Beat the January rush

I feared I might have missed the new-year specials when I rocked up to Rascals for an overdue visit in late February. Thankfully everything was still in stock -- shout-out to all the dry Januaryers of Inchicore.

First up is a big surprise style: cream ale. Nobody around here makes them and I've never really seen the point of them, but my continuing unprofessional development is what pilot brews are for. This isn't a straight example, which is good. Instead they've made it a Blueberry Coconut Ale. Does that improve it? Probably. The problem with cream ale is it's generally tasteless, whereas this has a nice dollop of soft creamy coconut and a gentle berry tartness which I don't think I could have identified unaided but adds a different character and balances the coconut sweetness well. Perhaps cream ale is the way to go with this: a base so dull it tones down any additives. As a result this 4.1% ABV purple job is spared busyness and is nicely drinkable and easy-going.

That was number 74 in the Rascals pilot series. 75, then, is called Campfire Brown. Brown what, you can decide for yourself: it's cold fermented. With the smoked malt and 5.3% ABV it sounds like they're going for something similar to Schlenkerla Märzen, which you could say is the archetype of smoked brown lager, but you probably shouldn't. If that's what they were aiming at they haven't hit it. This is sweet, very much like a typical brown ale -- caramel to beat the band up front, and only the way it finishes quickly giving away the lager side. The smoke is relegated to a back seat, so at least there's no unpleasant kippery flavours. Overall, it's a bit basic. Something for brown ale fans for sure, but in a reverse of the previous one I expected something more to my taste from the description.

Luckily I didn't have a description for the final beer of this visit, only that it's a Coffee & Oatmeal Stout and 4.2% ABV. No pilot number. Served nitrogenated, it looked a little pale in the glass: brownish-red, not black. The gas doesn't hold the aroma back, and there's a strong smell of fresh roasted coffee from the get-go. The body is surprisingly full for the strength, in a good way: this could almost pass for something in the foreign extra category. And then there's the coffee. The flavour goes massively on this: the burnt and oily crunch of a coffee bean eaten raw. The creamy texture softens this, making it seem a little like a frothy Irish coffee or a coffee cake. This is the sort of one-dimensional beer I have no problem with: it's all stout and all coffee, and probably some oatmeal, and as long as that's what you're after, it delivers. I like the idea of something as extreme as this being a permanent house beer. I hope it sticks around.

Meanwhile, back at home, a new take on IPA, which is of course just what the beer world needs. They're not the first to try and hybridise east and west coast IPAs, though they've opted for Midwest IPA as the name rather than "mountain" IPA which Odell has tried to popularise. So what do we get? It's 6.1% ABV and brightly golden in a very west-coast way. Citrus sprirtz is the aroma too. I mean, if you're going to lean one way or the other, west is best. The bitterness is restrained but far from absent, and there's a sizeable dollop of satsuma and kumquat which may be the intended nod to the east, but it's not juicy, not fuzzy and has no vanilla or garlic. What we've got, then, is something that tastes like a traditional American pale ale of a lower strength than this is, one where the flavours are bright and clean and accessible but not terribly engaging. I drank it on a Wednesday. It's a good Wednesday beer.

The pilot series has moved on since February but I think that's enough for today. I'll be back at Rascals for their Happy Days festival in a couple of weeks.

Dutch detour

I didn't go directly home after Brussels but instead took a Sunday morning train up to Amsterdam to pay a flying visit to some of my favourite and familiar haunts.

A burger in a randomly chosen burger place was accompanied by Jopen's Blurred Lines, a hazy IPA, of course. The brewery is generally a reliable one and they've done this well. There's decent head retention of the sort not enough beers in this style have. The juice quotient is plentiful in the flavour, and it genuinely does taste of freshly-squeezed orange. That includes a certain amount of pithy bitterness which balances it very nicely. And then there's a clean finish with no time for grit, garlic or any other nonsense. 5.3% ABV means you can order another straight after. It's not a complex or demanding beer but is very well-made. I would happily have it as a supermarket regular.

Onwards, then, to Foeders, in anticipation of some more sour goodness. Alas the menu was rather light on that front so I settled for dark and sticky goodness instead. That began with a 12% ABV imperial stout from Moersleutel in collaboration with Polish brewer Funky Fluid, called Suska Sechlońska. I would never have guessed the secret ingredient from the sweet and smoky flavour, nor the aroma like Islay whisky. In fact, there must be peated malt in this. All that the brewers own up to is smoked plums. Intensely smoked plums, if it's not from the malt. There's very good dessert stout in here, with lots of cream, coffee and chocolate, giving a certain impression of tiramisu, except smoked. The mix of gooey pudding and medicinal phenols is not unpleasant but odd and somewhat disconcerting. I wouldn't be running to order this one again.

