More of the similar

Seems like forever since I last had Larkin's on here, though it was only August. They've been hella busy since and I have much to tell you about.

Sour has never really been their milieu, but I was extremely impressed by Chardonnay, a sour ale aged in French white wine barrels with added mango and passionfruit. And yes, I will state up front that even though your saisons and wild ales given the vin blanc treatment is one of my favourite things to encounter here in the beer world, I still approached this with the cold sarcastic cynicism I bring to every glass served me. At 7% ABV it's a heavy one, and hazy with it, but it uses that heft, and the fruit additions, to pile clean peach and cantaloupe flavours onto the palate in a way that's more Riesling than Chardonnay, but I have no objections. Likewise, the sourness is buried a little under the sugar, with a peppery spice more part of what it does. Not sour; not Chardonnay but I adored it. I tend to prefer beers like this to be refreshing and invigorating, but a sippable ponderable, once in a while, floats my boat too. I drank it on draught in UnderDog and will be giving a can or two a spin as well, for as long as it's around.

Regarding double IPAs, they've gone all-in with the thiols, yet another way of mechanically extracting the good bits of hops from the rest to maximise flavour and aroma. The first example I have for you is Citra Thiol DIPA at 7.8% ABV. It's strangely flat, with no hiss on popping the can and no head on the beer. The body is an opaque sludgey yellow and there's not much aroma, possibly also a factor of the poor conditioning. There is a very faint sparkle in the mouthfeel but far from proper fizz. There's nothing special or distinctive about the flavour either. It's broadly tropical with some juicy ripe tangerine and a teeny whiff of savoury onion on the end. It's fine. To its credit it's perfectly clean tasting with none of that murk bringing anything unpleasant. There's a light touch on the alcohol too, and I don't think I would have guessed the strength. This is one of those beers where you have to make up your own mind on whether it's accessible or boring. I certainly couldn't taste any new hop tech being showcased.

They've done something similar as part of the McHugh's Roadtrip series, of which the north Dublin offy kindly sent me a couple of cans. Here we go then: Road Trip Explorer 5: Thiol Double IPA, a little ballsier than the previous at 8% ABV. It's not as murky either, and there's a decent head on pouring. Tropicals are back but far more pronounced in the aroma, leading with a quite intense pineapple effect. That's the flavour too, pineapple first, dusted with a little cinnamon and finishing dry and a little chalky, like a soluble vitamin tablet. Here I think can detect something different going on; the hop profile of this beer is unusual. I don't know that it's an improvement on just hopping something to hell and back in the traditional way, but maybe it's cheaper, so hurrah for that. Overall, you get a very decent and just as clean hazy double IPA. Good enough.

In late November Larkin's dropped a sequence of single hop hazy IPAs, all hip and urban with their branding, in a way that just screams smalltown Co. Wicklow. First is the 6.2% ABV Jagged Sky, showcasing Sabro. It does so with aplomb, providing all the orange pith and coconut that one comes to this hop for, set on a beautifully soft and fluffy base. No bitterness, but no need for it. As a single hopper there's a lack of complexity but I don't think it matters: the two dimensions this hop provides are plenty, and all is bright and fresh. And educational too.

So that had me all geared up for Staylo, a little bit stronger at 6.5% ABV and the single hop is the always-fun El Dorado. Again the texture is all pillowy and the bitterness is understated but the hop just isn't as bold and interesting this time round. I expected sweet and tropical, which is what El Dorado does best, but instead it's quite dry and minerally; flinty sparks and zesty rind. It's fine as a drinking beer, and the not unsubstantial strength is well hidden. It does suffer from a lack of complexity with a less intense hop, however. Sabro has you covered, El Dorado on its own leaves you hanging. There are no flaws here, just a lack of any wow factor. Let's call it a worthy experiment and leave matters there.

Next under the microscope is Simcoe, via the 6.6% ABV Après. It looks pretty much the same as the others and smells fabulously juicy, in a way I don't associate with this hop. That's what it does on the flavour: freshly-squeezed orange juice, mildly pithy and slightly zesty with nothing else at all going on. In a hazy IPA I will absolutely take that and consider myself lucky. There are none of the common off flavours, and a surprising lack of heat making it very easy to down. Even the body is lighter than the previous ones despite the ascending strength. Maybe it gets oniony or something as it warms but my glass never got the chance. This was one of those rare occasions where I immediately wanted another can of the same right away.

