Double dare

Five breweries and three beers in today's post: yes, it's collaboration time! Breweries doing things that they wouldn't normally dream of themselves, but when another boy dares them to, away they go.

Our first test subject was created at the Firestone Walker brewery in California with the assistance of London's Beavertown. The skeltonised heraldic animals on the can are almost too on-the-nose. The name is West Side Beavo, 6.5% ABV and based on Firestone's iconic Pivo pils but combining classic US hops with UK newcomer Jester. It's a crystalline pale gold with surprisingly little aroma. The flavour doesn't hold back though: a huge and spicy pine resin bitterness overlaid with luscious mango and guava. There's a mineral edge too, a touch of hard sulphur that brings a degree of seriousness to the otherwise quite jolly fruit-filled lager. Lots going on here, and all of it good. Well done to everyone concerned.

And obviously with Firestone Walker being very much yesterday's brewery in fashion terms, Beavertown were quick to keep in with the cool set, creating an IPA with the far-too-cool-for-the-likes-of-you New England brewer Trillium. I bought a tin of it in the supermarket.

Beaverillium is the name, giving the old portmanteau thing another try. It's a soupy looking beast, New England IPA meets London murky under a shroud of finest beige. The aroma is fantastic, though: bags of fresh dank, like walking into the hop fridge at a brewery, one of the good ones. Sadly, the fun ends abruptly there. I got a massive whack of sickly green onion right from the get-go, rendered extra severe by a thick and gritty texture which leaves the beer feeling unfinished. It sweetens after a moment in the mouth, the too-real onion turning to the cartoon pickled onions of Monster Munch or Meanies. That's kind of amusing, but it doesn't let the beer off the hook. The finish is a split decision between fried garlic and bitter lime, adding yet more noise and colour to a beer that was already quite loud enough. It's a riot of a thing: mad, brash, and piling on everything that's currently hot in the fast-moving world of ultra-hip beer. It left me wanting to try it again after it spent some time calming down in the bright tank, however.

Finally, it's Fool's Gold, a sour stout co-created by The White Hag and BRLO in Berlin. And yes, that is the dirtiest-looking glass I've ever been served a beer in. For shame, P. Mac's. This ugly dark brown headless yoke is 5% ABV and offers parallel strands of sweet creamy coffee with a neutral sour culture. The two sides don't even acknowledge, let alone complement, each other all the way through. For the most part you get a smooth easy drinking session stout and the cleansing refreshing features of a Berliner weisse, and then they part ways even further at the finish, with the stout turning dry and roasty while there's a tangy lactic finish on the sour side. It really does give the sensation of drinking two, admittedly rather good, beers at once. I think it might help if all the flavours were more pronounced, however. Subtlety is not beneficial in a quirky beer like this. Ramp it up and damn the consequences: that's the collaborative way.

Collaborations may not always result in the best quality beer, but they rarely make for boring drinking.

UK hun?

British craft beer is unavoidable these days. Most of the handful of talked-about producers have a presence here, though I can't help noticing prices have stayed buoyant as sterling tanks. Anyway, here's a few that I've tried recently.

London is the hub of the British new wave and Bermondsey's FourPure is one of the most solidly reliable of the capital's brewers. Its Southern Latitude, which showed up on the taps at 57 The Headline, is in the daring style of New England session IPA. It's 4.4% ABV and a not terribly sessionable €6 for a 400ml glass. It doesn't look very New Englandy either: quite dark and almost completely clear. The flavours are clear too: juicy peach and then a double dryness from high carbonation and a slightly aspirin tang. It's refreshing, though, which does meet the session IPA requirement of the spec. Not FourPure's best work, however.

Derbyshire's Buxton is a rare sighting in this part of the country and we owe the presence of Myrcia IPA to The Headline's management relentlessly pursuing it. This is another session IPA, 4% and claiming to be hop bursted. What's not to like? The aroma starts it off well, bright and lemony, but the flavour is very muted and consists predominantly of yeast. It ends up tasting as mucky and dreggy as it looks. Searching desperately for a lighter point I found a slight lemon buzz but no freshness and no real hop character. I guess the lesson is that you need a clean beer to get the benefit of loading all the hops into the end phase of brewing. As is, this was a huge disappointment.

Scotland is inevitably represented here by BrewDog. Their latest "India Pale Weizen" Nine To Five Wizard warranted a special daytime launch event in UnderDog. That was all quite jolly, and proof that BrewDog can still draw a crowd in this town. The beer itself wasn't all that impressive, offering little more than you'd get from a standard weissbier -- banana, cloves -- just given a little extra poke at 7.5% ABV. The lovely smooth texture is perhaps its best feature, coming with a very mild burn, hops or alcohol, at the end. I'm chalking it up as a definite positive that the extra hopping has not been allowed to interfere with the classic flavours as so often happens in poorly conceived hybrid styles like these.

Seemingly the only Welsh brewery that counts in craft circles these days (where did Otley disappear to?) is Newport's Tiny Rebel. Two of theirs came my way lately. One was a can I drank in Brewery Corner in Kilkenny: Clwb Tropicana. This is a fruited IPA, or "tropical" IPA, as the branding insists. It's pale yellow and smells of Lilt. The texture is sticky; the flavour is sickly, and there's no real beer character going on. I have now witnessed a pub customer working along the fruit IPA selections on a particular bar, so it seems beers like this are answering a market demand. This specific one, however, demonstrates clearly to me what's wrong with the whole segment.

