Garden party

It has taken them a while. Almost eight years have passed since the Smithwick family opened the Sullivan's Taproom in Kilkenny, a brand home for their contract-brewed beer which would one day be a full-sized production facility. It's getting there now and the block-built infrastructure is in place at the rear of the building. Also back there is a good-sized and well-laid-out beer garden where, for the last two years, Sullivan's has been inviting guest breweries to set up their bars for a weekend. I went along to the most recent iteration.

Of course, it was also a chance to catch up with some new beers from Sullivan's itself, since I don't see them very often. Earlier this year they introduced a pilsner called Na Boii, named after the Celtic tribe after whom, in turn, Bohemia is named. It's the appropriate clear golden colour with a soft texture and plenty of sparkle, and the 4.7% ABV is appropriate too. The appropriateness ends there, however. The fermentation isn't up to snuff and the beer is full of esters, tasting primarily of green banana with a different sort of marzipan or cake sweetness alongside. I expect grassy Saaz hops, and would even forgive a smear of buttery diacetyl, but neither features here. There's nothing distasteful going on, and it's OK to drink, but if I were marking it to style it would fare poorly.

Sullivan's Pale Ale is rather better. It exists in bottled form, so I'm guessing it's produced by the main contracting brewer, Dundalk Bay, rather than on the on-site pilot kit in Kilkenny. That might explain why everything is dialled in better. It's a dark-ish amber colour in the glass and smells delightfully zesty. The hops soften on tasting, into the apple and grape of a fruit salad with a sparkle of lemon sherbet. That's balanced by a cornbread malt sweetness, making for some nicely satisfying drinking at only 4.7% ABV. Rather like its Sullivan's sibling, Maltings Red Ale, this is a well-made take on the style, accessible enough for the mainstream but with plenty of interesting character too.

The host had also tried their hand at imperial stout, and barrel-ageing it too, to create Tri-Capital. Information about it is near non-existent so I can't tell you why it's called that, nor what it was aged in. The tap badge does say it was barrel aged for nine months, with another handwritten note on the bar telling us it's 8.5% ABV. Dundalk Bay has a bit of experience in this space, creating the fantastic 8% ABV Romanov in 2019 and a 9% ABV imperial stout in 2021. Happily, this has more in common with the first of these, taking very dark chocolate and caramelised sugar and adding in a heap of boiled green vegetables for a very grown-up bitter stout flavour, just how I like it. The barrel aspect is understated, adding quite a subtle layer of vanilla to proceedings, and a little cheeky spirit heat. Fans of the kind of strong and dark beauties produced by Brehon Brewhouse on the regular would like this one too. It deserves a wider distribution than the Taproom.

And so to the guest brewers. I began at Hopfully, with their new Floatinghome Belgian-style pale ale. This is a tricky style to get right, and American breweries have tended to be better at it than European ones, in my experience. Hopfully has made an excellent go of it, however, holding back a little on the fruity hops, showing only some apricot and star anise, but going big with the Belgianesque herbs and spices: bitter marjoram and dill plus a kick of incense and exotic peppercorns. It's heavily textured for 5.1% ABV but retains a cleansing sparkle as well. Like the imperial stout above, it's great to find this too-rare flavour profile in an Irish beer.

The second Irish hopfenweisse of 2024 came courtesy of Lineman, called Organised Fun. I said in the context of the Eight Degrees one that the style is rarely to my taste, but this one very much was, and I think the hop choice was crucial to that. It's BRU-1 and Hallertau Blanc, the latter of which brewer Mark described as "poor man's Nelson". I can see why too: this beer has very Nelsony notes of flinty minerals and juicy Chardonnay grape. What's even better is what it doesn't taste of: clashing banana esters. There is a softness and sweetness that tells me it's not simply a thinly-disguised IPA, though I fully accept that I may simply prefer hopfenweisse when it's not brewed entirely to style, or when it's brewed by Schneider of Kelheim, who are still making the original.

