Stout mask replica

When Dublin City Brewing first graced these pages, I mentioned that their intended line-up included "Parnell Porter". That never materialised but they do have a new dark beer, simply called Irish Stout. The blurb on the back still has a bit about Parnell, though, so I suspect a last-minute name change. I still have no idea if this is brewed at the Parnell Street brewery, which remains all boarded up from the outside, or if it's contract brewed at Dundalk Bay. I suspect the latter.

Anyway, to the beer. I expected quite straightforward stuff from a 4.2% ABV stout, and I pretty much got it, but that's not a criticism. The body is attractively smooth and black, and there's a decent but not excessive amount of rocky foam. It smells sweet and roasty and this unfolds on tasting into caramel, liquorice and well-done toast, with the sweet side maybe a little more prominent than is ideal, especially in the finish. The mild roasted side helps balance that and there's even a little green squeak of vegetal hops. Its best feature is the drinkability: no trace of stickiness and no hard edges or odd twangs means it slips back very easily and is pleasingly refreshing. Perfect summer stout, wherever they brew it.

Backyard Brewing is a new operation, based in Tullamore but currently availing of midlands solidarity and using the facilities at Dead Centre in Athlone. Their first beer is a Cascade Oatmeal Stout. It's 5.5% ABV and looks very proper: an even jet-black with an old-ivory-coloured head on top, every inch the wholesome and old-fashioned glassful. The interloping American hop hasn't been overdone and there's a mere pinch of zest in the aroma, plus a little more in the flavour. The initial grapefruit settles to a weighty dankness in the finish. This is entirely complementary with the smooth dark chocolate and dark toast notes. Overall vibes are not far from Sierra Nevada's excellent hop-forward stout. Its mouthfeel could maybe stand to be a little fuller given the oatmeal, but otherwise I have very few criticisms to give: it delivers very well on the promise of the name, tasting at once traditional and modern, but always a proper stout. I hope this is a flagship rather than a one-off, because nobody else is making beer like it in these parts.

Before we get into the properly strong stuff, a gateway export stout from The White Hag, called Balor. This is 6.5% ABV, the recipe boosted with brown sugar. There is a certain molasses sweetness in it, rubbing up against an espresso roast and some significant hop bitterness, this time of the more traditional sort -- metallic and vegetal. It's not a beer for the soft pastry crowd, showing a robustness that's not in fashion which I enjoy scouring my palate from time to time. Again, though, the texture isn't quite right and it's a little thin for 6.5% ABV, with a knock-on harshness. Maybe I'm softer than I thought. Anyway, it's a jolly decent stout, full of flavour, if maybe a bit of an acquired taste.

Something big to start the wrap-up with. Cask is a collaboration Lough Gill did with Faith American Ales, and the can bears the signature of Faith's frontman, Kelsey Grammer, off of the telly. It's a coffee-infused milk stout which has been whiskey-barrel aged for the full Irish coffee effect. Not an original idea, but one that turns out good results more often than not. Honey is the quintessential Irish whiskey flavour for me, and this has plenty of it: a sticky honeycomb or honey-nut cereal is the centrepiece. Though 12% ABV it's not especially hot, though it is as creamy and full-bodied as one might expect. Other flavours include hazelnut, milk chocolate and a lacing of espresso in the finish. It's enjoyable, but I felt it all could have been dialled up a few notches. Beer like this shouldn't be as easy drinking as this is. Make me work a bit harder.

Perhaps the answer is Sixty Ships Down. This is another 12%-er, brewed by Galway Bay in collaboration with La Pirata. They've added vanilla and tonka beans, calling to mind, to an extent, one of the special versions of Two Hundred Fathoms they released in 2020. The first impressive feature is the head: deep brown, looking like a chocolate milkshake, on top of a velvety dark brown body. The cinnamon and brown sugar of tonka dominates the aroma, as it tends to in all beers where it features, and there's a complementary note of chocolate behind this. So far, so churro. The texture is fabulously smooth, and only a somewhat assertive kick of spirituous alcohol prevented me from slurping the whole thing down indecently quickly. Luckily the complexity builds as it goes along, and what starts as mere pinches of dark chocolate, pipe tobacco, cinnamon, nutmeg and ristretto coffee, become properly bitter and properly spicy within a few mouthfuls. By the half way point it had switched from a lush liquid dessert to a serious sipper. At €10+ a can, it's not cheap, but while I might not be rushing out for a second tin I very much enjoyed the one I had.

