Test patch

A raft of beers from the unfamiliar Prague brewery Sibeeria arrived locally late last year. I bought a couple as testers, to see if it's worth trying the rest.

Sour IPA is a favourite style and 0801 is the sour one in their IPA Tone series. You get your money's worth with a half-litre can, filled to the very brim. The beer is only 4.1% ABV and a translucent medium lemon yellow in the glass. It smells sweet, not sour, like a fruity fizzy soft drink. Galaxy, Azacca and Idaho 7 are the responsible parties, hopwise. That's present to an extent in the flavour too, but the main feature is a lovely tart bite, right from the opener and leaving a sherbet-like buzz on the lips. It's surprisingly full-bodied too, fully justifying sipping through it, but if you want to quaff it as a thirst-quencher, that could work equally as well. I took my time, enjoying the clean orangey spritz with the tangy background. My archetypal sour IPA will always be the much-missed Wayfarer from Eight Degrees and this has a pleasing amount in common with it.

Experiment 2 brought a west coast IPA in the same series, called 0105. Immediate suspicions here as it's hazy in the glass. 6% ABV is a little lightweight for this sort of thing, and the can also tells us that Azacca and Amarillo are involved: hops I associate much more with softer and sweeter IPAs. But enough about the theory, how's the practice? The aroma is on point, all fresh and punchy with the requisite elements of citrus and pine. The flavour doesn't quite deliver, however. As expected it's quite soft and rather fuzzy in an un-west-coast way. That means there's a lack of bitterness, which is unforgivable. But even aside from stylistic concerns, there's a general blandness about this -- it's not even a good example of any other style. There's a lime cordial sweetness with no more than a squirt of lime juice and a thin coat of pine resin for balance. I guess the malt side is to style, providing sufficient residual sugar to balance a bitterness which never arrives. This is not a bad beer, but it's very much not what I'm after.

I won't be rushing out to clear the shelves of Sibeeria's other beers. I will come back to them, should they hang around, however. What I've learned today warrants a cautious optimism.

The naughty step

For over a year now The Fine Ale Countdown podcast has been assessing the relative merits of the world's beers, one at a time. Each beer gets a numerical score, resulting in a league table, and attention tends to be paid more to the upper end of it, especially the hallowed top five. But every league table has to have an arse end and I don't know exactly what's in the lower reaches of this one (update: now I do), although two beers do get mentioned regularly as being especially unpleasant, and they're two I had never tasted until I went out and made a point of finding them.

One is Wolf Rock, from Molson Coors's craftish sub-brand Sharp's, which the guys reviewed back in their first ever episode. It's a red IPA and widely available in supermarkets, which is where I found mine. "Sharp's, Rock, Cornwall" says the label, along with an explanation of where in Cornwall Wolf Rock is, and the small print that says it's actually brewed up north in Cheshire. I'm not predisposed to liking red IPAs and that bit of flim-flam didn't help.

It's a dark mahogany colour, the head not sticking around for long and giving off a harshly metallic aroma, like aspirin. Again: not looking good. But the flavour isn't as bad as expected. The texture helps enormously: it's full and smooth and round, helping it slip down your gullet before your brain has registered what's happening. What's happening is a toffee sweetness rubbing indecently up against a tart fruit flavour, a bit like a toffee apple, but with the elements more blended into each other. That metallic aspirin twang is still there, and there's a raspberryade artificial fruit sweetness. All of this should be clanging together madly but it just about manages to harmonise. It's still not pleasant, though, There's a total lack of distinct hop freshness which means the letters "IPA" no more belong on the label than the word "Cornwall". The FAC guys were more than fair in their slating of this.

The other whipping boy is Siren's Pompelmocello, and I was a little surprised that this didn't go down well as the brewery generally turns out great beers. It's a bit of a confection, being a soured, fruited IPA with added lactose. I made a special trip to Alfie Byrne's to give it a go.

For some reason I was expecting it to be cloudy but it's actually a clear and innocent orange-gold colour. There's a lightly funky aroma and on tasting the sourness is definitely understated. Instead of being the main event, the acidic tartness helps accentuate the juiciness of the fruit, and I got fresh ripe mandarin flesh as the centrepiece. Behind this is a veritable fruit salad with sweet pineapple and white grape, plus a certain syrupyiness which I'm guessing is the lactose at work, and it does start to get a little sticky as it warms up. Overall, though, I absolutely loved it: it's a very good example of the sort of clean and hoppy sour beer I like. That the podcast team do not was made apparent in their round-up of the Alltech Brews festival where Eight Degrees's sublime Wayfarer sour IPA came in for a bit of stick. Each to his own, I guess.