I followed it with another from Moersleutel: a freeze-fortified stout called Magreet, at 16% ABV. For all that it appears dark and sticky in the glass, the aroma is light and bright as a summer market, heaped with fresh strawberry and cherry. The foretaste adds a pinch of almond paste to the cherry and serves it with a cup of hot, strong coffee. It's a lovely example of the complexity you can get with seriously strong stout. Stroopwafel. Raisin. Hazelnut. With a larger measure and more time I could have kept going but it was time to pay up and leave.

Obviously I'm far too grown up to go chasing cool or trendy beers, but I did notice an IPA from The Veil on the list at Beer Temple and reckoned I should check in with what the plucky Virginian brewery was up to. IdontwanttoBU³ is the name. It's 6.9% ABV and hazy as hell with no head. Its aroma is strangely herbal, presenting a mint and eucalyptus sharpness. The flavour is mostly sweet with merely a residual remnant of the savoury herbs. That gives the impression of chewing a raw hop cone, and maybe that's the point. If this is an attempt at the optimisation of beer hopping then we've gone past the point where it tastes nice. I would take Jopen's Blurred Lines over this any day.

Beer Temple is part of the MoreBeer chain, and I'll usually try the house beers on the grounds that they're only available in these pubs, and they generally tend to be worth drinking. Here there was Ninth Secret Eagle, a 5.5% ABV stout (not The Secret Eagle of the Ninth, my gritty reboot of the classic children's novel) brewed with/at Amsterdam microbrewery Walhalla. It is extremely dry, opening on crusty, dusty grain husk before moving on to green and acidic old-world hops. I also got black coffee and Shredded Wheat as other types of complexity, though all at the dry end of the spectrum. I liked it, but you really need to like your stouts bitter and dry to count this as a recommendation. Be warned.

One more MoreBeer beer here: a schwarzbier brewed by Poesiat & Kater called Schwartsmannnnnnn. It's nnnnnnnot bad at all, being lightly smoked and offering an aroma and foretaste of blackberry and plum, which is then seasoned with smoke before the dry roasted-grain finish. It's quite full-bodied, so not terribly lager-like and far from a classic schwarzbier. I think it's a worthy twist on the style, though: creative, not disruptive.

It's almost a tradition that the last beer in Amsterdam is at Arendsnest on the way to the station. I stuck with MoreBeer here and was intrigued by the listing of a lambic-like, produced with Vandenbroek, and called Mispel. Mispel is Dutch for medlar, a fruit which Wikipedia helpfully informs us is also known as "open-arse and monkey's bottom". I'm glad they didn't get too creative with the name of this beer. It's 6% ABV, amber-coloured and smells spicy with a hint of vinegar. Despite this sharpness in the aroma, the flavour is very smooth and mature, giving mulled citrus, clove and peppercorn set on a low-carbonation cask-like texture. It's an oddity, for sure, but very tasty.

I finished that fast enough to allow myself one last beer: the delightfully named Smook from Frisian brewer Het Brouwdok. It's a smoked Märzen and I'm always up for trying out a Schlenkerla clone. How do I know it's a Schlenkerla clone? Well, it's dark brown, for one thing. Doesn't anyone make Märzen-coloured smoked Märzen? The aroma of this is quite chemically, suggesting TCP and bleach. The flavour is dry and toasted with a little meatiness -- the crust of a baked ham, say, rather than proper bacon. It lacks the understated richness of Schlenkerla, which makes it such a satisfying beer to drink. This is drinkable, but will inevitably invite comparisons which aren't in its favour.

And on that note I was out the door and homeward bound. Always a pleasure, Amsterdam. See you again soon.

What's the matter lagerboy?

Today I'm taking the pulse of Irish lager brewing. Or at least, I'm drinking a random selection of Irish lagers to find out what's what.

We'll start at St James's Gate, home to the only people who thought Rockshore needed a brand extension. So here's Rockshore Light, its ABV reduced from the dizzying 4% of full-fat Rockshore to a mere 3.5%. It's been getting some heavy promotion this last while, so I guess they're pitching it for the outdoor summer everyone is apparently having. In the glass it's a very pale white gold colour, crystal clear, with a frothy topping of fine white foam. There's quite a wholesome biscuit aroma, suggesting melanoidins and bigger sugars than you might expect for a 73-calorie slimmers' beer. There's a touch of that in the flavour too: spongecake and oat cookies. Said flavour doesn't last long, however, leaving behind nothing but a scorch from the overactive carbonation after a few seconds, presaging the inevitable heartburn. I looked hard for any hop character at all but couldn't find any trace. Overall this is better than I thought it would be. The tinny tang which I regard as light lager's biggest failing is absent, and likewise the fruity flaws of Rockshore Senior. The fizz is about the worst thing I can ding it for, though its lack of any other character doesn't exactly endear it to me. The others should give me a bit more to discuss.