Top that, you say? This subsection tops out with Scenes, the one that's 6.7% ABV and hopped solely with Hüll Melon. The aroma goes for a burton here, offering nothing beyond a vague green-leaf herb. The flavour too is extremely muted. What happens if you remove the hop flavour from a New England-style IPA? You get custard: a soft and sweet vanilla effect. As with all of these it's incredibly clean, without booze burn, garlic or grit, but unlike the others the hops have not shown up for work. It's bland in a way beer like this should never be. A very gentle curry-leaf spicing is all I could find when I really went searching. It's not enough. I suppose if you're into haze more for the texture than the flavour then this works, but otherwise it's skippable. Buy more Après instead.

We enter the imperial stout phase of this round up with Coco Loco, a simple rum barrel aged toasted coconut job at a light and brisk 8.3% ABV. It's a foamy beast, taking a little time to settle, even in a wide glass. Nothing leaps out in the aroma, just a little sugared coffee; no coconut or rum, neither of which are usually shy. I thought it would be sweet but there's a surprising, and refreshingly different dry and bitter aspect in charge here. Oak and coconut do feature but both are very definitely toasted. I can't detect any rum and frankly I'm relieved: the sickliness it too often adds is not to my taste. Only in the finish, as it warms, is there a subtle echo of the rum. This is very good. The name and description suggests brash and gimmicky but really it's all smooth, mature, balanced and integrated. Coconut/rum imperial stout has grown up.

November saw a trilogy of barrel aged imperial stouts, or "Triple Impy" as they've cringingly written on the cans. First to come my way was That's Not A Stout, This Is A Stout, complementing the reference to Australia with... maple syrup? It's a sizeable 13% ABV but dresses well for a big lad, having a mature and mellow texture; soft and smooth. The flavour is complex but very nicely blended together, sweet coconut meeting dry cola and making off with bitter liquorice. The finish offers a more sober sense of treacle-infused brown bread. It looks to be pitched as a daft novelty but it's quality through and through. Anyone looking for a one-dimensional whack of boozy maple syrup should move along. And yes, it distracted me sufficiently that I neglected to take a photo in UnderDog, but take my word that it was black and came in a TeKu.

"One to warm you on a cold night" says the can of Quit Your Jibber Jabber Fool! and I put that to the test on the first properly cold evening of the year. Again it's 13% ABV and this time there's cacao, lactose and vanilla in the mix. It looked at first to be pouring quite flat but a proper head did form eventually. Strangely, given the ingredients, there's a blip of grassy green hops on the aroma. The flavour is a slow build, starting a little watery, then gradually adding in marzipan, cherry syrup, espresso and finally dark chocolate. That's fun, but it's quite thin for what it is. For possibly the first time ever I'm annoyed that the lactose isn't more prominent. This gets better and fuller as it warms, and I strongly recommend allowing it to do so. Do that and you get a decent but unspectacular imperial stout, treading nimbly between bitter roasty tradition and contemporary candy-coated whimsy.

And speaking of candy-coated whimsy, we finish on Both Barrels, the same strength but brewed using marshmallow. "Actually not overly sweet" promises the label. I'll be the judge of that. Reader, it is overly sweet. The very real and sticky marshmallow makes this both taste and smell pink. There's a certain coffee roast bitterness, which might be how they've attempted to balance it but it hasn't worked very well. The thinness which plagued the first one is back again up front, before the lactose and marshmallow take charge, clogging up the palate by the end and leaving a thick residue behind in the mouth. And yet there's no proper warmth either. This is a difficult beer to like, especially if like me you think marshmallow has no place in a beer glass.

Larkin's isn't really a brewery that goes in for style diversity in a big way. You need to be into IPA or strong stout to like them -- I find that a little sad for a company that set out to specialise in lager but I'm sure there are sound commercial reasons behind the decision. And generally they're quite good at making what's trendy.

