Special import stout

Foreign interpretations of Irish beer styles, and stout in particular, is something of a research interest of mine. They're not often sold in Ireland, for perhaps obvious reasons, so I was drawn to O'Ness by Prague brewery Sibeeria as much for its novelty value as anything else.

Not that there's anything particularly novel about a 4% ABV stout, packaged carbonated in its half-litre can. That results in a lovely pure-black pint with a wholesome tan-coloured stack of froth on top. The aroma is lightly roasty, with a Guinness-like tang as well, hinting at blackberry and plum. I noticed it poured quite thickly, and indeed the texture is remarkably heavy, making it feel like a much stronger beer.

And that's true of the flavour as well. It's primarily a bitter beer, with the dark fruit element meeting a quite severe herbal sharpness; an apothecary shop of aniseed, thyme, yarrow and bay leaf. There's a dusting of very dark cocoa powder and a sticky tang of molasses, but without any of the sweetness. A dry roasted finish skirts acridity but stays manageably drinkable. It's quite a workout for the palate, but everything hangs together extremely well.

Drinkers used to the sweet dark beers of Czechia, or indeed the creamy blandness of Guinness, will get a surprise from this one. No punches are pulled and it exhibits the assertive grown-up bitterness of an export-strength stout at a barely credible low ABV. I found it impossible to drink fast, and enjoyed lingering over it. There really aren't many Irish brewers making session-strength stout as flavourful as this. If, like me, you're still mourning the death of Wrassler's XXXX, here's a worthy substitute.

Twisted pair

Things are not what they seem with today's beers, both from Dublin brewery Lineman.

The draught-only Love Buzz had me wearing out some shoe leather for a trip across to Tapped on Nassau Street, not a part of town I'd be in regularly, at least since the Porterhouse discontinued Wrasslers. There I found a 4.5% ABV session IPA which was an unappetising murky ochre, with a slightly sickly sweet cordial aroma. It's smoothly textured, feeling much bigger than the strength, while the flavour is bizarre. I hadn't twigged that it had added passionfruit, although the brewery did warn us, in fairness. Anyway, it's very passionfruit, with a concentrated syrupiness that somehow manages to be more spicy than sweet, giving me cinnamon and sandalwood, while still also being tropical. Like I say: bizarre. It's fun, and certainly different. I can't imagine it works as an actual session beer, however. My palate was gumming up at the two-thirds mark and my next beer was definitely going to be something cleaner. Still, a worthwhile experiment, and worth trying if you see it, if only for the weirdness.

I gave an approving nod recently to the Saul Bass homage on one of Tiny Rebel's cans. Lineman is at it too, referencing Bass's Hitchcock poster work on Vertigo. Double black IPA is a rare treat indeed, and this one is a prize-winning homebrew recipe, which is another signal that there's a good time to come. It poured a little murky, with a brackish brownish tint to the black body. A raft of rocky ivory foam tops it off. The aroma is quite subtle, but I do get the suggestion of mocha and pine, which indicates it will be stylistically accurate. It is, I guess, but in an understated way. The unspecified American hops manifest as a sharp citric bitterness, like a squirt of lemon juice. That sits up front, and is quite brief. The middle section is all about the dark malt, and it's more chocolate-forward than I would prefer, holding back on the roast. There's a hint of dankness on the finish, but you don't get a lot of bang for your buck here, and there's no intimation at all that we're dealing with an 8.2% ABV whopper. Black IPA is a daft, clownish beer style, and double-black doubly so. That gives brewers a licence to make something loud and silly, but that's not what's happened here. Maybe the homebrew judges preferred a bit of nuance and balance in theirs, because you absolutely get that. I would have liked something more head-spinning, however. 

I'll say this for Lineman: they know how to keep things interesting. It's quite the gift to the beer blogging community.

The Big Three

Today's post harks back to the early days of Irish microbrewing, when the producers felt that the path to success was to copy what the mainstream was doing. As a result, every beer that came out was either a pale lager, a red ale or a stout. Things are very different nowadays, but those three styles are still around, even if they're not produced at the same rate as the myriad variations on pale ale. I've picked a handful to see how things are at the old school.

We'll start at Dublin City Brewing. Well, sort of. Even though their cans have been claiming the beer is brewed at the new facility in Parnell Street, company representatives are regularly in the media explaining they brew under contract and their own brewery will be commissioned any day now. One or the other, lads. Anyway, Pioneer Pilsner is their first limited edition, designed to be a hoppy cut above their core Liberator lager. Its rich golden colour suggests to me that they're going for something Czech style, and the malt-driven flavour confirms it for me. This is no crisp and grassy number but a smooth and biscuity experience. There is a smattering of fruit esters on top of this, but it's not too disturbing and adds to the enjoyable chewy character of the beer. While it's not exactly how I like my pils, it's a hard one to fault, other than on that questionable provenance.

