Mild enthusiasm

Eoghan at the Brussels Beer City blog hosts November's session, on the intriguing subject of missing local beer styles: the kinds of beers you'd like to be able to get your hands on regularly but can't. As a man of simple drinking tastes, I tend not to pine for beers that aren't available to me. If you find your hobby is making you miserable it's time to find a new hobby. But when a local brewer asks, as they do from time to time, "what kind of beer will we brew?", my answer is generally "cask mild".

Admittedly it's not the most exciting of beer styles, but then it's not meant to be. A good mild is light and easily gluggable yet has a colourful bouquet of flavours. It's the sort of beer you can choose when you just want a beer without thinking about it, though one which is in no way bland or insipid. I'd love to see it in regular rotation in Ireland, but we rarely do -- Dungarvan Brewing deserving an honourable mention for occasionally dabbling.

Naturally, after all the nagging to get a new Irish mild onto the bar, when Trouble Brewing finally stepped up to the challenge I was out of the country. I watched on Twitter as Walk On The Mild Side landed in at UnderDog and was promptly drained by the masses in just a couple of days. I thought I'd missed the boat until the brewery mentioned that The Black Sheep still has some left. Hello!

It was true; they had. Saved by the 10% mark-up compared to UnderDog's pricing, perhaps, but €5.50 is still quite sessionable for Dublin these days. Full marks for appearance (black) and ABV (3.7%): all in accordance with my own personal mild style guidelines which, to be honest, is really just St. Peter's Mild.

The aroma is very roasty, almost to the point of being acrid, which put me on guard immediately. That was largely assuaged by the first sip, which had sweet milk chocolate and caramel as its main feature. A jammy blackcurrant flavour follows this, and only then does the roast reassert itself: a dry charcoal burntness that grows quickly and lasts long into the finish. A little too long, really: this tarry acridity in the taste was the only part I didn't like. Nevertheless, despite my preference for more fresh coffee and dark fruit characteristics, this mild still does what I'm looking for. The body is full enough for it to be satisfying and easy drinking yet the flavour is pleasingly multifaceted.

This beer really underlined my desire to have something like it popping up on a regular basis from a variety of producers. By coincidence, a cask of West Kerry's superb Uncle Columb's Mild was hooked up to the handpump at UnderDog on Tuesday and last I checked was still on. Two simultaneous Irish milds available in Dublin might not exactly qualify as a golden age, but by golly I'll take it. More please!

Sour '16

The final post of the year brings the Golden Pints, beer blogging's annual personal awards, working to a template devised by Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg. Sour beers have played a major role in my drinking over the last 12 months so I thought I'd accompany my deliberations with one. This bottle of The Purple from Oregon's De Garde brewing was a kind gift from Jeff Alworth back in September. You can read Jeff's profile of the brewery here.

The label describes it as "a wild ale aged in oak wine barrels with black and red raspberries" and it's 7% ABV. It's very purple, pouring scarlet from the bottle, settling to a deep maroon shade and briefly topped by lurid pink foam. It's also very sour: an intense puckering bite that's had none of the edges smoothed out by the oak. Instead, the fruit is on balancing duty, giving it a fresh juicy aroma and adding a jammy sweetness to the flavour. It's nice, but I don't think it quite measures up to the best of Belgian framboise: it's stronger, brasher and generally louder. Americans, eh? Still, enjoyable sipping while I get down to the serious business of...

The Golden Pint Awards 2016

Best Irish Cask Beer: Otterbank Beta Barrel 1
And we're starting sour. I met this mixed fermentation chardonnay-barrel-aged golden ale at the fabulous White Hag birthday party back in August. It's a sessionable 4.5% ABV but immensely complex with it. Tart, juicy, herbal and lots more. With a 13 month lead time I doubt we'll be seeing more of it, but a man can dream.

