On the reintroduction of wolves

There were no half measures in the relaunch that Wicklow Wolf just undertook. It centred around the big and shiny new brewery in Newtownmountkennedy, but also included a brand refresh, a format switch from bottles to cans, and a raft of new beers. Sessioners Elevation and Eden survived the update, while Arcadia has been rejigged from warm-fermenting blonde to fully fledged lager. The IPA, porter and red, however, have been completely replaced, and in this post I'm looking at the new starting line-up, plus a few specials.

Wildfire is the brewery's new take on red ale, or possibly amber, given that it's officially "hoppy". It's quite a dark take, showing only faint red tints through the garnet. This is replacing their Sorachi Red and I get a definite bang of pithy coconut Sorachi Ace right in the middle of the flavour. Around it it's a bit thin, the texture watery and the flavour sharp. The malt side of the equation is understated: no toffee or caramel here; not much more substance than you'd find in a cup of strong tea. This feels tokenistic: we have to have a red; let's do Smithwicks with a more interesting hop. It'll float many a boat I'm sure, but not mine.

The centrepiece IPA is named after another extinct creature: Mammoth. Wicklow Wolf's distant roots are in Colorado, hence their launch with their original 6.3% ABV IPA. That's crazy strong for an Irish IPA so here they've brought it down to... 6.2%. It's not that different, really: a big hit of grapefruit and orange pith; a malt weight which exists solely to propel the hops. There's a slight metallic tang, but setting that aside it's very clean, delivering the hard 'n' hoppy flavours any '90s kid will lap up. With modern IPA splintering into a million variants, not all of them worth drinking, it's good that there's still a bitter hoppy core present and visible.

It doesn't really make sense to think of Apex as a replacement for Black Perle Porter, but it is the only black beer in the line-up. It's an oatmeal stout at a big 6.5% ABV and plays up to that from the moment the can opens. The pitch-black beer pours out thickly and slowly, forming lots of nicotine-coloured foam. It smells like a turf fire on a cold night: acrid yet somehow comforting, a mix of bitter herbs and burnt toast. The bitterness is intense from the first sip, giving it an almost grassy kick. When this fades there's strong coffee, a tang of tobacco and a light spritz of rosewater. These are all classic, stouty, stout flavours, not quite balanced but skewed towards a very grown-up bitterness. I really enjoyed the effect, and would quite happily have everything ramped up a level or two higher, but I know that wouldn't be to everyone's taste. Recently I wrote how much I enjoyed the straightforward stylings of Lineman's Astral Grains, well here's another very much in that vein.

The sequence hits the crescendo with Pointy Shoes, a bourbon barrel imperial stout. I only just noticed that the branding is still the old one. Well, if you're going to go out, go out on 12.5% ABV. Despite the strength it's very easy going, light on the alcohol warmth and with elements of coffee, coconut, vanilla and churro sauce. With my imperial stout scorecard out I'd say it lacks bitterness, the sort found in Apex, but as a smoothed out barrel-aged take it's up there with the best.

Berliner weisse next, and I think Vice Vice Baby may be the first I tried from the new brewery, back in early October. It's strangely clear for the style: another pure gold glassful. It's not any way sour either. I get a dry wholegrain crispness but that's as close to the style as it comes. There's a briny, sweaty musk and a bizarre sugarpill sweetness. I imagine this is what you'd end up with if you forgot to add the souring culture to a straight-up Berliner weisse, though I'm sure that's not what happened. The end result is a clean and thin beer, screaming out for a tartness which it just hasn't been given.

I was privileged to have visited the Wicklow Wolf hop farm back in the summer. They've been turning out the Locavore series from there this last few years: an annual all-Irish beer (or two) in a spread of styles. Saisons, blondes and pale ales have all lent themselves to the muted tones of Irish-grown hops, but this year they've gone dark: Locavore 2019 is badged as a dry Irish stout. Well, it is and it isn't. For one thing the ABV is up at 5.5%. For another, the flavour is beautifully complex, bringing rosewater, cocoa, tar and pipe tobacco. It's a lot more complex than the norm. I find it hard to believe that the hop character here was grown in Leinster but it really forms a centrepiece to this. We're far from everyone else's idea of Irish stout: this is closer to the top end of London porter. Maybe it's time we reclaimed it.

Last of the string is Dawn of the Red, an imperial red ale aged in bourbon barrels. It comes out at 9.4% ABV and smelling all of that: big on the oak, coconut and red liquorice ropes. The texture is heavy and that's fully part of what it does; the oak vanillins spread quickly to the back of the mouth from the first sip onwards. Though the wood is sharp, verging on harsh, there's a smooth and balanced aspect, brought by the malt. A lot of work has gone in to making this beer taste like this. I like the end result: all the malt and all those bourbon barrels. If super-strong barrel aged red is your schtick, here's 440ml of it.

Do one thing and do it well is very much not the Wicklow Wolf motto, if these early offerings are anything to go by. In particular, the brewery seems to have found a new knack for stout. Long may that continue.

Baby got backlog

Before I went on holidays in September I made a concerted effort to clear as much as I could out of my beer fridge. This post represents that hurried few days' swigging -- an express train through some of the bottled Irish beers new to me in autumn 2016.

I started with a refreshing witbier from Wicklow Wolf. Belgian White is a fizzy beast, taking a few goes to pour and resulting in a true-to-style hazy pale orange body topped with a crackling white head. It smells of fizz too: a hard carbonic bite, backed up by coriander herbs. I was expecting a hard prickle in the mouthfeel but the bubbles are surprisingly big and the texture of the beer nicely heavy and rounded, moreso than might be expected at just 5.2% ABV.

