A fair shake

I make no apology for the one-and-done approach this blog takes. There are too many beers, and too many variables affecting how it's perceived, to try and be any way objective. Beer is no more immutable than my palate. So I write about what's in front of me when it's in front of me and then move on. Usually.

I was recently approached by a brewer who wasn't happy with my account of his beer. I reviewed White Gypsy's Vintage in this post last summer. It was on the train home after an afternoon at Hagstravaganza, and he thinks the circumstances were detrimental to my opinion of the beer. Much as I dislike revisiting beers, I'm always up for an experimental challenge, so the next time I saw a bottle of Vintage I bought it: €9.95 for 375ml in Baggot Street wines; almost €2 more than at the festival.

And here we are. I am well rested. I have a clean glass and a clean palate. The beer is still 6% ABV and a pure obsidian black. A tall layer of tan foam builds rapidly as it pours but fades quickly. By the time I had settled in to take a drink it was little more than one bubble thick on the surface. Before a sip, a sniff. A spicy sourness arrives first; a sandalwood or cedar effect. That's complemented by -- but definitely separate from -- a rich stout bitterness, heavy on herbal liquorice. OK, there's no soy sauce this time. The flavour is that spritzy bitterness, mixing bitter marjoram and yarrow with dark chocolate. There's no more than a seasoning of the aromatic wood, plus a tiny nibble of sourness. Why such a light touch on the complexity? It's thin, is why; big on fizz while the bitterness fades last, leaving almost no aftertaste. I'm sure this is part of the spec, but at a tenner a throw it really ought to be more than nice. It may be an obvious statement to make, but Guinness Foreign Extra Stout will give you something along the same lines -- if much less subtle -- at a fraction of the price.

Yes, this was a different experience to the one I had last summer, but my conclusion remains the same: it's not spectacular, but it's priced like it is.

The beers less travelled

Part two of my run through Hagstravaganza 2018 concerns itself with the Irish brewers who were there. The hosts, White Hag, had a couple of collaborative beers brewed abroad in the line-up. One was Bretty Fool, made at Schneeeule with additional input from fellow Berliners BRLO. It's an unattractive muddy brown and headless with a strong dirty funk aroma. The texture is a bit thin and watery while the flavour is a game of two halves: a lovely roast that complements the horsey funk, but a sharp plastic bite as well which lets it down. An interesting beer overall, a nice twist on your standard Orval-alike, but not brilliant all the same.

The other collaboration was Watershed, a session-strength New England IPA brewed at Big Smoke in Surrey. At 4.2% ABV it's light and refreshing without being thin. It's properly bitter too, which is always pleasing in these sorts, showing a very real, sharp note of grapefruit pith as the central feature.

Entirely off their own bat, White Hag was offering Hagstravaganza #4 as the headline beer of the event, a version of their Black Boar imperial stout, aged in bourbon barrels with added raspberries. It arrived jet black with no foam on top and its flavour brings an equal mix of tarry stout, fresh raspberries and boozy bourbon vanilla. They contrast with each other nicely, providing three top-notch flavour experiences from a single glass.

I got my first opportunity to try beers from Tipperary's newest brewery, Canvas. Raspberella was where I began, being a 4.6% ABV amber ale with brewery-grown raspberries. The fruit gets straight to work in the aroma, exuding the crunchy woody character of raspberry seeds. In the flavour it's thick and sweet, like raspberry ice cream sauce, boosted by quite a dense treacle-like malt base. It might have become difficult and cloying were it not for the drying balance of burnt roast on the end. This is an unusual concoction, but by no means unpleasant.

Alas I can't say the same about Road Not Taken, described as a "west Cork porter" and 7.5% ABV. They've gone for smoky here, but have ended up with a beer that tastes acridly of iodine and musty old oak. It's all a bit rough and severe. Perhaps ageing would help round it out, though it could be that the whole recipe needs redrawing.

DOT rolled out the barrel with Mother Mezcal, an IPA aged in a mezcal cask. There's lots of wood here too: a dry splintery effect in the aroma which transfers into the flavour as well. But there are plenty of hops: green and quite herbal, ensuring it still comes across as an IPA first and foremost. A relatively modest 6.5% ABV means it's not boozy, and I got no trace of the spirit that was in the barrel previously, although that said I don't think I've ever tasted mezcal. This is perhaps not as exciting as the name implies, but it's still a jolly good, clean, IPA.

Boundary's Double Screwball ice cream IPA was brought to the table by my wife: it's not the sort of thing I'd have chosen off my own bat. And more fool me, because it was really nice. It's 8.7% ABV and lurid pink with lots of raspberry in the aroma. The flavour isn't too sweet, with a certain jammyness and a creamy vanilla element, but also a significant citric hop kick. I was reminded more of a classy lemon and raspberry torte than a kiddies' ice cream cup.