To follow, The Pilgrimage, one of the beers in the Odyessy Series from the soon-to-be-rebranded White Gypsy brewery. It's actually a rebrew of Messrs Maguire Bock which I reviewed back in 2007 and which hasn't been seen since Cuilán handed over the reins of MM shortly afterwards. I wasn't a fan then but I think my tastes have broadened since. It's still a very bocky bock: a slightly murky amber and densely textured, even allowing for that full 5.8% ABV. The malt flavour is huge and intense, all rye bread, golden syrup and gooey onion relish. The noble hopping gives it a balancing black-pepper piquancy, particularly in the aroma, and some greener cabbage-leaf bitterness. Younger me found it an overwhelming mess of flavours; now I can pick out the different elements and that allows me to appreciate it more. If lager is a summer drink, this weighty warmer is perfect for the rainy days.

I expected a big contrast for the next one. Rice Rice Baby, oddly, is not a collaboration but brewed by Rascals alone. It's a return to goldenness and clarity, though it's not quite as pale as the Rockshore. In addition to rice, the ingredients include lemon and lime zest, and that's very obvious from the smell: a sort of syrupy, cordial effect dominating any lager subtleties. Crisp is the watchword on the can and crisp it is indeed. There's a lovely snap to the foretaste: melba toast and, oh, rice crackers. I see what they're doing. The citrus zest isn't long to follow, bringing that 7-Up sweetness which adds character but detracts from the cleanness. I guess it would have been a bit bland without some sort of craft gussying-up, and the zest is an OK option if you're not planning to load it up with lots of expensive Nelson Sauvin. Overall, it gets a thumbs up from me. I'd love to try the base lager, and its quality still shines through despite the "enhancements". The crispness and the perfect clean finish are all still here, even if the fruit addition is less than subtle. 4.9% ABV is maybe a little strong for a summery quaffer, but I guess we'll see about that: after I bought one to review, Rascals kindly shipped me a bunch of them for free and I'll be putting them to the test some sunny day.

Finally a beer I have been looking forward to for some time. Galway Bay's Schlenkerla Märzen clone, Märzen to the Fire, has been rocking my world consistently since it arrived last year. Now they've taken the next step in the copycat act and brewed a straight Helles but using trub from the smoky Märzen to give it a little of that character. My Bamberg Hell is the result. This one is a deep golden colour but still perfectly transparent. The carbonation is low and the aroma is mild but there's distant bacon in there. That gets more pronounced on tasting: a fairly involved phenolic edge offering dry beech smoke, shading to peat. The base lager isn't doing much of the lifting. There's a soft Helles texture but very little flavour contribution from the underlying beer. It ends up being smoke for the sake of smoke, not overpowering but not really complementary either. The dark richness of the Märzen is what makes that one work; this, while very well made, misses the mark for me. I liked it, but couldn't help thinking that either a clean Helles or a big dirty smokebomb would have been preferable.

In conclusion, lager is a land of contrasts.

Enough already

When Boak & Bailey kindly awarded me their 2020 Golden Pint for best beer blogger, the citation mentioned my "business-as-usual, non-plague-related content". So shall it be with my own Golden Pint nominations. I'll try and keep the phew-what-a-year, hashtag-unprecedented clichés to a minimum as I go through the categories below. That said, when picking a sipper to assist with my musings I couldn't go past Whiplash's recent offering Let.It.End.

The brewery describes it as a "futuristic stout", and if their prediction is correct, stouts of the future will be made with maple syrup and... French toast? Huh? It's a dense dark brown in the glass, and is that an eggy yellow hint to the head? The French toast thing has thrown me somewhat. As befits 11% ABV, and more, it is extremely dense: one of those beers where pulling it from glass to mouth takes a concerted effort. Although coffee isn't an ingredient there's a very strong coffee component in the flavour, with all the gritty, bitter and concentrated roast of a ristretto. Maple syrup, another ingredient, follows that to bring a contrasting sweetness, one which is just as concentrated and intense. I wouldn't describe this as complex: it's really just two extreme flavours butting up against each other. It's sticky and slow going, though the pay-off is a gradually growing warmth, which was the part I enjoyed most. Otherwise, it was just too much for me. Luckily I had plenty to distract myself with while sipping through it, what with...

The Golden Pint Awards 2020

Best Irish Cask Beer: DOT Barrel Aged Imperial Saison
I'm not aware of this beaut making it out into the world in any other form. Maybe it was the tail end of something. Anyway, I caught this late at the Franciscan Well winter festival in February and was very glad not to have missed it.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Galway Bay Märzen To the Fire
Seems like a simple sort of plan: brew your own clone of world classic Schlenkerla Märzen and stick it on draught in your chain of pubs. I know just enough about brewing to appreciate how tall an order that is, but this one nailed it. Drinking my first pint of it at The Black Sheep on 20th February I was looking forward to many more throughout the year. Just as well, then, that it translated perfectly to cans.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Porterhouse Around the Clock
This field is getting smaller, though is probably now the purview of high-end cork-and-cage or waxed-capped bottles. The Porterhouse's new imperial stout is the latter, but don't hold that against it. Judicious use of barrel-ageing courtesy of the brewery's sister distillery has created a luxurious yet balanced masterpiece.