The OGs of Dublin microbrewing also have a new pilsner on the scene. Porterhouse Hammer is hard to come by: you'll find it on the brewery's web shop, and I got my can at their off licence in town, but otherwise it doesn't seem to be out there. "Just like a pilsner should be" is the bold promise on the can, and at 5% ABV they're not skimping on the alcohol. It's quite a dark shade of gold, heading almost for amber, with a generous topping of fine white foam. The aroma is biscuit malt, with a tangy and almost vinegary counterpoint. The carbonation is low, showing only the faintest tingle. That vinegar thing -- white, sharp -- is present in the foretaste. Might this be why the beer isn't more widely available? It doesn't totally ruin it -- to the rescue comes a grass and wax bitterness and a grain-husk dryness. It's inescapably tangy, though, in a way that pilsner should not be. Lager has never been a Porterhouse strong point, and this one may be in need of a do-over.

Hope has gone the Czech route more explicitly with Limited Edition 24: Bohemian Pilsener. There is a little haze to the gold here, and the hops get more of a look-in than in the above. The grassiness is intense, shading over into lemon rind and hard wax. It lingers long on the palate, almost oily in intensity. There's just enough malt weight to balance this -- it's a sufficient 5% ABV. And despite the strong contrasting flavours there's a clean finish so you're done with the experience pleasingly quickly. It's not as well integrated as the real Czech thing, going for bold and brash instead of smooth. This is very much a craft take on the style, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Can art of the year so far is this beauty from Western Herd on their Loop Head pilsner. The beer inside, 4.5% ABV and hopped with Perle and Saaz, is lightly hazed again and smells very herbal, beyond Saaz's damp grass and into sage or eucalyptus territory. Crispness is promised on the label and fully delivered: it's beautifully clean and nicely dry despite a slight spongecake vibe from the malt and a soft texture. The hops aren't overdone and the elements are very well integrated. Inspecting it closely I get hints of spiced red cabbage, fresh spinach and pine nuts. Really, though, it's a beer for quaffing -- perfect session material. "2021" beams the lighthouse on the can. This deserves to continue shining longer than that.

With Irish breweries clearly capable of great lagers, it's a shame it tends to be an occasional novelty rather than something they all have in the core ranges. I blame the drinking public, of course.

On to the reds then. There aren't anywhere near as many of these around as there used to be, and breweries don't seem to feel under any obligation to brew them. A ticker seeking exclusively Irish reds in Ireland would have a hard time of it.

We'll stay with Western Herd for the first one. Their original range included one called Fox Catcher, at 5.3% ABV. Its place has now been taken by Atlantic at a more normal Irish red strength of 4%. It's quite a dark example, verging on brown. The aroma has that beery quality particular to red ales and darker bitters: lots of tannin with metallic old-world hops and a faint sticky caramel sweetness. It's all quite subtle, so the flavour was a surprise: it's intensely bitter, and almost acrid. The zinc and tin hop character sparks on the tongue and continues to smolder late into the experience. There's a softer toffee side too, but I was half way through before my palate had adjusted enough to let me taste it. There are no technical flaws here; I'm certain it's as the brewer intended it, but it's far too much of a workout for me. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan of red ale to go dictating how it should taste, but for me it should be mellow and easy-going. This is the opposite of that.

Solas Red is brewed by Rye River for Tesco and comes with a €2 price tag on the half-litre bottle. You get a handsome glassful for that: a limpid garnet colour topped by a lasting off-white foam. The aroma is bitter and roasty, and very grown-up: definitely your granddad's sort of beer. It may as well be wearing slippers and smoking a pipe. I was all ready for a charming retro experience, but... the bitterness. It's gastricly sharp, tasting almost vomit-like to begin. On the fade-out that turns to harsh tangy metal, which is less unpleasant, perhaps, but still far from enjoyable. And then in the middle there's the intense sweetness of ersatz milk chocolate with some instant coffee and strawberry jam stirred in. It's like they assembled all the elements of good red ale, but used the cheapest and nastiest version of each. I was thoroughly sick of it by the half way point, but at least the lacing on the glass was pretty. This beer is much more fun to look at than to drink.

Neither of the reds did it for me. I have no reason to miss the style then, I guess.

Now stout I would miss. And stout is still plentiful among local breweries. What I'm looking at today is your classical Irish variety, built for session drinking with no fancy ingredients. Few brewers are turning new ones of these out.

The first is from The Porterhouse, and it's very specifically one with no fancy ingredients. Porterhouse Irish Stout is the Oyster Stout they've been brewing since 1996 only minus the molluscs. I've long loved the velvety chocolate effect of Oyster so was fascinated to see how that would hold up in the changed recipe. At 4.6% ABV it occupies the middle spot between their Plain and XXXX. The aroma is certainly chocolate, with some toffee sweetness added in. It's a long time since I last had bottled Oyster, but one would miss the smoothness of the draught nitro version. This carbonated one has a pointy quality that doesn't sit well with the flavours. The milk chocolate is definitely there, though, with a minty herbal tang and a layer of hard toffee. Given a moment to warm up and flatten out it's even creamy, like the original. While there's nothing fancy going on, it's a well-made session stout and all the better for the presentation in a 500ml bottle. If the thought of oysters had been putting you off before, I strongly recommend getting hold of this.

