Changing tides

"Imports" is our designated topic for The Session this month, set by our taskmaster Christopher at I Think About Beer. He asks a very specific question of us non-American participants: "How are American beers (imported into YOUR country) viewed? What is their place in your market?" and I think now is a particularly interesting time to answer it.

When I started taking a serious interest in beer, the speciality and niche end of the market in Ireland consisted almost entirely of British and Belgian imports. You'd get a few central and eastern European lagers and wheat beers bundled in with them, but Britain and Belgium was where it was at, on the off licence shelves, in the pub fridges and the tiny handful of online outlets.

I reviewed my first American beer, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, in my fifth ever post in 2005. It didn't revolutionise my outlook on beer. Neither did the second, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, over a year later. It wasn't really until 2007 and the point where I joined in with Dublin's nascent beer geek and homebrew community that the significance of American beer came to my consciousness, and that centred on one beer: Goose Island IPA.

Goose Island was, by all accounts, the last word in hoppiness. It was strictly not to be touched until the end of a session as it would obliterate the palate and render all subsequent beers tasteless. From then on American beers, and American hops, were the focus of the beer discourse. There were more Sierra Nevadas to be consumed, including their since-retired IPA; there was Brooklyn, Anchor and Rogue for the non-lovers of hops, and Harpoon, Flying Dog and Great Divide for the growing number of drinkers who looked first for the letters "IPA" on the label.

And then the deluge. Younger importers began putting the American selection front and centre in their ranges, and draught American beers started to arrive. This was also just as the independent Irish scene began its first serious growth spurt and I noted with amusement when one distributor who had built an empire on sturdy traditional Belgian and English ales took one token brewery from each of America and Ireland: by 2012 you looked silly without them.

Availability has waxed and waned over the years. Great Divide and Dogfish Head were both missed when they stopped being available, but life went on. Things seem to be on a bit of an upswing at the moment, largely led by Grand Cru Beers who push their Californian and Coloradan brands heavily. It was Grand Cru who took the decision to drop Goose Island IPA from their portfolio, citing a decline in quality and tanking brand equity as the reason. Happily they still carry Founder's All Day IPA which I consider to be a perfectly adequate replacement.

While there always seems to be new American beer to try, there's also less reason to. That hoppy kick which was once the sole preserve of US imports can now be found in abundance in Irish and British beer. I'm not sure why anyone who fixates on freshness would even bother with something that's travelled across the Atlantic, refrigerated containers notwithstanding.

Maybe the imported Americans don't generate the same buzz as they used to, but the hand-transported rarities still do. Even non-whaley commodities like Pliny the Elder get reverentially Instagrammed when someone brings one back. I'm making my own contribution to the buzz around American suitcase beer with this bottle of Captain Lawrence Frost Monster imperial stout which I acquired in New York last September and which spent the winter in my attic. It was quite elderly when I got to it, bottled in late 2015 according to the printing on the neck. No ABV is stated but research tells me it's a stonking 12%.

It smells... rich. There's a decadent chocolate truffle sweetness in an aroma that whispers words like "luxury", "sumptuous" and "calorific". While the chocolate continues in the flavour, there's also a big bitter green hop whack, strangely fresh for a beer that's been sitting, sequentially, on a shelf in lower Manhattan and a floor in west Dublin. The silky truffle and the twangy veg perform a duet all the way down, with the chocolate a little bit louder but still balanced nicely. The alcohol provides percussion: a strong hot back beat, keeping the whole performance grounded, never losing sight of the fact that Big Strong Stout is what this one is all about. It's a superb rendition, exactly what is demanded of a beast of a beer like this.

One of my grievances with modern beer hype is that so much gets left behind, and for no good reason. I had never heard of this beer before I bought it, yet it's absolutely world class. For anyone considering standing in line outside an American brewery in the hope of bagging something special to show off with back home, check the local liquor store first: there might be something there that'll save you an hour or two.

Curiosity and the skunk

I went to the USA with a small mental list of well-known American beers that tend not to get described in the general beer discourse. They're frequently mentioned as background references, as though everyone already knows what they taste like, so other beers can be said to be like them, or indeed unlike them. I needed to try them for myself.

And at the top of that list was New Belgium Fat Tire, a beer which sits alongside Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Samuel Adams Boston Lager as the most mainstream of craft beers. And yet... it's the one I've never seen on this side of the Atlantic, and also the only one of these three I actually saw on tap in America. So I ordered a pint. It's an amber-red colour, quite heavy of texture and very sweet. The aroma is verging on sickly while the flavour piles on toffee. Too much toffee, in fact. There's a vague green hop bitterness but not enough to balance something that would sit very comfortably among the sweet red ales of Ireland. I'm quite surprised this beer has any credibility at all. Takes all sorts.