Best Irish Canned Beer: DOT Barrel Aged Session IPA
More barrels, but a very different offer to the last one. This was an exclusive to Redmond's of Ranelagh back in the late summer. Under 4% ABV but brimming with honey, dessert wine and white pepper complexities. If Redmond's still has any in the fridges, grab it.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Jopen Maria Magdalena
The little bit of travelling I did at the start of the year landed me this bargain black IPA. Its mix of citrus zest and tarry bitterness is everything the style should be.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Hop City 8th Sin
Another dark one, this time a Canadian dark lager, from the makers of Moosehead. My expectations were low, but I discovered something akin to a superb Czech dark lager, a style we see very little of in these parts. This one is readily available in Irish off licences and is not to be overlooked.

Best Collaboration Brew: DOT / Brú Well-Rounded Individual
There was no shortage of barrel-aged loveliness from DOT this year, and this one on which Brú collaborated delivered the mellow maturity of barrelling at its best.

Best Overall Beer: Porterhouse Around the Clock
Of the seven contenders, the one which comes with a memory of being instantly wowed from the first sip was The Porterhouse's new imperial stout.

Best Branding: Hopfully
The Brazilian gypsy brewers moved operations to Metalman in Waterford this year and gave their branding a makeover. They had always been very artistic in their presentation, and the new style with clean and classy background colours makes their cans stand out even more. There were some lovely beers inside those cans too.

Best Pump Clip: O Brother: Bat Country
A recent one, but still a deserving winner. And while I didn't actually see it clipped to a pump, I did drink the beer via a draught growler and the badge was on display on the menu screens at UnderDog when I bought it, so it counts. Adam West and Hunter S. Thompson getting pulled over by the cops is, for me, a perfect mash-up of pop-culture and literary silliness.

Best Bottle/Can Label: Galway Hooker Cherry
Another serious take on a daft idea. I didn't know Popeye needed a gritty reboot, but here we are. Shout out also to Whiplash's Jupiters, which made me smile every time I took a can out of the fridge. What are those two up to?

Best Irish Brewery: DOT
Nobody has been quite so busy this year as the barrel wizard of Dolphin's Barn. Going beer shopping was the main reason I left the house at all, and DOT's exclusives with various off licences had me biking all over the city. I'm ending 2020 with a vast array of DOT ticks under my belt and a couple more cans still waiting to be opened in the New Year. In this season of goodwill I'll ignore the samey IPAs and concentrate on all the barrel-aged blended class that DOT has provided. If you want in on the ground level, you can find details of their barrel adoption programme in the link above.

Best Overseas Brewery: Oskar Blues
I owe at least some nod to our friends in the States here, having enjoyed several run-throughs of imported cans courtesy of the likes of Cigar City, Ska, Odell and of course Sierra Nevada. Of all of them, I think Oskar Blues had the highest hit-rate of good ones, so while this is largely an award for supply quantity and variety, there is of course a quality element too.

Best New Brewery Opening 2020: Otterbank
Does a brand that's been going for several years taking over an existing premises count as a new brewery opening? I'm saying yes, mostly to make things easier for myself. The first beer has been getting some great press, though it wasn't for me, while the second and third were legitimate hits. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens when Declan really gets into his stride.

Pub/Bar of the Year: 57 the Headline
The resilience shown by Geoff and Máire in an impossibly tough year was nothing short of astounding. When the pubs were shut, The Headline became one of my go-to off licences and kept me well supplied with new beers. And for the brief time during the summer that indoor dining was possible, a couple of dinners here provided a welcome feel of normality.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2020: Crew
What kind of lunatics open a new brewpub in a year like this? Crew in Limerick did, and paying a visit is high on my list of priorities when that becomes an option.

Beer Festival of the Year: Franciscan Well Cask & Winter Ales
I made it to one beer festival this year -- go me! So Franciscan Well kinda wins this by default. I did have a nice time, though. A special mention goes to The White Hag for organising two highly enjoyable online events.

Supermarket of the Year: Aldi
When I started working from home, Rheinbacher quickly became my daily staple. The fortnightly restock at Aldi Terenure became part of that routine. Thanks for keeping the cans consistently in stock, folks.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Mace SCR
In the depths of the first lockdown I had to make a few emergency trips to the office, my route taking me past this unassuming cornershop. It was such a relief to be able to stop, stock up on new beers and continue on my way. Molloy's on Francis Street also provided stellar service of this kind.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
This isn't a category I would usually trouble myself with much, but in 2020 the market for beer delivery expanded hugely. The service from Craft Central was consistently brilliant, and what really swung it for me was the click-and-collect option which was instrumental in letting me stay on top of new Irish beer releases. 

