A new lease on life

Hopfully has begun the next phase of its existence, becoming once more a standalone brewery having taken over the former Metalman Brewery in Waterford. They had been brewing there for a while already so it's probably not going to make much difference to their output, but it's noteworthy nonetheless. Today I have five new releases from them.

First is Pilz, a style they haven't dabbled in before. They say it's a "modern" pils, although single hopping with Hallertau Mittelfrüh seems pretty traditional to me. It's 5% ABV, a pale and somewhat hazy yellow colour, and declared gluten-free (<20ppm). It's rather plain fare, though delivers the pils basics, being dry and grain-crisp. The hopping has given it pleasant lemon overtones and there's plenty of palate-scrubbing carbonation. For a first attempt at cold-fermented beer, it's pretty impressive. It doesn't go anywhere particularly interesting or surprising, but perhaps that's the point.

A pale ale is next, called Kickback, and it's also gluten-free. This one is an appley golden colour and completely clear, smelling deliciously of fresh pine and dankness, thanks to Simcoe, Centennial and Cascade hops. The flavour goes the same way, with a weighty resinousness meeting zesty lime plus assorted herbs and flowers. There's a lot going on for something at only 4.3% ABV, and the resins give it a pleasingly long finish. It's an interesting mix of the fun and serious sides of hopping and I really enjoyed it, at least in part because my expectations were low, but that's on me. This is a tasty and complex pale ale and not at all a compromised diet-beer. Big American hops, loud and proud, in a neat little low-strength package.

These were quickly followed by a New England style IPA that Hopfully created as a special for top Dublin offy Craft Central. It Ain't Easy is 6.5% ABV and utilises a power combination of Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe and Mosaic, and very successfully, I might add. Nelson's almost chemical oily mineral bitterness is there in the aroma and foretaste, balanced in the flavour with all the soft tropicals of Mosaic at its best. Then there's a similar Simcoe dankness to the one found in Kickback, but much more subtle and less severe. There's just enough softness and vanilla notes to pass as a New England IPA, but only just. This uses its hops in a much more traditional way, to bring the punchy grassy citric bitterness. There's nothing juicy about the finishing Nelson burn.

To restore balance to the universe, a west coast IPA. Mindblown is west-coast in the modern sense, in that it's quite hazy. The aroma has that intense dankness that shades into cheese, though there's a fresher and spritzer lemon side as well. Simcoe, Citra and Centennial are the responsible parties. I'd nearly suspect some Mosaic too, as there's an immediate seed-like dryness in the foretaste which I often get from Mosaic. And while this is predominantly dry, there's an east coast softness as well. The ingredients list tells me oats were involved and that's something I would regard as a signature of New England IPA, yet here it is, doing its thing. I would go so far as to say that what we have here is a crypto-NEIPA, sharply bittered but unconvincingly disguised. Anyone looking for that bracing clean sharpness of west coast IPA will be disappointed, but they're probably used to that by now.

Finally for the moment, another Craft Central special, a sour beer with blackberry, blueberry and raspberry named, modestly, Portrait of Perfection. The very deep purple colour and tight pink froth put me in mind of those cloying concoctions from Omnipollo but the similarity ended there. This is nicely light bodied allowing it to be refreshing as sour beer should be. Oddly it's blackberry, not raspberry, which is dominant in the flavour. Both the raspberry and blueberry are present, and add a complexity. This recipe has been thought through, and the flavours are balanced and complementary. And although it's not sour sour, there's a pleasing pinch of tartness that stops the berries from seeming syrupy. Beers of this nature are commonplace and rarely exciting; this one does things better than most.

Despite the name, Hopfully has never really been a hops-first operation. The pale ale and IPAs here, however, shows that they absolutely could be if they wanted.

It's windmiller time

"What brings you to Bodegraven?" I was asked three times last Sunday on my short visit to the sleepy village between Utrecht and Leiden. My response, "Why, the brewery, of course", drew unanimously surprised looks, particularly odd since two of the questioners were staffing said establishment, and the other was drinking at the next table.

The De Molen brewery and restaurant, as the name suggests, is in a windmill, much like my beloved 't IJ brewery in Amsterdam. The large back room was occupied by a private party so I took up residence in the sunny front parlour to begin working my way through the beer menu on the adjacent blackboard. Menno, host and brewer, was on hand to offer notes on the background of each. I may even remember some of what he told me.

Pilz first. Menno said he had to make a pils because the market demands it. I was very glad to see that Ireland isn't the only country whose microbreweries have to face this hurdle. It's pretty inoffensive: dry, grainy and generally unchallenging. The red-amber Bock lager is a very different proposition. This one is highly malty, yet bitter, with none of the sugariness often found in dark lagers.

The strangest thing about De Molen Dubbel is its apparent opaque muddy brown colour. Only when held up to the light is the deep red hue apparent. It's heftily bitter and the only hints of fruit -- raisins to be precise -- arrive after a few minutes of warming. Much more fruit is present in the powerful and bitter hazy orange Tripel. 9.2% ABV and deceptively smooth drinking.

Oddity de jour was Ongemoutgraan, a 4.5% ABV pale yellow beer made mostly from unmalted barley. It's a laborious process, says Menno. What it produces is a grainy, worty, porridgey flavour balanced against a zingy hoppy bitterness, and much more flavour and body than the strength suggests. An ideal summer refresher, but pretty good on a December afternoon too. Engels is another masterpiece of originality: its English heritage is apparent from the sweet and hoppy aroma. While there are a couple of English ales with the whole chocolate-and-oranges thing going on (Young's Bitter springs to mind), none have it expressed as strongly, and deliciously, as this one. And, frankly, there aren't enough beers named after the founders of communism.

I was fortunate that Menno chose the time of my visit to show off one of his latest creations to a regular. Cue expectant look from the Beer Nut in the corner. The dry-hopped Amarillos Winter Warmer was just a week in the bottle. It's another 9.2% monster, this time in an IPA sort of style, though made with La Chouffe yeast. The flavour is brimming with peaches and madarins, balanced against that IPA bitterness. Add in the flat and sticky feel of a very young and very strong beer, and you have the ideal dessert accompaniment.

De Molen beers aren't confined to their place of birth, however. Most are bottled, and a shop on site sells them alongside a variety of other artisan products. I took two bottles away with me. My only previous experience of Stoombier was the one produced by Pelgrim in Rotterdam, by which I wasn't terribly impressed. De Molen Stoombier is much much better: brimming with citrusy flavours resulting from its dry hopping. It pours to a lovely foamy head and makes for very easy drinking, despite a fairly weighty 5.7% ABV.

Proudly displayed in the De Molen shop is the brewer's certificate from the 2005 Great British Beer Festival, where Borefts Stout won Favourite Belgian/Dutch beer. Borefts is a very dry and gassy beer, and begins with a carbonic sharpness, reminding me in particular of Guinness Foreign Extra, but in a good way. It's very filling and warming, possessed of a mild chocolatey bitterness. Not the world's greatest stout, but I can see how it would be a "favourite".

In the microbrewery windmill leagues, I think my heart still belongs to 't IJ, just for its sheer oddness. However, the warmth of the welcome and the quality of the beer make De Molen well worth the trip to Bodegraven. The regulars and staff ought not be at all surprised by this.