Wish you were there

Sure we would all love to be in New Zealand about now. Rascals has done their bit to bring The Land of the Long White Cloud to us instead, with this themed pair. Both are named after hop blends available from New Zealand growers.

Betty's is described as a "dry-hopped New Zealand lager". I had never encountered this blend before, but the can promises gooseberry and lime, so it sounds authentic. The visuals are fairly spot on: a polished golden colour and perfectly clear, though the head faded out a little too quickly for it to pass as something central European. The aroma is pure summer sunshine: roses and apricots and distant cut grass. When the hops are the headline it must be tempting to pile them in wholesale, but that's not the case here. Clean pilsner crispness is the opening feature, and the finishing flourish. In the middle you get nothing as intense as lime, but I'll grant them the gooseberries. The floral and stonefruit aspects from the aroma hang around too, with a meadowy perfume effect, and a pinch of ripe and juicy peach. Only after that crisp finish is there a ghost of citric bitterness in its aftertaste. It's a very well-made lager and enjoyable, even if it's quieter than the busy multicoloured can art implies.

The companion piece is an IPA called Bruce's, and this blend I have met before, though couldn't describe it beyond "broadly New Zealandy". The brewery says it's hazy, though it's only just, definitely translucent rather than opaque. There's a lot of herbal oily funk in the aroma: eucalyptus, sage and rosemary. I thought it would taste bitter but it's a mix of fruity candy in the flavour, with lemon chews, zingy sherbet and orange icepops. A real fast-track to childhood. The texture is quite big and a little fuzzy, which accentuates the sweetness. The downside there is that it lacks bittering balance. It's not overdone, however, so that's not a problem. The end result is a decent, middle-of-the-road IPA, though one which doesn't hit hard enough for being 6.2% ABV. I'm still not sure I get what Bruce's characteristics are. While pleasant, this doesn't taste especially New Zealand-style to me.

Off the back of these, Betty's is the hop combination I'm interested in learning more about. It strikes me that there's a lot of potential there. And more lagers from Rascals as well, of course. Rain Czech must be due a comeback some time soon...

Lagered up

It's possible we're in a bit of a golden age (wahey! puns!) for Irish lager. There are a lot of good ones around at the moment and brewers seem less afraid of adding them to the roster. This post is about the most recent ones to cross my path.

The first is by O Brother who so far in their short life have given us a Sinner, a Chancer, a Dreamer and a Fixer. The newest in the sequence of archetype beers is The Wanderer, described on the badge as a dry hopped pilsner at 5% ABV. It's a bright, almost lurid, yellow colour and was served in The Beer Market very cold and with rather low carbonation. I also got a touch of off sourness, though couldn't say whether that was in the beer or the dispense. However, none of this is a problem because the flavour is big and bold enough to distract from any and all flaws.

I had been expecting citrus and whatnot: "dry hopped" tends to mean "we're going for the American IPA angle" around these parts. But nope, it's classic pilsner all the way through. Most of all it's a hugely punchy lemon and waxy bitterness, riding high on the light malt base. A real five-alarm wake-up call for the palate.

Black Donkey's Western Warrior is a rather more understated affair. It made its Dublin début at the brewery's second birthday party in 57 The Headline a couple of weeks ago. This beer is identical to the flagship saison Sheep Stealer, just fermented with a lager yeast rather than a saison one, so the grain bill includes wheat and the hops are an unlagery blend of East Kent Goldings and Styrian Goldings. Rédor, the pils by Dupont was, if not an inspiration certainly an encouragement. The two breweries share a similar water profile, Black Donkey's Richard tells me.

The end result is a pale and slightly hazy chap, rustic and crunchy, a bit like a kellerbier. There's a modest quantity of fruity esters but nothing I'd describe as a lager off-flavour. After one pint I ordered a second, finding it refreshing in its crispness and very gulpable.

Then as if to underline my point about lager variety, last week Against the Grain staged a one-night mini-festival of lagers with over a dozen examples from Irish and international brewers. The two above were on show and I also managed to tick off a further pair of new ones as well.