Best Beer Book or Magazine: Brussels Beer City by Eoghan Walsh
As usual there was only one contender for this, but it's a worthy winner -- a fascinating delve into the chequered history of Brussels brewing, from medieval lambic to the now-vanquished industrial lager giants, to the city's modern beer renaissance.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Shut Up About Barclay Perkins
The unsinkable Ronald Pattinson kept the lights on all year, every day bringing something new about stout or war or sugar or all three, with a bonus sprinkling of naughty vicars.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @RuariOToole
It was very much the year for weird and grim humour, and Ruari's Twitter provided plenty of it. Much appreciated, my man. Dudes rock!

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Whiplash
They're Instagrammier than I would like, but the information on their beers was always there when I looked for it.


I think that's quite enough of 2020, don't you? We start anew with hope in our hearts and mRNA in our veins, shortly.

Light motif

Low-strength German oddities isn't a theme I've tackled on here previously, as far as I can recall, but I do like to mix things up, so here goes.

Radler isn't really odd, but then it doesn't count as beer either, in Germany. This one is Grevensteiner Naturtrübes Ur-Radler, 48% lager, 52% lemonade at 2.5% ABV. I expected it to be hazy and yellow because radlers are, but it immediately confounded me by being a dark bronze shade and almost completely clear, at least for the initial part of the pour. Perhaps I should have given the bottle a rattle before opening. It smells of dried lemon and herbs, like the sort of mixture you might use to season fish in Mediterranean cookery. The flavour is very sweet, but not in the usual radler way. It's cleaner and smoother, with a dry and tannic lemon tea quality. There's even a mildly herbal hop bite. This doesn't taste like some fizzy pop topped up with lager. It's altogether classier, refined and refreshing. The sugar doesn't hang around on the palate, nor lump together in the stomach. A nice twist from Team Veltins.

But if even that is too rich for your blood alcohol, Schlenkerla has an offering, which I think is new, at 1.2% ABV. Hansla is the same dark brown colour as the rest of the stable, and has a familiar aroma of the burnt crunchy bits around the edge of a roast ham. They haven't compensated in the texture and it's quite watery as a result. This means there isn't the same meaty richness as with the classic Märzen, though it calls its intense flavour to mind. Instead there's a dry acridity, like real wood smoke at its most stinging and inconvenient. That works well in the high-ABV end of the series -- the urbock and oak doppelbock -- but is an encumbrance here. The aftertaste is a lingering raw beechwood that's a little out of character for the brand. Yes, it's thirst-quenching, despite the smoke, but so thin that it doesn't really feel like beer, more a smoked savoury soft drink: I could be persuaded it's a variant of kombucha or kvass or the like. Interesting as an experiment, but not something I would make a habit of, even if I found myself labouring in the fields around Bamberg. For more on the historical background of what's going on here, see Andreas's blog.

I like when German beer shows its reputation as staid and samey to be inaccurate. There's always more to explore even when you think you've seen and tasted it all.

Leftovers

It was a miserable wet afternoon in Düsseldorf and for some bizarre reason we went for a long walk along the grey banks of the Rhine, towards the big TV tower. We decided we'd had enough when we reached the wobbly Frank Gehry buildings and discovered that one of them had a bar. Meerbar is a blingtastic lounge-restaurant, big on chandeliers, soft furnishings and beautiful people smoking languidly.

About the only minimalist feature was the beer list, and I spied a beer I'd not tasted in a very long time: Maisel's Weisse. I couldn't believe how intensely sweet it is -- no cloves or yeast or spices or warmth, just a big soft candy floss texture. You want to know what it's like to drink a pint of Sugar Puffs? Grab a Maisel's. After one of these, I was ready to brave the rain again, and try to walk off some of the calories.

At the opposite end of the salubriousness scale there's Bier Museum, a dark poky, scuzzy pub in Cologne which feels like it should be a den of denim-clad bemulleted German rockers, rather than the beer specialist it is. However it's possibly the oddest specialty beer bar I've ever been in. For a start, the twenty-odd taps have no badges on them, and the battered beer list doesn't tell you what several of them are. I'm guessing that the "rauchbier" is Schlenkerla, but which one I don't know and I wasn't going to ask the surly grunting landlord. And in a peculiar fit of city pride, a sign on the bar indicates a choice of 17 different kölsches. That's a lot of yellow fizz.

Our first visit was on a Saturday night when the place was buzzing and we got chatting to a young American soldier who was up from Bonn and finding life in Germany hard, with no access to Sierra Nevada. Aren't the army supposed to supply these basic essentials? We went back a few days later at opening time on a Monday afternoon and had the place to ourselves. I was reacquainted with some lovely Hövels, and then progressed to a warming mug of Kulmbacher Doppelbock. I loved this beer: full and sweet and smoky; pipe tobacco meets smooth milk chocolate. There's no cloying heaviness to it, and the light carbonation makes it immensely satisfying to sit and draw upon. I would definitely look for it again if it wasn't for one thing: as far as I can tell there's no such beer as "Kulmbacher Doppelbock". Either it's something else from the same brewery (which also owns the Mönchshof and Eku marques), or it's a substitute doppelbock from somewhere else entirely.

