Red letter day

When I was an undergraduate, my university offered the option to sit second year exams in March, a term early. A decent grade came with an exemption from the summer exams, and so it was that my housemate Tim and I spent a lot of April and May 1997 in The Porterhouse, drinking their Red ale. I have a very particular memory of the beer, which was smooth and fruity; predominantly sweet, but not excessively so; balanced, and modestly strong, so well suited for an afternoon's drinking before a long evening of Mario Kart duels. In the early 2000s, I got out of the habit of drinking in The Porterhouse, and when I came back a decade later, the Red seemed to me to have changed, with a harsher bitterness and a more stark caramel sweet side. No harm: there were always plenty of enjoyable alternatives. But my experience with the Red of old came back to me recently when I called in to try the beer they've released to mark 30 years of the beer brand and its Temple Bar headquarters*.

In a marked contrast to previous birthdays when there's been a new stout, this time they've launched Celebration Amber Ale, commissioned from regular supplier Hopkins & Hopkins. It was available on cask and keg. I went cask, with a shot of keg on the side, for science.

It's a dark copper colour and smells, as good Irish red ale does, of ripe summer fruit, and strawberries in particular. The flavour brings the opposite side of that rare but happy equation: a dry bite of tannins. That gives it the refreshment factor of its near-relation English bitter. Some hop character might have been nice, and I thought the American nomenclature of "amber ale" perhaps signified that, but it's never been a Porterhouse strong point. I don't know if Peter Moseley, head brewer for all the years that The Porterhouse was a brewery, was involved in the recipe design, but if not, Hopkins & Hopkins has done a great job of channelling his kind of beer, which is fitting for the occasion.

The keg version's extra fizz is a boon, reducing the fruit sweetness further, to make it drier and even more refreshing, but I preferred the cask one, which is rounder, softer and altogether more cuddly. It's nice to have the opportunity for a a side-by-side draught format comparison.

Maybe it was simply the surroundings, largely unchanged for the last 30 years, but I got quite the Proustian rush from drinking this. It's a very decent beer in its own right, if the low-hopped red/amber genre works for you. New examples of it are quite thin on the ground. Maybe I still would have preferred another birthday stout, or even the return of lost Porterhouse classics like TSB and Wrasslers. But nostalgia is not The Porterhouse's business. Here's to the next 30 years and beyond.

*The Porterhouse brand in general pre-dates the brewery, having been applied originally to the founders' Bray pub (since sold and now trading as The Palm) in 1989. The first Porterhouse brewery was located at the pub in Temple Bar between 1996 and 2000, and although the company still owns a production facility in Dublin, it's leased out and hasn't produced Porterhouse beer since 2023.

The week that's in it

We had a couple of goings-on of beery significance in Dublin last week. Thursday saw 57 The Headline host the local launch of St. Mel's Brewing. St. Mel's in Longford Town may be a very new operation but it's helmed by Liam Hanlon, previously the head brewer at Carlow and the creator of the beers that went on to become O'Hara's IPA and Leann Folláin. He's operating on a 15hL Irish-built brewkit now, producing three bottle-conditioned beers to begin with.

Funny thing, bottle conditioning. Staff at The Headline were handing out the half-litre bottles with a 33cl glass -- perfectly normal practice in the Irish pub, but not ideal when you have beers that work best in a single careful pour. The samples at the event were in small tasters and after the first round I thought somebody might have to take the brewmaster aside for a talk about quality control. It seems just to have been an unlucky pour of concentrated dregs, however. Another taster later on was much better, and enough to convince me to trade up to drinking entire bottles. So what's in the range?

Interestingly, St. Mel's have opted for a Brown Ale over a red or stout, possibly the only one in permanent production in the country. It's a substantial 5.2% ABV though the texture is light and the taste crisp, prickled by quite a busy fizz. The centre is all chocolate, of the dry cocoa-powder variety. It's also dry-hopped, which lends it not so much a fruitiness as a green vegetal bitterness which lasts long into the finish. St. Mel's Brown one of those quite serious, solid beers, but very enjoyable for all that.

St. Mel's Pale Ale is a little lighter at 4.8% ABV and pours a clear shade of deep orange-gold. Cascade hops are doing the heavy lifting here, imparting a gentle flavour of ripe juicy peaches and some light herbal grassy spicing. Its best feature is the texture: a pillowy softness with a sherbet effervescence which leaves it exceedingly drinkable. Overall a well put-together and accessible pale ale.

Finally for the first round of releases there's St. Mel's Helles Lager. Not exactly Munich-grade, but there's a wholesome grainy flavour and some pleasant fruit ester sweetness. Plenty for lager drinkers to enjoy here.

