Unlucky dip

The final gleanings from the 2017 Killarney Beer Festival judging leftovers begin today's post: two beers, two breweries, both beers new to me.

Arrow is part of the core range at the Elbow Lane brew-restaurant in Cork. It's been around a few years but I've never had the chance to try it. Weissbier is the style, and it's in the dark orange end of that colour spectrum, without the proper haze. I guess the yeast sank to the bottom of the bottle giving me a semi-kristall. First marks off are for head retention: I expected a big dome of foam but what's there fades to nothing unacceptably fast. The aroma is pleasingly banana-ish with a light toffee complexity, as often found in the darker weissbiers. The flavour, however, introduces a nasty thin vinegar note that's definitely not meant to be there and which flaws it fatally. Each mouthful opens on sweet banana but then turns rapidly sour and slightly metallic. Perhaps worst of all is the way the body is rendered thin, combining with the poor carbonation to make for a very wonky weiss indeed. I didn't judge this at Killarney but I hope whoever did gave the brewery appropriate feedback if their bottle was like mine.

To follow, Tutti Frutti by Carrig, a beer I know nothing about, other than it's a fruited IPA at 4.7% ABV. Sometimes it's best to go in as blind as possible. I could have done with a warning about the bottle conditioning in this one: clumsy pouring left me with a murkier dark orange glassful than I expected, though the thick head did calm down respectably quickly. It smelled good: properly pithy and nicely fresh given that it had been sitting in the fridge for an entire summer. The flavour, however, really lost out to the accidental yeast. There's a massive gritty bite at the front, and only the faintest mix of citrus-skin spicing and pith behind. It's one of those tantalising efforts that probably has a decent recipe behind it but is let down by the way it's presented.

Is it rude of me to boggle slightly that these were both entered into a competition in this state? There's a definite lack of polish in both; a feeling that they've been lashed together and sent out into the world as "good enough". Whatever audience the brewers had in mind for them, it's not me.

Moving on, I  bought the following pair of bottles in Molloy's off licence on Francis Street and got a small handful of small change back from my tenner. These weren't cheap, but were they cheerful?

First is In The Pink, an hibiscus IPA in Dungarvan Brewing's limited edition series. It's a fun blood-red colour, pretty much clear when poured properly, and 5.8% ABV. It smells floral and fruity. Hibiscus gets used a lot in beers these days, and I think there's a cherry blossom sweetness that I've come to associate with it. This guy has that in spades. The flavour pits that fluffy pinkness against a hard, dry, waxy bitterness. Perhaps they're supposed to balance each other but this is all-out war. The acrid bitterness is just too full-on for me; too harsh and riding roughshod over everything else. I mentioned in relation to a previous Dungarvan special, Magic Road, that the bitterness was off the scale. That beer got away with it; with this one it's just unpleasant. Balance has left the building.

So I was quite apprehensive when turning to Bark & Bite, a double IPA brewed to commemorate the third birthday of Wicklow Wolf. It pours thickly, turning out a slight murky copper-coloured glassful. The aroma is quite vinous, with a bitter edge, like retsina. I guessed another harsh half hour was on the cards. But actually the hops are on the back foot here: the flavour is very much malt driven, a candycane sweetness that says barley wine to me, more than it says IPA. I had to do some research into what the taste reminded me of as it's something I hadn't tasted since the 1980s. I settled on aniseed balls: those spicy red spheres of candy sugar. It's the same sweetness and the same herbal spice. This is like no (fresh) IPA I've ever had. I can't imagine anyone who enjoys double IPAs of the sort, say, Whiplash has been turning out lately getting on board with this. A barley wine badge would have suited it better.

Both of these beers are asking top dollar for Irish packaged beer and I don't either justifies it. Expensive IPA should be about bright bright fresh hops and neither of these offer that. I have similar gripes about today's final pair of beers, both double IPAs I found on tap at 57 The Headline recently.