As it happened, while I was in Alfie's they had another Siren fruit IPA on: VIPA. This one is not soured but oaked, fermented with a Belgian yeast and with added blackcurrant, raspberry and hibiscus. All that for just €6.30 a glass. None of the elements really jump out from it. It smells like a forest fruit yoghurt and the flavour has a harsh and sticky jammy quality, with a bitter metallic edge on it. There's no proper beer character anywhere, which is especially surprising given the use of Belgian yeast and the distinctive flavours that that tends to bring. Some cleaning sourness would really improve this picture, I reckon.

It turns out, then, that Siren is quite capable of taking mis-steps. Pompelmocello is definitely not one of them, however. Don't believe everything you hear on the Internet.

Last dash

Time for my final round-up of miscellaneous Irish beer for 2016, all the stuff I found in the pubs and off licences of Dublin as the festive season started to bite.

Galway Bay had been especially busy, knocking out a couple of winter specials for starters. First to appear was Banished Sun, an 8% ABV "imperial porter". Yes I'm putting scare quotes on that. It's dark brown in colour and the main feature of the flavour is a flaky ashen dryness lightened only slightly by some warm-fermentation fruit esters. The alcohol is very apparent, making it taste hot, and there's a big bruising bitterness as well. Overall it's a mean and harsh drinking experience, one not to be entered into lightly. I'd guess that time will soften this beer a little but whether it's enough to make it enjoyable remains to be seen.

The companion piece is called Black Forest. Trouble Brewing denied us its cherry chocolate stout this year so I was pleased when Galway Bay decided to pick up the slack. The base beer here is another dry and bitter porter but this time there's a decent layer of smooth chocolate and then a very real-tasting dark cherry acidity. In combination, the base beer and flavourings create an effect like fruit jelly spread on well-done toast. I would definitely have preferred it to be sweeter and heavier -- it's all of 6.2% ABV, after all. The name implies cake and the taste doesn't quite deliver it.

Switching styles completely, Galway Bay's second double IPA since brewer Will took the reins is Hexed. A pale one, it matches Of Foam & Fury's ABV of 8.5% and opens with a stunning fresh mandarin aroma. This was the first part of the flavour I noticed, but behind the juice you'll also find some sweet onion and then a very slight yeasty fuzz which I think actually helps soften the beer. It needs softening because it's very thick and greasy, with an unctuous napalm heat. I didn't take long over it but I suspect that it's best consumed cold when the hop flavours are brightest. This is a real west-coast powerhouse, but a balanced one too.

For '80s kids everywhere, Eight Degrees presents Bandit, a smoked brown ale, which I found on the bar at Alfie Byrne's a few weeks ago. My half pint of this 6%-er looked a bit sad in the glass, arriving without a proper head on it. It's a clear dark red-brown colour with amber highlights around the edges. Despite the strength it's surprisingly thin of body. I expected that to change as it warmed but it didn't. The smoke is dominant, though not overdone, blending peaty phenols with a meaty smoked sausage flavour. It's fun at first but starts to get acrid a few mouthfuls in. What it's crying out for is more of a brown ale base, a bit of that caramel sweetness and definitely more substance to the texture. There's the makings of something very good here but I couldn't quite get into it as-is.

Leaving aside this year's winter trilogy which I'll get to in the new year when the third one is released, the next one from Eight Degrees was Wayfarer, badged as a "sour IPA" (more scarequotes) and a mere 4% ABV. I was looking for something sessionable at the Beoir Christmas party in The Beerhouse, and this fitted the bill perfectly. Pouring a weak-looking hazy yellow colour it's quite a straightforward beer. It's not especially sour, with a dry and chalky background to the tartness. The hops aren't exactly full-on either, giving it just a light and spritzy lemon bitterness. It's flavourful enough to be interesting but most importantly it's extremely drinkable and very refreshing. That they chose to release it in the middle of winter is perhaps the oddest thing as it would make an ideal summer beer, but you won't find me complaining.

The latest seasonal release from JW Sweetman coincided with the launch of a bit of a rebrand for the brewpub's wares. The beer is a Dunkelweisse, which I'll admit at the start is not a style which normally does much for me. This one's not bad at all, though. It's thickly textured and nicely smooth making it filling and warming, almost like a dark weizenbock. There's a light banana flavour keeping it in touch with its weissbier roots, and a mild smokiness. I detected a touch of sulphur as well, for a bit of bonus complexity. Overall a very decent effort at an unexciting style.

To 57 the Headline next, and a couple more dark and wintery beers. Le Rubis is the latest from Two Sides, once again utilising the facilities and expertise of the Five Lamps Brewery. There's a very strange mix of flavours in this and I don't think it quite works. The first thing I got was an enormous wave of dark malt elements: toffee and a rich cocoa sweetness. Hot on its heels there's an intense acidic bitterness which feels like it belongs in a different beer, one that's unwelcome in my glass. It ends up as a very busy effort that's simultaneously too sweet and too bitter.

