When I'm wondering where my next blog post is going to come from, DrinkStore's beer section is where I look first. Where did I find out that, at last, Ireland had Thornbridge? DrinkStore's website.

Best Beer Twitterer: BoakandBailey
One of the best things about their blog is the way it acts as a sort of clearing house for informed and mature commentary on all things beery. Their long overdue arrival to Twitter has extended that to the microblogging world and we get wonderful links and observations that we would otherwise miss. They get this award despite the unfair tweeting advantage of having four thumbs.

A dishonorable mention, of course, goes to SimonHJohnson. If you're into beer, on Twitter, and not following him, you're doing it wrong.

Best Online Brewery Presence: Eight Degrees
Dungarvan got the gong last year for sheer busyness. This year, for the same reason, it goes to Eight Degrees (not that Dungarvan have slowed down or shut up or anything). Great outgoing support for the local businesses that stock their beers, and by extension great support for the customers who want to find and drink it. Howling Gale on draught is a rare beast: it's great when Scott and Cam give us the coordinates to find it.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Cheese, generally
I'm no wiser about the principles of beer and cheese matching than I was in January, despite the government dedicating an entire long weekend to teaching me. However, I've had an enormous amount of fun this year just picking random cheeses and beers and seeing what happens when they're put in close proximity. I'll be doing lots more of this in 2012.

In 2012 I’d Most Like To: Try going pro
I've had fun this year trying my hand at the whole public speaking malarky. Together with Stephen at The Beer Club I've discovered that there are people out there willing to give up their evenings to be talked at by me about beer (previously it was just a question of picking the bar stool next to me) and having a receptive audience and a bit of back-and-forth is very rewarding. So, more of that for 2012, until I decide I hate it and don't want to do it any more.

Which leads effortlessly into a shameless plug for the gigs I'm doing at The Carlyle Institute starting in January. Two hours; six beers; small classes; lots of cheery-beery banter and only limited quantities of awful puns.

Open Category: Most Exciting Beer City
By all accounts London has really got it going on at the moment. But I wasn't there in 2011 so can't comment. My award goes to Prague for its ale revolution sitting atop a well-deserved reputation for kick-ass lagers. Well worth a weekend if you're anywhere in the vicinity.

I wouldn't say no to a return to Vienna or Amsterdam, mind. It has been a good year.


But here endeth 2011. I'm off to the beer fridge to begin putting 2012 into some sort of drinking order.

One non-blonde

Thanks to DrinkStore for the eagerly-anticipated bottle of BrewEyed Blond, one of the newest Irish beers to start seeing off licence shelves.

At its début in Galway last spring, the Metalman guys reckoned this was quite similar to their own pale ale, so obviously I've been looking forward to assessing that for myself. Pouring from a bottle which is resplendent in '70s tracksuit livery, it's definitely amber rather than blonde: a bright, clear copper shade. Some mildly assertive hops on the nose as well as hints of golden syrup. That firm malt base is borne out in the heavy texture: it avoids syrupiness but definitely has a fuller than average body for a 4.5% ABV beer.

The flavour begins sharp, with lots of bittering hops delivering an electric jolt to the front of the tongue. Then a softer alkaline flavour comes in the middle, chalk edging towards soap. This doesn't last long, however, and the hops fill in the rest of the detail, with hints of fresh spinach and jaffa oranges coming out of the bitterness.

I like it. More than anything it reminds me of Eight Degrees Howling Gale, with similar full-on hop bitterness in a medium-strength package that deftly manages to retain balance. My bottle only paid the briefest of visits to my fridge, but I reckon this will still work well at much lower temperatures. An invigorating summer refresher is where I see it fitting into my drinking repertoire.

Days of beer and roses

The Irish summer made a fleeting appearance late last week, coinciding with the opening of Bloom in the Park, a garden festival organised by Bord Bia, the state food promotion agency. Bord Bia are long-standing friends of the independent beer movement in Ireland, having organised the SeptemberFest extravaganza in 2008 and 2009. Last year it was incorporated into Bloom with the creation of the Bloom Inn tent. This year saw the Bloom Inn return, in a larger double-dome form as part of an artisan food village which included pigs-on-spit, Murphy's amazing ice cream, pies, cheese and all the other wonderful foodie delights of which this country has every right to be proud. I spent Friday afternoon dodging the rays and beering and pigging my way round.

Nine of the country's craft breweries were represented at the Bloom Inn, with a mix of their core beers and some specials and seasonals. Unsurprisingly on such a scorcher, the highlight for me was an ice-cold lager. When I visited the revamped Messrs Maguire brewery back in January I remarked on the excellent unfiltered Haus lager, served from the conditioning tank. It stayed there for a while as Mel wrestled with filtering hardware. I'm delighted to say that she eventually gave up and the Haus now in commercial circulation is unfiltered, and really quite wonderful. Amber and only slightly hazy, it's crisp, full-bodied and ever-so-slightly sweet with a light hand on the carbonation. Irish lager is rarely so good.

Galway Hooker was another star of the day: Ronan had the inline chiller turned up to 11 and the pale ale was pouring beautifully. For once I wasn't complaining about the ubiquitousness of hoppy keg ales in Irish brewing as it was just the day for them, with 8 Degrees Howling Gale, Trouble Ór, O'Hara's IPA, Porterhouse Hop Head and Metalman Pale Ale all just the ticket. At the cask-only Dungarvan Brewing stand there wasn't much action between the two stouts, but Helvick Gold was wonderfully cool, refreshing and full-flavoured. While I was overjoyed to find Metalman Windjammer on cask again, it was let down by a too-high serving temperature, but fortunately it was also on keg: the right dispense method for the weather, especially since the keg edition retains a lot of the cask's delicious tropical fruit flavours.