Liam says that distribution of draught beer is likely to remain mostly local once that's up and running, but bottles should hopefully be easy enough to get hold of all around the country.

Also on Thursday, The Porterhouse kicked off a ten-day festival of pale ales across the chain. The line-up includes much to like from British and American luminaries Thornbridge, Camden, Founders, Sierra Nevada, and the promised first appearance of Magic Rock beer in this country. The centrepiece, however, is a new permanent addition to the Porterhouse range: Dublin Pale Ale, essentially a re-working of last year's Pale Face special edition brew. (I'm probably the only one sad enough to note that the name "Dublin Pale" has been used previously, being the cask bitter produced briefly by Messrs Maguire in the late '90s). Dublin Pale is on keg, at least for now, and is 4.2% ABV, hopped with Admiral and Styrian Goldings. The flavour is unsurprisingly very English: big thirst-quenching tannins at the front and a coppery tang in the finish. The crisp bitterness reminds me a lot of its cask sibling TSB. For those occasions when TSB is absent and Hop Head would be just a hop too far, this is a welcome addition.

Among the early guest beers in Porterhouse Temple Bar was the new black IPA from Eight Degrees. It's named after the single variety of Australian hop it uses, Vic Secret, and is 6% ABV. It arrived a dense black colour, showing hints of red at the edges, and density is a theme. It's very thick and extremely tarry, with lots of bitter roast coating the palate. Set against this is a gaudy galah of bright tropical flavours, starting with mango and pineapple in the aroma, bursting out into bitter grapefruit and concentrated peach nectar on tasting. It's an incredible experience and it's hard to believe that all that colour comes from just one hop variety. The finish is long and bitter, and I honestly couldn't say if that's a result of the big hops or the roasted grains, or both. Either way, it's another hoppy winner from the Mitchelstown brewery.

And there's yet more new Irish beer to come later in the week.

Hoppy sessions and foreign lessons

One of the standard gripes of the Irish beer geek has long been the lack of decent sub-4% ABV beers produced in the country. Over our pints of Porterhouse TSB we've looked enviously at the British beer scene, with all its sessiony goodness, wondering why there isn't more of that kind of thing here.

Help is finally at hand, with two new low(ish) ABV pale ales from Irish micros. They're no twiggy brown bitters, however.

From Black's of Kinsale we have The Session: 3.5% ABV and a perfect clear gold colour. The aroma is a little odd, being unpleasantly stale and a bit sweaty, but that's just a minor blip in what is otherwise a superb beer. The body is properly full, without a trace of wateriness and the flavour starts with a sharp nip of bitter citrus, followed by softer mandarin and a balancing biscuit malt profile. And the acid test: would you know you were drinking a low-strength beer? No, definitely not. The Session stands on its own merits without compromising on anything.

A tough act to follow, but follow it Trouble Brewing have with their latest release Graffiti. This is all of 3.6% ABV, headless, and very murky with it, having almost a pinkish cast to the hazy orange. The filtration system's loss is our gain, however, as the massive fresh pine and juicy mango aroma indicates. On the palate there's a big hit of resinous dank complicated by bitter herbal spices. These are big 3D hops in large quantities, and yet the beer remains immensely sinkable, as something of this strength should be. The texture isn't quite as full bodied as The Session, but it's still not watery at all. Another full-flavoured hoppy pale ale where the low ABV is irrelevant.

Not quite in the same weight category, but I thought I'd mention it while I'm on Irish session ales: I finally got to try Carrig's Pipers Pale Ale on my last visit to Farrington's. This is 4.4% ABV, the normal strength for Irish pale ales, and doesn't try to lay on the hops in a major way. Instead there's a gentle, balanced flavour, full of round ripe soft fruit: peaches, clementines and the like. The low bitterness and soft carbonation means it just slips down, exactly as you'd want a session ale to do. Farrington's has a prodigious selection of Irish and foreign draught beers, but after finishing my Pipers all I wanted was another one.

Carrig's Lager and Red are still contract brewed at Bo Bristle and this is the first beer that I've tried from the new standalone Carrig brewery in Drumshanbo where Kiwi ex-pat Andrew is head brewer. It's a very promising start.

While I'm in catch-up mode, a couple more Irish beers, these ones based on foreign templates.

First up is Fulcrum, a 5% ABV weizen by Clearsky which brews at Hilden. It's on the pale side for the style but densely murky, topped by a much happier bright white foam. The aroma is bubblegum, candyfloss and a bit of clove rock, with a certain off-putting vinegary sourness too. It's all sweetness and wheat on the palate: I'm jolted back to my childhood and facing a big bowl of Sugar Puffs. The texture is rather thin and the carbonation very low which, for a change, is actually to the beer's detriment. Overall we have a slightly wonky weissbier of the sort you'd tolerate in a German brewpub but as the sole product of an Irish craft beer brand which shares fridge space with some of Bavaria's best it's a bit difficult to understand.