One last beer before legging it for the train, and it's a big one: High Viscosity from Galway Bay, a 10% ABV bourbon-barrel stout which they brewed as a collaboration with Uiltje and which includes stroopwafel in the ingredients. Full craft points, there. It smells sweet and treacly but tastes bitterer, thankfully: a kick of herbal liquorice offsets the sugar, and there's an espresso roast finish. The name isn't lying: it is incredibly thick and this makes it satisfying and sippable. It's definitely not as much of a novelty as the description implies, being instead simply a well-made big stout.

With my remaining tokens I purchased a bottle of White Gypsy Vintage for the train. This beer has been a long time in development -- the process got its first mention on this blog in 2010 -- and is an attempt to produce Irish stout in the traditional way: wood aged and naturally soured. This particular batch was brewed in 2016 then left for two years before bottling. It came out at 6% ABV and I was first struck by the poor head retention. It has a savoury aroma, crisp like actual crisps, and the flavour continues that theme: soy sauce and MSG; all the umami. It is still a stout, though, and there's a dry roasted edge on it too. While fine, it didn't taste like anything special to me, and certainly not worth the €8 it set me back. Lambic pricing should mean lambic quality.

The day's final beer, as our train lumbered back east across the midlands, came via Ronan's generosity. He shipped Henderson's Beast over from Toronto. It's an imperial amber ale, bourbon aged to 11% ABV. The whisky cask is very much in charge of the flavour, from the lime-like sourness to the smooth and heavy vanilla, this is bourbon all the way. It's good though: like the High Viscosity it's calm and relaxing with no sharp edges or difficult parts. Cheers Ronan.

And cheers to The White Hag for running another excellent show, and for the complementary tickets. Even when ticking beers against the clock it was a fantastic day out.

New and improved

I've only been going to the Easter Beer Festival at The Franciscan Well in Cork for the last three years. But even in that small space of time it has improved noticeably. While in 2008 there was still a fair bit of space allocated to importers and wholesalers, it's now wall-to-wall breweries, with the only absentees being Whitewater (oddly) and the two which neither keg nor cask: Clanconnel and Galway's Bay Brewery.

Making their debuts as commercial breweries last Saturday were Dungarvan Brewing Company and Trouble. Dungarvan's emphasis is going to be on bottled product, though they also have a limited cask capacity and were serving two of their three beers from the handpump. Copper Coast is a fairly standard Irish red, ticking the biscuit and caramel boxes appropriately, though with an added dose of bittering hops and a slightly unfortunate touch of phenol at the end. I'm sure that'll be ironed out in later versions. Next to it was Helvick Gold -- about as far from plain, lager-substitute blonde ale as it's possible to get. At 4.9% ABV, Helvick is full-bodied and quite powerfully bitter with a waxy fresh honey flavour. Not a quaffer; more a thinking man's blonde. Black Rock stout did not make an appearance, and by early Saturday evening all the Dungarvan beer had sold out. They must be doing something right.

Next door to Dungarvan, the Trouble Brewing crew were resplendent in their lurid orange uniforms: observe the pride with which Stephen wears his (right). The first beer to emerge from the three-man operation is another blonde ale, called Ór.This is simpler fare than Helvick: lightly fruity with just a little hoppy complexity and a nice clean refreshing fizz from the keg. It'll be a good one for outside summer drinking, I'd say.

This year also marked the first appearance of Beoir Chorca Duibne at the Easter Festival. As well as Cúl Dorcha, which I sampled back here, they had a hand-written pumpclip marked "EasterFest Special". Oh dear, I thought, a batch of something went wrong and this is their attempt at off-loading it. I ordered a glass anyway and felt immediately guilty for being so cynical. It was a rock-solid chocolatey dark ale with an interesting sourness on the end -- something Séan tells me is from the incongruous German hops. Some very tasty rule-breaking there.

Barrelhead was back for a second year. The cuckoo brewery has moved out of White Gypsy's nest and its newest Pale Ale was brewed at Franciscan Well, I'm told. It was a lovely sherbety number, ripe with orangey zing and equally good on cask and keg. Unfortunately I've no idea where this will be available, but it's well worth looking out for.

As always, the UCC Pilot Brewery brought their Germanic stylings to the festival. I've not been massively impressed by these in the past, but things definitely improved this time round, with a golden fruity lager called Hansel and a delicious companion weissbier named Gretel. With White Gypsy Amber and Galway Hooker Pilsner also available, festival-goers were very well served for quality Irish lager.

At the White Gypsy stand, Cuilan was introducing people to Melissa who will be taking over from him as the brewer for Messrs Maguire in Dublin. Hers is the unenviable task of turning the under-used, under-promoted brewkit into a feature that will work for the owners and draw the crowds into the pub. I'll be keeping an eye on how things develop at MM, and not just because they're currently serving a very fine pint of White Gypsy Amber, badged as MM Munich.