Just one brand new tick for me, from the always-inventive White Gypsy. Bruin is billed as a "Belgian Brown Ale", which had me thinking of tart Flemish red style flavours, but it's quite different. I guess the best way to describe it is a light dubbel: it's a rich chestnut brown, smooth and incredibly fruity, packed with the banana flavours closely associated with Belgian yeast working at high temperatures. There's lots of filling malt sweetness too, hinting at raisins and chocolate. The cask dispense added to the smoothness but it was still a bit of effort to drink it. Even though there was a cooler in action it was just a bit warm for the day that was in it. A beer to save for a rainy day, perhaps.

Today is the final one of Bloom 2011, with the curtains coming down on the beer tents at 6pm this evening. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of the Phoenix Park, go.

Hearty congratulations are due to Bord Bia for putting on a superb show, very well organised and great fun to attend. And a big thanks both from Beoir and me personally for providing this platform for Irish craft beer to show off to a crowd which otherwise might never notice its existence. Here's hoping for many more years of the Bloom Inn.

New tack

It's Porterhouse Independent Irish Beer and Whiskey Festival time once again. And, also once again, they've re-jigged the way they're doing it. Instead of splitting the line-up across several bars, they've asked each one of Ireland's micros to supply just one beer and all of the 14 submissions are available across the estate including (apparently) London and New York. I called in to the Temple Bar branch on Wednesday last for the results of their annual, blind-tasted, competition of the festival exhibits. Just one overall gong this year, plus two runners up. And all worthy recipients too: first prize to Mel Camire for the fabulous Messrs Maguire Brown Ale, second to Franciscan Well's excellent Purgatory, and bronze medal for the newest arrival Metalman -- one hell of an achievement given the seasoned competitors they were up against. Metalman Pale Ale is now officially superior to O'Hara's Stout, Galway Hooker and Wrasslers XXXX. Tremble in your wellies, established brewers.

The Porterhouse's ever-generous hospitality gave us Beoir members the chance to do some comparisons of our own from among the festival listings. There was just the one new beer to me: White Island Wheaten Ale from yet another newcomer to Irish brewing: Fermanagh's Inishmacsaint. I already tried their lager (here) and was impressed, though perhaps more by the technical prowess than the taste of the beer. I reckoned the wheat beer would be more interesting. And it is, no doubt, just perhaps not in the way I'd anticipated.

As it happened I was surrounded by brewers when I brought the bottle back from the bar and offered it round. Every one of them recoiled in horror at the smell and screwed up their faces at the taste. I'm pretty sure this is wheat beer as no-one but the Good Lord intended it. It pours clear and starts with some fairly serious vinegar on the nose. The texture is highly attenuated, thinned out and barely discernible as a wheat beer at all while the taste is both sharp and sour with a major lactic sour-milk tang on the finish. I'm no Quincy, but I would guess that something in the lactobacillus line got in here and had its wicked way with the fermentables.

And yet, perhaps because I'm not a proper brewer, I thought it still had something going for it. Other non-brewers in the company thought so too. The thinness and sharpness is at least clean, with an interesting bite. Could it be that what we have here is a new lambic appellation? No, probably not. I would guess that if Gordon gets the right sort of feedback he'll have this cleaned up and tasting properly Bavarian in no time.

More's the pity, perhaps. It wasn't that long ago that brown or hoppy ales wouldn't have stood a chance in an Irish beer competition. Why not give the sour side a fair crack of the whip?

The Porterhouse Independent Irish Beer and Whiskey Festival runs until Sunday 3rd April.

Gold zinger

We've been having some lovely weather in Dublin this week. Still a bit frosty in the mornings, but when the afternoon sun hits you full in the face, if you're anything like me, you think beer gardens. It was with such a sunny disposition that I dropped in to L. Mulligan Grocer in Stoneybatter yesterday. They don't have a beer garden yet, but they did have a brand new beer that's filled with almost as much sunshine: Metalman Pale Ale.

Metalman is Ireland's newest brewing company, set up by home brewers Gráinne and Tim, and aiming to make itself at home in Waterford City. While planning permission and suchlike unpleasantnesses are being dealt with, they're working out of the White Gypsy brewkit in Templemore. Pale Ale batch 2 is in the fermenter and the first kegs of batch 1 were delivered to pubs yesterday.

It's a delicate creature, pale and light and zesty. Cascade and Amarillo are the hops but they're not laid on especially thick. There's not much by way of a malt profile either and perhaps the most distinctive feature of the flavour is a not unpleasant chalky mineral note, something I've noticed before in White Gypsy beer, particularly the Emerald pale ale. It'll be interesting to see how (or if) this changes when production moves two counties south to Waterford. There's a lovely long mandarin finish, surprising for something this understated, so perhaps the hops are pulling their weight after all. In short, it's an excellent thirst quencher and a promising first outing for the new company.

At the risk of sounding like a spoiled and jaded city slicker, my only real criticism is that it's too similar to other craft-brewed hop-driven light golden Irish ales already on the market: Trouble Brewing's Ór offers an obvious parallel. That said, no doubt it'll be a welcome breath of fresh air to drinkers in its home base of Waterford which, of course, is where it has real work to do. And I think it's different enough from any of the beers from Co. Waterford's other micro, Dungarvan Brewing, to sit peaceably next to them in the pub. Or, for preference, in the beer garden outside. Somewhere with a view of the sea would be nice.

Metalman Pale Ale is currently available at L. Mulligan Grocer and the Bull & Castle in Dublin, and Revolution in Waterford. The grand launch is at the Bull & Castle tomorrow at 7pm (sign up here) with the Waterford launch on Tuesday 8th March in Revolution (sign up here).