Leann on me

Hooray! The Carlow Brewing Company have had another go at recreating their fantastic 10th anniversary celebration stout. As with the last attempt, they've badged it Leann Folláin, but this time we're getting proper half litres of it rather than the small bottles they gave us before. I wasn't a fan of Leann Folláin Mark I, with its massive sweet woody flavours, and I hoped they'd toned them down for the new one. Last Thursday they held the official launch in the Bull & Castle with a cask of Leann Folláin Mark II, and of course I went along.

One thing was very apparent as soon as head brewer Liam poured me a glass of the viscous black liquid: it's complex. The aroma gives off lots of chocolate, the sweetness tempered with vegetal hops. These themes continue on tasting, with the first sensation a combination of candy-sweet and bitterness, like liquorice, though smooth and not at all sharp. The chocolate arrives next and includes more than a hint of boozy syrupy heat -- perhaps more than you'd expect from 6% ABV -- and finally the hops make a last stand to finish dry. It's a real workout to drink and I'd say I'd struggle with a pint of it, though others at the table didn't seem to be having much difficulty in that department.

Cask isn't likely to be available on any kind of regular basis, but I did get a brief taster of the bottled version. It has all the same flavours, but arranged differently. The aroma is much more full-on and the hop bitterness a bit more pronounced. In fact, I think the bottles may still be a little green and will probably be at their best in a few months from now, much like the revamped Porterhouse Celebration which is drinking great at the moment.

With this strong stout and the recently-launched pale ale, Carlow are definitely doing their part to move beyond the stout-red-lager/wheatbeer range that so many Irish micros have stuck with in the past. I can see Leann Folláin being a big seller abroad, worthy of shelf space beside craft brews from all over Europe and beyond.

Gone commercial

ICB's monthly amateur night at the Bull & Castle recommenced on Thursday last, with a difference. We had the usual interesting variety from the home brewers -- a fascinating dampfbier; a passable bitter; a cracking red ale; a powerful coffee stout and a tasty winter warmer -- but the larger-than-usual crowd also included several representatives from our favourite trade, including a bar manager, an importer and, best of all, a brewer.

I've already mentioned Jonathan the importer of Californian beers. His website is now online, though it seems oddly preoccupied with a weird grape juice by-product I know very little about. Along with news of new stock he has on the market here, he brought a couple of samples of Speakeasy's Double Daddy -- the souped-up version of their Big Daddy IPA. To me (not a fan of Big Daddy) it tasted more like a double version of Prohibition. It had that same superb finely-tuned balance between the dark caramel malts and the American bittersweet citrus hops. I spent a fair bit of time with my nose stuck in the sample glass because it smelled divine. It tastes pretty good too, and the 9.5% ABV adds a marvellous warmth to it after swallowing. Absolutely magnificent stuff.

Our hosts had promised us a sneak preview of the new stout from Carlow Brewing, and were true to their word. Leann Folláin (pictured left, resisting Laura's telekinetic powers) shares the label colours and ABV (6%) of the limited edition 10th anniversary Celebration stout they made last year, but is a different animal. Instead of the classic Irish roast barley dryness, this appears to have been oaked up in a big way [edit: actually, no, it's not oaked], creating a heavy, sticky, sweet stout, filled with that lactic, vanilla-ish barrel flavour which I'm never sure how to take. I decided this wasn't a beer for me. Carlow probably agree, hence the packaging is a 355ml bottle intended for the North American market [edit: wrong again -- they just had leftover bottles; this has not yet been exported to the US]. Mind you, if it's being pitched at people lucky enough to have never sat through an Irish class it probably would have been worth mentioning somewhere that Leann Folláin means "wholesome ale". Thanks to na gaelgoirí of ICB for the translation -- I dropped Irish like a proverbial superheated root vegetable after just three years of half-arsed study.

The main event of the evening for me was a tasting of the first beer from Ireland's newest craft brewery. Based in Co. Down, Clanconnel is starting with something safe -- a blonde ale called Weavers Gold, in honour of the trade which accounted for most of the industrial revolution in Ulster. It's only available bottled and is pitched squarely at the middle ground, with 4.5% ABV. But it's no lowest-common-denominator mass-market clone for lagerboys: it starts with a hefty whack of Saaz aroma, and the first sip couples this with a striking bubblegum maltiness, with the Styrian Goldings making themselves felt at the finish. It's a complex blonde ale, but still eminently sinkable -- a great one for introducing wary drinkers to the joys of properly-made beer. Nice one Mark, I hope it sells well, and I look forward to the next one from Clanconnel.

Coincidentally, the Bull & Castle management had a couple of bottles of Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale available on the same evening. It's not sold in these parts, but Richard Fox had been in town for an event before Christmas and had left them lying around. Oh dear. It's really not very good, and next to the Weavers Gold it fared very badly indeed. In an attempt to attract starstruck lager drinkers they've managed to create (or commission, rather) something almost indistinguishable from mass market yellow lager. It's bodiless, flavourless and overly fizzy. Maybe it works better in draught form, but from the bottle it just failed to deliver anything worthwhile.