It's back to dodgy provenance again for the last one. I am unconvinced that Sullivan's brews Black Marble on its pilot kit in Kilkenny, rather than above at Dundalk Bay where most of their production happens, though I'm happy to be corrected on that. At 5.1% ABV it's substantial, so I was expecting to enjoy it. It's a pleasingly dense black with a firm head the colour of old ivory. Bitterness, both roasted and herbal, forms the aroma, and on tasting too, it's bitter. You can add coffee to the mix, and a little of a lactic sour tang of the sort found in Guinness. It's very old-fashioned tasting, eschewing chocolate and latte and everything else sweet and cuddly, going instead for boiled veg, old tweed, liquorice and ready-rubbed. The finish is long and pinches the tongue cheekily with its acidity. Creamy this ain't, but it works. Though perhaps not as bitter as the likes of Porterhouse's XXXX, it's on that continuum. By the looks of things this is mostly intended as a draught beer and I hope I can find a tap once normality resumes. A large bottle from the cooler was great, but a pint would be sublime.

There was no nostalgia for me at the end of this set. Good pilsner and solid stout will always have their place, but nothing beats variety. I'm very glad I have the opportunity to leave and come back to drinking beers like this. Now, what IPAs do you have?

2G or not 2G

This is the two thousandth post on this here blog. Instead of breaking out something fancy from the cellar I'm celebrating with my old reliable, the brewery that got me interested in beer as a lifestyle almost a quarter of a century ago: The Porterhouse.

First of their newbs is a session IPA called Sundown, 4% ABV and boasting of Citra, Simcoe, Magnum and Mandarina Bavaria, which sounds fun. It is indeed sunny: a bright orange and hazy without going full opaque. It smells citric, of zesty oranges in particular. The flavour doesn't quite work. While that pithy citrus thing is still there, there's also a harsh phenolic twang -- burnt rubber and TCP. Behind this is something big and savoury -- onion bread or burnt corn. It's not good and I think that's for serious technical reasons rather than just my personal taste. Suddenly I'm on edge about the other three new cans.

Rambler settled me down. This 4.6% ABV "juicy pale ale" makes good on its promise. Tangy tangerine and pithier jaffa mingle in the flavour, created using El Dorado, Enigma and Ekuanot hops. All is clean and there's a crispness in the finish which makes it extra refreshing. While the bitterness is low, it's not overly sweet, and completely lacking in east-coast off flavours. My guess is that this was designed to be served by the pint in the pub. I look forward to when that'll be possible.

They go full New England with the third new one, Renegade. That said, it's golden rather than custard-yellow and only just hazy. There's not much aroma, and the flavour is very dessertish: meringue and sweet summer fruits. A silky mouthfeel contributes to the style authenticity and also makes the 5.3%-er very easy to drink. It's done without oats too, just barley and wheat. What's missing is hop intensity. The line-up is the same as in Sundown but I was expecting more impact from them: concentrated oils and resins. Instead it's another accessible and quaffable job, low on bitterness, rounded in texture and simple of flavour. The Porterhouse reputation for safe and reliable beers is fully protected by this one.

This new range includes one Porterhouse old-timer, their classic dry and bitter stout Wrasslers, its name slimmed down to XXXX. Having not had a pint since the beginning of the year, of course I picked one up. It seems... softer than the nitro version, the green Galena bitterness less intense and the chocolate and espresso more to the fore. That said, there's still enough hop bittering going on for this to be unmistakably Wrasslers, the beer I know and love and missed. It's great that there was room for it in amongst the pale 'n' hoppy ales.

Despite all the changes that have ripped through the drinks industry in recent months, The Porterhouse seems determined to continue making accessible flavoursome beers, the occasional mishap notwithstanding. I hope they'll still be doing that when I'm another two thousand posts down the road.

Visit Kimmage!

My little corner of suburban Dublin now boasts its own brewery. Breweries are rare in Dublin full stop, so having one in the neighbourhood is a strange feeling. Four Provinces began life as a client brewer back in 2014. I covered the first two beers, The Hurler and The Piper, way back then. Towards the end of last year they fired up the standalone kit and immediately expanded the range which now features the original two, plus two new ones, all in cans.

One of the newcomers is Válsa, a Vienna lager. It looked the part, and more, when poured: a dark copper-coloured body topped with a thick dome of beige foam. Grassy noble hops pile out of the aroma, and the flavour too has a strong old-world bitterness with even a metallic edge to it. It needs a substantial raft of malt to carry that properly, and sure enough this is delivered. The dark malts are laid on so thickly as to create a milk-chocolate taste, and I'm not 100% sure I wouldn't guess this was a porter when tasted completely blind. A crisp roasted grain-husk element just adds to the effect. Around the point I was deciding it's all a bit much, it all cleaned away quickly and neatly, leaving no sugary or acidic residue at all. Given a little calibration time, it's possible to settle into this one and enjoy it as a full-on, full-flavoured, power-lager. Think doppelbock, but only 5.2% ABV.

