The Spring 2026 JD Wetherspoon Beer Festival has just come to an end. As usual, I made an effort to try as many of the 30 specials as I could conveniently locate in Dublin.Handily, Keavan's Port jumped the gun, and had three of the beers pouring a couple of days before the official kick-off on 5th March. Two of those were the prestige international collaborations, so I started on Malteza Session IPA, brewed at Oakham under the supervision of Cervecería Malteza of Mexico. At 4.8% ABV, it's a bit overclocked for "session", I reckon, though there's more than a hint of Oakham magic about it. Brewed with Citra, Amarillo and Cascade, it has the fresh bittersweet lemon zing of Oakham's own Citra pale ale. Gravity be damned, this is seriously sessionable stuff. The cleanness and simplicity may, however, be a flaw, because the beer has added hibiscus, and I could find very little sign of that. Normally, it manifests for me as a cherry or raspberry tang, and there's maybe a tiny hint of the latter, though no more than that, although it does have the "light red tinge" suggested by the festival programme. I feel a little gypped on the novelty front, but this is a beer which is difficult to be disappointed by.
Staying in the Americas, Bodebrown from Brazil makes a return to the festival. This time around, the beer is called Tropical: a session IPA with a much more sessionable -- and UK-tax-efficient -- ABV of 3.4%, brewed at Hook Norton. It's another clear and pale-gold job, served unsparklered with minimal foam. They've designed it to be hop forward, but the low, low strength compromises its ability here. The beer is distinctly watery, and as well as an unpleasant texture, that has a muting effect on the hops. Mostly, there's a fruit-candy sweetness, deriving from Galaxy and Mosaic, but without proper malt substance behind it, it's a bit harsh and artificial, lacking roundness and depth. I would be willing to bet it would never occur to the Brazilians to make this kind of beer. A little resinous complexity is introduced as it warms, but that doesn't really add anything positive. I'm very much not one of those people who believe beer needs strength to be enjoyable, and I fully trust Hook Norton to be able to turn out a palatable pint at 3.4% ABV. This recipe isn't it, however.
We come back down to earth for beer three: Canongate Best, a bitter from Edinburgh's Stewart Brewing. This was quite the balm after the last two's hop intensity. It's softly textured and gently malt-focused, tasting a little of toffee, with the sweet side offset by a tannic dryness. Yes, it's broadly brown bitter, if a little paler than the norm, but is an example of it being done well. Challenger and Olicana hops add a mild peppery spice in lieu of full-on bitterness, and its initial caramelised sugar returns as the aftertaste. It is very much Nothing Fancy, but is a supreme example of that, at the same time.
I don't get why the Shepherd Neame beer is called Lucky 'Lips. The apostrophe is related to the flowers on the pump clip, but otherwise I have no idea what's going on. It's a golden bitter of 4.5% ABV and is lacklustre, even for that modest strength. Maybe that's a good thing: the brewery's house flavour profile is not one I'm a fan of, and here its presence is gentle: a hint of marmalade, dusted with clove, but none of the earthy, metallic twang which normally puts me off. The problem is there's nothing to take the place of the nasty flavours. Instead, it's just bland. This one isn't watery, and it has the heft to deliver good flavour, but beyond that li'l bit of fruit and spice, it just doesn't. Chugging through the pint entailed little effort, but let the record show that I didn't enjoy doing so. The graphics on the badge are colourful and fun. The beer is not.
The official first day of the festival was a rare sunny one, and with nothing better to do I made my way to Dún Laoghaire, paying a rare visit to The Forty Foot. Refreshment was priority one, and Thornbridge's Pink Grapefruit Pale seemed like the optimal option. "Ooh, it does smell like grapefruit" exclaimed my server over the lightly hazy yellow pint. And I agree, to an extent. I had been expecting a bit of punch from this, maybe even an intense citrus burn, but it's light on all fronts. That aroma is more like a grapefruit soda or fancypants tonic water, while the flavour hits first as lemonade. That is pretty much what I was after, after working up a thirst getting there, and I didn't exactly sip it, but I had hoped for more character here. On mature reflection, two-thirds of a pint in, I can taste the actual grapefruit, rather than generic citrus, but it's very low volume, accentuated by a thin texture which doesn't feel quite up to the 4% ABV. It could work well as a sunny day quaffer, but equally, it's a one-trick pony that gets boring fast. Not Thornbridge's best work by any measure.
Trust Brains to come up with a beer that sounds best in a Windsor Davies accent, and this is Crimson Legend, boy [gruff chuckle]. The colour is copper, but since that's mostly mined in north Wales, I can understand why a Cardiff brewery failed to make the association. It's a dry fellow, big on tannin and with a roasty sort of spice, or spicy sort of roast, like paprika, clerical incense or smouldering cedar. I guess I had been expecting caramelised malt, so was a little disconcerted to find that doesn't feature very much. No harm. Nobody likes a sticky brown bitter or red ale, and this isn't that. The better sort of dry brown bitter is probably where it sits on the spectrum, and the piquancy gives it a complexity I had not hitherto associated with Brains. It would be impressive were the ABV below 4, but at 4.8% it seemed a little thin. Still, a half was enjoyable. From my window seat I could watch the ferries setting out for Holyhead, and reckoned I was having a better Welsh experience than those passengers were about to.The heck is up with Elgood Shug Monkey? "Pale brown" says the badge, and I had to look up pictures of it online to check the pub hadn't tapped the wrong beer. They hadn't. By "pale brown" the brewery means "golden". Dick move. I had typed "it doesn't taste brown either" after the first sip, but had to delete it. Initially it's a waxy bitter job; slightly acrid on it. But after a moment, a mocha roasted sweetness swings in, lasting into the finish, and I guess that's supposed to be the central conceit. Unfortunately, that arrived accompanied by a soapy dish-detergent twang, for which I'm blaming the brewery not the pub. Overall, not a great effort, and made worse by suggesting brown ale to the drinker and then pulling a bait-and-switch. Regardless of the beer's qualities, that will garner a poor reception, and the beer's qualities aren't especially enjoyable. "Try before you buy" says the Wetherspoon point-of-sale material, and I hope people do.
