Giving the people what they want

For some unfathomable reason, my posts about Aldi's off-brand lagers are perennially popular with you lot. Never above a bit of click-bait, I filled a basket with ones I hadn't tried on a recent restocking expedition and then dared myself to tackle them. At one stage there was a grand plan to try them blind next to the brands they're aping, as I did with the Peroni one, but it started to look like too much fizz to get through, so these will be judged on their individual merits alone.

We begin with the Budweiser twins. I'm sure there's a very good reason for Aldi offering two different Bud lookalikes, though can't help thinking it must be confusing for a target demographic not used to making choices when it comes to beer. It could be that there's a transition afoot. Breysers is the legacy brand, one which has been around for ages. "100% premium quality ... authentic American style beer ... made in France" is all the essential data Aldi wants to get across to us. In the glass it's a proper pilsner gold with decent head retention, so therefore nothing at all like Bud on that score. There's a slightly metallic tang in the aroma, which does say American light lager to me, but at least suggests the possibility of hops. In the flavour, hops came there none. It's a surprisingly thick and sweet affair, very much unbalanced to the malt side. An initial hit of candyfloss and barley sugar tails off into an unpleasant musty damp-grainsack twang. The upside of all this residual sugar is a big and fluffy Helles-like texture, which is nice and süffig, but very much not the crispness that Bud drinkers will be seeking. This is a poor effort overall, a dismal beer and nul points for resemblance to its originator.

The new kid is Brookston, though they've gone more old-school in their blatant theft of Budweiser's image. This time the can gives us no clue as to the beer's origins, though does tell us it's "premium" four times on the front. Methinks the lager doth protest too much. Maybe it's my imagination because the photos are very similar, but I thought that this bore a closer resemblance to Budweiser: a slightly paler shade of golden. The sweetness has definitely been dialled back but that horrible sackcloth staleness remains, with a weird ready-salted savoury bite. Alongside the extra crispness, there's an accompanying watery quality, making it feel like something has been cut out of it. Some bonus points for tasting and feeling a little like Budweiser, then, but none for being actually enjoyable.

Next on the list for the homage treatment is Carlsberg, and Karlskrone is the Aldi answer. As with the previous two, the ABV is 4.3%, matching the Irish versions of the mainstream brands. It looks well in the Carlsberg glass: the right shade of bright and shiny gold. The aroma is innocent: weighty malt and a mild noble hop grassiness. All very promising. As with Breysers above, the malt leads the flavour, but it's not quite as intensely sweet. There's a certain level of crispness, and no off-flavours. Although it could be accused of being bland, I think there's enough character on display here to tip it into acceptability. I don't know that I would consider it an acceptable substitute for Carlsberg, however -- it's still too heavy and sweet for that. If you don't mind your lager being a little on the sugary side, I would almost recommend this. It's the first one of the sequence to offer actual value for money.

I didn't realise Staropramen had a sufficiently high profile to warrant a clone, but here one is. Strana is a little different to the others in that we are told the brewery of production, and its none other than my old mucker Pearse Lyons of Dundalk. Close followers of the own-brand lager scene will know that Lyons makes an excellent Czech knock-off for Tesco, called Manislav. Strana is the same ABV (5%) so I'm guessing the recipe is at least somewhat similar. It comes in a green bottle, too, so was giving off skunky vibes even before I brought it outside. That's really only in the aroma, however. The flavour is a flawless mix of crisp grain and grassy hops -- hallmarks of a classic Saaz-based světlý ležák. Definitely a cut above the others so far. Shame about the UV-permeable bottle, though.

Finally, what if San Miguel, but cheaper, asked nobody. San Marcos is Aldi's answer. "Tradicional cerveza especial ... brewed in Italy" says the label. It's a little lightweight compared to the real thing at 5% ABV, and looks somewhat pale by comparison too. I'm not at all a fan of that Spanish lager so no points will be awarded for similarity here. It's cleaner, drier and easier to drink, and more appropriate to warm weather. But there's a nasty element too; a plasticky tang that prevents it from being clean, bland and decent like the Karlskrone. The extra strength means it probably works OK as a food beer, where other flavours will mask the flaws. As such, if you're looking for something cheap and relatively cheerful for Mediterranean food -- Spanish or Italian -- this is worth a punt.

A couple of diamonds in this particular rough, then. I haven't decided yet whether I'll tackle the remaining clones. The Corona and Heineken ones are only sold in multipacks and that's a commitment I am not yet ready to make, even for the clicks.