The other new one is actually a porter: Láidir is another heady one, producing an ice cream float of tightly packed beige bubbles, almost like it's been nitrogenated. The aroma is strongly sweet, chocolate again, with jammy fruit and cheeky liqueur, like a Black Forest gateau. Expecting a sugarbomb I was delighted, on the first sip, to discover it's powerfully bitter, with a sharp and invigorating leafy hop bite. A citrus edge emerges, making me suspect Cascade or a similar US variety is involved, though it's actually done with Galaxy. While the cakey dark malt is still there, it contributes more to the texture than the flavour, giving the whole thing a beautiful creaminess. This isn't a black IPA, though, as a proper toasty roast overtakes the hops in the finish. Overall it's an absolute beaut, reminiscent of my benchmark Irish stout Wrasslers XXXX, but softer and more accessible. Highly recommended, and probably best when fresh.

Four Provinces has plans to make use of its neatly contained outdoor space, with a launch party and eventually a regular al fresco tap room when the law allows. I expect I'll be seeing more of you in Dublin 12 in the weeks and months to come, then.

Doing the rounds

Seems I now have two kinds of Irish beer round-ups to do every few weeks: the regular one and the Dublin brewpubs dispatch. We'll start this one at Open Gate.

I've said multiple times that lager is the Diageo microbrewery's principal strong point and I'm always pleased to see a new one. Open Gate Vienna Lager came my way on a visit to the bar last month. And it's absolutely proper in every respect: clear copper coloured, with a sweet-yet-crisp dark biscuit grain character, overlaid with green celery noble hop flavours which build pleasingly to a grassy bite in the finish. The carbonation level is quite high but the body is so clean that it gets away with it, scrubbing the palate without scouring it. At 5.5% ABV it's maybe a bit too full-on to be a true session lager, but a couple of pints is just the ticket.

Open Gate IPAs I have been less on board with. I missed the prequel to today's one, No Limits. This is called Double the Limits, 7.2% ABV, and in a New England kind of style. For all that, it's a clear lager-yellow colour. The texture is properly thick, however, and this helps feed a strong resinous hop character, leafy at first, before easing off to gentler lemon and lime notes. There's a certain cheesy funk in the aroma, and this side gives a mildly sour edge to the flavour which is quite out of keeping with the rest. Overall it's not bad; the flavour does manage to hang together coherently, the mouthfeel is lovely and fluffy and the big strength is well hidden. It's still not a great IPA though, whether double, New England, or however else you slice it.

Eastbound and down, to Urban Brewing. Last month I mentioned that JT from Gipsy Hill had done a collaboration beer here, and lo it arrived on the taps, the cheerily-titled Spring Break, a sour saison of 5.3% ABV with peach and apricot. It's a sunny shade of pale yellow and smells like a fruit sponge. The peach juice leaps out of the flavour first thing, and just when I thought it was going to build to a cloying sugariness, the tartness sweeps in and cuts it off deftly. The finish is merely mildly fruity, showing the melon rinds often found in unadorned saisons, plus a satisfying spark of jasmine perfume. The fruit element does come on a little strong in it, though is entirely in keeping with the beer's mission to be fun and carefree. I liked that it was tempered with the more serious soured and saison sides and would perhaps have preferred more from this. As is, though, it's a great offering.

Irish Altbier seems to be having something of a moment right now, and here was Alt Bier by Urban Brewing. There wasn't much going on in this, which I guess is perfectly on-point for the style, especially the more industrial big-name variants. It's the appropriate rusty colour and tastes dry and crisp. It took me a while to find anything else. A late-rising bitterness was the first distinguishing feature, followed by softer toffee malt as it warmed. Both of these are slight and not terribly distinguished. I was underwhelmed but unoffended by the whole thing.

Not long after, the venue played host to the National Homebrew Club's national championship. I took a quick break from judging there to sample a new offering just arrived on tap: Pan Am, an IPA with added grapefruit and yerba mate. It's a murky red-brown colour and, presumably because of the mate, is absolutely roaring with phenolic smokiness, tasting very similar to a strong cup of lapsang souchong. A tiny spark of citrus begins it, but followed swiftly by a long blast of stale smoke and old rubber, finishing dry and harsh. A noble experiment perhaps, but one that very much didn't suit me. I wouldn't be able to swear that the taste wasn't down to an infection of some sort.

I couldn't leave this post on that bum note, so thankfully was rescued by the next release: Bière de Table. This is broadly a saison, though is stronger than a typical bière de table at 4.9% ABV. It has the proper look, however: a pale and hazy yellow. And it definitely has the flavour, presenting beautiful perfume and spices right from the start. I got jasmine, lavender and incense all the way through, adding a slightly sticky peach nectar to the picture late on, before the long herbal finish. Its farmhouse credentials are present and correct and all the features gel together well. I genuinely got a vibe of Bermondsey from this; the nearest you'll find to The Kernel's version of the style in these parts.

I don't have a new one from JW Sweetman for this round but I'll let Kildare Brewing step in as a surrogate. Late last year, Sweetman ran a homebrew competition and the winner was Brian McSorley's stout Black Ó Lantern. Kildare subsequently brewed it up and sent a keg (the keg, I believe) to JW Sweetman where I got hold of a pint. This is Irish dry stout writ large: a huge dry and bitter hit up front, all black toast and sharply metallic hops. And yet it's not at all harsh, carried by a big and thick treacle base. That treacle brings a certain amount of sweetness into the flavour late on, and then the burnt roast comes back in the finish. It's an absolute beaut and up with the best of the genre, like Wrasslers and Leann Folláin. A repeat brew would be no harm at all.

