Be cute, rebrew it

A promise of botanicals is where I left my last visit to Open Gate Brewery, and that materialised in late February as a beer called Ancient Gruit. Details of what they've used instead of hops would be nice, but as usual, there's no mechanism for finding that out once they've decided not to put it on the menu card. It's 5.2% ABV and a cloudy yellow-gold, the paleness suggesting the malting techniques are very modern indeed. It doesn't taste like other gruits I've had. They tend to be spicy and herbal, usually with a strong sweet side due to the lack of hops. This is bitter, centred on a raw vegetal effect, like the thick white stem of a red cabbage leaf. A rasping acidity and weedy, dandelion tang give it a medicinal quality: it feels like something you drink for solely health reasons. I quite liked the oddness, but it won't be for everyone. Some darker malt and some brighter flavours might make it more accessible.

There was also another flavoured stout, following on from the pistachio one last winter. Sarsaparilla Stout is heftier, at 6% ABV, though is just as smooth and easy drinking. There's a vaguely herbal tone to the aroma, suggesting some novelty but nothing too loud, and also plenty of properly typical stout roast. There's lots of chocolate in the flavour, followed quickly by a raft of herbal complexity (where was that in the gruit?) including clove and the unmistakable root beer character of sarsaparilla. A different sort of spice -- dry and cedarlike -- finishes things off. Just like the Pistachio Stout, this is first and foremost a fun beer: sweet and a bit gimmicky, but extremely quaffable. Keeping the gravity up and the chocolate malt level high is the key, I reckon. If they have embarked on a whole new series with these stouts then I'm very interested in what they try next (details below).

The new Kristalweizen hadn't gone on sale yet, but had just been tapped up so I got a sneaky advance taster. This is one of those beer styles it's hard to impress anyone with, and indeed this example has modest aims: brewed to provide easy refreshment, albeit not exactly low in strength at 5% ABV -- a 2021 version was 6%, mind. The clear golden appearance shows they got the crystal part of the spec right, though any typical weissbier flavour appears to have been filtered out with the Trüb. Rather than banana and clove, it has toffee and butterscotch, which is rather less appealing. A green bite of celery-like noble hopping saves it somewhat, but it's not a beer for me. Now finished, I'm sure it found its audience among those who have been dragged reluctantly to Open Gate by their beer-enthusiast partners when visiting Dublin.

For the St Patrick's Festival, the brewery turned out an Oyster Stout. This is the second one they've done, having covered this ground back in 2024. As tends to happen with re-brews, the ABV has come down, to 4.9% from 5.5. They serve it carbonated so there's a lot of crispness, the fizz complementing its roast grain foretaste. Beyond that, there's... well, not very much, actually. I was expecting at least some sort of saline tang from the shellfish, but damned if I could find it. Unlike the recent pastrified Open Gate stouts (see above) there's no chocolate side, and nothing you could call coffee. Instead, it's the hard char of bottled Guinness and nothing else. I can manage a pint of bland fizzy stout without complaint, but I think I'm within my rights to expect more when oysters are involved.

It was nice that the next two were both dark beers, although I don't think West Coast IPA is supposed to be this brown. Or murky, or only 5.9% ABV, for that matter, although the strength is an improvement on 2017's version, which was only 5.2%. I know better than to judge a beer by its looks, however, and the fresh and zesty hop aroma told me that they had got this one at least in the west-coast ballpark. The hop-phobic Guinness yeast does take its toll in the flavour somewhat, resulting in marmalade shred rather than sharp grapefruit, set on a toasty, bready background with a pithy finish. There's a bit of an English cask IPA vibe to it, and one that has perhaps not been kept well, as there's some slightly dreggy interference. Only slight, though. It's a bit of easy-going fun; not pristinely perfect, but still enjoyable. It's perhaps noteworthy that, within a month of being tapped, it was quietly re-named "Old School IPA" by the brewery. That yeast really is no friend to the hop.

By the half pint beside it is the latest Open Gate Barley Wine, and down goes the ABV again: 9.4% in 2023 and only 9% now. Only. The cola-brown colour is very close to Guinness-black, and there's not much aroma beyond a broad and undefined dark fruit effect. Plenty happens in the flavour, however, with the fruit front and centre: identifiably plum and damson, as befits a barley wine when it's not made to be hopcentric. Complexity comes via a brush of corky oak and a pinch of roast grain. A hint of buttery diacetyl emerges as it warms, but that's tolerable. Overall, this is a clean and tasty effort, using the alcohol to deliver a smoothness without any unwelcome heat. Refined barley wines of this sort are a rarity, with too many breweries simply using it as a base for something outré, which ironically makes them commonplace and less interesting. I'm all in favour of this one coming back at a later stage, though maybe keep the ABV up where it is.