All this sampling was punctuated by a hefty halbe of Phúca, still on tap at the Bull & Castle and still highly recommended, with a couple of Hookers to finish on a lighter, hoppier, note. It was one of those evenings when it becomes very easy to forget that I live in a city where good beer is really quite thin on the ground: it takes brewers, importers and bar managers of a very high calibre to make that possible. Thanks all.

Now we are 10

Apparently, there's a glut of Fuller's Vintage Ale on the UK market at the moment, and it's being sold in supermarkets for next to nothing. I paid something quite a distance from nothing for my bottle, but without it I'd have been lost for a special anniversary beer for this month's Session, and that wouldn't do at all.

There's no shortage of limited edition special beers covered on this blog: they're the ones I normally make a beeline for, like the superb but different 10th anniversary stouts from The Porterhouse and Carlow Brewing, or the IPA Emerson's made when they hit double figures.

But I was a bit wary when the selection on Dublin's off licence shelves left me no option but Fuller's Vintage 2007. This is another 10th anniversary beer, and I felt a little guilty at the thought of cracking it open since these bottle conditioned strong ales are known to improve for ages and ages. But no less an authority than The Zythophile said lash into the 2007s now, so I did.

It seemed a bit flat as I poured it, and the big head kinda fizzed up on me unexpectedly. It was plain even as the dark amber liquid came out of the bottle that this is a very viscous beer. Sure enough, one sip has me looking for a knife and fork. There's sugar on the nose in abundance, and hints of apple and cinnamon. The taste is as sweet as would be expected: big sticky malt, with liquorice and plums at the front followed by a spicy hops bitterness (the Super Styrians, I'd imagine) and then a lovely warming lip-smacking carmel smokiness right at the very end. And all sitting on a dirty, greasy thick body which carries a surprising amount of fizz for all that, but in a dry cleansing sparkling way.

No, I won't be shelling out another €10 for a second bottle of this. Not when I can get 75cl of O'Hara's Celebration for less than half that, but £1.39 or equivalent I could definitely countenance, and I'd love to find out how it shapes up after a couple of years' cellaring. I'll be keeping an eye out, next time I'm up north.

Sierra, bravo!

Sierra Nevada Stout is made "in the 'old world' tradition", whatever that means, but like any American take on a British style I was expecting overcarbonation and a consequent dryness from this beer. Boy was I mistaken.

Yes, it did fizz out quite aggressively, forming a thick but short-lived head, and the slight aroma is bitter rather than roasty, but once past the lips this stout does wonders. There's a fabulously full mouthfeel, with just a prickle of gas stopping me from describing it as "silky". It has more than a hint of creaminess, however. Flavourwise, it's to hell with old world and let's get some hops in there: big west-coast buggers hitting the back of the palate with a tangy vegetal bitterness. Just detectable behind them is a rather sweet roasted malty flavour, presumably deriving from the big 5.8% ABV.

This stout is a true American and not really like anything I know from Europe. It's also streets ahead of the brewery's own rather lacklustre Porter. If you like your stouts hoppy, and can't get hold of the marvellous O'Hara's Celebration, here's an excellent second choice.

Banished from these shores

It's that day of the year when central Dublin becomes a no-go area and I'm holed up at home with a couple of beers to keep me company.

This year I have something a bit special: O'Hara's Celebration Stout brewed by the Carlow Brewing Company to commemorate ten years of O'Hara's beers, something similar to what The Porterhouse did with their own superb Celebration stout nearly two years ago.

From its distinctive 75cl swingtop, it pours thick and highly carbonated, rather like bottled Guinness. And it has a similar dryness, but at 6% is much heavier, inching towards Foreign Extra territory. On the nose there's a hoppiness which is very unusual for an Irish stout, as well as the roasted barley character one would expect. Moving past the fizzy texture, there are the chocolate notes I love in normal O'Hara's, though these are understated against the hoppy dryness. At the very end there's a metallic tang of the sort I most associate with certain English ales and I'm wondering if it's a feature of the English Northdown and Fuggles hops with which the stout is laden.

O'Hara's Celebration is a considered sipper, as against a quaffable pint of plain. Since Diageo are the only people making something remotely like this for the Irish market, it's great to see one of our own taking them on.

And that brings me on to a more general point this St Patrick's Day: Carlow Brewing were one of the pioneers of the Irish craft beer movement, and one of its success stories. They are the only real Irish brewer to have made much of an impact on the international scene, exporting bottles to the UK, US and further afield. Indeed, here's the rub: O'Hara's Celebration appears to have been made specifically for this market, with 3,000 bottles from the limited edition destined for the States. I don't know how limited the edition is, of course, but it looks like the company know which side of the Atlantic their bread is buttered on. Several of the independent off licences in Dublin that I spoke to had not been allocated any.

Naturally, I don't blame Carlow. I'm just miffed that it's so hard to convince Irish people to drink decent beer, to the point where our good brewers constantly look for outlets abroad: Black Pearl going in its entirety to Russia and Scandinavia is another scandal. And when they're not shipping it out, they're making the good stuff in limited quantities, like the two aforementioned Celebration stouts, or the Imperial from Messrs Maguire (currently enjoying a glorious return to the pumps, but for how long?)

And so, on our national day, I urge any Irish reading to support our locally-owned breweries. We can't expect the situation to get better if we don't do our bit.