Six White Gypsy beers were available at the festival, including Raven, the first commercial release of the Vintage Imperial Stout I went to see being casked last year. Raven is a blend of the unoaked version and the one from the French barrel. It's quite well balanced, being light on general aroma, heftily woody in the flavour but completely missing any off-putting phenolic notes, and without any trace of the astringency which dominated the beer prior to aging. Things got really interesting when Cuilan pulled out a bottle of each of the four versions: original, French oak, American oak and ex-Bushmills cask. After a brief struggle with a mangled corkscrew and a pair of pliers, the beers were poured and the differences between them were amazing, with subtle vinous notes from the French oak, massive Bourbon vanilla from the American one and heady whiskey aromas from the Bushmills. When the American and Bushmills versions were blended the result was stunning: rich, complex and aromatic. Plans for the final destination of the beer(s) are still sketchy: Cuilan's not in any rush to make a decision and seems to be enjoying the learning process of finding out what different woods do and how they can be blended -- a skill which would once have been common among Ireland's stout-makers but which now has to be re-learned from first principles.

And that was the festival for another year: hopefully a sign of a building critical mass of Irish craft beer. Thanks as always to The Franciscan Well for affording the hard-pressed Irish breweries an opportunity to sell their wares, and the equally hard-pressed drinkers an opportunity to enjoy them.

Buckle up!

I had hoped I'd get a sneaky taste of the long-awaited new edition of Porterhouse Celebration stout in time for St. Patrick's Day, but it looks like I'll have to wait until next week for that. I'm told Carlow have a new stout brewed for Easter and of course there's White Gypsy Vintage almost ready for release, so there's lots on the horizon for the coming weeks, but sadly I've no new Irish stout to offer you on this our national day.

There is one new native beer, though. The Bull & Castle commissioned Carlow Brewing to come up with an exclusive pale session ale for them, and Buckley's -- on sale since the weekend -- is the result. It's a clear amber gold with a surprisingly full body for only 3.9% ABV. It's nice to know Irish breweries can do keg ales at this strength without them coming out watery.

Hoppiness was part of the spec, and the brewer seems to have opted for the earthy British variety rather than the fruity American sort which, I suppose, would have made the end product too similar to Galway Hooker. So you get the aroma of a hoppy English pale ale and a sharp bitter bite at the front of the palate before this fades to a dry and grainy -- almost lagery -- crisp finish.

My only criticism is that it's a bit gassy for my liking. In fairness, my first one was quaffed swiftly so I probably felt it more than if I'd taken my time over it, but I still think that this sort of session beer should be very easy to drink, and that includes lightness on the fizz front. I'll be very interested to try it on cask, should that ever be rolled out in my vicinity.

It's quite an exciting time for Irish brewing at the moment. In addition to Buckley's, Carlow have a new IPA in the pipeline, and Franciscan Well's new pale ale is apparently on its way to Dublin. Meanwhile, Clanconnel has completed its move to a new purpose-built brewery and will shortly be expanding its portfolio, while down Waterford way Dungarvan Brewing is under starter's orders, with its first three beers due for release in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully Kildare's Trouble Brewing won't be far behind. For some background on how far we've come in recent years, have a look at my guest post on Irish brewing at The Brew Club today.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Dublin. Don't forget to punch your local Diageo rep.

Repeating, reviewing, resolving

Well, a lot of us have kinda jumped the gun on this month's Session, using the annual review template devised at Pencil & Spoon. I published my run-down just before Christmas. But other than best beers, what else are our hosts asking of us? Mistakes, regrets and embarrassing moments? There's not too many of those, I think. In fact I set about undoing some earlier regrets by seeing more of the UK in 2009, and London in particular. I plan to continue that in 2010 with Brighton and Cardiff already looking likely, and I really should do a proper beer tour of Belfast before the promotional rail offers end. Perhaps my biggest regret is not getting out of Europe all year, nor yet having any plans to do so next -- but if I can squeeze in some more time in Belgium and the Netherlands, that'll be some level of compensation.

And then, as I said last week, there's Copenhagen, and the prospect of another giant European Festival, in early May. As the centrepiece of my 2010 plans, what better beer to mark it on Session day than the last of my haul from the 2008 gig? It's not the first time that Mikkeller six-pack has featured in the Session. Last April I opened the barrel-aged rauchbier, and in July I tried their internationalist collaborative "Belgian stout" (you'll find the remaining pair of barley wines reviewed here).

Last two out of the bag were more imperial stouts. I assume that the base beer was the same for both, and certainly their imperial credientials were identical: both super-thick, mouth-filling and gut-coating, with all the dark chocolate, coffee and liquorice bitterness that you might expect, balanced beautifully against treacle and caramel. The difference comes in the finish.