Metalman's latest is Blaager, its grist including crumbs of Waterford's signature bread roll, the blaa. It's a modest 4.6% ABV and pale yellow, despite what my camera seems to think. Not much aroma but the flavour opens on a beautiful soft fruit note, all peach and white plum. It starts to get drier from then on and has a lovely classically grassy pilsner bite on the end.

Very much hop forward, this beer shows very little sign of the bread, of which a whole 60kg went into the mash. The end result is super clean and immensely thirst quenching, while also offering just the right amount of complexity to stay interesting. They have it in cans now so I hope that means it's becoming a regular.

The other new one has been around a while but I'd never taken the time to try it. This time I had no excuse. It's 1601 from Black's of Kinsale. And I didn't like it. And I can't quite put my finger on why. It's another fruity one, with a tart sort of gooseberry edge, and the core of the beer is clean and simple. But there's a sort of staleness to it, and a metallic pencil-sharpener tang, and a kind of sickly sweetness. I couldn't assign any of the obvious lager flaws to it: no diacetyl, no acetaldehyde, no DMS and I don't think it was oxidised; but nor do I think it was simply that it didn't suit my taste. I wish I had a better technical knowledge to describe what was wrong but you'll just have to take it that I didn't enjoy it and am unlikely to go for it again.

And after that I settled into several pints of Rascals Rain Czech pils, making a very welcome return to the taps. It's a beer to disabuse any Irish lager of getting notions, with its soft texture and massive bursts of Saaz grass-and-pepper. Get it while it's fresh.

Gold and brown

And just like that the year was over and it was time to hand out the Golden Pint Awards for 2015. This is the seventh year that bloggers have been invited by Andy Mogg (and formerly Mark Dredge) to nominate the best of the year's beers, and beer-related artefacts and activities: if you're interested in what I've had to say in previous years, you can find them here for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Andy has expanded out several of the categories this year, and mercifully dropped a couple I never had much of an opinion on, though sitting up here on the first paragraph it remains to be seen whether the re-jig will make things easier or harder.

But before getting stuck in, the customary beer. There's a tenuous connection to the awards as I bought it from the winner of the Best Supermarket category, though longer ago than I realised because it was several weeks out of date when I pulled it from the fridge. Karmaliten Kloster Dunkel is a dark lager from eastern Bavaria, about half way between Munich and České Budějovice, so right in the heart of lager country. It's a pure mahogany brown colour and exudes noble hops on the aroma. Their acidic greenness doesn't go very well with the accompanying dark caramel smell so I was worried it may be a bit gastric on tasting. Thankfully it's not. Crunchy, chocolatey bourbon biscuit is at the centre: sweet, but cleaned up beautifully by lagering so it doesn't linger on the palate. It's also balanced by them hops, adding a healthy burst of celery, still fresh and moist even if the beer is older than it ought to be. The carbonation is little more than a light sparkle and the body is chewy enough to be satisfying drinking without getting difficult. It's a lot easier going than many a Bavarian dunkel I've had, though no less complex for that. Good, accessible quality, which is just what a supermarket beer should offer. And so to business.

The Golden Pint Awards 2015

Best Irish Cask Beer: Giant's Organ
It's always a roll of the dice when an Irish beer shows up on cask, but I'd no such qualms when it came to Lacada's IPA. It was beautifully kept at the Belfast Beer Festival: clean and clear and bursting with sherbet citrus. Honourable mentions go to a similar offering from the very opposite end of the island -- West Cork Brewery's Sherkin Lass -- as well as to Trouble's Centennial SMASH. All three were encountered at festivals. Wouldn't it be nice if pubs got the hang of keeping and serving cask beer reliably too?

Best Irish Keg Beer: Little Fawn
I've taken the decision to award this one to a beer I enjoyed pouring down my neck in quantity this year: it's as good a criterion for greatness as any other. As such, this comes down to a three-way battle between Galway Bay's Heathen sour ale, Rascal's Rain Czech pils and White Hag Little Fawn session IPA. And the fresh hops carry the day. Though I wasn't bowled over when I first had it bottled, the keg version is an absolutely perfect juicy explosion. And at 4.2% ABV you can just keep setting them up and knocking them back.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Black Lightning
I can't help but feel I'm being a little unfair in this category. There are loads of fantastic Irish beers available in bottle but because I mostly drank them on draught I don't get to include them in the running here. One that I did come back to was 9 White Deer's black IPA, and while it wasn't as amazing as the ultra-fresh keg version at the Franciscan Well Easter Festival, it's still very good indeed.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Kinsale Pale Ale
A handful of Irish micros have cans available now. I have been very remiss so far in not getting hold of the recently-released Rascal's ones. But instead I've enjoyed the casual hoppy goodness of Black's Kinsale Pale Ale, with a bonus thumbs-up for the sub-€2.50 price tag.