No rest for the ticker

Irish Craft Beer Week is upon us once more as the nation girds its collective loins for the craftquake that is the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, now in its fourth year at the RDS Industries Hall, from Thursday.

To whet your appetite for that I thought I'd run through a few of the recent releases from Irish breweries. Bear with me: this may take a while.

The Porterhouse's Pale Ale Festival ended in late July but nobody seems to have told Eight Degrees who had yet another beautiful hop monster on tap at the Temple Bar branch -- and several other pubs besides -- shortly afterwards. Simcoe Rye Ale is the latest in their single-hop series, 6% ABV once again. It's a hazy dark amber colour and the aroma offers a heady cocktail of grassy rye and weedy, spicy hops for the overall effect of a summer meadow on steroids, or getting your head stuck in a pile of damp lawn cuttings. First in the queue on tasting is a dry and punchy bitterness, sharp at the front and then with a longer resin finish, plus just a modest burst of juicy mandarins coming into it as it warms slightly. Behind these is a dense crystal malt base, though the caramel sweetness is felt more than tasted, if that makes any sense. It's a sort of heavy smoothness and brings balance and drinkability to what's an unmistakeably intense hop-forward beer.

International booze behemoth C&C invited me to the launch of their first Irish beer, Clonmel 1650, brewed at the plant best known for turning out the world's supply of Magners. They rented the entirety of swish Dublin superpub The Church and packed it to capacity, adding insanely loud music for extra atmosphere. Still, two free pints is two free pints. First impression of the first pint was of a very dry lager, the flavour evolving into an earthy, mushroomy, dusty, musty unpleasantness. I guess that's why they gave us two. The second was better, with more of a fruity estery vibe, though still pretty dry. Already in C&C's portfolio there's Tennents, Staropramen, Heverlee, Stella Artois and Beck's Vier. Regular drinkers of any of those will find little to surprise them here.

Clonmel 1650 will not be available at the RDS this weekend.

Before the 1650 gig I dropped into the nearby Twisted Pepper to try a new house beer in their Brewtonic series. I missed the first one, brewed last year at 5 Lamps, and this new one came from Rascal's (here's the official making-of blog post). It's a golden ale utilising Magnum, Summit and Cascade, and they've called it Relax the Cacks, for summer and that. It arrived very cold, which I was glad of that particular July evening, showing a slight craft haze in the gold. There's a sweet nectarine aroma, powerful enough to almost pass for Belgian. You get a massive whack of tropical fruit on tasting: peaches mostly, some pineapple, a bit of mandarin. The body is full enough and there's sufficient alcohol heat to keep the Belgian thing in mind, with definite elements of the first-rate sort of Belgian blonde ales. I got the impression it might start to get a little sticky if allowed to warm but there was little chance of that on this occasion.

The Brewtonic guys also had a bar at the first Big Grill barbecue festival which happened in Herbert Park a couple of weeks ago. As well as imported beers, it was serving some welcome leftovers of another one-off that Rascal's did for them, for a different event earlier this summer. Brewtonic Belgian Wit, said Rascal Emma, is a close relation of their own Wit Woo but utilises a little extra Munich malt. Wit Woo is fairly big on the citrus orange notes and while there are definite echoes of that here, this one drops the bitterness levels and adds in masses of extra soft and fleshy tropical fruit, mangoes in particular. There's a small burn of sulphur and the coriander spice levels are low, but they're really not missed with all the juice action going on. An ideal outdoor summer beer, this, and the festival wasn't long in being cleaned out of it. Brewtonic's boss says they're planning a brown ale next. It has a tough act to follow.

Rascal's doesn't have the monopoly on house beers for yoof-oriented Dublin pub chains. The Cassidy's/P. Mac's/Blackbird group have commissioned their own from Trouble Brewing, a 5.5% ABV pale ale called Vietnow. I explored it sitting among the junkshop furniture on Blackbird's terrace. This hazy dark orange beer smells very dank with heavy sandalwood notes as well. Expecting a dense resinous affair I was very pleasantly surprised to get a burst of mandarin on the first pull followed by a dankness that only comes from fresh hops in quantity. There's a thick mouthfeel and lots of that incense-like spicing. While a certain amount of resin lingers late, most of its hop action happens right up front. It was created as a cheaper alternative to Punk IPA, though at €5.40 a pint in Rathmines it's not exactly going for a song. Much as I enjoyed it, I felt my fiver in the Twisted Pepper above was better spent.

