Show us your dimples

Murray's is what you might call a boutique superpub. It's right at the, ehm, unfashionable end of O'Connell Street and has had a succession of names over the years. The current incarnation is perhaps a little bit more pleasant than some earlier versions, and on my visit the food seemed decent and some of the punters actually looked like they were gainfully employed.

What had me in there in the first place was news that they had a house beer now on tap. Not expecting much, I have to say I was extremely impressed by Murray's Lager. First thing that struck me was the serving temperature: see the frost on the glass in that picture? Exactly. I'd say it comes out somewhere closer to a cask ale: refreshingly cool, yet warm enough so you can actually taste it. And what a taste: Saaz, Saaz and more Saaz. The spicy bitter Czech hop is balanced by a candyfloss malt character, and the whole thing is tasty, extremely drinkable, and at a mere €3.30 is one of the best value pints in central Dublin. The cute dimpled pint mug, something I've never been served beer in before, was the icing on the cake.

All other things being equal, I'd assume this was a Czech import. It tastes a lot like Pilsner Urquell. The barmaid in Murray's even told me it was a Czech import. Except, the postering and font badge are promoting it as "Home Grown Beer" with merely "Imported Czech Hops". So, like Pifko Premium, Solas Lite and the TramCo range we have another mystery beer. It's great the way the beer choice keeps expanding, but why does the provenance have to be such a big secret?

Late late edit: apparently it's a rebadge of one from the Chotěboř brewery in the Czech Republic. Thanks Cliodhna!

Lights by name

It's bilingual puns again today, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Solas is a bar on Wexford Street in central Dublin. It's a very up-market modern sort of place, big into its cocktails and achingly hip soundtrack. In short, it's the sort of fashion-victim lounge I generally avoid like the proverbial. Oddly, however, it has a very slightly better-than-average beer selection, though leaning towards the wit-and-weiss school of daring, with just a couple of Chimays representing decent ale. Bizarrely there's a Bass tap, something normally only found in slightly ropy suburban drinking dens and those frequented by even ropier Taoisigh. But I digress.

The first tap in the row dispenses a house beer called Solas Lite. "Solas" is Irish for "light" in the illumination sense, so somebody probably thought this was hilarious. Anyway, I have no idea who makes it or what it's doing there. The staff were as bemused by the whole thing as I was. What they could tell me is that it's a yellow lager, it's very low strength (3.6% ABV) and it's dirt cheap: €3.60 a pint. Cheap unbranded beer is not something one readily associates with this sort of bar. In fact none of those three words really fit in with the stoli-and-prada brigade. Nevertheless, the proprietors are proud enough of this to have had custom glassware made -- the engraving just visible against a black background (right).

Unsurprisingly, the intrigue around Solas Lite is far more interesting than the beer. It's bog-standard pale and gassy as hell. The flavour, such as it is, is dry and there's a touch of diacetyl which suggests to me that it may actually have been made by a human rather than a machine.

Being upmarket, Solas doesn't have a Bud tap, but this is pretty close. The colour and strength are wrong for it to be a simple rebadge, however. And yet an owner who has specially commissioned a beer and accessories is seemingly not enough of a beer enthusiast to have ordered something interesting. And yet it's been around too long for it simply to be a disguised batch of something else that didn't turn out as expected. None of it adds up, and I doubt I'll ever get to the bottom of it unless someone out there knows.

Anyway, here presenting Solas Lite: probably the dullest enigma in the beeriverse.