I'm sure I'm already far behind on what these breweries have released more recently. If you want to find out what they have now it's best to just call in.

On the path to greatness

A new event for my 2017 calendar was The Great Irish Beer Festival in Cork, now in its second year. It's organised by Franciscan Well but unlike their other events happens in the salubrious surrounds of City Hall. The name overstates the case a little bit: only 15 breweries were pouring beer at the gig, spread across two halls, so there was a manageable number of new beers for me to try, most of them local.

We set up camp opposite Rising Sons, who coincidentally had the most beers on my hitlist. To begin, a half each of two beers brewed to celebrate the visit of the International Space University to Cork Institute of Technology over the summer. Small Step is a session-strength pale ale. It's a hazy pale yellow colour and has a fun peachy aroma. The flavour is harsher, however: a hard green bitterness, like celery stalks. The soft fruit returns in the finish but not soon enough to redeem the beer for me. It's just the wrong kind of bitter.

You know what's coming next, of course: Giant Leap, which is a black IPA. 5.1% ABV and a murky dark brown colour, it goes in for coffee in a big way, especially in the aroma. The flavour mixes it pleasantly with sherbet fruit, the end result being spicy rather than bitter, and the best feature is the smooth effervescent texture making it nicely easy drinking. It's very much on the porter side of the black IPA equation, however.

Mayhem is a recent addition to the Rising Sons line-up, described as a hoppy saison, and it really draws the juiciness out of both those words. There's a deliciously fresh cantaloupe flavour, beautifully thirst-quenching. A sprinkling of white pepper finishes it off. It could stand to be crisper; there's a slight dry bite in the finish but not as much as saison typically shows. What it lacks in crispness it makes up for in lusciousness.

Last one before moving on was Rising Sons Nitro Extra Stout. I wasn't expecting much but this is beautiful: massively bitter with bags of healthy green veg in the flavour and all coated with a luxurious layer of high-cocoa dark chocolate. Like the benchmark Wrasslers XXXX it manages to punch through the suffocating effect of nitro on taste. There was a nitro pale ale as well but I decided not to push my luck too far.

The next bar over was Torc, featuring the experimental Extra Pale Ale. "Extra-Pale" is to be taken as a single element, explained proprietor John: the idea was to make it as pale as possible. But there's lots more extraness about it. For one thing the ABV is a substantial 6%. And for another the hopping level, mostly Citra, is absolutely off the charts. It's intensely bitter: a concentrated spinach and vine leaves taste, and the closest thing I've drank to biting a hop pellet. Despite the imbalance it's perfectly clean tasting and hides its strength very well. I don't know how much of it I could drink but it was certainly an interesting experience.

Amazingly I could still taste other things after that. It was into the main hall next, to try the new rye beer from West Cork: The Rapids. This is pretty typical of the style, a murky shade of orange with a sharp grassy bitterness and touches of thick-shred marmalade. The texture is big and weighty, surprisingly so for just 5.3% ABV, and the overall feel is of something wholesome and unprocessed. Solid stuff.

There were a couple of new ones from YellowBelly, including another saison, Periodic. There's a heady aroma from this one, all pears and booze, despite the ABV being just 5.1%. It tastes very sweet, with more squashy ripe pear in the flavour and some white plum as well. Later a herbal element creeps in too: vanilla pods and cardamom, making it taste like a middle eastern dessert. This is just too heavy and too cloying for my liking. Lack of crispness is a real problem this time.

And there was also Mind Reader, the lager that gets transformed into Commotion Lotion by the addition of Buckfast. And much like Commotion Lotion it's a fun and clean fruit salad of a beer, getting full value out of its strawberries, raspberries and pineapple. It's very nearly too sweet but the clean lager base pulls it back from the brink in time.

By this time we had been joined by regular visitor Sid Boggle and decided to skip out early to pay a visit to The Abbot's Alehouse. I was hoping to try the new sour cherry beer from YellowBelly but it wasn't on. I made do with their Red Noir instead. It's 4.4% ABV so I expected a typical Irish red, and while this does have a to-style profile, there's a lot more flavour than you'll find in most Irish red ales. It's thick and smooth, full textured and jammy, the flavour packed with summer fruits. Not a subtle beer, nor especially complex, but very satisfying to sink a pint of.

The other attraction at The Abbot's was available: Buxton Rain Shadow imperial stout. 10% ABV on the nose, it's dark and foreboding in the glass. An aroma of liquorice, coffee and alcohol sends an early signal that it's one to be careful with. The flavour is much cleaner than the smell suggests, with no real alcohol heat despite a very dense texture. The liquorice is there in spades, as well as an acidic bitterness, turning almost metallic, and tasting like boiled green cabbage. It's a beast of a beer and utterly uncompromising in its taste. But if you go along with what it's trying to do it's a very enjoyable experience. Just the ticket to finish the night on (trainbeers excepted).

