Summer pubbin'

"Just stay out of Temple Bar" is my general advice to anyone coming to Dublin and looking for beer. Today's subjects were both found in pubs, and both of them technically in Temple Bar, although they're some distance from the Auld Dub/Oliver St John Gogarty/Quays/Temple Bar/Fitzsimons's central parade of shame.

I mean, The Porterhouse, Dublin's longest-surviving vendor of decent beer, is only a little bit west of Fitzsimons's on the same stretch, and it does get a generic crowd of uninterested tourists, but it also has a carefully chosen and ever-rotating beer menu. Lately, that has included the new range of tentative one-offs from Eight Degrees.

Last time it was Dolcita, an IPA, now it's a hoppy pilsner called Pacifika. It's got the pilsner look right, being clear golden with a well-formed and lasting lager head. The aroma is... lacking. No exotic gust of hop waft greeted mine hooter, I'm sorry to report. The flavour goes lager-first too, giving a grainy dry quality, all husky and slightly rustic. That's not unpleasant; this beer is clean to beat the band, but I signed up for hoppy. Where's my hoppy? One is left to wait, but it's there in the finish, with a quick and subtle burst of the tropical, fading to a fresh salad-leaf greenness and some slightly spicier forest resin. You have to look for it, though. I should probably be more appreciative that this pilsner is actually in the crisp and dry pilsner style, not simply a pale ale fermented cold. The Eight Degrees VLB training is on display here. But, since they made a hop the beer's actual name, I feel I should have got some more hop from it. Fans of proper pilsner are well served by this, but how many of us are there?

Changing Times, despite its name, doesn’t strike me as much of a trend-chaser, but it has seemingly decided that the tiny wave of Irish ginger beers is worth surfing, and produced one of its own: Sinséar. I found it in the busily touristed surrounds of Darkey Kelly's, on Temple Bar's far western edge.

The visuals are as one would expect: a lightly hazed pale yellow, and likewise its ABV is the orthodox 4%. I turned down the option of lime, but was happy to be asked. They haven't skimped on the ginger. It's been a while since I've tasted the competition (Smithfield Zingibeer and Kinnegar Jackrabbit), but this one feels like it has more of a spice kick than I remember from them. That sparks on the tongue initially, spreading a tingle over the palate like a mouthful of pop rock candy. It's not built for complexity though does have a bonus hint of brown sugar or very light caramel. The thin fizzy texture is a bit of a downside but I'm sure that's intended: it's not meant to be assessed the way regular beers are. For summer refreshment, I could have seen myself drinking it again, maybe even with the discretionary lime, then I looked at the bill and found that this particular pint of light fizz cost €8.75. Yes, this is technically Temple Bar, and such things shouldn't surprise me, but that's ouchy nonetheless. I don't know if other pubs in the brewery's group sell it, but I hope they price it more reasonably if and when they do.

It's been hot in the city lately, so it's good that the pubs are looking after the punters' need for refreshment. That the pubs on the edge of Temple Bar still sell pints at single-digit prices should perhaps be a cause for celebration. It won't be like that much longer.

Herbs and spices

Hops are over-rated. Did you know they're not even native to Ireland? Disgraceful that they're even allowed. Today's beers are from two breweries determined to do things a more traditional way.

OK, fine, ginger isn't native to Ireland either. I'm intrigued by Zingibeer on a number of levels. For one, it's that rarely-produced style: proper ginger beer, with minimal malt involved, just sugar, water, yeast and spices. For another it's from Persistence, a brand that hitherto has only produced pintable pub beers in orthodox styles, mainly sold at a cluster of scenester bars in Dublin's south city centre. This is the first bottled offering and very much not what they normally do. No provenance is given so I don't know if this came from their usual host brewery JJ's.

The product is 4% ABV and silver-coloured, pouring with plenty of fizz and an absence of head, which begs for ice-and-a-slice to take the bare look off. There's a pleasing savoury botanical aroma, suggesting rosemary and sage to me. It's predominantly sweet but not excessively so and there's a decent amount of substance to the body: it does feel like a beer, albeit a very highly carbonated one. I think it could have done with more ginger as the spicing is a little muted to my taste, the buzz only really arriving late, with no accompanying burn. Before that, the herbs are busy, creating more of that savoury roast-dinner effect. I'm quite partial to the occasional roast dinner. The sugary aftertaste is where it resembles your more standard ginger ale mixer. It's a bit of fun, and does fill a gap in the market. It's not a beer for pinting through, however. Half a litre on a warm evening was plenty.

Beoir Chorca Duibhne has used botanicals from the brewery garden in All Seasons. This gruit contains gorse, dandelion, dock, primrose, yarrow and, oh... hops. Oh well. It took an age to pour from the 75cl bottle due to the masses of off white foam forming on top of a dark red-brown body. It smells sweet and wholesome,  freshly baked bread combining with oily and nutritious greens. I was expecting a heavy and sweet flavour to go with that but it's surprisingly light and clean; pleasingly so. A crisp fizz and no dark malt character makes it seem almost lager-like. I wasn't able to pick out any specific herb flavours, and I thought gorse's coconut would be the easiest to spot. Instead there's just a general sense of botanicals set against a dry background, a little like a vermouth without the wine character. I wouldn't have minded a little more flavour intensity, but I still really liked this. At only 5.5% ABV it manages to offer an excellent refreshment factor alongside the subtle gruit complexity. Nicely done.

It's easy to complain that everything is a hazy IPA these days, but there has been some very interesting and diverse stuff coming out of Irish breweries lately. I'll be writing about what I've found in due course. Plus a load of hazy IPAs from Whiplash, obvs.