Club Hopicana is the first new Stone Barrel beer I've had in a while. That name makes certain promises -- show me the mango -- but when I raised my glass, mangoes came there none. My first impression on tasting it was rubber. Was this a phenolic infection of some sort? I'm still not sure, though it probably isn't. That taste eventually resolved itself into a kind of poppyseed savoury quality, which isn't unheard of in IPAs, but just isn't very enjoyable. It's 7.4% ABV yet remarkably thin, the lack of booze and body adding to the severe dry quality. The whole thing is just too harsh for me.

I followed it with  Lucky No 7, from Two Sides. This is dark opaque orange colour and smells jammy: sweet strawberry is the dominant aroma, and that theme continues in the flavour. The texture is thick this time round -- no ABV was advertised but I'm guessing from the name it's only 7%. Thankfully it's not boozy or phenolic, however. But once again there's just no fresh hop flavour and it ends up being more like a strong red ale than anything else. It did grow on me towards the end. I can see it as a good dinner beer: heavy and filling, but not fighting with the flavours in the food. It would also work as a warming sipper for a cold day. But it does not work as a double IPA.

I'll stop the griping there for the day. I take it as a healthy sign that there's a proper bell-curve of quality in Irish brewing, even if that means somebody has to be at the low end of it.

Ireland goes indie

For the first time ever it's Indie Beer Week in Ireland. It has been since Friday but it only occurred to me yesterday to dedicate a week of blog posts to the vibrant independent beer scene in this country. To begin with, a hasty spin around the Republic to look at new releases from various Irish breweries, some of whom are participating in the week's events.

And starting at a brand new brewery very close to home. Priory in Tallaght opened its doors last month. The first beer is a 5.3% ABV IPA called Original Sin. The thick layer of sediment in the bottom of the bottle concerned me a little but I did manage to pour it fairly clearly, giving me a deep orange-amber glassful with a well-retained white head. The aroma is quite muted with just a very faint orange cookie smell. The texture is light and smooth, almost cask-like, which is always pleasing in a bottle-conditioned beer. The flavour, perhaps unsurprisingly from the colour, is quite malt-forward, with a rich and wholesome breadiness and a mostly unobtrusive dash of yeast. Mosaic and Citra are the principal hops and the latter gives it a sharp limey pinch, though this does tend to fade as the beer warms. The hops also get their final say in the long bitter finish which scours the palate pleasingly at the end. Not a bad beer, overall, though very much in the traditional, somewhat English, style of IPA. A bit of a hop boost would do the flavour no harm but maybe they're aiming at accessibility. I look forward to what Priory does next.

One of Dublin's other new breweries for 2017, Third Barrel, is beginning to hit its stride, with a re-release of one Stone Barrel first brewed in its gypsy days. It's an amber ale called Sundown: 4.5% ABV and pretty much down the line for the style. You get a weighty sweet toffee base and a quick burst of citrus spritz. That's about it, but then this style tends to be quite two-dimensional in this way. A hop boost would be of benefit, but it's perfectly fine in its own understated way.

A little further west brings us to Trouble Brewing who had two new ones, both of them similarly amber coloured.

Stagediver is formally badged as an amber ale, though bigger than Sundown at 5.6% ABV. And this delivered what I spoke about above, the smooth caramel malt present but very much in second place to a punchy hop bitterness which settles after a moment and integrates with the malt to form a pleasant red fruit profile, all sweet cherry and raspberry sauce. While I'd have no problem ordering a second Sundown after the first, I might leave this one and come back to it after a more cleansing alternative, if I were the sort of person to drink the same beer twice in one session.

The other was called Tasty McDole Collaboration and is described as a "west coast session IPA", though is a little on the strong side at 5.2% ABV. As I say, it's amber coloured, which is not something I'd associate with the US west coast. And nor is the savoury caraway flavour. The only citrus bitterness present is tiny and at the very end. It's very bland drinking otherwise, certainly not the sort of thing one would expect from a collaboration with a celebrity home brewer.