Second on that list was Yuengling Lager, a beer which occupies that weird hinterland between craft and mainstream. The brewery claims to be America's oldest and survived both Prohibition and the predations of mid-20th century brewery consolidation. It's ended up big enough to be well distributed and popular in its home territory yet small enough to just duck into the Brewers Association's definition of craft, turning out about as much beer as Boston Beer Co. does these days. Not seeing it on tap anywhere, I picked up a six-pack in a grocery store in mid-town Manhattan and worked through that over a couple of evenings. It's a dark orange-brown colour, nicely full-bodied with soft carbonation and a cereal malt flavour topped with a light central-European-style grassiness. All of which would make it an accessible classically-styled pils, or even a hoppy Vienna lager, if it hadn't been absolutely outrageously skunked. The shop must have been keeping it on a tanning bed overnight. It was horrible, though just about tolerable when fully cold. Beware bottled Yuengling, is my takeaway lesson.

Last on this list was Texas classic Shiner Bock, another Prohibition veteran. It's a dark red colour and all about the malt, mixing in dry grain husk with a light caramel element. It's perhaps not that different from ol' Fat Tire up there, but I enjoyed it more, perhaps solely because my expectations were lower. It may lack distinctive flavours but it's a perfectly satisfying conversation beer, and pretty much on-style, for the dunkel side of the spec.

A few other bottled odd and sods before we go. I had expected to see lots of Southern Tier beer around the place but there was surprisingly very little. In one Williamsburg restaurant Southern Tier IPA was the most interesting choice. It's a heavy clear 7%-er, orange in both colour and taste, and I guess you could regard its hot sweet candy character as some way classical for American IPA. I just found it tough drinking and totally lacking in refreshment power.

At one point I ventured into the classy Manhattan food hall Eatily, just for a looksee, but ended up gravitating to the beer section, and ended up buying some bottles to take away. They had Dogfish Head! I wanted to see how that brewery was getting on since it ceased exports a few years ago.

Namaste is a witbier, employing lemongrass and peppercorns alongside the usual stuff, and brewed to a refreshing and approachable 4.8% ABV. It's a pale hazy yellow, as one would expect, with a solid jaffa orange flavour at the centre. The spices are just present on the edge of perception, adding an understated complexity, and there's a certain lemon-cookie citrus bitterness as well. But you don't need to deconstruct it: it works equally well as a down-the-hatch thirst-quencher, something well-made witbier is especially adept at.

Burton Baton is a very different proposition altogether. I honestly wavered a bit at the thought of buying an oak-aged IPA: it does sound like a recipe for disaster. But in Sam we trust and it was duly purchased, opened and consumed. The biography is that it's a blend of mild and aged IPA and that's very much in its favour as it means fresh hops are still part of the flavour profile. It's also 10% ABV and has a thick napalm heat and a sweetness that sometimes verges on cough mixture. By way of balance, as well as the hops, there's a strong jasmine spice, though thankfully no oaky vanilla. I thought the wood was going to ruin this but really it's just the sheer strength and density of it which make it difficult to drink. The concept is otherwise fine and I'd like to try a lower-gravity version of it.

And that was my last beer in New York, sipped and scribbled about as I packed up and got ready for the following day's journey west. The next landfall was in Chicago for a swift change of planes, but not so swift that I couldn't perch at O'Hare's Goose Island bar long enough to drink an overpriced pint of Green Line pale ale, a new addition to their core line-up. And there was me thinking the IPA already filled that pale ale niche. This is, understandably, a simple affair: yellow with a slight haze to it, tasting pleasantly and accessibly sweet, the hops offering a modest flash of cheeky peach before it all wraps up neatly and drily at the end. It's another perfectly decent conversation beer: you can decide for yourself whether that gets classified under "sessionable" or "boring". I was just glad to be able to put it away quickly before running for the next plane.

The adventure continues in Portland, Oregon, next week.

Dispense with the formalities

Cask Thornbridge Halcyon was a pleasant surprise on the cask beer engine at Against the Grain a few months ago. I had encountered an aged version at a festival a while back so it was interesting to compare notes with a spanking fresh pint.