One beer that did make it off the train and home was Sullivan's Kiwi Lime Pale Ale, donated by Alan Smithwick who was looking after the Sullivan's bar. This was brewed on the pilot kit in Kilkenny and is a collaboration with Dublin's Hellfire Brew Club. It's bottle-conditioned so poured a little murky despite my steady hand, and featured a tall bouffant of white foam. The lime zest was added late, with the dry hops, and the fresh lime really comes out well in the aroma, enticing like a lime sorbet if you're posh, or a HB Loop-The-Loop ice lolly if you're not.

The texture is light, with less body than might be expected at 4.7% ABV. But that's not a problem, because the end result is insanely refreshing. Both of the fruits jump right out in the flavour, and because their green bitterness is entirely complementary to the Cascade and Perle hops, this one can't be accused of being alcopopish or otherwise unbeery. Real kiwi flesh dominates the foretaste, then the oily lime swings in behind, adding a lasting bitterness that coats the palate. The earthy hit from the Cascade is secondary and almost unnecessary: all the required citrus is already there. The sorbet effect never quite goes away, hitting just the perfect level of bitterness allowing all the fruit flavour to come through undisturbed. This is a total triumph, an ideal summer quencher, and very deserving of scaling up into full production, whenever that's an option at Sullivan's.

And on that high note, a big cheers to Shane from Franciscan Well who very kindly comped our tickets, and to all the brewers I hassled through the afternoon. GIBF is another feather in Cork's already-bristling beer festival cap.

How's it hanging?

Meat! That was the theme of the Meatopia event which set up at Open Gate in early July; meat and smoke -- I came home reeking of both. The event has been running for some years now, in New York and then London, and this was its first time in Dublin, invited by Diageo to take over the yard outside their experimental brewery and brewpub for two days.

The format involved six barbecue stalls, managed by people whose names may or may not be recognisable to those who move in foodie circles, each with a single signature dish and a matched sample of beer. Admission (Diageo's PR folk kindly comped mine) got you one of each pairing, plus a bonus pint from the bars: as well as the Open Gate's current selection, The Porterhouse, 5 Lamps, DOT and London's 40FT were also pouring.

We'll begin with the beer created especially for the event: Open Gate's own Meatopia Smoked Lager, a 6% ABV pale bock, created with the assistance of Melissa Cole, who also ably MC'd the beery-talky bit of the event. This is yet another classically-styled down-the-line lager from Open Gate. It shows absolutely the right balance between golden syrup sweetness and a green celery bite, set on a body that's chewy and substantial without being thick. The smoke is deliberately (sez Melissa) subtle: just a small phenolic burr at the back. I don't know that it contributed a great deal to the picture, but it does no harm either. I'm not the person to ask about the beer's suitability for pairing with barbecued meat, but I have no complaints in that department. The greasy lens through which the subsequent photos were taken is a testament to my not letting the beer get in the way of the grub.

And there was a new bonus Open Gate lager pouring inside: Helles Yeah. The 5.8% ABV gave me momentary pause: that's a bit more welly than helles is supposed to have. However, it seems that they've used this additional heft to ramp up the other elements too: it still has the smoothness and cleanness that make helles such a great beer. The grassy noble hops are fresh-tasting and even a little spicy, and then there's a crunch of dry grain as well. It does lack the quaffability of good helles -- one pint was plenty -- but here again I can't argue with the taste.

Finally from the house, Open Gate's West Coast IPA. Unlike lager, the brewery's record with IPA has been pretty poor. I blame the yeast: there's a tendency to use the Guinness strain, and the esters it produces just aren't compatible with clean-and-hoppy. So sticking the words "west coast" in there is just asking for trouble. And yet... It is only 5.2% ABV, which means points off for style accuracy, but it is properly pale and clear. And the opening sip delivered a bright and ringing hit of bitter grapefruit. That the first beer to spring to mind was the style-defining west-coaster Ballast Point Sculpin speaks in its favour; that I've never really liked Sculpin probably doesn't. There isn't much behind that initial blast of citrus. While the body is indeed heavy, it's not as greasy as the other Open Gate IPAs and I did begin to enjoy it once I got used to the bitterness. More importantly, perhaps, the brewery is starting to get the hang of IPA. I won't be as apprehensive about the next one.

40FT Brewery of Dalston had been guests at James's Gate before but this was the first time trying their beers for me. I started with Street Weiss, a densely opaque and luridly orange weissbier. It's nerve-janglingly sweet, tasting almost as much like a smoothie as it looks. The flavour shows more summer fruit -- strawberry and raspberry -- than standard weizen banana. By way of balance there's a harsh plasticky bitterness in the finish which is completely out of place for the profile, as well as being unpleasant in itself. Maybe they're trying to be creative with a staid old German style, but it really hasn't worked.

On my way out I nabbed a quickie pint of 40FT's Hoppy Pale Ale. On a different day, I'd have been quite happy with this. It's fairly inoffensive; 4.1% ABV with a flavour profile that leans more towards the savoury than the fruity, again with the sharp bitter kick in the finish. But after a couple of decent lagers and a super-citric IPA, it just felt like a regression, like this brewery didn't have their recipe game quite as together as the Open Gate did. Maybe there's an observation to be made about the relative merits of craft vs. macro brewing, I dunno. But on the day it was a second thumbs-down for 40FT from me.