There was a worthy runner up in the delightfully dark yet refreshing Uncle Columb's Mild by West Kerry Brewery.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Galway Bay 303
The most fun beer of the year was O'Hara's Grapefruit IPA, while Hope Session IPA was the most promising. But Galway Bay's low-strength sour pale ale kept me coming back again and again, for as long as it lasted. I can't see any reason not to bring this one back. Shout-out also to White Hag for their Brett Pale Ale, and of course Little Fawn which was the beer I probably drank most of for the second year running.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Crafty Brewing Company IPA
Honorable mentions here go to White Hag barrel-aged Black Boar imperial stout and the superb Roadtrip Extra Stout that the McHugh's off licence team produced at Independent. However, I always feel I should favour beers I drank lots of during the year, and the magnificent Aussie-hopped IPA that Rye River brews for Lidl certainly fits that bill.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Whiplash Surrender to the Void
Several Irish craft brewers got busy with the tinnies this year giving us a range of hoppy delights. When I went down the list it was Alex's amazing double IPA that really leapt out at me. Full-on hops but complex and nuanced with it. Beautiful.

Best Overseas Draught: Upright Brewing Four Play
It probably shouldn't be surprising that something from my visit to Portland, Oregon wins this one. Area man Jeff Alworth picks an exceptional beer for his annual Satori Award, named after the Buddhist term for the moment of sudden enlightenment. Well I got a fierce bang of Satori off of this multidimensional soured barrel-aged cherry saison. Worth the 7,500km trip. And along the same lines, BrewDog's Saison Blitz also gets a big-up in this category.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Jester King El Cedro
Ugh. I suppose I'll have to put some of that geek-bait Awesome Craft Beer™ into this. The award goes to one kindly supplied by Steve Lamond at the afterparty following the superb BrewCon 2016 back in April. Brett-fermented and cedar-aged for a fantastic combination of fruit and pepper.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Three Boys Pils
I struggled a bit to come up with a foreign can that really impressed me this year. Then I remembered the train home from Boundary's birthday bash in March and this glorious Kiwi pilsner which makes perfect use of the local hop varieties.

Best Collaboration Brew: YellowBelly-Hope-ShaneSmith Castaway
The review bottle I took home from the Killarney Beer Festival probably didn't do it justice but I've had it a couple of times since and it has always tasted magnificent. I understand YellowBelly is planning to can it next year too. Hopefully there'll be plenty to go round.

Best Overall Beer: 303
Quite a cross section there, I think, but 303 is the only one I became seriously, chronically, addicted to. And that's the best measure of quality there is.

Best Branding: YellowBelly
Nobody else is at the races, really. Illustrator Paul Reck has turned out tap badges, labels, comic books, animations and most recently a computer game featuring the brewery mascot and a host of supporting characters. The visual jokes and references hidden in the detail are worthy of Bosch.

So it's no surprise that YellowBelly wins both...

Best Pump Clip:
Jack Bauer's Power Shower Sour
It's the sheer literalness of it that I like.

...and...

Best Bottle Label: Pink Freud
I never actually had the bottled version of this, but it does exist and it's my other favourite YellowBelly design of the year. Shine on, etc.

Best Irish Brewery: Rye River
The Co. Kildare brewery started the new year with a new premises in Celbridge. Though I've enjoyed Cousin Rosie's Pale Ale and even an occasional Francis' Big Bangin' IPA through the year, it's the beers Rye River has produced under other labels that have made it my standout for 2016. Crafty Brewing Company, Whiplash, Grafters: lots of amazing quality beer, and often at very sessionable prices.

Best Overseas Brewery: The Commons
The Portland brewery I enjoyed actually sitting and drinking in the most: a bright open space, a friendly welcome, and first-rate farmhouse style beers. Over on the right-hand coast I stumbled across a couple of very tasty Jolly Pumpkin beers, so that gets an honourable mention in this category.

Best New Brewery Opening 2016: Hope
New brand highlights included Whiplash and DOT, but neither is an actual brewery. So this one goes to north Dublin's Hope which made the leap from contractee to fully-fledged production brewery. The four limited specials devised at the new set-up have ranged from good to brilliant so big things are expected as head brewer Mark develops a new swathe of permanent recipes.

Pub/Bar of the Year: The Sunflower
I hope it's not cheating to award this one to a pub I didn't visit during the year. The Sunflower began 2016 under threat of demolition. It ended it with the news that not only had it been saved but had told the industrial brewers whose wares it reluctantly carried to do one. I think that deserves to be celebrated. Have a Golden Pint on me, Sunflower. An extremely honourable mention goes to 57 The Headline, of course, who've put in another stellar twelve months.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2016: Brickyard
I came back from America in October complaining that beer bars here ought to have up-to-date printed beer menus. Brickyard does! It's situated right on top of Balally Luas stop and seemed a little cold and clinical at first: all stark Scandi angularity. But the atmosphere softens when the lights come on and it starts to feel more homely. The draught selection is sizeable and my visit last month included both White Hag's Little Fawn and O Brother's Bonita. Can't say fairer than.