Barrel-aged Black As Coal presents with rather more fizz and foam than its companion, but settles down fairly quickly. Its signature feature is a powerful knock-you-down astringency and an extra medicinal bitterness deriving from its six months in French oak.

Though aged a month less, the whisky-barrelled Black As The Night is definitely not lacking in comparative character. The woodiness is toned down slightly, but there's a lovely Christmas cake dark booziness to it. Perhaps not as full-on as the fresh oak one, but better balanced. I'm reminded of White Gypsy's forthcoming Vintage. I reckon the Bushmills-aged version will be the one to go for.

That's another resolution for 2010 right there. Happy New Year everyone!

It's a short way to Tipperary

He doesn't look like your typical slow-food advocate. Plain-speaking ex-plumber Cuilán Loughnane is rarely seen without either his Munster rugby or Tipp GAA jerseys. I doubt he even owns a pair of sandals. Yet, as an advocate for locally-sourced hand-crafted produce, Cuilán is among the most visionary in the country. A brewer of many years' experience, he only recently set up his own operation in his home town of Templemore, Co. Tipperary using the former brewkit of the now-defunct Kinsale Brewing Company. His White Gypsy beers are starting to make their first appearances in the area's pubs, and Cuilán intends to expand this to as many as possible -- to make White Gypsy the beers you drink when you're in north Tipp. He firmly believes that every town in Ireland should have its own brewery supplying the local area, as it was before the market consolidated under a handful of foreign-owned national brands.

Furthermore, Cuilán intends to source all his ingredients locally, with water from the family well, a hop garden in front of the brewery, and barley from the local farmers, traded at a fair price. If his plan can be successfully executed, and then repeated elsewhere, the face of Irish beer will have undergone enormous change.

A couple of weeks ago Cuilán and family staged an open day at the brewery, a chance for the locals to have a look at what he's doing, and I'd hope one or two publicans were there to discuss possible enhancements to their beer line-up. The farmer whose livestock receives the benefit of White Gypsy's spent grain provided a bit of pig pro quo, so there was roast pork washed down with Cuilán's award-winning Bock, his quaffable Blonde and an achingly fresh and delicious IPA on cask.

Prior to all this there was work to be done. His new imperial stout -- White Gypsy Vintage -- had just finished primary fermentation and was due for racking into oak barrels for a few months of aging. Cuilán invited us the beer enthusiasts to come watch, and have a taste of the green product before it undergoes maturation. It's harsh stuff -- 10% ABV (OG 1.104; SG 1.029) and with an intense Play-Doh sort of flavour, finishing on a nasty hit of marker pen. This is, of course, entirely deliberate. Cuilán dislikes barrel aged beers which taste of nothing but the barrel, and deliberately brewed this one to be a thumper so that the woodiness and the stoutiness will balance each other in the finished product. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. Dave from Hardknott has his doubts about this sort of thing.

There were three barrels to be filled: a retired Bushmills cask, and two of virgin oak -- one French and one American. The finished beer will then be bottled in 75cl bottles and corked Belgian style. The world premiere is expected at the Franciscan Well next Easter -- two of the guys from the 'Well were along to lend a hand, as well as the other great advocates for localised craft beer in Ireland: the Beoir Chorca Dhuibne team from Dingle. When it's finished we'll have the first wood-aged Irish beer since Guinness substituted old-fashioned maturation for the injection of lactic acid which their beer has been getting for the last fifty years or so instead. I'm really looking forward to getting my mitts on some of this when it's ready.

In the meantime, the brewery I should regard as my local is the Porterhouse. They seem to be going through something of a local expansion themselves at the moment, with more bars outside their own estate carrying their beer -- you'll find it in classic Dublin boozer The Palace as well as fatcat eatery Bentley's, to name but two. And, as I mentioned in my post about SeptemberFest, the first of their bottled beers have just started to appear in shops and discerning bars. I've covered Hop Head already, but just recently nabbed a bottle of Plain from DrinkStore (and you can too, if you're in Ireland -- their new online store is open for business). Here we have Ireland's only bottle conditioned stout, a beefed-up version compared to the draught at 4.7% ABV. There's a subtle hint of coffee on the nose, so there it's already better than the odourless nitro draught. When served at cellar temperature, the body is light and quite fizzy, which in turn adds to a dry and carbonic flavour. However, let it warm up and it really comes out of its shell with heavier roasty and chocolate flavours. This is one for drinking straight from the shelf, I reckon. Incidentally, the Porterhouse's annual Oktoberfest kicks off today, seeing the return of their tasty Alt for a second year, and plenty of interesting imports. More on them next week.

While getting hold of exotic beers from far away -- and preferably collecting them in person -- is very much what I'm about, a decent selection of quality local produce is a notion I whole-heartedly support. Best of luck to all involved in such projects, wherever they may be.