Down my way

Mourne Mountains from Co. Down is the latest Northern Irish brewery to begin selling its beer south of the border. They have an intriguing range and I've encountered them only sporadically before on visits to the north, so it's great to be able to get a proper look at what they're doing now.

I first tried Mourne Gold when it was very new, on cask, at the Belfast Beer Festival in 2015. I wasn't a fan, finding it hard and heavy with an unpleasant touch of soap. The ABV has since been dropped from 5% to 4%, and I get to drink it cold from the fridge, so a reappraisal is due. It still resembles a perfectly poured glass of cask beer: a pure limpid golden colour. Fruit candy dominates the aroma, in a slightly sickly way, with some added honey and spice. They call it a pale ale but the initial impression was more like the best of English golden ale. Think Summer Lightning. The texture is light, so no drinkability issues this time, while the flavour mixes an oatmeal cookie cereal dryness with bubblegum: definitely a golden ale, with the style's roots in cool-fermented lager coming through in its crispness. A tight grapefruit bitterness adds an American angle without changing the fundamental nature of the offer. It's a characterful flagship, and definitely an improvement on the first draft.

The ABVs take a jump hereafter, and next it's The Wall, a double IPA at 8%. I'm used to these being all-murk nowadays so was surprised and pleased by the west-coast appearance: a veritable glowing golden amber, only dusted with haze thanks to my clumsy pouring. It's still approachable, however: no smack of pine or grapefruit but an enticingly juicy mandarin aroma, with a hint of cordial suggesting weight and warmth to come. The flavour, too, is less extreme than I expected. It's predominately sweet, though not sticky, and the heat level is modest given the strength. The mandarins are back in the foretaste but give way quickly to a spritzy citrus: a little bit satsuma and a little bit marmalade too. I thought it would be fuller flavoured than it is, but I appreciated the gentleness of the whole thing. While rare, it is possible for a double IPA to be relaxing.

From double to triple: presenting Seven Sevens. It's all of 11% ABV and a very dense beast, glooping into the glass, an orangey beige colour. Yum. The flavour is a mix of concentrated orange cordial and some class of children's medicine, with a tang of fennel and tarragon representing the bitterness. I confess I've never really got triple IPA as a beer style: it feels like something invented more for the brewer to show off with than for the drinker to enjoy. Usually they have a clean and almost spirit-like heat, but here they've tried to ally the high strength with the oat-driven soft texture and juicy flavour of the New England style and it doesn't yield a positive result. The beer isn't unpleasant, although the rough grit of bad murk is a feature, but if I were to criticise it constructively I would primarily suggest dialling back the gravity, which is to say don't make it a triple IPA. I find myself less critical of what's in my glass than the thought process that created it. Anyway...

An imperial stout to finish with. Wee Honey lists "natural honeycomb flavour" in the ingredients, and I'm not sure what that means, but the beer itself smells powerfully of Crunchie bars. It's a little on the pale side for 9% ABV, more brown than black, though the head is full and generous. With that comes a fizzy and quite thin texture. I guess it's a mercy that it's not horrifically sticky, because it smells like it should be. The flavour is rather more complex than the aroma. That honey flavour brings in floral heather and tangy beeswax, finishing on a lasting sweetness that's more perfume than sugar. While that's all very interesting and enjoyable, it does come at the expense of the stout side. I was in the mood for a heavy and warming glassful but it doesn't really fit that bill. It's impossible to be cross with it, though. The brewery has given us something genuinely different, and very tasty.

At Mourne Mountains it seems they have no qualms about daring recipes, which is heartening. If the range keeps turning over I'll be buying more from them.

Cherishing the children equally

When you spend a lot of time watching the doings of small breweries, the behaviour of big breweries can seem a bit weird. Diageo, for instance, has two new beers out but looks to be treating them in very different ways even though they're quite similar to each other, on paper at least.

Smithwick's Blonde I learned about via my ancillary hobby of peering in pub windows at what they have on tap. The first place I noticed it was The Norseman, but the bold yellow font was also to be seen leering across the bar in The Boar's Head and neighbouring Slattery's on Capel Street. It was in the latter that I finally caught up with it. A simple substance, it's dry and crisp with lots of fizz, a watery heart and a rather stale malt husk finish. The gas and water makes it nicely palate cleansing, which is about the best I can say for it. Why they made it and who it's for is anyone's guess. I've seen no related PR and not even the Smithwick's website recognises its existence. As soft launches go, this one is downright soggy.

Compare it, then, with its almost-twin Hop House 13. This was launched with a thumping audiovisual fanfare at a media event in St James's Gate last month. Here's Nick Curtis-Davis, Diageo's Head of Innovation for Guinness, explaining the rationale behind the new beer, followed by the soundtrack of a short video they made to introduce it:

Sounds great, eh? The show-and-tell was followed by a taste down at the pilot plant with Peter Simpson, the young brewer fronting this release. It was cold in there and the little sample even colder so I didn't get much of a chance to assess it. I caught up with it again in the wild at Slattery's a few days later.

Diageo has branded it a lager even though it's made using standard Guinness ale yeast, and there's definitely an extra ale-like body to it rather than the clean blank slate of a pale lager. Hopwise they've employed a prestige combination of Mosaic, Galaxy and Topaz which creates an immediate fruity spicy buzz on entry with even a hint of naughty dank and some dry but fun pomegranate and cranberry. These are mere nuances, however, and the main thrust of the beer is a simple and sessionable English-style golden ale, putting me a little in mind of the likes of Hopback's Summer Lightning. At a piddling 16 IBUs and high-gravity brewed in huge quantities it's not going to displace any Irish micros, but like another of its siblings, the Amarillo-laced Smithwick's Pale Ale, it's the sort of beer I'd happily drink when it's the best available option.

