The London invasion

I've long since lost track of what's happening on London's beer scene. It was so much easier in 2007. The occasional headline occurrence passes my way in the general discourse, but I know that there's plenty chugging away in the background that I'm not aware of. And nor should I be, really: I live far away from London. In recent weeks, two unfamiliar London brewers have come to me, via new export arrangements and launch events.

Five Points I had at least heard of, and even tried their flagship Railway Porter some years back. A selection of their core range is now being imported to Ireland via FourCorners, and a launch event was held at UnderDog so punters like me could try them out.

I began with Five Points Pils. They've adopted the old Camden Town system for this, brewing some in-house and contracting out the rest to a brewer in Belgium. Though unlike Camden Town in its indie days, they don't deign to tell us which Belgian it is. (edit: Matt reports in the comments that all Pils production is now in-house.) The beer is 4.8% ABV and a bright gold colour with a handsome dollop of shaving foam on top. I got a fun combination of lemon sherbet and grassy Saaz hops to begin, backed by a classic Czech-style golden syrup malt flavour. It was all going well until the finish which was just a bit too harshly bitter for my liking, turning waxy and vegetal. It's certainly bold and interesting; my taste runs to something smoother, however, even in pilsner.

The evening's special beer, not part of the range being imported on a regular basis, was De-Railed, a barrel-aged version of Railway Porter. I don't think the barrels have improved it any. The result is very woody, all dry and stale-tasting. The sour funky aroma doesn't help ameliorate the sense of a beer gone a bit rancid. Some of the coffee survives from the base beer, and there's a certain pleasing vinousness, but it's all too severe for me. A taster was plenty, thanks.

The ale sequence begins with Five Points Pale Ale, 4.4% ABV and a murky orange colour. I got a whole candystore full of sherbet from the first sip, zipping and popping with oranges and lemons, set against a heavier marmalade background. A bitter jolt of lime is the finishing flourish. This is a tremendously fun beer, absolutely packed with 360° hop flavour and a triumph for that modest strength. The light texture also adds to its drinkability.

XPA was an altogether calmer affair, served on cask for the evening. Despite the name, this is lower-strength than the pale ale, at 4% ABV. It offers a very simple and dignified blend of sharply citric fresh grapefruit segments and wholesome all-grain toast malt. Again it's one that drinks very easily, but offers plenty to keep the palate occupied while it does so. I think I preferred the sparks found in the kegged pale ale, however.

Completing this subset is Five Points IPA, a big-hitter, US style, at 7% ABV. It's a beautiful medium-gold colour and quite dry, surprisingly so, in fact. I guess they're pitching for that Sculpin-like, almost astringent, west coast thing. A little bit of light dankness in the finish helps add a touch more substance to it, but I felt there should be more going on. It's fine, and totally without flaws, but just isn't as interesting as the preceding two pale 'n' hoppy fellas.

I'll admit to not expecting much from Hook Island Red. The 6% ABV was sending me warning signals about cloying toffee and caramel flavours. Thankfully I was completely wrong in my prejudices. While it does have a significant toffee component, it's balanced by and blended with big fresh and resinous hops. The inclusion of rye adds a spicy complexity before a smooth fruity finish packed with ripe strawberries. It can be difficult to impress with a malt-heavy red ale, but this one gets excellent use out of all its ingredients.

And lastly, from the bottle, comes Brick Field Brown Ale, a very welcome addition in these brown-ale-starved parts. I like the masses of chocolate in this but did not appreciate the carbonation. It was far too fizzy and that created a dryness which tragically almost cancels out the sweeter features. Here's one that would definitely benefit from cask dispense. As-is, I don't really feel I got to taste it properly.

A huge thanks to Francesca from Five Points and everyone who put the night together.

A short while later, it was the turn of Gipsy Hill Brewery, newly brought to Dublin under the auspices of the Carlow Brewing Company. They occupied a few of the taps at L. Mulligan Grocer to introduce themselves.

We began with Beatnik, a pale ale at just 3.8% ABV. It doesn't seem like a lightweight, however, beginning with the alluring grapefruit-and-weed aroma. The flavour goes big on hops too, reminding me a little of that other low-octane, high-impact beaut Fyne Ales's Jarl. On draught I found it a bit thin, the hops turning harsh and acidic without enough body to support them. That was less of an issue with a slightly warmer can later on: here there was an almost sticky layer of malt candy and plenty of substance. In both, the finish is quick, setting up the next mouthful. Overall a very decent hoppy banger and well suited to sessioning.