It's a very different experience, with the powerful pithy hops exploding on the palate. Yet, amazingly, it's not in any way acrid or harsh and I don't reckon that can be chalked up to the balancing effect of the malt, even though it's all of 7.4% ABV. Which leaves me wondering if it's the smoothing effect of the cask dispense at work, or maybe just a brewer who knows what he's doing when it comes to putting a recipe together. Anyway, fresh Halcyon is recommended.

Over at the keg end of the bar  that evening they had Thornbridge's Chiron on. Since it's a fancypants import keg beer I was surprised to get given a pint: usually it's a 375ml glass for this sort, but I wasn't complaining. I first encountered this last time I was in London and enjoyed it; this time it just didn't work as well, lacking in body and flavour and with its tiny bit of dank tasting like 5am Saint's weedy little brother. Not enough flavour power for a sipper and too strong to be properly sessionable, it was neither one thing nor another. Perhaps the lesson here is not to follow the double IPA with a mere American-style pale ale.

I suppose I should have one of Thornbridge's tall handsome bottles next to complete the set. Fortunately I found their Vienna lager Kill Your Darlings in Redmond's recently. It's been out a while but this was the first time I'd seen it in real life and it's a truly superb beer. A spot-on shade of teak and wonderfully silky, having a texture that's full without being heavy and the gentle carbonation of German lager served from a wooden barrel.

The flavour reminds me of the first time I tasted Samuel Adams Boston Lager and the redefinition of what malt tastes like: rich and biscuity with some mild caramel and even a little smoke. There's a certain bitterness to it too: some liquorice and sour plum, and the Amarillo hops bring just a slight overtone of soft juicy peach. It's a tragedy that such an insanely quaffable beer costs close to €5 a pop in the off licence. Just as well the draught Thornbridge beers are no strangers to our better pubs then.

Mummy!

They get a bit of grief, Sierra Nevada, for being something of a one-trick pony. Big and hoppy is their shtick, and their efforts away from that genre are somewhat patchy. So no pissing about with European styles for this one: a straight-up 10.4% ABV Double IPA that's more American than Steve McQueen driving a Mustang through a gun show. It's not merely hopped up, it's Hoptimum.

Even before the little green guys start their work this is an attractive beer, pouring the sort of mingled cream and amber that would have Poe scrambling for a clean piece of paper and a biro. Stick the nose in and you get lovely big mandarins at first. Inhale deeper (you'll want to) and there's a lingering threat of pine resins and sinister grapefruit. Strident, wall-to-wall west coast hops.

The taste is quite harsh at first: a green acid acrid bitterness with vegetable notes. Leeks to me, broccoli said the missus. The texture on which this is delivered is all slickness: greasy and heavy without any soft malt fullness or roundness. Add in the prodigious hopping and the overall feeling of oiliness is unavoidable.

I confess I had a moment of disappointment at this stage, rejecting the beer like the other Sierra Nevada hop-bombs in 710ml bottles (Southern Hemisphere and Wet Hop) which were just too unbalanced and difficult. But then I had a fit of the vapours. That amazing smell just does not quit. Even when your tongue is drowned in acid bitterness, the aroma just keeps on coming, filling the nasal cavity with those gorgeous juicy fruit flavours. However they've constructed the aroma here it works fantastically, balancing a beer that's basically all hop.

Hoptimum is a symphony to the hop, an aria in lupulin. Clearly the work of someone who knows quite a bit about which hops to put in, in what order and how much. I'd recommend this beer, though I wouldn't recommend following it with a bottle of Torpedo, which ended up tasting as malt-driven as Samuel Adams Boston Lager in the aftermath.

Under Napoleon's Nose

It was the draw of the Wetherspoon Beer Festival that led me, against wise council (cheers Ed!), to set foot in The Bridge House on my few free hours in Belfast last Friday. It was not yet 4pm so of course the place was buzzing. I felt a bit out of place among the other customers, what with my ability to walk upright and use tools. Had I shown them that I understood the gift of fire I don't know what would have happened. Perhaps I would have been made god of their loud and sticky hell. Anyway, there was nothing from the top flight of the festival listings available, and I settled for 3 Bees Oatmeal Stout. It's a solid, workmanlike performance, very dry for the most part, with a pleasant chocolate complication and a tiny bitter hop bite, shading towards metallic, at the finish, There's a certain charm to it, and it's inoffensive. Quite the contrast to Belfast's JD Wetherspoon and its clientele, in fact. I moved on.