The label description mentions bananas and I get that estery fruit thing running right through the beer from foretaste to finish. There's a substantial higher-alcohol heat as well, bringing a certain element of acetone to the taste. A lacing of juicy citrus and a dry wheaty finish do a good job of providing balance and keep the whole thing from getting too hot and heavy. You'd probably need to drink it colder than I did to get any real refreshment from this guy, but as a weighty and complex take on wit it works quite well.

Red ale with Sorachi Ace hops is a new one on me, I think, but that's what Wicklow Wolf's Sorachi Red is. It's a clear dark copper colour, almost more brown than red, and topped by a stiff off-white head. The two sides of the equation are present right from the aroma, showing lots of toffee but also the distinctive lemon rind and powdered coconut of Sorachi Ace. There's a very Irish red sort of burnt roast in the flavour, something that successfully pushes against both the crystal malt sweetness and the obstreperous hops.

It's almost classically traditional, if a little strong at 5.1% ABV, and only at the finish is there that cheeky pinch of lemon. Definitely not a mad banging craft beer oddity, but rather a fun modern twist on a quite old fashioned style. Grandad's bought a fixie. Good for him.

Combining witbier with the east-Asian theme brings us to Thai Wit, new from Dungarvan Brewing. It's a whopping 6.4% ABV and rather dark for the style, a kind of amber brown. There's a lovely sweet Thai perfume, the lemongrass particularly prominent. It's rather more style-typical on tasting, the coriander coming through loud and clear on top of a dry wheatiness with lots of fizz. I'd swear I can taste the orange peel but no orange is listed on the ingredients. Perhaps it's the kaffir lime leaf giving it that citrus quality. The herbal finish lasts long, an oily coriander residue left on the lips.

It's a fun and interesting version of the style, not startlingly different but ramping up the flavours and offering a few extra bells and whistles. I didn't have any Thai food to hand but I reckon it would work very well as an accompaniment.

I'm writing this in the aftermath of the 2016 Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS and one of the stars of that show was Western Herd on their first visit to a Dublin festival. Apparently, anyway. I didn't get around to actually visiting their stand -- more fool me. I do have a couple of their bottles in the backlog, however, and I'm starting with yet another witbier: Back Beat.

This is a more orthodox orange colour. I had the option of leaving the yeast out but thought to hell with it and dumped the lees in as well, so you can add hazy to the appearance description. The fruit is off the charts in the aroma: bananas at first, then jaffa and mandarin, like a fruit salad (the dessert, not the chewy sweet). It's rather drier on tasting, with a sulphurous note I tend to associate with immature wheat beers. The coriander brings soap, the yeast an earthy grit, and all the lovely soft fruit from the aroma has evaporated. In the end it's a rather harsh beer, perhaps needing to be served very cold to smooth it out. It's complex, sure, but not in the right ways.

The other one of theirs I picked up in DrinkStore is Blue Jumper IPA. At 6.2% ABV a bit of poke was expected and it delivers in the aroma all right, a smack of fresh grapefruit with a definite heavy crystal malt toffee sweetness behind it: American-style IPA the way your momma used to make it.

It's extremely thick, to the point of being almost difficult to pull from the glass. At first there's a harsh and raw vegetal flavour but this opens out shortly after into zestier orange sherbet before settling back into the earthy tones of Cascade, with a more grapefruit and a metallic edge to remind you that this hop is descended from Fuggles.

Poke? Yes, it has that. This beer is extremely hoppy, in way that went out of fashion a couple of years ago but is genuinely fun to drink, as a 33cl serve anyway. The pencil sharpener finish is a bit much, but that gooey orange-toffee centre more than makes up for it.

Some more IPA to go on top of that? Sure why not. Amarillo is number four in Eight Degrees's series of 5.7% ABV single hoppers, each of which has gone all out to show the hops at their banging and bitterest best. This guy is no exception. I had a bit of a cold when I got to it so I think the full effect of the aroma was a little bit lost on me. It didn't smell of all that much anyway, just a faint candy-citrus that could be any hop.

However, there was nothing wrong with my flavour sensing apparatus: one sip brings a dense orangey oiliness, the exact same sort of hop density and intensity found in the beer's companions. Where you'd normally expect the malt to sweep in and spread the load, it doesn't. Instead there's a dry and quite tannic bitter finish, bringing Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter incongruously, but pleasingly, to mind. An acidic greenness hangs around on the palate afterwards, waiting to be swept away, temporarily, by another gush of citrus. Like the Galaxy and Mandarina Bavaria versions before it, it's a bit strange to have hops normally associated with juiciness bringing such a hard bitter edge to a beer, but also like those two, it's wonderfully invigorating and at the end of the bottle I was wishing I'd had a pint.

And finally, with the bags packed and the taxi booked, DOT's Sour Cherry Apricot Ale. It's a muddy brown colour with an odd sort of aroma: over-ripe squashy summer fruit and an enticing Orvalesque funk. Though it looks weighty it's only 4.5% ABV, with a corresponding lightness of texture. The flavour is quite light too and I sat perplexed at the keyboard for the first few mouthfuls, trying to find something to grab on to. The apricot is certainly there, as a sort of candied fruit flavour, then there's a kind of cherry skin bitterness and behind it the melanoidin biscuit flavour of the Belgian malt, and also a quite Belgian gritty yeast flavour. It all tails off quickly, leaving just a faint trace of that cherry bite.

It's definitely a disconcerting beer. Unsettling, even. Part of me wanted the flavours to be bigger and bolder, but I also wouldn't want it to be a hot sugary yeasty mess, which I'm sure would be all too easy to do. At the other end it has too much going on to be a refreshing quaffer, nor is it clean enough. So no constructive criticism from me, but I do think the recipe, while promising, needs work.