Meanwhile, under their own brand, Trouble have released Oh Yeah!, badged as an "American Black Ale". It's an inky black-brown colour with a fairly sedate aroma of spiced oranges and crunchy green veg. It's lightly textured with lots of prickly fizz, something that complements the spicy bitterness which is the centrepiece of the flavour. There's little by way of fruit complexity, in marked contrast to Eight Degrees's recent Vic Secret, instead it's veg and spice all the way. The dark malt contributes a little bit of chocolate and a little bit of roast, but not huge amounts (in the keg version at least; on cask it's understandably smoother and richer). At 5.8% ABV my liver felt somewhat cheated by the lack of complexity, but it's still a very tasty beer, and at just €5.10 in Against the Grain, my wallet was of the opinion that my liver could shut the hell up.

More pint action tomorrow, including a couple of brand new breweries.

Tribal imbibements

Friday saw me in Galway where one of the ICB lads had arranged a visit to Ireland's newest brewpub, Oslo in Salthill. Straight off the train my first stop was Sheridan's on the Docks -- a cosy watering hole where the beer list is conscientiously chosen and the macro taps are overshadowed by huge fonts for Budvar, Staropramen and Galway Hooker. It was a pint of the hoppy local that quenched my thirst before I moved on.

Destination two was a new pub for me. The Salt House is part of the chain which includes Oslo, and I was lured in by the promise of cask White Gypsy ale. Sadly, while the engine was in place, the tap was dry and I made do with a pint of Porterhouse Oyster. The pub is a narrow and compact boozer offering free wi-fi and a fantastic range of beers. The guest tap was pouring a deliciously spicy Messrs Maguire Weiss and I had that to accompany the burger I brought in from Mustard, a nearby restaurant under the same ownership. The Salt House is open from 3pm and is managed by James: a kiwi beer fanatic with a robust approach to customers seeking the bland usuals he doesn't stock. It's a definite must for drinking in Galway.

On then to Oslo, in the centre of Galway's seaside suburb of Salthill. This is on a much grander scale, stretching back from the front door along a long bar to a large saloon at the back. Windows here offer a peek at the stainless steel vessels of the Bay Brewery where John the brewmaster plies his trade. They don't have a kegging setup as yet so the beer is pumped directly from the bright tanks to the bar. Two beers are on offer at the moment: Bay Lager and Bay Ale. The former is probably going to come as a surprise to the unsuspecting yellow fizz drinker: it's orange and cloudy for one thing and tastes very dry and crisp. There's a touch of oxidised cardboard in it and I got a mild appley vibe as it warmed. Bay Lager is a work in progress, I'd say. The red Bay Ale is a far more rounded product. It's very much malt-driven and is full of sweet biscuity notes, though the hopping is generous too, adding a lovely fruity dimension to the finish -- definitely one of the better examples of the Irish red out there.

From the wide bottled selection I got a chance to try the 16-year Ola Dubh. It's not very different to the one aged in 12-year-old whisky barrels, but the phenols are more pronounced. It's tasty, but I think I prefer the milder incarnation. I wonder does the marker-pen taste get bigger and bigger with the ascending age of the barrels? If so, I dread to think what the forthcoming 40-year edition will be like.

The group adjourned to The Salt House afterwards for a few Hooker nightcaps and Galway was still partying when we turned in.

It was great fun and I'd like to thank Tom who arranged things and all the crew at Oslo and The Salt House for their generous hospitality. Oslo will be hosting the first Brewers on the Bay festival of Irish craft beer this May Bank Holiday weekend. It promises to be a fantastic couple of days.

Odd place for a pint

The Guinnesses had a charming habit of salting the earth and calling it civic-mindedness. When they bought Sweetman's brewery on Francis Street, Lord Iveagh had the site turned into a market (named after himself, of course) and presented it to the City. The extensive Anchor Brewery premises was also given over, to be turned into council flats, when it fell under the Guinness axe. Sweeping down from the old Dublin Liberties towards Usher's Quay on the south bank of the Liffey, Oliver Bond Flats (The 'Bond, in local parlance) have gained no small amount of noteriety over the years. There aren't a whole lot of businesses running in the immediate curtilege of the complex, but it's not surprising that one of the few is an off licence: a garishly-coloured outlet in the Booze-2-Go chain, operating throughout inner city Dublin in those places where the market demands cider and lager on a budget and served through a perspex hatch.