The middle child is Southpaw, an amber ale. There was something slightly off-putting about the aroma here, a certain plasticky quality. That translates to a harsh unsubtle bitterness in the foretaste, one which only gets a little balance from the toffee malt. The underlying issue may be that it's a mere 4.2% ABV, which doesn't provide enough gravity to carry the substantial hop charge. It feels a little watery in the middle, and then the finish is a rough acidic burn. This seems to be an amber ale afraid of its true nature and unwilling to turn up the crystal malt. It would be a better beer if it did.

Last of the core beers on offer was Hepcat session IPA, strongest so far at a whopping 4.6% ABV. No qualms about the body here: it's lovely and big and fluffy, bringing some seriously herbal grassy dankness and savoury caraway seed with it. Just before it goes completely serious there's a delightful burst of fresh mango and pineapple, lightening everything up, before it's back to the grass for the bitter finish. While it has some features in common with Beatnik there's more going on, as I guess befits the higher strength. It's still easy drinking and wonderfully refreshing, fulfilling the session role perfectly.

Two tall-can specials were also on the go, beginning with Simcoe, another low-strength pale ale, this time only 3.6% ABV. It has amazing body for all that, plenty to carry all of the hop. And there's a lot of hop, beginning with a gorgeous stonefruit aroma, all peaches and apricot. My first impression on tasting was of a smooth and dry beer, with a strong mineral component. The hops emerge here first as fruity chew sweets, then gradually turning bitterer, providing a lovely kick for a finish. Simcoe is not usually my favourite hop, but whatever they've done here to tame it really calms down its harsher tendencies.

Doyen is a collaboration with Fuller's. This IPA is another dry one, with a kind of celery cooked-veg flavour at first. The middle brings a bigger hit of marmalade, something I very much associate with Fuller's, particularly in beers like Bengal Lancer and Oliver's Island. It doesn't have a whole lot to say beyond that, which would normally be fine except that it's 6.5% ABV, a point where I think it's fair to expect greater complexity, or at least a bigger flavour. It's quite an anodyne beer, overall, and not as special as I'd hoped for.

The following day I trekked over to Urban Brewing where Gipsy Hill's JT was doing a collaboration brew. On bar was Haymaker, a pilsner. They've used German hops in this, but the more modern fruit-forward ones, and the result is enormously fruity. Juicy peach and summer strawberries are the main act, while there's almost zero bitterness. I felt aggrieved that it didn't taste like a proper pils for almost a minute, before I settled into it and began to really enjoy the pint in front of me. The beautiful soft texture makes it extremely quaffable and I can imagine it as a perfect outdoorsy summer beer.

Thanks this time to the O'Hara's, Gipsy Hill and Mulligan's folks. Plenty of really solid ungimmicky drinking here. I'd love if Dublin's brewers were able to return the favour in London.

Sassanachs!

I have no idea what's in these glasses

Even though it has an on-site brewery and is a staunch supporter of local beer, the Hanging Bat beer café in Edinburgh can generally be relied on for a selection of English beers, especially from the more interesting and progressive breweries south of the border. And the readily available third-pint measures means ticking one's way through them is disturbingly easy. So...

A burgundy-aged version of The Kernel's Table Beer? Gimme. Bière de Table is a stonking 4.5% ABV and a very pale shade of yellow. There's little sign of wine or wood in the flavour, this highly attenuated beer being light, cold, clean and very refreshing. There's a very mild sourness but it barely impacted on the rich succulent Hanging Bat pulled pork. There was similar refreshment power in Rooster's Fort Smith: a lovely light lemony zip from the 5% ABV golden ale.

On the dark beer front, I found Henley Dark porter a bit sickly. The summer fruit aroma is enticing but the big milk chocolate gets quite cloying, even when only drinking a third of it. Railway Porter by London's Five Points is an unctuous coffee-laden affair with lots of oiliness and a strong liquorice bitterness. If you're in the mood for a coffee flavoured beer, this will keep you happy but it's not going to be for everyone. Best of the lot was the Dunkel Bock by Harbour Brewing, a long way from home in Cornwall. It's the appropriate shade of red-brown and with an unfussy mix of chocolate, coffee and bourbon biscuit, but then there's also a beautiful fresh green-hop nose which puts it ahead of any German version of the style I've ever tasted. Beautifully drinkable and one I'd be happy to have a larger measure of.