Best Overseas Draught: Magma Triple Spiked Brett
Fresh hops and brett: together at last, said nobody ever. But this one pulls it off beautifully. Belgian maestros Troubadour fit the different elements together so well that you don't even notice how wrong it all is. If there were an award for best brand extension, this would also get it.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Spontanbasil
It was on my must-drink list for quite a while and it didn't disappoint when I finally got hold of it. I've had a couple of basil beers this year and they were all extremely tasty, but this Lindemans-Mikkeller collaboration takes the prize.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Bibble
A string of lacklustre beers on a stifling hot summer's day in London was completely offset by a cold tinny of this beaut, swigged on the way along Gray's Inn Road. Shouts-out also to Beavertown Holy Cowbell and Rooster's Fort Smith. The Brits have got this one in the can! *cheesy wink*.

Best Collaboration Brew: Radical Brew
Perhaps I'm taking a bit of a liberty here by not awarding this to a collaboration between breweries. Radical Brew was released by Cork-based gypsy brewer RadikAle with input from Waterford distillery Blackwater. The use of gin botanicals in a big rye ale was inspired and clearly both sides knew exactly what they were doing when they brought their respective halves of the combination to the brew kettle. A close second was Crann, the magnificent bière de garde that Inishmacsaint and Poker Tree put together together.

Best Overall Beer: Spontanbasil
Quite a variety of types of beer to choose from among those eight finalists, but it the Belgian basil extravaganza is the one I'd trade a case of the others for. Maybe.

Best Branding: Wild Bat
Breweries that eschew the mystical Celtic claptrap that plagues so much Irish beer branding always get a thumbs up from me. I love the cartoonish energy of Oughterard start-up Wild Bat.

Best Pump Clip: Vincent Van Coff
The name was chosen in a public competition and I think the artist excelled himself in graphically interpreting Mountain Man's final choice of moniker for their coffee and vanilla festival special. Subtle? Tasteful? That's not the Mountain Man way. Definitely fun, though.

Best Bottle Label: Torc Smoked German Ale
The polar opposite of the other two graphic design winners, Torc's branding is all clean and understated elegance. The charcoal grey of the Smoked German Ale is my favourite of their range.

Best Irish Brewery: Rascal's
What do we want? Good beer, produced locally, sanely priced with a spritely turnover of new ones and the occasional stand-out stunner. When do we want it? Continuously. With a solid core range, a fascinating World Hops Series and magnificent festival specials including that superb Chardonnay Saison, west Dublin's Rascal's really delivered in 2015. And through no fault of their own, Trouble has to settle for second place again, despite bringing back Graffiti and turning out a highly enjoyable SMASH series, both of which deserve very honourable mentions.

Best Overseas Brewery: Brewski
These Swedes are my standout from Borefts this year and are ones to watch. Berliner weisse with lime, elderflower and basil is just what the world needs right now. Shut up, it does.

Best New Brewery Opening 2015: YellowBelly
I wish I could keep closer track of what the brewery under Simon Lambert & Sons in Wexford Town is pumping up to the bar counter on a regular basis, but I've enjoyed what I've had. Declan and the crew seem to have hit that sweet spot between playful experimentation and knowing exactly the things you have to do to design and brew really good beer.