It's nice to see such diversity, even just in Irish stout. All of these have a welcome place in the drinking ecosystem.

Out of the West

Presumably to teach me a lesson for my sarcastic tweets concerning the launch of their latest imperial stouts, Galway Bay Brewery very kindly shipped me a set of them just before Christmas. I mean, I assumed it was a mistake and kept them packed and ready for collection until February, but when it looked like the recall notice wasn't coming, I slid the lid off the box.

As well as the three stouts, which I'll get to, there was an interloping bottle of barrel-aged barley wine: Boulevardier. This 13% ABV monster was created in collaboration with Wrocław's Browar Stu Mostów and has spent two years in bourbon and vermouth barrels. A Boulevardier is a cocktail, I had to be told. I'm the wrong person to assess whether it is accurately represented as beer here. It's very nice, though, and 100% beery, not spirituous or cocktailish. The main flavour is malt: treacly brown bread and plum pudding, with a sticky-toffee sauce texture to match. Chocolate of the sort you'd find in good porter or stout is central also. There's a certain wine-and-herb complexity around this, which I'm guessing is the vermouth, and some of bourbon's vanilla, but not too much. In fact it's all very mellow and well-integrated. Despite being mostly quite sweet, there's a lovely dry finish, which is where it resembles a vermouth cocktail most. Overall, it's a beauty, and excellent nightcap material. But I was only getting started.

What caused the stir over the new Two Hundred Fathoms is that it's been a while. Previously an annual release in February, they skipped 2019 while they were moving breweries, then rescheduled the 2020 launch to the end of the year: arguably a more sensible time to be putting out a fancy box set of barrel aged imperial stouts. The 2020 vintage is the usual 10% ABV. The flavour unfolds gradually, beginning with sweet honeycomb, then Fisherman's Friend, strong filter coffee, herbal liqueur, hard caramels coated in chocolate, and pungent French cigarettes. It's a very 20th century sort of combination; the sort of thing you'd drink during a war, at a café in a devastated city: hard, uncompromising, and thought provoking. I prefer something a bit straighter in my imperial stouts, like a proper kick of green bitter hops. This offers something different from that, and very different from what whiskey casks normally impart. The raw and rough seaside-in-winter kept me interested for the whole half litre, and intrigued me regarding what was to come next.

With Two Hundred Fathoms being such a complex beauty, and its ageing potential well-established, I was more than a little sceptical of the brewery's decision to pastrify their stocks of the 2018 vintage. But they did, in two different ways. Reckoning it would be the more subtle of the pair, I first opened the Calendar Coffee: Teamwork Espresso edition. My photography was too slow to catch the head on this but it was an impressively dark shade of brown, for the few fizzling seconds it existed. The beer, its alcohol boosted to 12%, smells vinous and boozy: it has definitely been aged. The coffee is surprisingly subtle, and is actually well within the bounds of what you would expect from dark malt alone. That side of the picture is relaxed enough to allow the mature plum and raisin notes come through. The end result is a mix of strong and roast-forward coffee with softer and warming Pedro Ximinez sherry. I liked it a lot. This is a whole different perspective on the base beer, and allowing the brewery to do the ageing seems like a very good idea.

The second of the set is with Madagascan Vanilla Beans & Toasted Coconut. The visuals are all the same, as is the ABV. However, this one tastes hotter, with a headachey mix of cough syrup and cream sherry. Once again the flavours are well integrated -- I couldn't pick out vanilla or coconut specifically -- but it's not an improvement on either of the less involved versions. The bitter herb effect is there still, but seems to have become harsher, not mellower, nor softer with the added flavours. A half litre of this was the hardest work of the set. It has its own complexity, and it's definitely not a daft novelty beer, but I found it a tough one to enjoy. This is where I thought, again, that leaving it alone to age without bells and whistles was a better idea.

I'm told this is the beginning of a new annual release cycle for Galway Bay. Later this year we'll see the 2021 vintage accompanied by more flavoured versions of the 2020, as well as a different box of unenhanced vintages. Much as I enjoyed the coffee one, it's the latter I'm looking forward to most. Big thanks to the brewery for sending me these.