I highly recommend Bier Museum, but they really know how to wind up the tickers.

Stone are nice

Thanks to Aer Lingus rescheduling my flight it was 1.30 by the time I got to the Great British Beer Festival on Tuesday, and the trade session was well under way. My fellow Irish Craft Brewer members had established Camp Ireland near Bières Sans Frontières and had already lured Ally (An American Alewife In London) into their midst. By the time I arrived, Knit Along With Bionic Laura was already in full swing.

I don't know if it was just because there was no Lost Abbey or Dogfish Head on cask, but I got the impression that the beer list was rather less geek-intensive compared to last year. Topping my hitlist were the beers from Stone: a brewery that has built itself a reputation of being hoppier-than-thou in a most immodest fashion. Barry had given a couple of them a bit of a pasting recently so I was dying to find out what the truth of the matter was. First up was Levitation, a pale ale with an uncharacteristic 4.4% ABV. The aroma is pungently hoppy, but the flavour is actually quite balanced, with a gentle sherbety character on a smooth body. This combination of big hops and big body made it extra hard to believe how low in alcohol it was: this beer does a very convincing impression of an 8% west coast thumper.

Next up was Stone IPA, the only one that Barry also tried and the only one he enjoyed. I enjoyed it too. It lures you in with quite a cute and fluffy hop aroma and after the first sip I was waiting for the bang of acid harshness. But it never came: it continues on this easy-going fruity note and it's only on burping (is there a more connoisseury word for this?) that the raw bitterness comes out. I was charmed.

Last of this lot was bottled Ruination, a beer which makes massive claims on the label about how much of a hop-monster it is. (Actually, I just looked, and "massive hop monster" really is the brewery's preferred description.) It's a clear pale yellow and at 7.7% ABV is inching toward palate-pounder territory. It certainly has quite a big chewy body with toffee malty undertones, but once again the hops sitting on top are quite balanced and not in the least bit harsh or difficult. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd go so far as to describe this 100+ IBU beer as "bitter". Fruity and hoppy yes, but bitter I dunno. It was the last beer I had before hitting the road so it is perfectly possible my palate was utterly shot to hell by then, but the point is I loved this beer and will be looking out for it, and other Stones, when I can.

Stone claim to be the demons of American craft brewing, but they're pussycats really, and all the better for it.

Only one other beer was a non-negotiable must-have: Schlenkerla Urbock. I've been looking forward to this since I first tried the Märzen. "It tastes a lot like Schlenkerla" said Boak, tasting it blind. And she's right, it does, which is why it's brilliant. Identical hamminess and just a slightly heavier body to it. With Märzen on weeknights, this is the Schlenkerla for Friday evening. In my Bamburg fantasy anyway.

When I went along to the bookstore to gawk at the captive Pete Brown which CAMRA had on display there, he told me I should wean myself off Schlenkerla. He even wrote it in my copy of Hops & Glory (great book; you should read it), suggesting Worthington's White Shield as an alternative. I've never had this oh-so-English IPA so, after leaving Pete to be taunted by his captors some more, Thom and I hit the bottled beer bar. Again, this could be palate-fatigue, but I found White Shield to be very much a malt-driven ale: rich and full and warming. The bitterness is a sideshow to this and the whole experience had me wondering how suitable it would be in a hot climate as opposed to beside a log fire in the depths of winter. I think I'll have to come back to White Shield, if I ever see it again. Pete seems determined to ensure we all will.

I don't have much else to say on the pale ale front: Moor's Revival, courtesy of Boak, was a bit thin and worty despite having a pleasant aroma. I was little more impressed with Thornbridge Kipling. The promised Pacific hops are there, lending a tasty grapefruit character, but not enough: my overall impression was of a grainy porridgey beer lacking in body, hoppy oomph and warming malts. It got better further down the glass but it just didn't hit the spot for me. My pontifications on Thornbridge being Britain's most over-rated brewery garnered incredulous looks, but I'll say it again here regardless. Flame away.

I was later leaving than I intended, sprinting out of Earls Court at 6.40. The usual drill at Heathrow: checking if my flight was on time; being annoyed that it was; then, with a whole half-hour to take-off, sprinting up to Wetherspoons to see if there's anything on that takes my fancy. I threw down a half of Bath Spa, finding the blonde a bit dry and musty, before dashing (nonchalantly, of course) through security and flopping into my seat with just enough time to throw a disappointed look at the final boarding passenger behind me, whom I'd elbowed out of my way at the gate.

I'll cover the darker beers tomorrow, but for the moment just a big wave to all the Internet beer folks I met, and especially to those like Barm and Woolpack Dave with whom I didn't take the time to have a proper chat. Another time, in more conducive surroundings, I hope.

And to those whose ear I bent probably a bit too much over the course of the afternoon, I can only apologise. I had travelled to London for some erudite and thought-provoking conversation on the finer points of the contemporary beer scene in Britain and beyond. You can judge for yourself how that went:
See you next year!