And so to another Irish take on a continental style: Westport Blond from Mescan Brewery in Co. Mayo. Most of the yeasty dregs stayed in the bottle when I poured, leaving me with a clear golden glassful. The aroma is crisp and grainy, and not remotely Belgian. That dry cereal quality is in the middle of the flavour too, and while there's no yeast bite or fruit esters, the hops contribute a very nice honey and mango background flavour, but just as I'm savouring that, the dry acidic bite rises up to take over. Would it pass as a Belgian blonde? Yes, probably. But not the sort I like, unfortunately. There's a Red Tripel also available from Mescan though Redmond's was out of stock when I called in. It sounds fascinating so hopefully I'll get to try it before long.

More new Irish beers to come in my round-up from this year's Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival next week.

Back to black and back again

Session beer is the subject of this month's, er, Session. It seems to be a bit of a preoccupation among the brighter sort of American beer enthusiast: why is all our good stuff ABV'd up to the hilt? Why can't we have top-notch flavoursome beer that you can stay with for a whole night's drinking and not end up bladdered before bedtime? I can't really speak to that motion, but am very happy that it's not an issue here. In fact, I wish the reverse -- that there were more beers outside the 4-5% ABV range available on the bar in Ireland. In both directions. I suppose I could write about Porterhouse TSB and Smithwicks, representing, respectively, the best and worst of sub-4% Irish beer. But that would bore me. Instead, I'm writing about stout because you can't beat a good stout session. Last night's Dungarvan shindig at the Bull & Castle, featuring sumptuous Black Rock on cask proved that beyond any doubt.

Much as I'd love to have more Irish session stout to write about, I'm looking across the Irish Sea and a couple of British ones that have crossed my path lately.

We kick off with Hopback Entire Stout, a case of which landed with a friend (hi Peter!) recently. It's 4.5% ABV and carries the hallmark of a good session beer: balance. The main flavours are sweet caramel and dry coffee, but not too much of either. The body is quite hefty -- entire, you might say -- but nowhere near filling enough to make you think twice about opening a second bottle. It's just the right level of chewwiness to show the flavours at their best.

Since I rarely have the attention span for the same beer twice in a session, next up was Night Beacon from the Breconshire Brewery, a company I've had an unpleasant encounter with previously. This started off worryingly by pouring almost completely flat. There's a very slight tingle of carbonation, but otherwise it's a pancake -- a dud bottle, perhaps? So the flavour compounds are not in any hurry to create an aroma and it doesn't smell of much as a result, just a hint of dry roast. The flavour is also dry, but in a crisp and minerally sort of way, with a slight background of chocolate and tobacco. The lack of condition leaves it on the thin side, but that adds to its sessionability: not exactly a lightweight at 4.5% ABV but definitely good for more than one if the flatness doesn't put you off. Redemption of a sort, then, for Breconshire. (I should add also that I tried their Golden Valley golden ale too a while back and quite liked it -- another understated plain sessioner).

Low ABV, balance, light fizz: all these elements go in to make beer properly sessionable. Any colour and flavour profile will do. Getting this right without making the beer dull is one of the challenges for the brewer. I reckon the guys at Hopback and Breaconshire have it down, however.

Roll in the barrel

The Bull & Castle's commitment to Ireland's craft beer has reached new heights in recent months with the addition of a beer engine to the downstairs bar. Yeah, the counter-mounted barrel is a bit of an eyesore, squatting on the bar in its black jacket like an undercover warthog, and the handpump is rather hidden out of the way, but the succession of cask beers we've had from it have been worth all of this and more.

The set-up was put in place through the good offices of the Carlow Brewing Company, and although there's no tie arrangement all of the beers have been supplied by the Carlow team. On the stout front we've had plenty of their fabulously chocolately Druid's Brew -- normally a festival special only -- plus their normal O'Hara's Stout which is so much more multi-dimensional on cask than in any other form, even when the immersion cooling system broke down.

So content was I with the stouts that I never batted an eyelid the first time a cask of O'Hara's Red was delivered in an unsaleable condition. I changed my tune when the second one arrived and I got a taste: nastily vinegary, sure, but underneath there are some quite wonderful raspberry and redcurrant flavours. When they eventually get this one right I'll be first in line. The last of the three core bottled Carlow beers is Curim Gold, their light lager-like wheat beer. It's dullsville normally, but when it appeared on cask it blew me away: jam-packed full of lemony citrus notes it was all kinds of quenching and the single cask drained away over the course of one balmy weekend last month.