Top of my Belfast hitlist was The John Hewitt, across town. Reputed as one of the city's best beer venues it's run as a non-profit co-operative apparently. The beer selection was not as good as I was led to believe: beer of the week was Cruzcampo, unfortunately. Two cask offerings from Hilden and Belfast Black on keg were the sum total of craft beer. I settled for a pint of Köstritzer and one of Hilden Ale before hitting the streets again, a little disappointed.

Round the corner is well-reputed gastropub The Northern Whig: a cavernous venue which serves nothing at all worth drinking, while nearby is the Duke of York where, with the Hoegaarden tap removed, the selection has got worse since my last visit in 2005. This trip to the beer mecca of Belfast was not working out as well as I'd hoped. A shortcut through the generic-UK-shopping-centre Victoria Square brought us out at Bittles, a quite charming narrow pub where whiskey is the dominant theme. The bottled beer selection is quite decent, between local and Scottish micros, but I plumped for a pint of keg Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter, just for the novelty. It's sweet and Tizery, probably pairing well with a dram or two of the decent. The beer lover, meanwhile, moved on again.

Just across the alley, in fact, to The Kitchen. This pub was demolished and rebuilt as part of the Victoria Square redevelopment. While there's no doubt that a lot of the original charm was carried off in skips years ago, it holds a reputation as a proper beer pub and I reckoned it was well worth investigating. I probably should have known when I met a woman at the door dressed head-to-foot as a Magners pear that my visit wouldn't end well. In fact, it ended some thirty seconds later when I observed that the clips on the two handpumps on the bar were turned around, and everything else on sale was muck. Another blow for my perception of the Belfast beer scene.

I don't remember why I'd earmarked The Garrick as worth stopping in, but I did. A decent selection of Hilden and Whitewater bottles languished at the bottom of the fridge, but I was in the mood for ticking and opted for a couple of Italian lagers. Theresianer Premium Lager is from Trieste and is brewed for a definite Austro-Hungarian feel. It has a soft yet dry character which is unchallenging but decent, as a helles should be. Theresianer Vienna is a lot like the Samuel Adams Boston Lager with which it shares a shelf in the Garrick's fridge: properly Malteser-malty, shading towards Ovaltine, with only a slight tail-end staleness spoiling the fun. For unfussy boozing outside on a warm Friday afternoon, one could do an awful lot worse.

By this stage it was coming close to the train time, yet I was desperate to find some Whitewater beer on cask. My list was exhausted, but there was one sure bet a few blocks away: I headed for The Crown. It's been a while since I last set foot in this Belfast institution: a lavish Victorian "Liquor Saloon", owned and maintained by the National Trust. Trade was brisk, though it wasn't full exactly, and best of all there were three handpumps for Whitewater beer, including my first encounter with Belfast Black on cask. It's not quite as good as Fuller's London Porter, but it's really not far off. It has that sour plums-and-damsons complexity next to the chocolate and liquorice. Perhaps it was just as well there was only time for one: having it in a busy bar full of Guinness drinkers started to induce money-changers-in-the-temple feelings in me. There could have been spillage.

And then it was back aboard the Enterprise and home to Dublin at warp factor 0.0000001. In a way I'm a little let down by what I found. Belfast isn't quite the quality drinking city I was expecting it to be. There are no pubs with extensive world-beers selections like I've seen in CAMRA-award-winners in Great Britain, and local cask ale seems relatively hard come by. The Crown is deserving of a visit all by itself, but beyond that: caveat crawlor.

Lout of the free

By way of hómage to the beer bloggers' beer blogger, Mr C. Lager of Oop North, I am eschewing my overpriced pongy ale for this post and going for yellow fizzy lout of the very cheapest variety I could lay my mitts on.

First up: Victory Prima Pils. I wasn't expecting much from this as the bottle was well past its best-before by the time I opened it, and expected even less when it came out pale pale yellow with high levels of carbonation. But tasting was a pleasant surprise: it's loaded with the grapefruit and peach notes of a charming, if bitter, hop character. The finish is a bit sudden and the expected staleness leaks through, but all in all I thought it works rather well as an American hoppy lager (but not as a pilsner, I hasten to add, before Velky Al sends the goons round). It lacks the balance and charm of Brooklyn Lager, but if you like your lout bitter, it's ideal. And the price? Well, it was past date, as I said, so the offy gave it me buckshee. Can't say fairer than.