An epiphany

I've just managed to catch Hopfully's Christmas 2022 release before the season officially ends. This is Jingle Juice, a single-hopped Strata pale ale, which is 4.5% ABV and exclusive to Molloy's off licences, presumably intended as a casual fridge-filler or party beer. It's quite a pale hazy yellow and does indeed smell juicy, sweetly of jaffas with a hint of vanilla and a drier savoury edge too. It's light-bodied without seeming thin and the juice carries over neatly into the flavour: big firm orange segments, bursting with bittersweet citrus. Don't expect much complexity beyond that. There's maybe a tiny hint of garlic in the finish, but I'm hypervigilant for such things and it's barely noticeable. At €2.50 a can (and a free Christmas jumper if you buy 24), this is a cost-effective crowd-pleaser.

Something perhaps a little more seasonally suitable follows next: Nightwalker, a Baltic porter. I'm not usually a fan of breweries messing with the basics of this style so was sceptical about the inclusion of chocolate and coconut in this one. It's quite pale too: a reddish cola brown rather than black. The ABV is just about acceptable at 7.5%. The coconut is present in the aroma but not overwhelming, and there's still some more traditional bitter liquorice in the mix next to it. There's more coconut in the flavour, all the way through from fore- to aftertaste. Unfortunately there's not much else. I guess they were aiming for a clean lager base, but it's so clean as to be almost characterless, leaving you with just the coconut. There's a tiny hint of that liquorice, but no chocolate and not much dark malt either. It took me a while to make my peace with it, and it's definitely another example of why you should never try and improve on Baltic porter with novelty ingredients. That said, it's not a bad or unpleasant beer. If stout with coconut normally floats your boat, here's a slight variation on that which is worth your while.

We say goodbye with Howdy, an IPA in which the Strata is joined by Citra and Comet. It's hazy, as is Hopfully's wont, and the same shade of bright yellow as the can. Oranges and lemons says the aroma, though more diluted cordial than fresh fruit. The body is a little thin for something at 6.5% ABV, and there's a sweet vanilla aspect to the flavour which is a bit odd without a matching density. In the flavour the Citra is doing most of the heavy lifting, setting a sharp lime bitterness at the centre. Around that there's softer orange and a tang of spring onion. I guess this is one for those who enjoy hazy IPA but find their cloying sweetness unattractive. If that means they're better when thinned out, here you go. It failed to spark any fireworks for me, however.

Turns out the dinky seasonal sessioner has the beatings of both the big IPA and the Baltic porter. That's not how I expected this to go down, but it's Christmas, Theo. It's the time of miracles. Just about.

Sauntering straggler

Galway Bay Brewery's Saunter festival, in its first iteration last September, was one of the hits of the year. Or so I'm told; I wasn't there. A few ex-Saunter kegs found their way to the brewery's Dublin pubs and were still on sale well into the winter, so I didn't completely miss out.

I mean, Kernel Baltic Porter on draught in Ireland is not to be passed over. This is a relatively modest 7.1% ABV though is very full bodied and my first impression was of the creamy body of a powerful imperial stout rather than a dark lager. There is a dry crispness in the finish, however, which tells me it's kosher. Before that, a whirlwind of coffee'd dark malt and the signature floral complexity that Kernel always seems to build into its dark beers: your rosewater and your lavender. All that means it's quite low on bitterness for the style, but since that's the aspect of Baltic porter which I struggle with most often, I don't really miss it.

Unless you like a Baltic porter to fill your gob with liquorice, this is an excellent example. Consider it a gateway to the style for all the pastry stout aficionados. I was very glad to make its acquaintance.

The murk of war

Here's hoping Ukraine won't be spending another year plastered all over the news for terrible reasons. Today I have six beers from two brewing companies based there.

First up, Kyiv's Underwood brewery, beginning on a Helles. The plain packaging and plain name of Kyiv Lager suggests that this will be a very sober beer. It's an even 5% ABV and the proper shade of clear medium gold in the glass. There's something a tiny bit off about the aroma and flavour, an intrusive fruitiness, ripe and gooey, like peaches or strawberries left too long in the sun. I had hoped I could ignore it, and concentrate on the refreshing dry breadiness, but the fruit thing grows as the beer goes along, resulting in an overall experience of Not Quite Right. I can't say whether this is deliberate or not: it doesn't fit any off-flavour I recognise, but it doesn't fit any lager style either. I opened this in need of refreshment but finished it glad it was only a small can. 