Meatopia was a hugely fun event. When in non-ticking mode I got reacquainted with DOT's delicious summer saison and applauded the first time I've seen Porterhouse Wrassler's out at an event. The food was great and, unlike several other food festivals, you got a very solid feed from the admission tokens alone. The theatricality of the cooking and the serving added to the joyous caveman feel of the whole gig. And it was particularly good to see the space outside Open Gate, narrow as it is, made use of this way.

Cheers to the organisers and promoters, and congratulations on a job well done.

Still winter

I have a bit of catching up to do with regard to the winter beers I have in stock. I don't want to be drinking them as the evenings are getting noticeably longer, when they're plainly intended for the dark and cold. So last week I made a point of opening the pair of winter specials that Wicklow Wolf released before Christmas. It's a nice idea for a two-beer set: a dark one and a pale one, utilising northern and southern hemisphere hops respectively.

I started with Poles Apart North, a porter brewed to the nicely cosy strength of 6.5% ABV. It looks comforting too: densely black and with a soft pillow of off-white foam on top. The label says it's hoppy but I still didn't anticipate the blast of vegetal green bitterness I got from the aroma. Intriguing. Sipping revealed a beer that's lighter than I was expecting, but what it loses in unctuous warmth it gains in drinkability. This may be strong and bitter, but it's perfectly possible to take lovely big satisfying mouthfuls of it. The hops are very present all the way through the flavour: spicy and herbal up front, turning to citrus and sherbet for a moment in the middle, before fading on a slightly acrid, but not unpleasant, acid burn. There's no chocolate sweetness, only a hint of cherry liqueur, or even ruby port. It's not quite enough to balance those hops, but it doesn't really matter, they don't actually need the balance. I'm reminded a lot of good old Wrassler's XXXX: an uncompromisingly bitter and hoppy dark beer that also happens to be easy session-drinking. This is maybe a little more relaxed in its bitterness but is no less fun, serving as a reminder that hop-forward dark beers are something we don't see nearly enough of around here.

I was not expecting to be similarly wowed by Poles Apart South, what with it being a white IPA, a style I generally don't have much time for. I decided to just pretend it was a straight IPA and ignore the wheat, and the appearance is happy to let me do that as it's a clear golden-amber colour. The aroma is a little unsettling, being sweet and funky, while the flavour is a strange mix of coconut, grass, lemon zest and a harder pithy bitterness. Unlike the porter, strangely enough, it's not an all-hop affair, with an almost sickly pink-icing malt sweetness. It's a bit of a busy combination, pulling in several directions at once and difficult to settle into. I appreciated the boldness of the flavour, but it left me hankering for a bit of nuance. If you like a winter IPA with punch, however, this is the one for you.

While the second beer didn't suit me as well as the first one, I did enjoy the contrast demonstrated by drinking them sequentially. I also like the point proved here that winter specials don't have to be all toffee and cinnamon: masses of hops are just as acceptable, thank you.

More wintery goodness to come on Friday.

What's your 20?

"Untimely" is a word that got used quite a bit in the reporting of Oliver Hughes's death a couple of weeks ago, and with good reason. Not only was he still in the prime of life, and the distillery he was so proud of just beginning to turn out whiskey, but 2016 also marked the 20th birthday of his inspirational brewery and pub chain The Porterhouse.

Podcasters The Fine Ale Countdown decided some time ago that The Porterhouse deserved a place in their occasional feature for legends of Irish beer The Alco Hall of Fame, and a matter of days before Oliver died I met up with the guys in the Nassau Street branch to chat about the company and make one of my occasional efforts to inject a bit more factual content into their programming. Mostly I was hoping that we might catch Oliver in his usual spot at the end of the bar and acquire a few scandalous tales from the Porterhouse's 20 year history -- he did a good trade in those. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, but the guys ploughed valiantly on with the episode anyway and you can hear it here.

Obviously, pints of Wrassler's were consumed, but I also took the opportunity to nab a bottle of the brewery's 20th anniversary commemorative beer. Just to annoy fastidious documenters of Irish beer like myself, they decided to call this one Celebration, a name that was first used for their 10th anniversary beer in 2006 (reviewed, in brief, here), and revived for a permanent iteration of it in 2010. And strangely (perhaps) their ABV is falling, from 10% in the original to 7% in the permanent version, to just 6% in this new one. It feels more like this is a try-out for a revised permanent edition rather than a special one-off, though according to the barman in Porterhouse Central it is already in short supply.

At least the flavour hasn't suffered unduly and, while I think this may be a little lighter of texture than its stronger siblings, it has pretty much the same bitter liquorice punch. Smoother caramel and molasses round it out in the background. I can't say it's an improvement on the 7%-er but if they did decide on this as the new permanent recipe I would definitely continue to buy it.

I'm still finding it difficult to imagine even one more year of the Porterhouse without Oliver, let alone another twenty, but I'm also sure that gentlemen as hardworking and resourceful as Liam, Dave and Peter will manage it. And I look forward to the 40th anniversary Celebration dark mild.

Summoned to the flag

Several years ago I was browsing through the trademarks directory of the Irish Patents Office and noticed that the Dingle Brewing Company, of Tom Crean's Lager fame, had trademarked "1916 Centenary Beer" back in 2010. "That's a good idea," I thought, "thinking ahead." Almost six years later, however, Dingle Brewing has yet to produce a second beer but three other breweries have leapt on the marketing opportunity so thoughtfully provided by the lads in the GPO almost a century ago.