From Dún Laoghaire, a swerve along the south arc of Dublin Bay landed me at The South Strand, where four festival specials were pouring. Oakham's own offer was a red ale called Soul Synergy. In proper Oakham style, it's quite hop-forward, smelling and tasting of zesty sherbet lemon candy, with no significant contribution from the caramelised malt. That does give it a substantial body for 4% ABV, which is pleasant, but the slightly sweaty stale tang on the finish, less so. The intention may be to present this as an American-style amber ale, which is a noble aim, but I don't think they've managed it. It's a bit too one-dimensionally hopped-up for that, the red aspect contributing to the appearance but nothing else. It's OK, overall, but a bit of a near miss for me.Beside it was another international collaboration: Cerveses Almogàver flying the Catalan flag at Elgood's. It's called Vicious IPA, and I'm not at all sure that branding an IPA with punk trappings is a great idea in the current climate. But, like Tilray Brands, I didn't have to pay very much. It's a weighty 5.3% ABV and smells a little syrupy with it, verging on the same sort of sweat tang I found in the previous beer. And while there is a clean golden-syrup sweet side to the flavour, there's a more pronounced funky hop resin bitterness. I had been wondering if they had set out to clone That Beer, and I think they have, in its rarely-seen cask form, back when it was seriously bitter and much more enjoyable. I never thought I would be enjoying OG Punk as a retro offering, but here we are. A tip of the hat to a fun conceit.
The next pair began with reliable ol' St Austell, and a red ale called Good Tides. Here, the colour is as advertised: a handsome clear auburn shade. The flavour has a few things going for it, including plummy hedgerow fruits -- your damsons and your blackberries -- as well as strong tea-like tannins which complement that well. The finish is a one-two of brightly sweet cherry skin and a hard wax bitterness. It did require a bit of work to identify all of this, as none of it is very loud, but once I had the measure of it, it was enjoyable to pick through. At 4.3% ABV, it's a beer that one could chug merrily, enjoying only its dry and bitter side, but that would be to miss the subtleties.Another favourite UK brewery was pouring alongside it: Fyne Ales. In happier times, their flagship bottles were available in these parts but they're long gone now. To the festival, we welcome Driftwood, called a brown ale on the clip, described as "deep amber" in the programme, but, arrgh! it's neither of those things. My half pint was a murky orange colour and had as much in common with brown ale as Shug Monkey. Did somebody change the rules without telling me? Having come to terms with that, it's not a bad beer, being broadly a bitter to my mind, with pleasant notes of tangy marmalade and squishy strawberries. Despite the appearance, it's cleanly flavoured, and the result is balanced but not hugely interesting after the first few sips. Hard to believe that this is brewery which set Scottish brewing on fire with Jarl 16 years ago.
The South Strand exhausted, my three-pub crawl concluded back at Keavan's Port, where the offer had turned over. Both new arrivals were dark, which was welcome.Voyager from Woodforde's was the only dark mild in the programme: another beer at the newly-popular strength of 3.4% ABV. It's on the paler side for dark mild, showing distinctly ruby around the edges. Of course the texture is light, but it's not unpleasantly thin, and there's a surprising invigorating sparkle, which is unusual for cask ale. The coffee aroma is inviting, while a square of dark chocolate kicks the flavour off, followed swiftly by a dry and oaky cork-like rasp. That adds a lasting acidity which I found a little off-putting and made me glad to be only drinking a half. I'm not objecting to this mild showing some complexity and backbone, but equally if the point of the style, as is often stated, is to be supremely sessionable, I'm not sure that would work in this example.
Back to the international collaborations next, and it's normal for these to be based on original beers by the visiting brewery. Nigredo from Birrificio Italiano is one of the few I've met in its original incarnation, in Venice some years back. There it was chalked up as a "black ale", though the brewery called it a Schwarzbier, and it was 6.5% ABV. The version brewed at Batemans for Wetherspoon is down to 6% ABV but it's still a hopped-up black lager. I enjoyed the original's big, assertive character, and they look to have translated that well, starting with the aroma of sticky treacle and concentrated liquorice. Lager it may be, but the cask serve has given it a gorgeously silky texture. The hops are up at black IPA intensity, brimming with tangy green cabbage or spinach, sitting alongside dark roasted coffee. Even after a day's drinking, this gave my palate a loud wake-up call and an invitation to a riotous party of massive, hopped-up, dark beer flavours. Maybe I'm getting old, but there used to be more of these big-flavoured beers in the Wetherspoon festival line-ups. This is the first memorable one in several years.
Thirteen beers is probably enough for today. In the next post we'll find out how far down the festival's list of 30 I got.
