Night night, Ping-Ping

A brand new beer from Trouble Brewing arrived just before Christmas. As far as I can see we didn't get a new iteration of their Dash Away cherry chocolate stout this year, so instead it's a straight-up milk stout called Nocturne. It looks well: black with ruby edging and topped by a creamy off-white head, just like stout is supposed to be. There's a surprising, and pleasing, vegetal bitterness in the aroma, hinting that this will be more in the traditional dry style than anything candyfied or otherwise deriving from the lesser stout cultures of America and Britain.

Sure enough, there's a bitterness at the centre of the flavour, although it is as much the luxurious bite of high-cocoa dark chocolate as the metallic rasp of old-world hops. Either way, it works beautifully. There's only the faintest lactic tang in the aftertaste to remind you this is anything other than a classically constructed Irish stout. If the very idea of milk in stout puts you off, here's an example that might just change your mind.

As a top-ranking husband, I bought the Panda Saga box set from BRÚ Brewery for my Panda Nero loving wife. As a top-ranking wife, she let me have a small taste of the one I hadn't had before: Super Panda. This one follows the basic chocolate and coffee pattern of all the other variants but ramps everything up to 15.2% ABV, so a small glass should be plenty.

It seemed a little thin and translucent as it poured, suggesting high attenuation rather than high gravity. And indeed it's thin on the palate, which is not the way Very Big Stout is normally done. The add-ons are very concentrated, to the point of seeming harsh, and there's very little sense of an underlying beer. This is more of a liqueur than anything else, and I couldn't imagine drinking a whole can. Big pastry stout should be richer and more filling, not simply stronger.

I really hope the current panoply of dark Irish beers doesn't get reduced just because the evenings start to brighten. It's always winter somewhere.

A view on the new BRÚ

It's just over a year since Carrig subsumed BRÚ Brewery and began revamping the brand. This included a revision of the core range and they kindly sent me a set of each to try out, something I had been shamefully remiss about.

BRÚ Lager, then is very much pitched at the mainstream, and was something I had only ever seen people drink in the BRÚ pub chain. It's 4.2% ABV, gluten free, and a perfect bright yellow, if a little lacking in head retention. The flavour is medium-sweet, in broadly the Helles fashion with only a very faint dusting of noble hops in the finish. The middle is malt-driven, with a mix of grain husk and light golden syrup. I made sure to drink it outside in the sun to give a sporting chance, and it worked perfectly. After running two small cans through the pint glass in quick succession I was refreshed and nicely buzzed for what comes next.

Rua was quite the sensation on its release, which is not at all usual for a core-range Irish red. I was certainly a fan. Its successor, BRÚ Red Ale, has some big hoppy shoes to fill. The words "aromatic" and "pine" on the label indicate that the brewery does know how it's supposed to taste. It's a pleasing clear copper in the glass, and the head is much more stable than on the lager. There's a fun mix of toffee and spices in the aroma, though the flavour is all-malt to begin with: burnt caramel and dark treacle. A tannic dryness comes next, and then finally the hops, adding a floral rosewater complexity to the finish. There's a certain bitterness too, but "pine" is overstating the case. This is decent, and very much the sort of thing Irish red ale brewers should be aiming for. I miss the near-American-amber vibes of the old Rua, however.

Last of the set is BRÚ IPA, bearing the royal blue livery of Rí of old. I never really got on with Rí. There was a rubbery burnt note that didn't agree with me. Let's see how the new crew have tackled that. We get a slight reduction in ABV, to 5% from 5.2. It's a slightly hazy pale yellow in the glass and smells of hard grapefruit juice. So far, so west coast. The flavour is gloriously clean with not a bum note to be found of any kind. The citrus pinch comes right through in the foretaste, grapefruit mixing with fresh lemon and bergamot. The malt side adds texture but brings no sweetness, leaving the stage free for the hops -- Strata, Centennial and Cascade -- to perform. I loved the old-fashioned charm here. It's a reminder of when IPAs were clearer, cleaner, bitterer and, y'know, better. Anyone chasing the current west coast revival would do well to get a few of these in.

Marking the first anniversary of new BRÚ they released a tripel in their Urban Jungle range. Memory Lane is 8.8% ABV and quite dark for the style, amber rather than golden. It smells like a weissbier, big on banana with very little spice. So it goes in the flavour. Brown banana or banana candy, and then a hard waxy bitterness. The alcohol is hot and harsh and promises headaches to come. Of such things is good tripel not made. This doesn't really work. There are about three or four styles I could class this as an example of before I'd pick tripel. Clean it up, dry it out, and then we'd be in proper tripel territory. 