The latest addition to the line-up arrived last week: Czech Amber Lager. I think this is Open Gate's first time making polotmavý, a style I'm not a huge fan of, having not quite enough of the attributes of dark or pale Czech lager. This was decent, however. It's on the dark side, which brings a degree of dry roast to the foretaste. That dovetails with the greenly bitter noble hops, telling you you're definitely in the Czech zone. Crispness abounds and there's no sweet malt. Such a dry take may not be what the polotmavý cognoscenti are after, but it suited me. Another great lager from Open Gate.

I don't think there's any in the forthcoming summer line-up, alas. Haze, radler, orange Berliner weisse, fruited double IPA and rum-coconut stout will be coming your way in due course, I'm told. Stand by.

May as well

I had a bit over an hour to kill before a later engagement, and where any sane person would sit it out with a pint and a book, I went to the nearest brewery taproom to work through half pints of their latest releases. Not that this is easily done: brewery taprooms are thin on the ground in Dublin, but Guinness's wasn't too far out of my way and it had been several months since my last visit.

As always, a welcome taster is proffered on arrival, and this time it was the Cardamom Red Ale. No standard Irish red, this is a big fellow, 6.6% ABV and a murky amber colour. There's a beautifully exciting and exotic aroma, full of peppercorns and sandalwood. It's light bodied for the strength, with lots of fizz. While there's little foretaste, there's a nice kick of the pepper on the end; almost a szechuan chilli level of piquancy. That's set on a rounded and wholesome malt base. It's a little gimmicky, but not too much, and shows that there's a solid beer at its heart. A bigger measure of this would have been no hardship.

I'm always up for an Open Gate pilsner: it's the style they do best. Next out was Mein Stein, brewed with modern German hop Mandarina Bavaria. It's a perfect limpid gold with an equally perfect thick fine froth on top. Here's another solid base beer: an unmistakable crisp pilsner, though the aroma is dank and weedy, more like an American IPA. That was the first sign that the hop has been loaded in, delivering a strong bitterness and an almost plastic-tasting flavour. Isn't Mandarina meant to be gentle and fruity, in line with modern effete beer preferences? This tastes sternly Prussian and it's a bit of a shock at first. It took a few sips to get used to it, and by the finish I was really enjoying it. Not what I was expecting, but I'll take it.

The 5.2% ABV Mango Chilli Ale came with a lactose warning and arrived hazy and orange, though this too had a decent and lasting head. It smells broadly tropical and is thickly textured, in a New England IPA sort of way. That's not how it tastes, however. Sticky tinned fruit starts us off; sweet but still subtle and unobtrusive. I thought I was in for a dud but then the chilli kicked in: dry and hot and raw, more like the skin than the flesh of a pepper. The combination is weird, and I'm struggling to figure out why they thought of it. I don't think it quite works, although I liked the belly warmth and palate afterburn: not things I'm looking for when I order a beer, however. On to round two.

That starts with an Oyster Stout, one with actual oysters. My benchmark here is the Porterhouse one, a velvety smooth lad with loads of milk chocolate and a mild briny tang. This isn't that. It's rather dull, and very much in the mould of regular Draught Guinness. At a substantial 5.5% ABV, the extra strength should give it more poke but it doesn't: this could pass for 4% or below. There's no oyster character, just the faint roast found in the brewery flagship. Meh, the definition of.

Cask & Keg is intriguing: an IPA aged in barrels which formerly held Roe & Co. whiskey, Diageo's Irish brand, and is a whopping 9.1% ABV. It looks innocent, a hazy amber colour. The aroma is sweet and fruity which does nothing to prepare the drinker for a whiskey cocktail of a flavour. I'm not a cocktail person, but I immediately thought of both the Old Fashioned and the Sidecar on tasting: that mix of oaked spirit, sugar syrup and a twist of orange peel. There's a touch of Sorachi-esque coconut too. All of that is very well mixed together and tastes smooth and integrated with no sharp edges. Dangerously easy drinking, as beer reviewers used to say.

Finally, a beer that looked very similar, the Amarillo Rye Pale Ale. This one's a bit of a lightweight at 4.9% ABV. And sadly I get neither Amarillo nor rye from the taste. Open Gate's poor record on hop-forward ales strikes again, and while this has the smooth texture of a modern hazy pale ale, it delivers only the faintest quantity of Amarillo's signature fruit. I also had to search for any dry grass and pepper from the rye, and I found it there to an extent, but not noticeably so. Like the stout, this is a basic and inoffensive beer, not really showing off the headline ingredients.

Still it's an interesting bunch, and I fully appreciate the way I can walk in off James's Street of a random Thursday evening and have such interesting fare on offer. There is only a handful of places in this town where that's possible.