Pub/Bar of the Year: 57 The Headline
Yes, again. Several great meet-the-brewer nights secured The Headline's place on my list for the third year running, not least the time we had Carlow Brewing and Starr Hill in for a chat. But even when there's no event on, the turnover and range of beers is fantastic. And there's food and seats and windows and all the other secondary things too.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2015: The Beer Market
As with last year we have Galway Bay duking it out with Bodytonic for the best new Dublin pub. This year I'm giving the prize to the Galwegians, though I've certainly enjoyed my visits to Bodytonic's Square Ball. Though The Beer Market's initial plan to be an international-grade rare-beer heaven hasn't quiite worked out, I've enjoyed several of my favourites from 2015 there and the Dublin beer scene is definitely richer for its presence.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
In 2015 I returned to a few festivals I've been away from for a while: Cask & Winter Ales, GBBF, Belfast Beer Festival, and I also attended my first Polish beer festival, but still nothing tops the kid-in-a-sweetshop thrill of De Molen's annual gig in September. Its days as a well-kept secret are pretty much over and the crowds were definitely bigger this year, but it seems perfectly able to handle it and still give the drinkers plenty of comfort. Good beer you don't have to queue for, and somewhere to sit while you drink it, were always available.

Supermarket of the Year: SuperValu
This was the year that quality beer became one of the fronts on which the Irish supermarkets fight their never-ending war with each other. The drinking public has done rather well out of it, and a special commendation goes to Dunnes and Rye River for the extremely good value of the Grafters beers. But SuperValu has also been commissioning exclusives, and getting in a superb selection of Irish and international beers. It's rare that I spot a beer in the supermarket that I haven't already been able to get from an independent off licence, but that's happened about twice in SuperValu this year. Someone in the company's offices somewhere has the word BEER written large on a whiteboard, with a circle around it, and arrows pointing to it.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Redmond's
As usual I've been mostly shopping in DrinkStore, and it meets almost all of my beery take-home needs. But there have been odd occasions when I've been looking for something rare or particularly special and that's where Redmond's bails me out. Not the cheapest off licence in Dublin, but among the most browseable. I passed twenty years as a customer a few months ago. How terrifying is that?

Best Beer Book or Magazine: Around Brussels in 80 Beers by Joe Stange
A complimentary copy of the second edition arrived just before I went to Brussels in October, so I declare this publication fully field-tested and operational.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Our Tasty Travels
I love a grand project, me, and Our Tasty Travels's "New Beer Every Day Beer Diary Challenge" has kept me enthralled since it began in January. I'd say Brett will be very glad to sign off instalment number 365 tomorrow -- a hearty well done to him for keeping it running. The other grand project I enjoyed was Oliver Gray's attempt to publish a serial novel, December, 1919, over the course of the year. Unfortunately it ran aground in May but I'm looking forward to its return. I need to know what happens with Jack and his brewery just as prohibition bites in Philadelphia.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @BroadfordBrewer
Without a doubt the runaway champion of this category, David has more Johnsons than he knows what to do with. But it's fully deserving so this year I add my voice to the chorus.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Eight Degrees
The Eight Degrees website always has the information I need when I go looking: what are the new beers out, what are they made from and what are the vital statistics? It's an essential service when a brewery produces as much new beer as this one does.

And that's your lot. Time to start forming some impressions of beer in 2016 now.

Pre-festival festivals

The biggest event in the Irish beer calendar kicks off this evening at the RDS in Dublin. I understand there'll be about 40 Irish breweries at the 2015 Irish Craft Beer Festival and we've been promised lots of new and special editions. And we're more likely to actually find them too, since the event has been sensibly reduced to a three-day run. But it's far from the first beer festival we've seen in these parts this summer. Earlier this month there were a couple of preliminaries.

To the Harbour Bar in sunny Bray, first, which held a two-day event at the beginning of the month, inviting a handful of local breweries (and one cider-maker) to set up stall in the yard. Wicklow Wolf is a mere keg roll from the Harbour so they were present and correct, showing off the new Belgian Brown Ale. I was expecting something sweet and fruity but it's been fermented with a saison yeast so it resembles more an oude bruin: very dry with a tangy tamarind and vinegar foretaste. The dark grain comes out in the finish where there's an almost stout-like roasted quality. The aroma is also very big on coffee notes. It's certainly complex and mixing up some flavours that aren't normally seen together. And at a modest 5.5% ABV it's relatively sessionable too, if the tang is to your taste.