Finally, Double Panda is an amped-up version of Panda Nero tiramisu stout, still managing to be vegan friendly due to the use of the mysterious "tiramisu extract" and no lactose. It's pretty similar to the original: thick, sweet and big on coffee. There's slightly harder, harsher side, and a dollop of extra jammy fruit esters, but I think it wears it well. In fact, I'd venture that this 10% ABV beast is the beer that Panda Nero should have been all along. The balance of serious and silly is well done here, and there's a background bitterness which is all imperial stout and completely novelty-free. That's the way to do it.

In summary, the new core range are rock-solid and deserve to do well. They will be a welcome sight on draught when the pubs re-open and are ideally suited to that setting. Thanks to the brewery for sending them my way.

Would you like to hear the specials?

Today's blog post from the 2019 Alltech festival is dedicated to the handful of Irish breweries who went all out to present some weird and wacky creations for the event, most of them one-offs, never to be seen again. It's always a gamble, but you can't win unless you drink them.

We go first to Hope, and amongst their regulars and seasonals on day one was Wobbly Ladder, a 6.5% ABV red IPA. This is a tough style with which to impress me, but there was a good blend of the signature qualities here: lots of oily and resinous hops on the nose, a roasted grain bite to open the flavour and then an explosion of summery fruit -- all the jam and jelly -- set on a smooth and easy drinking texture. Red IPAs can be quite serious and worthy. This one is fun.

Shortly after it came on, it was accompanied by an imperial stout rejoicing in the name Weird Flex, But OK. A big sigh on discovering it's a stroopwafel imperial stout. A cheer on tasting no trace of pastry anywhere in it. Instead this 10% ABV job is remarkably bitter, with the sharp/sweet aroma of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and a flavour big on roast and huge on old-world hop bitterness. The branding and description may be down with the kids but the taste is very grown up, and all the better for it.

It was two days before Hope's next double act arrived. With a nod to all the hours we spent playing Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge back in the '90s they're called Feather Touch and Power Drive. The former is a "micro NEIPA", 3.6% ABV and employing Simcoe, El Dorado and Mosaic. It's a murky yellow colour and smells of concentrated orange juice. There's a powerfully strong garlic flavour, one which lasts for ages despite the beer itself being quite thin. This is impressively full-on for the strength; fun if not exactly thought-provokingly complex.

The big one, then, is 8.5% ABV and sticks to just El Dorado, replacing the other hop varieties with peach and apricot. Again the aroma is sweet, though this time definitely more concentrated, like raspberry ripple ice cream. There's a lot of heat in the flavour, and bags more garlic. I could just about taste the fruit puree behind that but it's all a bit severe and unnecessary, however. A calming game of 8-bit golf it is not.

Carrig is rarely behind the door when it comes to rotating specials and had a bunch on its bar, as well as the first of its beers in cans. I had some catching up to do so began on Panda Nero, a coffee stout they released late last year but which I had yet to try. It's a very sweet take on the style, and more thickly textured than one might expect at just 5% ABV. That gives it a kind of latte effect. I found it tough going, but if sweet coffee is your thing, this is the beer for you.

Along the taps to Idaho (My Own Private), a pale ale made to showcase Idaho-7 hops, combined here with Chinook. It's a pale orange colour and quite dry. The titular hops bring a tasty and tangy bite of jaffa orange peel and a sizeable buzz of concentrated oils. There's not much complexity beyond that, but I like its clean and straightforward presentation.

A double IPA to complete this set: Heisenberg. 8% ABV this time but with a similar combination of resinous flavours. They turn a bit sharp towards the end, bringing in a lime shred and fried onion which is entirely in keeping with the west coast feel. This is a solid and reliable sort of US-style DIPA, as far from New England in style as Carrick-on-Shannon is in distance.

Just a pair of specials from Wicklow Brewery, and no stouts that I saw, alas. Their Ginger Beer was only 3.4% ABV and I'm guessing it's a ginger beer in the true sense, not merely beer flavoured with ginger. It's an innocent pale yellow colour and has a gorgeous soft-drink aroma: ginger ale and brown sugar, plus a suggestion of eye-watering spices to come. The body is full, but in quite a syrupy way. Pear was advertised as part of the recipe, and I'm guessing it was in concentrate form. There's a certain pear-skin bitterness but the ginger is lacking. I think this just missed out on being refreshing and ended up as a sticky alcopop. Needs more ginger.