Galway Bay have managed to pop out two new beers recently and I found Croozer, a session IPA, at The Brew Dock. I've long been a fan of their "table beer", the 3.5% ABV Via Maris, and this had a lot to live up to, being just a bit stronger but considerably more expensive. It arrived an unattractive opaque yellow colour, and I was expecting gritty yeast bitterness, but no! The texture is beautifully creamy and there's a very modern combination of fresh tropical fruit -- pineapple in particular -- and savoury spring onion. There's a touch of oily herb too, and a lacing of coconut to add to the tropicality. It's very nicely done, and ranks with many of the hoppy and murky beers that the UK's most-hyped breweries are producing (it's no coincidence that a sister company of Galway Bay Brewery brings in Cloudwater and Northern Monk), but that €6-a-pint price tag for a beer at 3.9% ABV make it more a sipper than a sessioner.

Then over at The Black Sheep they had the new Galway Bay black IPA: Rando Calrissian. As is often the case with this style it's more dark brown than black. The hop fruit is worn at the front: an initial burst of raspberry sherbet, bitter and tangy. After that it takes a turn for the tarry, a rising roast drowning the hops and leaving it rather acrid. It offers the drinker a flash of spritzy fun but takes it away far too quickly. The finish is heavy, funky and serious. The frivolous name belies a far less than frivolous beer.

Staying in Connacht for one more, a swift taster of a new IPA from Carrig Brewing: Afternoon Delight. It's no great shakes, being another one of those beers that does savoury yeasty vegetal flavours where there should be proper hops. There's a harsh pithy bitterness but the flavour is sorely lacking. No delight whatsoever in this.

Heading south and the most recent beer from Eight Degrees is a collaboration with Californian brewery Drake's. It's called Spruce Juice, made with real spruce tips from trees close to the brewery. Stylewise it's another amber ale, and the glass I was served at The Porterhouse was a gorgeous clear mahogany red colour. It's a bit basic after that, the old amber ale problem, I guess. There's a mild hop bitterness, the Nugget in particular giving it a sharp greenness which I'm sure is accentuated by the spruce. There's slight sticky resin finish too, which may be related. In between it's mostly about the simple flat toffee sweetness. Like the Sundown above, it was fine but left me wanting more flavour, more character.

Last time I was at The Beerhouse there was a new addition to Black's of Kinsale's single hop series: El Dorado Oatmeal IPA. It's quite a dry beastie, and pleasantly so, tasting clean with a texture that's light and effervescent. The flavour is perhaps a little one-dimensional, being mostly a refreshing orangeade, though it's a good dimension. I got just a small waft of onion as my glass began to warm. It's an accessible 5% ABV and is definitely the sort of simple, well-made IPA one could slip into for an evening, much like the brewery's flagship, in fact.

Dungarvan's latest limited edition, their third this year, is Turning Tide, a wheat beer with lemon peel. I liked the idea of Hoegaarden with the slice of fruit built in, and that's what I was expecting. There was a lot of yeast in the bottle -- some fairly coagulated gobbets flopped into my glass towards the end, but I figured it was safe enough given the style. I think I was wrong. While there is a very nice zesty lemon aroma, the first flavour is a harsh, concentrated savouriness with a tang of burnt rubber off it. I found it very difficult to get past that. There is a fresh lemon flavour buried deep in it, but I only caught a flash of it in between the acrid opening and the long rough finish. I've little doubt that it's a good recipe but it has been let down by the technicals. My cack-handed pouring should not be enough to ruin the taste of a beer completely.

And a final bottle for dessert, bringing the tour back home to Leinster. Ultimate Revenge is new from Kelly's Mountain in Clane. It's a souped-up version of their ruby porter, the strength increased from 4.5% ABV to 7%. It is still ruby, however: a lustrous dark garnet colour topped by a head of dense foam the colour of old ivory. The flavour delivers a veritable basket of ripe summer fruits, with mushy strawberries to the fore, plus soft cherries and juicy plums. A more autumnal tartness follows next: blackcurrants and damsons. This bitterness keeps rising and is joined by a burnt roastiness, more coal and turf than coffee. It's an intense experience and I think the name was aptly chosen: I don't know where you would go from here. Once you get used to the busy flavours it becomes a smooth and satisfying pintful.

There's a full list of events on the Indie Beer Week website, and more independent Irish beer reviews from me in the next couple of posts.