Moving on to Trouble's remake of last year's red ale, Ripcord. Ripcord 2.0 drops the ABV a little, from 4.7% to 4.1. It's still dark red, though, and still not much more than a straight down-the-line Irish red ale. The texture is probably its best feature, lovely and round and filling, almost like it's nitrogenated. The muted flavours of red summer fruit come through clearly, free of yeasty interference I'm happy to say, but it's all very brief and there's nothing much else going on. As in the first version, the name suggests a level of excitement that's entirely inappropriate for the finished beer.

If it's excitement you want, Kelly's Mountain released a double IPA earlier in the year, though quite a light one at just 7% ABV. It's called Reality Bytes and is a pale shade of copper, smelling quite sweet, of marmalade shred and toffee. And while it is pretty thick, sticky almost, the hops balance it rather nicely. There's more of that bitter orangey tang and some harsher aspirin metallic notes but it's all good clean fun: the heat levels are low and the toffee malt, while present, isn't overdone. You wouldn't mistake it for a San Diego hop bomb (for one thing it doesn't taste of onions) but it's a jolly nice straightforward sort of IPA. I don't know if Kelly's Mountain intends to make it permanent but no harm if they do.

A new swathe of Whiplash beers began with True Love Waits, a pils. I was surprised to find it's quite dark in colour, the dull brownish colour of earwax. Lovely aroma, though: all light and peachy with added watermelon and white plum. The first flavour to emerge is a malt sweetness, an almost candyfloss effect, familiar from many German and Czech lagers. Behind this a sting of bitter noble hops and then the oily vapours of something American. A glance at the brewer's description tells me that the first bit was Hersbrucker and the latter Columbus. The malt and hop elements are nicely balanced. I do get a creeping pine toilet-cleaner note, but the clean finish prevents it from getting too prominent. My biggest criticism is that it's a touch watery: the sweet malt doesn't seem to add the sort of body you'd find in the central European equivalent, especially at all of 5% ABV. I'm not sure if the brewer intended this as one to smash back when thirsty, but I've a feeling that's how it will work best.

Also new from Mr Whiplash is a rebrew of 2013 Otterbank classic Farami coffee stout and a second double IPA, called Since I've Been Loving You. It also sees the operation moving out of its usual home at Rye River, with Farami brewed at Rising Sons and this one on the fancypants Kaspar Schulz kit at Boyne Brewhouse. It's 8.2% ABV and the pale amber colour of a lovely cup of tea. Expecting heat I was surprised to find the nose is subtly fruity with light grapefruit and tangerine. It's not madly hoppy to taste, nor hot and heavy. In fact, the tea analogy continues, with a pleasant tannic dryness being the main feature. The hops are mouthwateringly orangey while the soft malt base makes it taste like chewy orange flavoured candy. Despite over 100 IBUs of American hops this is gentle and balanced: in the Goldilocks zone of double IPAs of not too sweet, not too bitter and not too heavy. Those who prefer the more extreme sort of double IPA may be disappointed but I really enjoyed it.

Dessert is from Mescan, in the form of their Westport Kriek, which has been out a while but has hitherto escaped my notice. It looks the part all right, pouring pink but a beautifully rich maroon colour in the glass. The jammy aroma suggests that they've bypassed any souring part of the process. I was expecting it to taste horribly sweet but there is a sour tang there which I'm guessing is down to the cherry alone: it's a very real flavour, the sort of tartness you get when you bite into a ripe black cherry. There's a heavy and rustic wheat beer behind this, a husky cereal quality, but really the cherries are doing all the heavy lifting. What I miss is the high attenuation you get in Belgian lambic-based kriek: this, at 5.4% ABV, is heavy and chewy, which isn't ideal. It's a good use of cherries and really shows off their character well but I don't know that "kriek" is the best word for it.

And before we batten down the hatches and make final preparations for the big day, one last seasonal. Fairy Ale of New York is the second special commission that Rascals has made for the Molloy's off licence chain and is a hop-bursted IPA of 5% ABV. Dark gold in colour the aroma is surprisingly muted, giving off a lightly lemony buzz. The flavour is a little bit on the down-low as well, with a waxy sort of bitterness balanced by nicely toasty malt, but not much actual hop flavour. The best feature is the aftertaste, where the lemon element hangs around at the back of the palate for ages. It's not the most exciting of IPAs but perfectly serviceable, and at four cans for a tenner would do well as an accessible party beer.

I'll sign off here and wish you all a very happy Christmas. See you next week for Twixtmas ramblings and my 2016 Golden Pints awards.

All together now: It was Christmas Eve, babe, iiiin the drunk tank...