Most recently, Al has turned his wrath upon Samuel Adams Noble Pils, and I just happened to pick one up recently. This is a much more attractive gold colour than the Prima, but it's hard work getting any kind of flavour out of it. It's dry, and as it warmed I got a brief sensation of white grapes, but bugger-all else. I suppose a fair bit of that has to do with the hop-laden lout I drank before it, but if you want more by way of tasting notes, try Al's post linked to above. As to its claimed credentials as a pilsner-style lager, it's got the full body but it's definitely too fizzy and lacks a solid malt backbone. I think this experiment has failed and I'd choose plain old Boston Lager ahead of it any day. If I were paying, that is: this bottle came courtesy of regular commenter Derek who brought it back from the US a couple of weeks ago. Cost including delivery: €0.00. And worth every cent.

You don't have to neck crap from cans to get your lout cheap, you know.

Data systems and why I love them

Over the last year or so, Superquinn's attitude to beer has been that of a skittish yet inquisitive kitten when faced with a new Object in its midst. The supermarket chain had always been very positive to Irish beer, and I remember fondly the days when they would have shelves resplendent in beers from the Kinsale, Finian's, Dublin Brewing, Irish Brewing and Carlow Brewing ranges. Sadly, only the latter of these brands remains in existence, and Superquinn's selection suffered as a result, reverting back to the macro rubbish that everyone seems to prefer.

And then, around the time of last year's rugby World Cup, we started to see some new and interesting stuff appear for a few weeks, then be gone just as suddenly. Deuchars IPA was one of the first, then Theakston's Old Peculier. Maisel's. Samuel Adams. Paulaner. Competing supermarkets took up the call and we have now a modest yet highly gratifying range of decent beers on our supermarket shelves. I don't buy many of them -- the independent retailers are far more interesting -- but this, I firmly believe, is where the revolution in Ireland's beer market will happen: in the aisles of Tesco, Dunnes and Superquinn.

So I barely batted an eyelid, a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed my local Superquinn had added Samuel Adams Boston Ale to their selection. €1.95 a pop: good enough; better than buying a basket of six anyway. I took my bottle to the checkout.
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
"Oh, it doesn't like that."
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
*brrrrrring* "This won't scan in for me."
The supervisor with a face like a bag of spanners inspected the barcode. "Naw, you have to buy six of these, see."
They weren't shelved in six packs (see above right), and they were priced individually, but I was in too much of a hurry to fight it.
"No, it's fine, I'll leave that aside then." And on I went.

And then, a week or so later, I was back in Superquinn.
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
"Oh, that's not scanning in right... It's free. Company policy."
That's more like it.

On pouring, it looks a lot like the amber Boston Lager -- it's far from an unattractive colour, but I don't buy beer to look at it. The first taste also resembles its stablemate: that Malteser-like sharp maltiness, though sitting on a slightly less carbonated base. It is, in fact, much less fizzy than most of the bottled American ales I've had. The hops kick in later, and don't quite cut through those big sticky malt notes. What this needs is some of the floral, tannic, English hop flavours to raise the bitterness a notch and add a fruity complexity which would sit very well with the beer underneath.

Still, I'm liking it and I'd buy more. In fact, I'd even deem it worth my while arguing with Spanner-Face Manager about company policy to get a stash of this for free. Compliments don't come much higher on this blog...

Cry havoc

What is it about craft beer branding and canines? We have those well known American breeds Flying Dog and Dogfish Head, and now there's the Scots terror: Brew Dog. The Aberdeenshire microbrewery opened just last year and is already producing an impressive range of beers, bottled and on cask (my notes on cask Hype are in this post). Reviews have been generally positive, so I requested a mixed case as a Christmas present from a UK-based family member (cheers, sis).

Because the brewery is new, I'm not terribly upset about what happened next. In small business terms it's probably classified as an oversight or teething troubles: the dozen 33cl bottles were shipped without any protective wrapping on them. As a result, one of my Rip Tides arrived in several pieces, with the cardboard box receiving the full benefit of the imperial stout within. I trust the brewery will be rectifying this dispatch issue soon, if they haven't already.

I started with the "laid back amber beer" The Physics, immediately struck by the cuteness of a best before date written in biro. It's a dark amber colour, reminding me of American lagers like Old Scratch and Boston Lager. Not much aroma, just tiny sugary sweetness and even tinier hops if you inhale deeply enough. The first sip delivers a big, and quite unexpected, hoppy punch: brimming with a very heavy vegetal bitterness of the sort found in the more full-on English bitters. Think Landlord. The bitterness lingers and is joined by a rich caramel sweetness and the overall sensation is like sucking on a candy-coated hop cone. Er, probably. The Physics is tasty, complex, and not at all laid back. With all those hops in this one I moved on to the IPA with trepidation.