A bonus shout-out goes to The Woodworkers in Belfast which opened in December last and I visited a couple of times during the year. They're doing a fantastic job of sourcing first-rate British and Irish craft beer.

Beer Festival of the Year: Killarney Beer Festival
My festival attendance was down this year. For shame! No Borefts, no Franciscan Well Easter Festival. Though I really enjoyed both the March and September gigs in the RDS, and spent a wonderfully relaxed three days swanning around Alltech Brews & Food, the most fun was Killarney in May where I got to try my hand at a bit of beer judging as well.

Supermarket of the Year: Fresh, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7
Though my local SuperValu has been continuing to knock it out of the park for a second year, Fresh in Smithfield has come to rival the independents with the wideness and currency of its range. I'm reliably informed that the Grand Canal Square branch across the city does things just as well.

Independent Retailer of the Year: DrinkStore
Back on top again. I am pleased that I finally made it to McHugh's on the northside and The Vineyard in Belfast, both fully deserving of their reputations. But DrinkStore is where I buy my beer.

Online Retailer of the Year: Nope.
In some years I've given this one to sites I've used for reference but I can't be arsed this year, and I still don't buy beer online.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Pub by Pete Brown
With all due respect to Pete I didn't encounter many beer books this year. The Pub was the nicest of them, though.

Best Beer Blog or Website: BeerFoodTravel
I've been enjoying the trip down the beer history rabbithole that Liam has been on lately, as well as the beer reviews and travelogues. Shame about that big posting gap in the middle of the year, but it won't happen again, right?

Best Brewery Website/Social media: @PilotBeerUK
For anyone involved in the use of Twitter to market a brewery, or anything really, this is how to do it properly.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @ManusCronin
The rest of you go and have a think about what you've done.


And that's it. If you've read this far I hope you found it worthwhile. 2016 is officially a wrap. The Beer Nut 2017 will commence on Monday. Happy New Year!

Kerry gold

Late May saw the second Killarney Beer Festival take place at the Gleneagle Hotel and once again I made the trip down for one of the country's top beer events. I was on judging duty this year but still managed to get a taste of all the unfamiliar beers from the twenty beer stands in the main tent.

The locals were well represented and Killarney Brewing Company, just up the street from the festival, had a new saison called Spailpín. Pretty good it was too: a modest 5.5% ABV with the classic fruit and grain saison aroma and a flavour which stacks bitter orange rind against crisp dry crackers. Classic thirst-quenching stuff and I wasn't even slightly surprised when it was awarded the show's best Belgian-style beer.

Killarney's other brewery, Torc, also took a prize for their salt-and-coriander German-style beer Anything Gose. As the style has become more popular, finding a straight gose has become a little difficult. This one perhaps lacked the cleanness of Leipzig classic Bayerischer Bahnhof, but had oodles of refreshment power. The texture was light and fluffy, there was a generous dose of coriander and yet it avoided tasting any way soapy. Its sourness is a little muted but it does leave that lovely sea-salty residue on the lips. And all at just 4% ABV. It deserves to be quaffed in quantity all summer.

Moving further afield to Dingle, West Kerry Brewery had two that were new to me, both dark. The Festive IBA only passed my way fleetingly but I got a strong impression of its smooth, rich and roasty character, livened with sparks of citrus zest. There's warming dark fruit deep down in the flavour -- blackberries in particular -- and a spike of roasted dryness. Balanced, complex and interesting, this one.

Its companion had the folksy name of Uncle Columb's Mild and it's another smooth and roasty one, this time a bright shade of garnet. It's full bodied for just 3.5% ABV with a wholesome cakey sweetness and more of those lightly tart blackberries. Poured cool from the cask it was surprisingly quenching on a sunny afternoon. I'd really love to see more of this kind of beer out in the real world. Properly looked after, of course.