The new brewhouse at St James's Gate has allowed Diageo to design and launch new beers faster than ever before: Hop House 13 was an unprecedented seven months from first draft to first draught. That makes four brand new recipes out the gate of the 'Gate in the last six months. At this rate, and with access to all those increasingly scarce hops, they're bound to hit on something really good at some point soon, right?

JAGA

It's a happy coincidence that the Session on summer beer comes just after the Hilden festival. This was my third year attending the event in the brewery yard near Belfast, where summery blondes form a big part of the selection. I may not be a huge fan of the genre, but at least that's the legwork taken out of this Session.

The festival itself got a little bigger this year, with the addition of two teepees in the gardens, hosting comfy seats and live traditional music: respite from the benches and amped-up rock of the main stage area. There was also a homebrew competition (well done Derek; hard luck Níall), an additional al fresco bar, giant games, and all manner of more festive things. It's always a great day out.

My first blonde of the day was by Williams Brothers, the Scottish brewery which seems to be everywhere these days. I'm a massive fan of their Heather Ale Company range (especially Fraoch), but had never tried any of their more mainstream beers. Ceilidh was on offer -- a cask lager with 4.7% ABV. Sadly, it's not very good: very very sweet, with what they claim to be toffee flavours seeming like brown sugar, with lots of unpleasant graininess behind it. I suspect a bit of forced carbonation would liven this up, and make it taste like Barry says it should. Mrs Beer Nut didn't have a great start either, opting for Nethergate's coriander-infused Umbel Ale: an attractive shade of light copper, but really lacking any distinctive flavours, including the coriander. There's a bit of crunchy grain to it, but the rest is thinness and dullness.

Oakham's JHB gave us a bit more taste: a slightly spicy green flavour, like cress, as well as some bubblegum malt, but with Cotleigh Monument we were leaving flavour country once again. By the time we came to the unspeakably tasteless Evan Evans Gold, my wife had coined the term JAGA (Just Another Golden Ale) for the succession of boring blondes that had passed our way.

There were some notable exceptions, however. Cravenbräu from Nethergate offers a lovely balance between the big pale malt body and a hoppy bite at the finish: that's what summer blondes are supposed to do. Even better was Summer Lightning. I quite liked the bottled version of this, but on cask it's simply amazing: lots of zesty citrus, sherbety fruit notes and a generous dusting of spices -- wonderfully refreshing and very moreish.

Of course, summer beer doesn't have to be blonde. Okell's Red went down an absolute treat on Saturday: a simple ale with big malty flavours and all the tasty chewy caramel and toffee you could wish for. I was less impressed with another amber ale: Skinner's Keel Over. This is too watery and the caramel and smoke flavours just don't work hard enough.

And that was all the new beers. I also took the opportunity to find out if Spitfire is as boring on cask as it is from a bottle -- it is -- and had my third go of Timothy Taylor Landlord. For the first time I understand what people see in this beer: it was all bittersweet honey and botanicals and not the harsh monstrosity I'd been given in London previously. I only got a sip of it, though, because it sold out in very short order, unfortunately. My appetite for a proper pint is whetted.

The Irish breweries were well represented. On the downside, Messrs Maguire IPA and Franciscan Well Shandon Stout failed to impress: there's not really much going on in either. Cathedral Quarter on cask was a marked improvement on the bottle -- lots of lovely smooth chocolate flavours. Finally, I bored the hell out of everyone by going on at length about Barney's Brew -- Hilden's wheat beer and an epiphany at last year's festival. It's still sublime: spiced nine ways from Sunday with coriander, cardamom and what I'd swear is chamomile. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this beer needs to get out more.

And there ended another Hilden and another summer. Still, I can't complain: September brings a bit of travel plus the year's second big celebration of Irish beer, this one on my doorstep in Phoenix Park. I've time for plenty more summer beers yet, I'd say.

The Outdoors? Great.

The theme for this month's Session is Atmosphere, and the ambiance in which one prefers to drink beer. For me, the key to really enjoying my pint is to be outdoors. Whether basking in the sunlight streaming through the chestnut branches in a Bavarian beer garden, or perched above a hyperactive neon metropolis on the rooftop bar of an Asian skyscraper, or just at a barbecue at a mate's house, beer is always best al fresco. Part of my fascination stems from the climate I live in, where winters are long and dark and the threat of rain is omnipresent year round. Drinking outside always feels like a treat.

Today the showers are coming thick and fast down from the Dublin mountains, but I've managed to grab a brief sunny spell to sit out back and blather about an appropriate beer. My find is Summer Lightning, a golden ale from England's Hopback brewery, intended for summer but always in production. It has a wonderful beery nose and pours quite clear, despite the sizeable sediment deposit left in the bottle. Although 5% ABV, it's quite a light ale, gently fizzy with little foretaste but a long and pleasing hops bitterness. One could hoist a few of these of a sunny evening with little difficulty. And like so many English craft beers, it's one I bet works much better on draught.

This afternoon, ensconced away from the rain in the medieval splendour of the Bull & Castle, I sampled another summer delight: Sierra Nevada Summerfest. The label gave me pause, proclaiming in block letters to be "Bottom Fermented", which I'm sure gives great encouragement to the brewing cognoscenti, but for an ordinary punter like me carried scatological connotations I'd rather not go into. Summerfest is ostensibly a lager, it seems based on something as smooth as the best of Munich. But on top they've roughed it up with that trademark Sierra Nevada hops explosion. A fantastic beer, but once again, Mr Nevada please can we have it in bottles sized for grown-ups?

And with that, the purple clouds are massing and heeere comes the rain.