The first shock of Punk IPA was from the colour: a very bright, pale yellow and suspiciously clear for a handcrafted beer. Yes, I know that my suspicions are unfounded and that craft brewers can make clear beers too, but I like a bit of cloud in my ales. There's probably a chemical additive you can get... Anyway, second shock was that Punk isn't an aggressive hop monster. The aroma, again, is slight and has a citrus quality which is carried through in a big way in the flavour. It's very zesty, with lemony overtones, and also quite smooth and more-ish. Punk isn't about being smooth, but it is about being shocking, I guess, so the name can stay.

Rip Tide was a bit more normal, in a special sort of way. It pours a very opaque black with just about no head. There's a bit of a prickle in the mouthfeel, but mostly it's rich and thick. The taste is quite subtle, and nothing leaps out immediately. Rolling it around the palate it's quite dry, but there's just a hint of chocolatey sweetness in the mix there too. It leaves a bitter taste at the end as a prelude to the next sip. I think my preferences lean towards the caramel-and-coffee school of imperial stouts, which left me intrigued as to what happens when you send Rip Tide off to live in a whisky cask for a while.

It gains two ABV percentage points and turns into Paradox, is the short answer. The one I have here is from an Islay cask: batch 8 -- Bowmore. The smoky peat is apparent even from the narrow neck of a slightly cold bottle, and even more so when poured into a wide-bottomed glass, where a tawny head makes a brief appearance but is gone in an instant. The fullness of the Rip Tide mouthfeel is there, as is the lasting bitter aftertaste, but before that there's the earthy scotch buzz dominating everything. The 10% ABV is well hidden among the smooth and balanced whisky flavours. Its Laphroaigishness reminds me a lot of Messrs Maguire's fantastic, but now heart-breakingly gone, Imperial which I raved over back in the autumn. Paradox is a superb beer: uncompromising, innovative and chock full of the Brew Dog spirit. Well done, lads.

I look forward to trying some of the other beers Brew Dog have out. And I look forward even more to being able to buy them in Ireland where I can be fairly sure I'll get them home in one piece.

High Plains snifter

Right, I'll skip the usual bit about American beers and irritating tiddly bottles. We'll take that as read.

This post is about three beers which have just appeared on the Irish market, hailing from breweries headquartered in Colorado (though yes, I'm aware that one of them has recently moved all production to the east coast, but it took me ages to come up with the title of this post and I'm not changing it now). I'm told they're being imported in minuscule quantities for strictly limited periods, and will be replaced by other American craft brews supplied on the same basis. Sounds fun, for as long as it's kept up. To business, then:

Flying Dog's Old Scratch is an amber lager and, as such, I was expecting something from the same general gene pool as Samuel Adams's Boston Lager. While the taste is some way similar, this beer is a darker, redder affair. I was disappointed by a lack of body, but then I guess you're supposed to be drinking this by the six-pack. At the end of the flavour there's a strange, but not at all unpleasant, estery taste with a hint of raspberries and similar summer fruit. Not a bad beer, but I won't be hankering after it when it disappears from the shelves.

American IPAs being what they are, I was expecting a hop attack from the bottle of Snake Dog. Instead I got a rather easy-going beer, paler than most IPAs, and with strangely sweet bubblegum and toffee notes. Approachable and eager to please, this is my sort of IPA, though probably a hophead's worst nightmare.

At the other end of that spectrum is the rather less accommodating Hercules Double IPA from Great Divide. I served this at cellar temperature and was immediately struck by how harsh and alcoholic the aftertaste was, with very little up front. Those big hops flavours just didn't sit well with the other notes and the end result was quite discordant and unappealing. I thought perhaps I should have been drinking it colder, to take some of that blunt edge off, but as it warmed I found it became smoother, rounder and infinitely more drinkable. The bottom line, however, is that this is more effort than I'm willing to put into drinking a beer. Hercules lacks the interesting and complex flavours to justify the exertion required on my part.

So, the next batch is supposed to include Anchor Christmas ale, but the next batch was also supposed to have arrived last week. This is me not holding my breath.

Maltsville USA

Raiding a friend's fridge recently, I happened across some Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Americans of my acquaintance rave about this beer as one of the world's greats. I have to say I'm not wholly convinced of that. It's good, certainly, and leagues ahead of most American mass-market beers. What I like most is the distinctive maltiness on the palate: a soft, velvety smoothness - quite unlike any other lager I know. A world-beater, no. But classy stuff nonetheless.