Fasting and abstinence

With a handful of exceptions, sales of alcohol are illegal in the Republic of Ireland on Good Friday. It's a social policy which has led to Holy Thursday becoming one of the biggest drink-buying days of the year, and there was certainly an atmosphere of panic in my local supermarket last Thursday evening, with almost everyone in the queue in front of me laden with cases of Heineken and Miller. I was just picking up a couple of bottles of O'Hara's Red for an engagement the following morning.

A friend had invited a few people round for a late breakfast at his place. I said I'd bring the beer and was carrying a bagload of Schlenkerla Märzen from DrinkStore, figuring it would go great with the full Irish that was planned. The O'Hara's were for anyone who wasn't up for the smoky goodness -- it's a beer I know works beautifully with the porky delights of a cooked breakfast. As it happened, they didn't get opened as the Schlenkerla was consumed with gusto. Comments from the newbies included "seawater" and "disinfectant", though in a good way, of course.

With the plates scraped clean, we were off home, where a beautiful afternoon was shaping up. We sat out of the bank of stones which will, some day soon, be a patio. Mrs Beer Nut opened a bottle of Weihenstephaner Tradition dunkel that was in the fridge. It's quite tasty, though very thick, sweet and treacly, making it perhaps not the ideal garden beer. I don't do sunshine so I was in the shade with a Westmalle Dubbel, a case of which I received recently through the kind offices of RealBeers.ie. Cool and sharp, this is a much better sunny day sipper.

As afternoon turned to evening, it was time to eat again. Business was booming down at the local chipper, with fish being the obvious fried dead thing of choice. To go with mine I picked the Amberley Pale Ale from New Zealand's Brew Moon. It's a cracker of a beer, this: a very pale yellow and only 4% ABV but absolutely loaded with fresh citric hop flavours. There's quite a bit of sweetness to it as well, so the end result carries juicy notes of melon and peaches on a full and satisfying body. As an accompaniment to battered cod it's absolutely perfect, but even as an everyday sessioner it would still be great. The 64cl bottle is the ideal serving measure too. It's quite a while since I bought it in Redmond's, but I'll be looking out for it again.

And that's where I left my Good Friday drinking. By 9pm I really was fasting and abstaining, ahead of the following day's trip to Cork for the main event of Ireland's beer calendar: the Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival.

Laying down smoke

I love smoked beers, and have very few memories of meeting ones I didn't like. From my first whiff of Craft Smoked Lager to establishing Schlenkerla Märzen as a regular, the past few years have been a greasy, bacon-flavoured, slippery slope all the way to smoke addiction for me.

There aren't too many rauchbiers available on a regular basis in Ireland. The magnificent Imperial from Messrs Maguire is the only home-grown one I've ever encountered, and it was a one-off (though an 18-month-old keg of it is due to be tapped at the Franciscan Well Easter Festival next week -- anything could happen). So I had a minor crisis when Lew picked smoked beers as the theme for April's Session. It took me a couple of days to remember there was an unconsumed rauchbier in my stash -- a Mikkeller I picked up on my last visit to Copenhagen. I had been aging it, but what the hell: any excuse to drink a smoked beer. Was some Danish bacon on the cards?

No, as it happened. Barrel Aged Smoke a Ciggy is a beer very much on the extreme side of the house. The nose doesn't really hint at what lies beneath, offering a double IPA warm hoppiness with just a mild earthiness from the wood and smoke. On tasting, the massively heavy, thick body with its mouth-coating texture could pass for even stronger than the 11.5% ABV, and there's no room for any fresh meaty rauchmalz flavours. Instead, there's a super-concentrated smokiness adding a spicy new dimension to vanilla wood notes and the sort of massive hop bittering I associate with an American barley wine.

Basically, this is phenols a-go-go, and not the sort of beer for anyone who cares about balance or subtlety in what they drink. I'm no anti-extremist, but even I found it tough going and I'm not sure I enjoyed the hour or so it took me to get through 25cl. I think quaffable thirst-quenching smokers are much more my bag. It's still early, but there's a Schlenkerla in the fridge for me when I get home.

Smoke 'em 'cos you got 'em

On reflection I probably didn't get nearly enough smoked beers into me over the three days of the European Beer Festival, despite running for every one I saw. Of course, Schlenkerla featured, at the stall of one of the importers -- the lager, which I tried here, and the Weizen, which was new to me. Unsurprisingly the big hammy Schlenkerla flavours dominate, quite yummily I might add, but it's also possible to detect the wheat beer softness under them -- just. My preference is for the bigger body of the märzen and this isn't different enough to provide a real alternative so I doubt I'll be going for it again.