That leaves just Dead Centre, who had two beers new to me. There was a New England-style pale ale called Tweet Into The Void, 5.5% ABV and hopped with Citra and Strata. That offered a very straightforward kind of decency, from the sunny opaque yellow colour to the zesty yet tropical aroma of lime and pineapple, to the juicy mandarin flavour. If I'm picking nits, there's maybe a little too much of the oniony, savoury side of the hops in the immediate foretaste, and right on the very end, but far from enough to spoil things. It doesn't do anything you haven't tasted a hazy pale ale do before, but I think I'd be perfectly happy with a pint of this in its native environment, down by the Shannon.

Another barrel aged imperial stout to take us out: Solar Eclipse, at 10.7% ABV. There's a slightly odd, but not unpleasant, charcoal aroma, then a flavour centred on chocolate and caramel but with sidenotes of oaky cork and a little umami-laden autolysis as well: soy sauce or shiitake mushrooms. The charcoal flavour becomes a tang of burnt grain in the finish. That sounds a bit off, but again it's a very good beer for the most part, the highlight being a hugely rich and creamy texture, making it for sipping only. It's ambitious, and certainly characterful. While the like of Lough Gill and The White Hag have really mastered this kind of beer, you have to start somewhere and I hope Dead Centre will be trying its hand at more.

With all the ticking done, pints followed, including excellent cask versions of Ballykilcavan's Cobbler's Castle and Wide Street's Plush pale ales. And after that there was tasty barbecue food down at Paris Texas before the train home. It was a fun and easy-going festival in a beautiful venue. Thoroughly recommended for next year, when there might even be a shiny new brewery to see.

Dundark

I was always a bit disappointed that Dundalk Bay Brewery had not included a stout in their Brewmaster core range, opting instead for lager, red and IPA. Their special edition imperial stout, Romanov, showed they definitely had the ability in-house. Happily, they have now fully embraced the dark side, with this new pair.

First up, the long-awaited straightforward dry stout: the sort of thing foreigners think every Irish brewery makes but very few do. It's a tough sell. Brewmaster Black deserves a fair chance. It gets the visuals spot on, a fine creamy head forming and lasting, without the aid of nasty flavour-killing nitrogen. That translates into a silky texture as soon as it hits the palate. Oily dark-roasted coffee beans and dark chocolate make up the aroma, and that roast is central to the flavour. There's a burnt-toast dryness at its heart, with the chocolate, less dark here, forming a sweeter balance around it. A bonus floral complexity enhances that, bringing hints of rosewater and hibiscus. Before it goes all silly, a harder old-world metallic hop kick finishes things off. Normally this level of complexity takes a bit of backing from the alcohol. DBB achieves it at just 4.2% ABV.

This beer deserves to sell in quantity but I fear that the mainstream stout drinkers are too set in their ways to switch, while the craft-curious have too much choice of other beers in more fashionable styles with arty labels to bother with this oulfellas' stout which isn't even in a can. The difficulty in getting Irish people to drink stouts is our beer scene's principal national tragedy. And if you agree with me to any extent about that, make sure you get yourself some of this.

On to something a bit more involved: Barrel Aged Irish Stout, this one a special edition. The label gives us the standard spiel about the brewery's ethos, and some anodyne tasting notes, but no description of how the beer was actually made, which is disappointing. I can tell you it's 9% ABV and smells a bit vinous but also a bit vinegary, with a sharp balsamic twang that puts me on edge. That settles a little in the flavour, and thankfully it doesn't taste of vinegar. I would hazard, however, that the barrels it was aged in previously held wine, and may have continued to do so when the stout went in. There's lots of red grape here, and it doesn't sit terribly well with the espresso and cocoa powder of the base beer. I also get a slight phenolic aftertaste, which adds nothing positive to the mix of flavours. I'll throw in my usual cop-out criticism here and say that maybe it will improve with age, allowing the different sides to integrate better with each other. Consumed fresh, it's a bit of a clashing mess of fruit, roast and booze.

And yet it'll probably sell more than Brewmaster Black. Sigh.

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.