Something out of the ordinary

One-offs, oddities and suchlike is the loose theme for this the second blog post from the 2017 Killarney Beer Festival.

A new beer from Kinnegar always gets my attention, and this was their first time at the festival, having picked up the grand prize in the beer competition last year. Making its début this time was Great Arch, which is a blonde beer broadly in the Cologne style but dry-hopped. There's a quite a bitter aroma, acidic and sickish, but that's the only bum note. The flavour is perfectly fresh and clean, showing juicy peach at the front and a more serious oily hop resin rising up behind. It's only 4.9% ABV so gets the job of refreshment done, aided by a light body, soft carbonation and a quick finish on the flavour. Summer is written all over this one.

Despite the bright-sounding name, A New Dawn from St Mel's is anything but. This is a new black IPA, modestly strong at 5.5% ABV, and properly black too. It hits the style points incredibly well, with a heady red cabbage spice in the aroma and then a flavour which blends citrus zest and dark roast. This is another beer which clears off the palate quickly and cleanly, though it rounds out nicely as it warms, showing more of its porter characteristics. A bit more hoppy punchiness would be nice, but it works very well as-is.

Late last year James Brown Brews produced Wayward Sun rye pale ale as an exclusive for the Carry Out off licence chain. I don't have one anywhere near me so missed it, but was glad to see it on his bar at Killarney. It's 4.5% ABV and a striking pinkish colour. Thanks to the rye it's mostly quite dry, with a particularly acidic burn in the finish and an aspirin tang in the aroma. But this is balanced by ripe tangerine notes, rounding off the edges and aiding its drinkability. It's a simple and unfussy beer, complex without demanding too much from the drinker.

I wish I could say the same for Arthurstown Grapefruit Pale Ale: it also goes for that sharply acidic angle. It doesn't balance it properly, however, and the result is astringent, overly bitter and just difficult to drink. They can't be blamed for skimping on the grapefruit juice: that's present, front and centre, loud and clear, but the rest of the package isn't up to the job of taming it, unfortunately.

Last of the new Irish was Wild Bat Hefeweisen [sic] from Corrib Brewing, the latest in their series of specials I last met back at Alltech in February. I was a little suspicious of the low 4.5% ABV but it makes good use of what it has, aiming for light and crisp instead of heavy and fruity. There is a major banana element to the profile, but it's not overly sweet or cloying. This isn't a style we see a lot of among Irish brewers so it's refreshing to see one turned out in solid workmanlike fashion.

For a footnote, Steve was sharing bottles from his stash again. This time it was 2014 Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien, a mixed-fermentation barrel-aged bière de garde, though tasting far more like a Flemish red, by Swiss brewery BFM. "Bon-Chien" was the name of the brewery's cat. This probably passes as next-level humour in Switzerland.

Perhaps there's something to be said for leaving this sort of thing to the Belgians because this really wasn't good. It looked fine: a pinkish-red shade, and the aroma starts out OK with an earthy funky waft. It all goes a bit opening-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant after that, the vapours suddenly turning powerfully acidic, though merely burning the nose hairs rather than melting one's face off. The flavour is extremely balsamic, all resins and retsina, given extra concentrated power at 11% ABV. That's at the front of the palate anyway; at the back of the throat it's just pure acrid burning with no complexity, certainly no subtlety, and frankly not an ounce of fun. Cheers for the experience, Steve, but I think I might give the other vintages a swerve.

Just as well there were plenty of palate cleansers out on the festival floor. Particular shout-out to the long-awaited return of YellowBelly Summer Ale, twisting classic English hops into a new-world-style pale ale. Perfect refreshment as the sun sets on Killarney for another year.

In the belly of the beast

Until Derek pointed it out, I hadn't noticed that 2015 was the third year in a row that the Beoir AGM was held in the south-east. As the chief organiser of the annual think-in-with-the-drink-in I should have given greater consideration to matters geographic but Wexford Town has a new brewpub - Simon Lambert and Sons, home of the YellowBelly brewery - helmed by caskmeister and sometime otter Mr Declan Nixon, so I needed an excuse to get down there and I figured nobody else would object too much. As a bonus, the train journey from Dublin to Wexford, it turns out, is one of the prettiest Ireland has to offer.