And then the direction changed. Carlow, to the best of my knowledge, don't have a pilot plant. In fact, they're in the process of moving out of the Carlow goods store by the railway station into a bigger site. They don't do small runs (I'm sure someone can tell me their minimum batch size; I keep forgetting) and yet the latest residents of the Bull & Castle beer engine appear to be just that. First up was the charmingly-monikered Malty Bitches, a full-bodied red-brown bitter which looks like it ought to be malt-driven but has been dry-hopped to give it a fabulously citric juicy-fruit bitterness, as well as bits of hops in the bottom of the glass. It's interesting to compare it with Ireland's other copper-coloured bitter cask bitter, Porterhouse TSB. It lacks the intense harshness I generally find with TSB, making it easier for one pint, but the second pint of TSB always goes down a treat as the tannins come out and I'm not sure this sort of complexity exists in Malty Bitches. I can't be sure though, as all I got was a half pint from the fag end of the cask. You snooze you lose. For more ruminations on MB v TSB, see Reuben's Tale of Ale.

Next day, it was replaced with an IPA called Goods Store, a name derived from it being the last beer to be produced at the old brewery. Woah! What a beer! A bright and hazy orange colour it resembles nothing so much as a Bavarian hefeweizen. If there isn't a very generous dose of Cascade at the tail end of the hopping schedule then I don't know hops, but we're talking massive zesty mandarin orange flavours. There's a touch of the chalky dryness I tend to associate with, and quite enjoy in, Hilden Ale, but the body is really quite thin with the malt just providing enough of a stage for the hops to sing on. And sing they do. Goods Store IPA is without doubt one of the best Irish beers I've ever tasted, and I'm actually a little worried about what might happen to the rest of the batch.

Obviously, we need more pubs set up for cask. But what are the chances of that?

TLA VVG

There's a certain daftness about brewers' fondness for three letter acronym names, particularly when they're used to make a beer seem more English than it actually is, as in Sierra Nevada ESB or Porterhouse TSB. Nothing fake about Brakspear EPA, however, apart from the fact that there's no actual Brakspear brewery any more and it's all made at the Refresh plant in Witney, but none of that matters: it's made in England and, far more importantly, tastes English.

In fact, to me, it's a perfect example of my favourite kind of English bitter. There's a touch of fresh floral aroma and a tannic bitterness on top of a full, almost greasy, body. It's very simple and completely unfussy, but far from the tasteless mediocrity that so many English brewers pass off as bitter.

Filtered, pasteurised and containing who-knows-what: yes, probably. But still the beer for me.

And that's your lot until I come back from Copenhagen, where the European Beer Festival kicks off tomorrow afternoon. Three days of beer in 10cl measures is likely to keep me in posts for a while.

Original gravity

It rained again today, starting conveniently as I was passing The Porterhouse who are gearing up for their Belgian Beer Festival, beginning Thursday. I watched the downpour from the third floor window, in what used to be the brewery when they made their beer on site, over a pint of Newton apple witbier which is one of the specials they've bought in for the Festival. Newton is made by Belgian brewery LeFebvre and reminds me a bit of strawberry beer Früli, in that it's fruit first, beer second. The apples are juicy green ones and absolutely dominate the taste. If you wait to the very end there's a vague wheaty character alongside, but mostly we're talking apples here. At a mere 3.5% this beer goes down incredibly easy and leaves you wanting another straight after. A wonderful summer session beer, just a shame we aren't having a wonderful summer.

While I was on site I took the opportunity to reappraise one of the house beers. The first time I tried The Porterhouse's TSB, I was sorely disappointed. This is their attempt at an English-style cask bitter, and comes out of an authentic handpump of the sort not seen anywhere else in the country. I couldn't remember quite why I'd taken against TSB, but I've had a lot of English bitter in the meantime, so I decided a do-over was in order. While my experience was not negative second time round, I maintain that this is not a serious competitor to most real English ale. My favourite English beers are either the very light, flat quaffing ones with a tea-like quality, Theakston's being the benchmark, or are the heavy hop-laden warm ones of which there are many fine examples, usually with multiple Xs in the name. TSB is aiming to be the former type but just can't cut it. It just doesn't have the subtlety, being full-flavoured with malt and hops, creating a dry bitterness which I find much more characteristic of an Irish stout. Hardly surprising, I suppose, given The Porterhouse's specialisation in the area. TSB passes muster as bitter, but as the only cask bitter available for hundreds of miles, I'd rather have something straight from the textbook.