Another new style getting the smoke treatment for me was an IPA called Sgt Pepper being served by Lund Teknik, a microbrewery equipment supplier who had quite a few examples of finished products available at their stand. I had to double-check with the festival guide that it wasn't simply barrel-aged, because my notes go on extensively about the peaty scotch notes present in this one. It's on the paler side of the IPA colour scale and much sweeter than anything else labelled with the style. Still tasty, though, but since the flavour leans more to whisky than bacon, I can't say it's my kind of smoked ale.

I'm going further afield for the last two rauchbiers. The stall which specialised in Czech microbrews had Kocour Rauch Lager on sale. It has the big full rich maltiness expected of Czech lager, but -- perhaps out of national pride -- it doesn't let the smoke flavour dominate this. You end up with something well-balanced and drinkable. My baconish needs were much better served by another smoked lager, this time from Finland. Sauhusanttu is a lot lighter of body but has a much bigger bacon flavour which builds gradually on drinking, instead of hitting the palate with a Schlenkerla-style hamslap. This is one I could quaff cheerfully forever without feeling full or overpowered by smoke.

Odd, isn't it? Ultimately there's not a whole lot of difference in the taste of rauchbiers: smoked ham is smoked ham, yet I get such a kick out of sampling new ones. "Ooo, that tastes like bacon too." Yum. More please.

We will rauch you

Just when we thought we were getting an easy topic for The Session this month -- Germany -- Lootcorp has imposed a variety of terms and conditions into the theme. We get extra points for Bavaria-related posts, but we're not allowed write about Oktoberfest unless we really have to (fair enough: my trip to the 2005 Oktoberfest is covered here). Most of all, we've been asked to discuss how "Germany and beer have become intertwined in your life". Well, ever since this post my interest in German beer has centred on the hammy delights of rauchbier, a speciality of Bamburg in (guess where) Bavaria. Look at those points racking up.

Tragically, Schlenkerla Märzen is the beginning and end of German rauchbier in Ireland. I'm not really complaining as it's one of my standard go-to beers now and I'm still thoroughly enjoying it on a regular basis. However, when I visited De Bierkoning in Amsterdam last month I headed straight for the German section to seek out new smoky delights.

And so, first up is Schlenkerla Helles Lagerbier, and I got a little bit worried when I brought this home: there's no mention anywhere on the bottle of it being smoked, nor is the label the fancy faux-parchment style of the other rauchbiers. Is it possible they just make a bog standard helles alongside the specialities? When the cap popped, no smoky vapours greeted me, and a good sniff of the poured beer didn't reveal any either. The paleness also had me thinking I'd been sold a smoke-free pup. Thankfully, I was wrong.

One sip reveals this to be rauchbier to the core. The strong bacon tones sit on top of a rather sharp and bitter hoppiness, of the sort I associate with parts further north than Bavaria. The two flavours vie for dominance briefly before the smoke prevails and gives the taste wonderful legs. I think the smokiness works better with the fuller märzen body under it, but it's definitely still a success as a helles.

At only 4.3% ABV, what I've got here is a superbly tasty session beer and only its gassiness might prevent me spending a whole evening necking it cheerfully. Well, that and the fact that I have to travel several hundred miles if I want another bottle.

My second beer of the Session is another lager, this time from the other Bamberg rauchbier specialist: Spezial Lager. It's a much more attractive, and smoky, shade of amber. No smoke on the nose though and... oh dear. Oh dear oh dear: there is virtually no smoke flavour to this at all. It could be the after-effect of the Schlenkerla, of course, but I doubt it. All I'm getting is a rather full-bodied heavy lager with very little hopping and just the faintest dry wisp of smoked malt. Specialist concerns aside, this is quite a dull beer by any standards: the smoke-free pup I was dreading earlier.

Of course, this is more about me than about the beer: yes it's a lager made with rauchmalt, and I'm sure it has legions of fans who wouldn't touch something as crudely flavoured as Schlenkerla with a bargepole, but such subtlety isn't for this drinker: I want a beer that screams smoke at me while waving a packet of bacon fries in my face. And this is very far from being it. Certainly, I'm willing to take a chance on the other beers in the Spezial range, but when given a choice between breweries, I know for certain where my loyalties lie.

The Bamberg Amber Hambeer

OK, it's not really proper amber: it's a deep treacly ruby red-brown, but the title was irresistible. I've been waiting for this one for a long time. My only previous experience of smoked beer (rauchbier in German) was in the Craft brewpub in Athens and I was smitten. So I'd been keeping an eye out for proper German rauchbier, a speciality of Bamberg in Franconia, for some time. This week I gleefully brought home a bottle of Schlenkerla Märzen. It certainly has the smoke character in spades, with roast smoked ham being the closest parallel. However, I found the underlying beer to be a little watery. I expect märzen to be quite a full smooth lager, but this one just didn't cut it. However, you don't buy Schlenkerla for its lager-like qualities. You buy it for the smoke, and I could very happily neck a couple of these with gusto.

There are other beers in the range, and I'll definitely be keeping my beadies peeled for them. That, and putting Bamberg firmly on the travel agenda, preferably in Urbock season.