The meeting itself took place in The Sky and the Ground, a charming bric-à-brac-filled pub with a lovely sunny upper deck. Lamberts' is just up the street and their beer is on sale here so I started with a YellowBelly Blackcurrant Ale. It arrived very cold, a clear pale amber colour. The fruit has been added judiciously, meaning you don't get a sticky purple glass of fizzy Ribena. Instead it's a light-bodied ale, not a million miles from Irish red or English keg bitter, with subtle malt biscuit notes and then just a gentle jolt of tartness from the blackcurrants. Not massively complex but perfectly serviceable as a summer thirst-quencher. After it I switched to YellowBelly Hefeweissbier, a crisp rather than fruity example of the style, hazy orange in colour with a little bit of pith and some worrying headachey high-alcohol heat. It's sinkable enough when cold but it's possibly a bit dangerous for session drinking.

With business concluded it was time to go over to Lamberts' for lunch and a looksee at the brewery. At first glance, Simon Lambert & Sons is a very normal high street pub: a narrow saloon bar at the front and wider covered smoking area out back. It all goes a bit Wayne Manor once you go through the staff-only door at the back. Nicky Lambert told us they excavated a lot of the basement themselves, by hand. The brewery was also acquired piece by piece from wherever pumps and tanks and electrical components are got, and put together as they needed. Those pretty wooden-clad vessels are old dairy tanks covered in spare bits of the flooring from upstairs. Though it's in a space not much bigger than a domestic garage it has the only laboratory I've seen in an Irish microbrewery and uses all liquid yeast, a different strain for every beer. The conditioning tanks are on wheels and, when the contents are ready, they're simply trundled around to the keg cellar and hooked directly to the taps. The attention to detail at YellowBelly is jaw-dropping.

The beer engine upstairs was pouring YellowBelly Belgian Stout which almost everyone started with, presumably for fear of it running out, which it didn't. There's a crazy amount of complexity in this ultra-smooth black draught: tart dark fruits and sweetly tannic raisins, bookended by sweeter cherries and drier roasted grains. I only had a half pint, but every sip introduced something different. And yet it's silky enough to swig down, if you wanted to. A Sweet Stout was also available, on keg: a simple beer, this, with lots of caramel and a typical milk stout lactose tang.

Turning to the hoppy side of the house, YellowBelly Summer Ale is 4.5% ABV and an amber gold colour. It's in the English golden ale vernacular with those floral, orangey hop flavours. It's perhaps a little overly sharp for my liking, but refreshing nonetheless. In lieu of an IPA there was a Strong Pale Ale, 6.1% ABV strong. This is rose-gold in colour and tastes very caramelly, with the hops adding to the heavy sweetness with a strong perfume effect, plus lots of sticky herbal resins. The weighty, earthy character is accentuated by a thick, greasy, ambergris-like texture. Tough going, but rescued somewhat by a dry finish. And I don't know what went wrong with the Amber Ale but the brewers saw fit to pump in a vast amount of dry hops right before tapping it. As a result it has a massive raw, green hop aroma, hugely peppery and spicy, and that comes through in the flavour as well -- red peppercorns and five-spice say my notes. There's a dry acidic finish but none of the harsh grassiness you tend to get in beers that are dry-hopped overly long. I still couldn't help wondering what the 3.9% ABV base beer tastes like because there's barely a trace left of what it was.

And my beer of the day, the one I bought a growler of to chug on the journey home, was YellowBelly Lager. I guess this is one of those beers that brewpubs feel they have to make, for the unadventurous punter, and brewpub lager tends not to be the most inspiring of sub-styles. But this hazy gold 4.1% ABV conversation beer is perfection. The flavour performs very simple tasks, presenting a perfect crisp and clean golden malt base garnished with just a light lemony lacing, but the finished product is cleansing, quenching, magnificently fresh and immensely sinkable. I suspect the other beers come and go with the whims of their creator but this really deserves to be a permanent fixture, and a reference point for every other brewpub proprietor in the country.

The locals are very fortunate to have an operation like YellowBelly on their doorstep. A big thanks to everyone at Lamberts' and The Sky and the Ground for hosting us. It's well worth the daytrip, Dublin folk.