Brehon Brewhouse's barrel-aged special has only just been released, but you can get an impression of it in this video from the brewery. The first to actually come my way was Children of the Revolution, an IPA by Wicklow Wolf. With appropriate reverence, they've assembled an elite hop line-up, gallant allies including Amarillo, Simcoe and Columbus, all packed into a dark gold beer of 5.7% ABV. The aroma suggests that maybe they've overdone the balance a little with this: there's a lot of biscuit coming through with the zesty citrus. The first sip brings a kind of oily grapefruit essence, easing itself over the palate, aided by quite a weighty texture. From this rise piney fumes and a little bit of sweeter citrus fruit flesh, before it lapses back to a long tangily bitter finish. It's a bit of a workout to drink but I found its assertiveness quite refreshing. You deal with this beer on its own terms, and I respect that.

Before starting in on the second beer I have to say thanks to Arthurstown Brewing Company: I was having trouble locating a bottle of their Proclamation Porter and they met my request for a list of stockists with a freebie bottle. Much appreciated. I'd been especially looking forward to it because their stout was the highlight of the range they previewed late last year. I was hoping this would have something in common with that unctuous beauty. It certainly seems dense when held up to the light: barely a trace of any colour other than black. The aroma is a blend of flowers and chocolate -- think Fry's Turkish Delight -- but on tasting all is changed, changed utterly. There's a raw, old fashioned hop bitterness right at the front, reminding me a little of another patriot-inspired dark beer, Wrassler's XXXX. You get a flash of milk chocolate in the middle, but then it's back to bitterness in the finish: both the hop kind and black roast kind as well. And the texture? Surprisingly light, actually. It's probably for the best as well, good that the acid bitterness scrubs the palate and leaves quickly instead of hanging around. In fact I'm a little surprised that the ABV is as high as 5%: what it does could probably be achieved lower down the scale. All in all, a nicely complex beer and one that does take its callback to early 20th century Irish brewing seriously.

Though quite different from each other, both do have a bold, possibly even rebellious, streak to them. Brewing the marketing gimmick into the liquid is an impressive feat.

Here we are now

The theme for March's Session is Up-and-Coming Beer Locations and it would be remiss of me not to stay close to home for this one. Ireland really genuinely is an up-and-coming place to drink beer and this post reflects just a few of the recent new additions to give you a flavour of what's going on right now.

Though the national beer scene has changed immeasurably, even in just the last two years, I'm still drawn back again and again to the place where I first discovered independent Irish beer in the mid-1990s: The Porterhouse in Temple Bar. It's currently doing a great job of tapping up what's new and interesting from all over the country.

It was, for example, the first place I found the new beer from Jack Cody's: Drogheda Cream Stout. Something didn't quite work out as planned with the colour of this one, arriving as it did a distinct ruby hue instead of properly black, but don't let that distract you. From the first pull this is most definitely a stout. A rich latte creaminess kicks it off followed by a smack of intense burnt dryness and then a big vegetal hop acid burn, possibly even more so than you get in bitter Porterhouse classic Wrassler's XXXX. That hop kick lasts long after swallowing, building gradually on the palate. The name suggests that this might be an innocent sort of introductory stout but it's far bolder than that and all the better for it.

Brewed down the other end of the country, but pouring beside it, was Gasman, another uncompromising hop bomb from Eight Degrees, their second with rye in the grain bill. It's a whopping 7.8% ABV but could easily pass for more, being thick and greasy. It's basically pure Aussie hop napalm, 68 IBUs of Topaz and Vic Secret burning into your palate in a slow, determined way. And despite the strength, all of that is down to the hopping: the beer itself is not harsh or hot in any way, even if the bitterness does get emphasised somewhat by the rye. After the initial shock, what are the flavours in here? I got semi-composted grass cuttings, top-shelf marmalade sold in very small jars to the Discerning Gentleman Who Knows What He Wants and chewing lime skins for a bet which you immediately regret. Did I say it's intense? It's intense. And on balance (if that word isn't complete anathema in this context) probably not one I'd go rushing back to. It's a little severe but there's no doubting the quality of the product.

When I'm not chasing new beers in The Porterhouse, there's a good chance of finding me doing the same in 57 The Headline. It was first on the southside to tap up another antipodean-hopped Irish beer: Kiwi Pale Ale from Dublin's own Rascal's. Wakatu, Waimea and Motueka are the chief performers in this otherwise quite simple 4.5% ABV clear dark gold beer. The sticky, sappy, resinous grass looms large, and there's a bit of a minty element too, particularly as it warms. It's a pretty stark reminder of the German heritage of these hops, and even reminds me of Germany's own Polaris variety in its effect. Don't expect much by way of juicy explosives, herbal dank or (thankfully) cat piss, but it's a fun, bold quencher and I was quite happy to follow up my first pint with a second.

So that's a fairly representative sample of a few days pub-hopping in Dublin. If it sounds like the sort of thing that interests you, you'll find us just to the left of Wales.