Meanwhile, on draught, over at The Headline was Cali American Pale Ale. It's quite a severe beer: a chalky asparagus bitterness being the main feature, and all at the front. I waited for the middle to happen but it didn't really. It feels like there should be a sudden inrush of tangerine or something, but nope. I couldn't stay cross with it for long, however. That one punchy mineral feature is something I enjoyed coming back to sip after sip. This is a no-nonsense beer, take it or leave it, and I'd happily have another.

Dessert, then, and the dark side begins at Wild Beer's Millionaire stout. "Salted caramel" is your Brucie bonus in this one. And yes, it's a little bit sticky, though not overly so. Really it's just a typical, ungimmicky, sweet-ish stout, tarry of texture but with light easy-going flavours of vanilla and honey, as well as a proper hop bitterness. I was genuinely convinced it was a strong one so was very pleasantly surprised to discover it's only 4.7% ABV. I could have handled a pint of this no problem, though maybe just the one.

My nightcap is Eldon, an oak-aged imperial stout from Thornbridge. A modest one, though, at just 8% ABV. It smells enticingly of rich and thick churro sauce and lays on the cocoa heavily in the flavour too. The oak (chips, I assume) has been used previously for Bourbon but I wouldn't have guessed it: no sickly vanilla or heavy booze, a honeycomb sweetness being the only possible nod to the liquor. There is, however, a dry sawdust taste that doesn't add anything positive. With every sip I get the impression of a very well-made strong stout which would be a better beer with less done to it. It's still pretty good, though, getting rounder and smoother as it warms. Definitely a good one to finish on.

I'll have been in and out of London on a flying visit by the time this gets posted, so expect a report on further British craft experiences in the near future.

Firestone Walk With Me

I'm slightly surprised there wasn't more of a fuss made about the arrival of Firestone Walker beer in Ireland a couple of months ago. By all accounts it was quite a coup by Grand Cru beers to get them over this way. But the first ones just quietly started showing up in specialist beer bars and off licences without anyone making too much noise, in my earshot anyway. I probably shouldn't complain. And with the company now part of a large multinational I expect they may start becoming more commonplace in Europe.

Anyway, three from the mid-Californian brewery today, though only two purchased on the white market, and only the one off the shelf of an Irish offy.

This can of Pivo, the brewery's pils, was acquired for me by Chris The Beer Geek, who took pains to ensure I got a fresh one, so the beer was a smidge over three weeks in the tin before I tipped it into a glass. The first surprise was the colour: a very nondescript pale yellow. At 5.3% ABV I thought it would at least look like a quality lager. Any fears over lack of substance are banished by the texture: the malt gives it a beautiful rounded and filling feel, plus that classic Dortmunder breadiness, shading towards the sweeter end of the spectrum with a hint of candyfloss. The promised hops are present but aren't at all overdone. There's the classic waxy, almost plasticky, noble hop bitterness then a mouthwatering cut-grass and pine effect, finishing quickly and cleanly, the way good lager should. I was expecting American hop perfume but that's not what it does at all: this is pure old-world elegance, reminding me a lot of the better, fresher, hoppier pale lagers I've caned in Bavaria. I'd happily see the whole "India Pale Lager" genre replaced with this sort of thing.

The Easy Jack IPA I obtained in DrinkStore so it wasn't quite so fresh, but still less than three months out of the brewery. It's another pale one: a crystalline golden hue. The aroma is rather candystore, all lurid chewsweet and sherbet fruit, plus the promise of plentiful sugar, which is surprising as it's only 4.7% ABV. The first pull reveals it to be pure Lilt, with a huge hit of juicy mango and pineapple. The sugar arrives after it and it's similar to the candyfloss in Pivo, much more than just a malt base. You need to wait around for any kind of bitterness but when it eventually arrives, right on the finish, even it is bringing fruit in tow: limes in particular, and maybe a slight spritz of grapefruit zest. At first I was really impressed by all that juiciness, but the sugary aspect makes each mouthful a little harder than the last. It's unusual to be saying a Californian IPA is unbalanced away from the bitterness side, but I think this is.

Finally, Wookey Jack, an 8.3% ABV rye black IPA I found on tap in BrewDog's Newcastle outlet recently. It's a dense beast, pure opaque black in colour and smelling worryingly of marker pens. The first thing to hit me on tasting was the texture: it's as viscous as it looks, thick and tarry with a slick, palate-coating bitterness but not much by way of hop flavour. Instead it's all roast, the only real hop presence being a certain dankness in the aroma. A disappointing experience, all told. Not what I'm after in a black IPA and completely lacking that dry grassy bite that hops and rye do so well together.

Double Jack has also been sighted on keg around Dublin. I wasn't a fan of this super-sticky double IPA when I first met it a couple of years ago, and recent revisits confirmed it's just not for me. I think perhaps they have too loose a hand at Firestone Walker when it comes to tipping the maltsack.