Some IPAs

I'm trying really hard to avoid doing big round-up posts at the moment. They're almost as much of a slog to write as they are to read. Please excuse today's thin end of that particular wedge: four recent releases from Irish breweries in the up-and-coming speciality style called India pale ale.

It's a good job that "double dry hopped" doesn't actually mean anything, or I'd be worried about Larkin's giving the treatment to a beer that's only 4% ABV. Their new session IPA is called Revolver and is a hazy middling orange-yellow. Centennial, Citra and Idaho 7 represents a kind of cross-section of the cool hops of the last 15 years or so. It smells of orange concentrate first, with a heavier herbal dank behind -- pleasingly assertive. There's none of the thinness I feared, and no unbalanced hop sharpness. It's rounded and with plenty of malt sweetness to buoy up the fruity side of the hops. I fully expected oats to be listed as an ingredient, but it achieves this with barley alone. That fruit side is tropical, juicy, and a little spicy too: a sprinkling of cinnamon on your slice of roasted pineapple. Where the low strength helps out is in the quick finish, no cloying sugar or syrup. "Session IPA" is a bit of a hackneyed term, but this really does have the depth and complexity of a proper IPA with a wonderful easy-going drinkability. I'm not sure if this is going to be permanent but it would make for a very worthy flagship.

It's almost a year since the last edition of the O'Hara's single hop IPA series. And now here's Hop Adventure: Strata, the eighth variety by my count. It's the by-now standard medium hazy golden colour and 5% ABV. The aroma is strongly weedy: not your typical dankness, but the piquant peppery spice of an Amsterdam coffeeshop doorway on a cold winter's day. The flavour is soft and sweet with notes of vanilla pod, frangipane and apple pie. A tannic dryness completes the tea-and-a-pastry picture. It's not at all what I'd expect from something presenting as an American-style IPA, but it's absolutely gorgeous. That's two IPAs in a row I would happily quaff serially. But this blog isn't about making me happy. Moving on...

I've been a fan of all the core range from Heaney Farmhouse Brewery. The Blond, Red and Stout have been very well-made and to-style examples of balanced loveliness. So I was attracted to what appeared to be a new one, simply badged India Pale Ale, even though it was packaged in a 440ml can instead of the usual half-litre bottle. The wording "A classic West Coast IPA" attracted me further, though at only 5.5% ABV I had to wonder how "classic" it could be. In the glass it's slightly hazy, but not excessively so, and a lovely sunset amber colour. The aroma is sweet; old skool crystal malt getting straight to work. The texture is light, as befits the ABV, and the flavour is also a bit of a shrinking violet. I think they're going for something closer to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale than Sculpin. There's a very old-world taste of flowers and vegetables from the hops, with no more than a lacing of citrus. It's not unpleasant but I was hoping for more of a kick. This offers the same simple understated enjoyment as the rest of the core; the wording they chose for the can is the only part I could possibly object to.

Finally for today, Galway Bay Brewery has been revisiting the log books and resurrected a short-lived IPA from 2013. The original Voyager NZ was 6% ABV and brewed with Pacifica and Pacific Jade. This one is half a percent stronger and uses Kiwi classics Nelson Sauvin and Motueka, so they didn't look too closely at the previous recipe. It's a thoroughly modern eggy yellow with the poor head retention that seems par for the course in this degenerate age. Nelson's gooseberries-dipped-in-diesel is apparent from the aroma. The flavour is gentler, however. It's rounded and soft fruit for the most part: peach, lychee, a little pineapple; and then a sharper tart bitterness arrives in the finish, bringing Motueka's dry grass and aniseed. That makes for quite a contrast between fore- and aftertaste, but it's a best of both worlds situation. I love the luscious tropical fleshiness, and the harder hop kick. Amazing that it was all done with only two hops. Not too hot for the strength and with no dreggy murky yuck, this is a superb example of the art of IPA.

Plenty of variety in this set, whatever your IPA predilections may be. There's a sub-style for everyone.

Slap and tickle

In the pubs at the moment Ireland's spring seasonals are starting to poke their heads tentatively out, ahead of the full bloom heralded by the Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival happening this Saturday and Sunday in Cork. Last week I was in The Black Sheep to catch two early risers.

Equinox is the new one from Metalman Brewing under their experimental Chameleon badge. My pint arrived ice cold, hazy and looking rather sad in the head department, but still a radiant bright yellow, for all that. There was no shortage of fizz, something which bothers me in most beers but this has a full enough body to carry it and the copious bubbles even help lift out the thirst-quenching lemon flavours while complementing the dry graininess.

It's refreshing and very drinkable (I had three pints) but I couldn't help feeling something was missing from it. All the way through I expected a wheat beer flavour spike: some cloves or pepperiness or even a ripe banana, but it never materialised. The brewery is calling it a "wheat lager" so is at least up front about its nature. While nicely bitter it lacks the cleanness of a good pils, and while full and fizzy it doesn't hit the weiss or wit buttons either. It's a challenging beer, but in a very sessionable sort of way.

The headline act on the night was the much-anticipated new IPA from Galway Bay Brewery, Voyager, and brewer Chris was in town especially, to formally introduce it to the drinking public and throw out a few freebies. Voyager is 6% ABV and the Pacifica and Pacific Jade are given centre stage, from first wort hopping, right through to the dry addition at the end, with the finished product left unfiltered and unfined, though pouring a perfectly clear gold.

The first taste delivers a powerful bitter shock: the sort of resinous acridity that scorches the tongue and wafts up the back of the palate, leaving a sticky residue on the lips. It's hard to detect anything else going on at first, but after a while some semblance of balance creeps in from a touch of underlying toffee malt. Then half way through the second glass I managed to pick out a little bit of the blackcurrant flavour I associate with another New Zealand hop, Pacific Gem, though it's very much on the puckering end of the taste spectrum, with none of the lighter, more succulent, tropical fruit.

If you're working towards a lupulin threshold shift, this is one to take you over the line.

Meanwhile, above at the Bull & Castle, the annual Irish Beer & Whiskey Festival is in full swing. The highlight for me so far has been Kinnegar's Rustbucket rye pale ale, served from a polypin. In a turnaround from the overly fizzy Devil's Backbone I tried recently, this is very lightly carbonated, almost to the point of flatness, and this in turn makes it difficult to discern any aroma. Only with my nose deep in the glass was the mild waft of citrus detectable. The murky orange-brown colour doesn't help with the visuals either, but on tasting it's a whole different experience. Very much hop forward, it begins with a burst of soft fruit: melon and pineapple, pursued by slightly more stern mandarin peel and grapefruit. Underneath this sits the dry grassiness of the rye and, not being a fan of rye beers in general, I'm not sure what the point of this is. But it behaves itself here, not interfering with the hop party.

The beer, soon to be available bottled, is 5.1% ABV and I could feel the weight of it building up as my pint warmed, but it's moreish enough that this shouldn't be a problem for too many drinkers.

Previously on the Bull & Castle's taps there was Franciscan Well's new Hopfenweisse. At a mere 5% ABV this is a more modest offering than Schneider's originator of the style and it lacks the flavour integration of the Bavarian. Instead you get two separate but delicious flavour profiles: one is the caramelised banana of good dunkelweisse, and then this smoothness is pricked with sharp and rather vegetal hops, resulting in a strange sort of contrast which works surprisingly well.

And that brings me back to the Franciscan Well and the Easter Festival, much like this Saturday's 11am train out of Heuston.