Further along the bar I snagged the first ever pint of Rascal's new pilsner. Rain Czech is number four in the World Hop Series and employs Saaz and Sladek hops, late and in quantity. It's 5% ABV and a hazy gold. The low carbonation gives it a wonderful creamy texture and my first thought on sipping it was of genre leader Keesmann Herren Pils. It's maybe not quite as polished but it does a lot of the same things. The aroma is gently grassy but the flavour is much more assertive, all moist, fresh grass backed by popcorn and candyfloss. The bitterness is maybe a little on the low side for a pils but there is still a proper bite in the finish. The classic Czech diacetyl is missing but certainly wasn't missed by your correspondent. This is one to drink as soon as you see it: I can't imagine those beautiful hop flavours will hang around for ever.

Less than a week later the second Big Grill Festival took over Herbert Park. Irish beer was well represented and, hey, Rascal's were back with new beer already. Chardonnay Saison is and does exactly what it says on the tap badge. It's 6% ABV but the base beer is one of the lighter and cleaner sorts of saison. This provides a perfect platform for the wine to shine. You get beautiful fresh juicy grape notes with a melon-skin effect that's much more reminiscent of a Sauvignon Blanc than Chardonnay. The wood comes through to an extent, but it's very much a subtle dryness, not the big honking oak-and-butter that blighted my Chardonnay years. An absolute stunner of a beer this, and perfect garden drinking. I understand that the last of it will be making an appearance at the RDS this weekend. Do not miss.

Rascal's still provides the brewing facilities for the Brewtonic brand and their new one for Big Grill was a 4.5% ABV wheat beer called Raspberry Beeret. A lot of raspberries went into this, says sometime Rascal's co-conspirator Rossa. But they're doing a great job in there, really imparting a pure essence-of-raspberry flavour, like chewing the seeds. And, of course, turning the beer bright pink. Perhaps surprisingly, it's only lightly tart, and the wheaty base gives it a lovely pillowy softness making for excellent drinkability. Lurid-coloured fruit beers that aren't just in it for the gimmickry are all too rare.

The Porterhouse also brought a new beer to Big Grill. Hopped to F#¢k is the veteran Dublin brewer's first go at a double IPA. I'm generally not a fan of double IPAs at the best of times but this one really reminded me of why that is. While it's a perhaps modest 8% ABV it lays on the malt in a big hot-and-heavy way. While it starts out zesty enough when its cold, the booze warmth increases with the temperature, turning to marmalade and then becoming full-on toffee by the end. There's a powerful hop acidity which I guess is provided for balance but I found it just made the beer harder to drink. Fans of Hophead may enjoy the opportunity to try something bigger but along the same lines, but I'm happier with the less intense option.

Franciscan Well ran a competition a couple of months ago to name their new saison but the barman running their stall (on behalf of parent Molson Coors, I assume) couldn't tell me what the final decision was. Later research revealed that Beast from the Yeast is the name they went for. I rather enjoyed it too: 5% ABV and another light and gently fruity saison, this time it's more of an appley vibe, perhaps sailing a little close to acetone nail varnish remover if it's allowed to get warm. But there's no need to let it warm: there's a wonderful lagerish crispness to it which makes for very easy drinking, and a dry roasted complexity from, I'm guessing, the dark grain which gives it that mahogany red colour. And regardless how long you leave it when wandering around the park blathering to people it never turns completely sickly, which is more than I can say for a lot of modern saisons, so a definite thumbs-up from me.

And finally to Kinnegar, which has released a gooseberry-flavoured sour beer called, obviously, Geuzberry. It's soured in the kettle with a yoghurt strain rather than wild yeasts so it's all quite subtle, a bit like a Berliner wiesse, though rather stronger at 5.2% ABV. At its heart it's a very simple and grainy wheat beer: clean, fizzy and refreshing. The sour tang is understated but it's definitely present and is essentially the same lactic flavour you'll find much more loudly in good Belgian lambic, without any of the vinegary qualities you sometimes get. As such, it may well be an ideal sour beer starter for a newcomer to this end of the beer world. I noted a white grape tannin effect on the finish and it's just occurred to me that that may be the gooseberries at work: I'm used to wine tasting of gooseberries but this may be the first time gooseberries have made me think of wine flavours. Anyway, this is a lovely beer and tremendous fun to drink.

That wraps it up for this pair of bijou beer festivals. The real action starts at 5.