The other one was a brut IPA called, as I'm sure several are, Brut Force. This is a clear pale yellow colour and sure it's dry, per the style spec, but not madly. Not interestingly, for good or bad. There's also not much by way of hop character, leaving it with a very plain lager vibe. It's inoffensive but really doesn't live up to what the style is meant to do. Brut IPA: just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Another daring pair of specials was presented by Dundalk Bay Brewery, an outfit I've come to associate with very plain and mass-market-friendly styles. My finishing beer as the lights went up on the Saturday night was Romanov, a straight-up, no messing, pastry-free imperial stout of 8% ABV. The aroma has a lovely kick of green bitterness with a slightly sour edge while the flavour jolts with espresso and bites with liquorice. There's a warmth too which belies the relatively low strength. The whole thing is beautifully complex and I'd love to see it as a regular beer in small bottles. Romanov is worthy of a place beside Guinness Foreign Extra and Porterhouse Celebration as an example of How Stout Is Brewed Here.

The next tap badge turned some heads, and I had to walk around it a few times before I ordered the beer. It's a misprint, obviously. It must be a misprint. It's not a misprint. Belgian Trappist American Pale Ale is the name. I'm guessing they got a batch of "Belgian Trappist" yeast and didn't really think through the implications of putting those words on the badge. Expect it to be re-named if it goes any further. And I hope it does go further because it's lovely. Only 4.6% ABV and a polished copper colour, it shows off the fruit and spice that Belgian yeast brings in a wonderfully bright way, sparking with cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper, with a smooth layer of banana and an orange-peel zest. The American side of the house is underrepresented, but no matter. The finishing dry tannins bring English bitter to mind instead and ensure that it remains drinkable, despite the multifaceted flavour.

That just leaves Lough Gill, which picked up a best in show medal among the Irish beers for the barrel-aged edition of its Dark Sunset imperial oatmeal stout. I can't say I got much of a whiskey impression from it, but there was a lovely espresso bitterness and a pleasing belly-warmth from the 11% ABV. For a whopper of a stout this is the very picture of balance and subtlety.

There was rather less subtlety, in both flavour and branding, when it came to Lough Gill's Chuckee Larmz imperial marshmallow milk stout. This is 9.1% ABV and dark brown in colour. There's a strong caramel sweetness right from the get-go but it's somehow not sticky. All the way through it shows the chocolate and roasted notes of a proper imperial stout, with a strawberry fruit complexity arriving in the middle. The finish is remarkably clean. A great job overall, and it's very easy to ignore the gimmickry if you want to.

The headline IPA at Lough Gill was (were) No-Boil, which came in two versions, one with Idaho-7 and Cashmere hops, the other with Idaho-7, Amarillo and Azacca. As the name makes clear, the wort wasn't boiled during brewing, and all the hops went in at the whirlpool stage. A New England yeast strain was used for fermentation, finishing up at 5.6% ABV. They went on tap in rotation so I didn't get to try them side by side, but I did think they were very similar to each other. The aroma is a fabulous rainbow of pineapple, mango and other tropical fruits. The flavour is as intense as might be expected, more so even, coming across with all the hop punch of a double IPA. There's an edge of garlic running in tandem with the luscious fruit, but in a complementary way without spoiling it. For breweries looking to get the most out of their flavour and aroma hops, this is a worthwhile experiment to repeat.

After all these fireworks, I found Lough Gill's Cutback session IPA quite dull. It's a middle-of-the-road 4.5% ABV, hazy orange in colour with quite a New England vibe: a creamy texture and lots of vanilla sweetness. There's little by way of hops, unfortunately. It's accessible I guess, but a little boring.

A cleansing sour beer to finish this round: Rollercoaster. It's a 4.6% ABV Berliner weisse with added guava, mango and passionfruit. As one would expect, the passionfruit absolutely dominates the picture. The light and clean base beer behind it allows an overall impression of sorbet, a tart edge contrasting with the fleshy tropical fruit. It's delicious and extremely drinkable; one to give YellowBelly's iconic Castaway a bit of competition.

I concentrated on the Irish beers in my time at the festival, and when I felt I'd given them a fair shake, there was just time to try a few of the imports, coming up next.