But this particular branch has a secret that it's trying hard not to keep hidden. Next door to the actual off licence, there's a pub. While the outside branding is still that of a downmarket intoxicant peddlar, a bit of money appears to have been spent on the inside, turning it into a central-European-style hostelry under the name Pifko. There's an extensive Slovakian winelist and a menu of Czech and Slovak specialties. Unsurprisingly, of course, the mainstream beers of the Czech Republic are represented on tap -- Staropramen, Pilsner Urquell, Budvar, Kozel Dark -- plus Gambrinus and the pale Kozel by the bottle. In general it's quite similar to the Czech Inn just a few hundred yards down river in Temple Bar. But it wasn't the selection of mainstream imports that drew me in.

Pifko has a house beer, called Pifko Premium. Before you ask, I don't know who makes it or where. The pub claims it's brewed exclusively for them, and at least one source has it that it's made in Ireland. But until I get some corroboration (let me know if you have any) I won't make any statements of provenance [edit: brewed at White Gypsy].

It's an amber beer, of the granát style, I guess, served very very cold. Bitterness is the driving force here. I thought initially that the sharpness was a yeast thing, as it reminded me most of the more severe sort of Belgian wit. But on the end, and especially on burping, it's clear that lots of bittering hops have played a role here too. There's no character I'd describe as malty per se, no caramel or graininess. Instead there's an intense sugary sweetness which is just about detectable and which, when combined with the hops, creates an amusing sort of perfume flavour, one which comes through in the aroma as well as the taste. It's an interesting beer, without doubt, and there's a lot to be said for having a bitter quaffer available for warm-day drinking. I wish Pifko every success.

I've been writing a lot about Dublin pubs recently, which is most unlike me. And I still haven't got around to Tramco, the intriguing new pseudo-brewery which recently opened in Rathmines. The Irish beer revolution trundles on...

In the meantime, I'm fleeing the country tomorrow to hit the Great British Beer Festival. I'll be in my navy IrishCraftBrewer.com t-shirt, most likely loitering at the BSF bar. Say hello if you see me.

"Kurva! Not him again!"

The beer menu in the Czech Inn rarely bears any resemblance to what's written -- often in biro -- on the keg fonts. Having ordered my lunch today I took a good long look at the menu and then the bar taps, supervised by the very patient barman who was single-handedly running the daytime shift in this very evening-orientated pub.

Between the Radegast and Staropramen, I spotted one I hadn't seen on previous visits, nor on the menu. "Pepinova Destika? What's that then?"
"It's a new Czech lager," came the reply. Good enough.
"I'll have one of those please."

It certainly looked the part when it was brought to my table: pure gold with a gorgeous fluffy topping of froth. In a proper Czech mug it would have looked even better, but never mind. There's a nice sparkle to it, accentuating the pilsner hops sharpness. The dominant flavour, though, is a kind of candy floss super sweetness. It's not a heavy, malty sweetness, nor any way cloying, but much much lighter. This sugary quality in no way detracts from what is, in essence, a no-frills drinking lager. Fluffy, but definitely not frilly.

Put with a plate of tender beef goulash made with a generous hand on the paprika plus a few inch-thick slices of knedlíky and you've got half an hour of unfussy pleasure.

Only in it for the dumplings

For lunch today I paid a return visit to the Czech Inn, scene of my recent upsetting Staropramen experience. I used to go to this pub quite a bit last century, back when it was Isolde's Tower: it was the sort of place one never planned to go to, but ended up there, on the edge of Temple Bar, when everywhere else was heaving. Good times.

Now it's a headquarters for Dublin's Czech workers, and is the only place serving a range of the food and drink from home, saving the handful of upmarket establishments with Budvar and Staro on tap. I had a plateful of roast pork with sauerkraut and knedlíky for just €8: even if possessed of the inclination and a big stick, I don't think I could beat that.

It was washed down with a pint of Gambrinus 10°, a smooth and malty pilsner I've met favourably in Prague once or twice. Unfortunately, this was tainted slightly with a touch of that acidic quality I experienced with my last Czech Inn pint. I conclude that the early afternoon is the wrong time to visit this pub. I'm sure once a few dozen pints have been run through the lines of an evening the quality goes up. However, with the sound system already blaring across the empty room, I dread to think what it's like with several hundred thirsty Czechs letting off steam.

Anyway, I will have go back sooner or later because I still haven't had my dark beer fix. Fortunately I'll be able to sink a pint of Budvar Dark tomorrow at the first ever Great Irish Beer Festival (Brits & Yanks: only click the link if you promise not to laugh) in Galway. The thought of that will be sustaining me on my 140-mile trip to the other side of Ireland in the morning.