Evolver, probably

And IPAs? The 'Bat's got 'em. The nearest thing to ordinary was The Devil <3s Cascade by Summerwine, a big and sticky 7.2%-er, dark orange and almost headless. The unctuous candy malts are well balanced by a similarly oily resinous hop character, producing a peachy aroma followed by a more serious bitter pine flavour. Bit of a knife-and-fork job, but fun in small measures. Siren's Das Soundwave was the lightest of the bunch, a German-hopped IPA of 5.6% ABV, greenish gold in colour with a zingy orange sherbet aroma. There's a lot of heavy hop dank in the flavour and it leaves with a mouth-watering mandarin flourish. Overall, extremely drinkable yet marvellously complex. The outlier was Evolver from the Wild Beer Co. and I almost didn't order it. The description marks it as a brett IPA and I wondered who in their right minds would want something like that? Why soil the lovely fresh taste of hops with the dirty funk of brettanomyces yeast? I'm glad I ran out of options and had one before I left because it was gorgeous: soft peach and juicy mandarin to the fore, only funked up a little by some well-mannered brett. It's a beautiful blend of what the two elements bring to a beer, reminiscent of fresh Orval only with brighter, more exciting hops.

I returned to the Hanging Bat a couple of days later on a Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch a beer or two from the in-house brewery. But there was none of that, the blackboard was looking a little bare, and the place was loud and packed, so I nipped round the corner to the altogether more civilised Blue Blazer. No stuffy old-man beer here, however: I opted for 2014, a black IPA from Arbor Ales. It's 7% ABV and so densely black I could feel it draining colour from the pints on neighbouring tables. You get a big hop burn from the first pull: pine, mostly, but with some flowery perfume, a pinch of gunpowder and a generous helping of boiled cabbage. Light relief is provided by a squirt of grapefruit zest, but mostly this is a very serious beer. The dark malts and heavy texture lend a tarry burnt flavour, with a tiny hint of bitter dark chocolate peeping through the seventeen other kinds of bitterness it offers. Amazing stuff, and very good value, since it takes ages to drink.

I mentioned previously that there was a themed range of beers at the Bow Bar for Anzac Day. England was represented by Bitter Kiwi from Bristol Brewing. This is one of the best exhibition beers for Nelson Sauvin I've ever encountered. The aroma is beautifully flinty, like ultra-dry Sauvingnon Blanc, with a little bit of added peach nectar, and this theme continues in the flavour: dry white grape, some lychee and succulent sweet peach. Not bitter at all in fact, and not even a trace of cat piss, which is a win.

A bottle of Hobsons Kiss Me Now had found its way north with a family member. This claims to be a stout but its soft plumminess made me think more of warming winter ale, even at just 4.3% ABV. Keeping it sessionable, I found Cullercoats Lovely Nelly on cask, an oddly tart dark gold ale with strange but pleasant strawberry notes. Brewed as a lifeboat fundraiser, it's ironically very sinkable. This was back at the Cask & Barrel on Broughton Street where they also had Broughton Street Domestic Ale on. Never pass up the house beer is one of my rules. Turns out this is a re-badging of Gladiator Bitter, brewed by Hadrian and Border. First impressions are of an unexciting 3.9% ABV brown bitter: biscuity, shading towards twigginess, but a couple of sips in I got a sudden jolt of summer fruit: redcurrants and raspberries. A session bitter deserving of a second chance, then.

Last cask ale of the trip was at the airport where the Wetherspoon had the tail end of their latest international beer festival available in the form of Saint Archer Pale Ale, ostensibly from Saint Archer in San Diego but actually brewed at Banks's in Wolverhampton. It's good stuff: a healthy layer of dank hops livened by some lighter peachy notes and set on a light easy-going golden malt base. The perfect gulp-and-go airport beer in fact.

Judging from this lot, the Edinburgers are picky about which English beers they let in, and reap the rewards it brings.