Putting the boot in

One can measure the progress of the Irish beer sector by the commemorative beers it produces for sporting events. For previous football tournaments it's only been one or two: Eight Degrees's Trapattoni Potation for Euro 2012 and JW Sweetman's Brazil 2014 beer Maracanã. Maybe it's the presence of the Republic of Ireland team at Euro 2016, but there are three beers out to mark the occasion: one can, one bottle and one cask. At this late stage in the tournament it's a bit après match but let's take a look anyway.

Claiming the best possible name for an Irish football-themed beer is Danger Here from Western Herd Brewery in Co. Clare, the first of their offerings I've tried. It's a session IPA of 4.8% ABV, pale amber with suspended floaty bits and very little by way of head or carbonation. There's a mild green grassiness on the aroma but the flavour is an absolute freight train of noisy hops, led by screaming Sorachi Ace, if I'm not mistaken. It's harshly bitter first of all, which fades just enough to allow it to be identified as a lemon skin bite, followed by billowing gusts of oily coconut. The finish is dry and sharply waxy, metallic, but even calling it a finish is less than accurate because none of these flavours actually go anywhere, they just squat on your palate, waving their flags while shouting abuse at the encircling riot police. It's a bruiser of a beer and serves as a reminder that "session IPA" is about more than lower ABV. You'll need your shinguards if you want to spend the full 90 minutes tackling a few of these. Danger indeed.

The next beer is also a session IPA, this one from Dublin's own Rascal's, produced exclusively for the Molloy's off licence chain and puntastically named All Night Long. More sessionable promises are made on the label here -- "juicy", "fruity" -- and it's a more sinkable 4.2% ABV. The head didn't stick around much on this either though it is clearer and the aroma is very west coat: all mandarin sherbet spiked with pine. It's a little thin of texture and there's a weird savouriness in the foretaste, possibly a result of one of them oniony hop varieties: is that you misbehaving, Mosaic? A gentle peach and mango fruitiness sits behind it but the flavour really lacks depth and I blame that light body. Yes, it's easy to drink and you could get through a lot of them while engrossed in the game: Molloys is helpfully selling five cans for €10, which should be enough for ninety minutes and possibly even pennos as well, But it's not as juicy or fruity as I was expecting. I should probably face the fact that what I want out of session IPA is Little Fawn and that session IPAs which aren't Little Fawn are guaranteed to let me down. All Night Long is fun and flavourful but just doesn't slot in to my taste preference as I thought it would.

The solitary draught offering is Euro Gold, on the handpump at JW Sweetman. Now this is a beer that would make me sit in the pub and watch football. For one thing, on a humid June afternoon, it was pouring beautifully cold from the cask. There was only a very slight fogging to the otherwise flawless gold, and nothing that interfered with the flavour. Lemons are the star player, not sharp or harsh but soft and sherbety in both flavour and aroma, sitting on an equally soft meringue pie texture. It slips down smoothly and there's a very quick finish setting up the next mouthful. Though I suspect the hops are new world, the overall sensation is of an English golden ale, and a damn good one at that. Yes you can happily chug it down in front of the big screen but it's equally worth taking time over in a quiet corner of the pub, if you can find one. At €4.50 a pint for loyalty card holders it's fantastic value too.

We'll leave it there so.

On-side Trap

I confess I have a soft spot for the whole topical seasonal beer thing they have in Britain. For every major sporting event there'll be a slew of thematic one-offs in the pub. And yes they're often indistinguishable from the brewery's bog-standard 1.038 brown bitter, and yes the pumpclips are too often aesthetic atrocities, but it's the idea I like: the limited-time-only special-event beer. When done well it brings a certain shared-experience camaraderie to pub-going.

It's not something that usually happens here so I was delighted to see Eight Degrees taking a leaf out of our neighbours' book and putting the tortuously-titled Trapattoni Potation on tap at The Brew Dock, The Black Sheep and Against The Grain for the Euros. And yes, just like across the water it's not a million miles from one of their regular beers: it's a pale and sharply-hopped keg ale very very much like Howling Gale, but it's the thought that counts, and if it shifts a few extra pints for them during the matches then its job is done. I'd like to see other breweries follow suit.

Staying in Cork, we've just seen the launch of the first beer from Elbow Lane, Cork's newest brewing company. (I'm shying away from the term "brewery" because they've been very cagey about saying where these are actually produced -- only that it's contract brewed somewhere in Cork.) Angel Stout is the name of the beer, and the management kindly sent a preview bottle my way a few weeks ago.

It's a massively full-bodied beast, tasting far above its 5.1% ABV tag and heading into O'Hara's Leann Folláin territory. There's bags of caramel and a little bit of a molasses tang. Behind this are the heavy, almost slick and greasy, esters I've come to associate from my homebrew dabbling with S-04 yeast. The tang just turns a little bit sweet and smoky, like pipesmoke, at the end. Elbow Lane are pitching for the beer-with-food angle in a big way but this one, I reckon, is a beer for after dinner.

More releases from Elbow Lane are anticipated, and I'm also very keen to get my hands on the two new beers from Clanconnel, in what looks to be some very smart new livery. Meanwhile the beers from Donegal's Kinnegar Brewing are starting to make an appearance outside their home territory as well. It's all go over here right now.