Kerry-based contractors Crafty Divils had their second beer on the go: a 4.3% ABV amber ale called Iron Bridge. The style designation is somewhat notional and it's really much closer to Irish red or English bitter, toffee and tannins being the main feature. But it's not especially sweet and certainly not sticky, the clean simple flavour making it an enjoyable sessionable pub beer. Nice label too.

Side-stepping to Cork, 9 White Deer was pouring Fia, a crisp and lightly fruity Kölsch-a-like that's bang on the style, while Mountain Man had a new IPA: Banjo'd, brewed at the brand's third host brewery Brú. It's 5% ABV with a sharp citrus aroma and notes of peach plus an earthier red apple effect and even a touch of pear. Overall, clean and refreshing, and very enjoyable to drink.

The Dew Drop Inn in Co. Kildare had a stand with its two house beers, which the guys have produced at their neighbouring brewery, Trouble. '96 is an oatmeal pale ale, the standard hazy orange colour and quite harshly bitter. It's big on pine and lemon rind, with that scrubbed-toilet effect I've come to associate with Citra hops, though Target and Ella are the advertised varieties. Some oily dank helps round it out and while it's not easy drinking it is good. Its companion is a white IPA called Forbidden Fruit. This is a good example of the style -- light and accessible, soft of texture with gentle orange and lemon flavours. I was surprised it's as strong as 5.5% ABV.

Carlow Brewing has gone all-in with its own white IPA, Freebird, though it's a little lower in ABV at 5%. Rakau and Amarillo are the hops but the flavour is dominated by massive coriander and orange peel. While looking an innocent clear yellow, this is a loud and brash beer and while definitely not lacking in flavour I imagine it won't be to everyone's taste.

We finish with the two breweries representing Wexford, both of which brought a sizeable range of specials and one-offs to attract the tickers. Arthurstown Pils is a beer the brewery makes presumably for use at its home hotel Dunbrody House. It's not a great example of the style, being a bit too hot 'n' heavy, with greasy banana esters and some woody phenols. There's a light hoppy sharpness in the foretaste, but not enough to carry the off-flavours away. Amber IPA is a new style on me but I don't think Arthurstown's did it justice. The aroma is sickly and the texture heavy with sugar. It tastes of boiled sweets and a lot of buttery diacetyl. The only relief comes from a light pepper spicing but again one good feature does not suffice to make it a decent beer.

Similarly sickly smelling was Arthurstown's Rum & Oak Porter, but it's sufficiently attenuated that the aroma is where it stops. It's dry and quite light bodied for 5.7% ABV and of course there's a fair whack of vanilla to it. Fun and complex, but maybe just for the one. And the joker in their pack was Oak-A-Cola, a 4.7% ABV red ale, wood-aged and infused with cola essence. It sounds awful but it works extremely well. The cola dominates both the aroma and the flavour, herbal and sweet with the same sort of dry carbonic twang, but there's just enough malt character left, especially in the texture, to remind you that you're really drinking a beer. A gimmicky novelty, sure, but tremendous fun.

That just leaves Wexford Town's YellowBelly. Night Porter has been on the brewing roster there for a while now, I think, but I hadn't encountered it before. This is a whopping 7.2% ABV and smells weird: tangy and twangy, and somewhat autolytic. It gels together on tasting, however, all smooth and smoky with rich dark chocolate, a heavy bitterness, hot alcohol and woody burnt cork. Insanely complex, it tastes incredibly old-fashioned and makes for really interesting drinking.

Zë Germans (since renamed "On the Fritz") is a pale ale which owes its name to the use of Hüll Melon hops. It's balanced rounded and fruity, showing juicy notes of peach and nectarine as well as honeydew. That's your lot though: I guess this is designed as a refreshing quencher, a task it performs well.


Last tick of the festival is The Passion, Ireland's second passionfruit lager in recent months, and ever. I much preferred this to Trouble Brewing's Last Crash. Here the lager character has been dialled all the way back to provide a clean base, 4.4% ABV, maybe a touch of grain flavour and nothing more. The fruit, meanwhile, is fresh and sinfully juicy -- sweet without being sickly and adding a bitter complexity to the pinkness. It's still a very silly beer, of course, but seriously well made and, like the Oak-A-Cola, great fun to drink.

Cheers to all the breweries who made the effort to set up stall in Killarney, and congratulations to all who won prizes in the competition. Until 2017, then.