On to the IPAs, and the lightest is called Amnesia Haze, a 5% ABV job brewed with Citra, Amarillo and El Dorado and branded as New England IPA. They haven't quite nailed the appearance of the style proper, with this being orange coloured and only slightly translucent. The aroma, too, is rather west-coast: hard orange candy and grapefruit. There was still a chance to pull it back in the flavour, but sadly it fails there as well. It's not juicy, as one would expect from the style; nor is it dank, as the name might imply. What you get instead is a weak-bodied pale ale which tastes of satsumas and tea. As such it's nicely drinkable and does a great job of quenching a thirst, but it's not what's promised, indeed not very much of anything is delivered. Despite the American hops I would be more inclined to nod this through as an English-style bitter than anything new world.

That doesn't bode well for the next one being a milkshake IPA, but maybe they'll miss the style parameters again and it'll be good, I thought. They've called it Milky Mango, a name to strike fear into any reasonable grown-up drinker of grown-up beers. It's 5.5% ABV and includes mango and lactose in with the grains and Citra and Galaxy hops. This one really is as expected, the mouthfeel soft and creamy; the flavour sweet. There's a slight clash where the unfermented milk sugar hits against a citric bitterness, but fortunately neither side is so strong that this becomes a problem. In fact, this is rather bland for such an involved recipe. The basics are present but no more than that. I'm not sure that there are better milkshake IPAs out there, but there are certainly more milkshakey ones and more IPA-ish ones too.

More haze comes in the form of Tropicana Punch, this one a double New England IPA at 7.5% ABV. This is an even deeper orange colour than the Amnesia Haze, and clearer too. Sigh. There's a mild savoury breadcrust aroma, which is not at all what the name is offering. That had me expecting something dry on tasting, but thankfully it isn't. There's a lovely oily richness to the mouthfeel, carrying orange sherbet and candied peel flavours: sweet, but not juicy. Being prepared to be wrongfooted by the brewery's description meant I could get into enjoying this quicker. There's a lot of classic west coast about it, and Avery Maharaja is the beer that popped into my head even though I haven't tasted that in well over a decade. The flavour is brighter, fresher and spicier than Amnesia; the complexity helped I'm sure by the extra alcohol. This is tasty and enjoyable, as long as you have your expectations calibrated appropriately.

One ought to be charitable in these times, but Underwood didn't hit the spot for me with any of these beers. Luckily I have a back-up Ukrainian brewery to hand: Ten Men.

"Sour fruited ale" is the innocent designation on their 5% ABV Calm in Paradise:PM. Well, Rosé de Gambrinus is a 5% ABV sour fruited ale so maybe it's like that? It is not. This is one of those beers that pours like a can of carrot soup, devoid of head but saturated in pulpy gunk. It's mango and passionfruit, so at least it's going to be nice pulpy gunk, theoretically. This turned out to be not as sweet as I expected. It's not particularly sour, so points off for that, but there's a strange, unexpected, though not unwelcome, musky spice, like sandalwood and nutmeg. It's like somebody sprayed your grandad's aftershave on a mango. The texture is as thick as it appears, yet the flavour is nicely clean: fruit pulp, spices and nothing else. I'm quite charmed by this sludgy number; at worst it's inoffensive and there's a cheeky character which has nothing to do with sourness but has a complexity all its own. 

Along similar lines is Not For Breakfast, this one being 5.8% ABV and made with raspberry, blackberry and blackcurrant. The purple matte emulsion and lack of head makes it look like finger paint. There's loads of tart forest fruit in the aroma, smelling like a dessert, or indeed a healthy breakfast, rather than beer. Naturally that's up front in the flavour, but there's a different sort of tartness too, much more serious and, like the above, a little spicy. The thick yoghurty texture helps carry it all along, though it still finishes cleanly. I've had many a beer of this sort in recent years, but something about how they've combined the ingredients and balanced the flavours make this a standout. The full half litre presented no challenge to get through.

Helles aside, these are all very contemporary craftonese styles. I think Ten Men has the better handle on how to do them well, however. For Underwood, I wish for some mediocre reviews to be the worst thing that happens to them in 2023.

Flashing the lights and sweeping up

And so we bring down the curtain on 2022 with the year's final post. It wasn't a bad one for me, all things considered, and I was able to get out and about more than in previous recent ones. This was the year beer festivals returned, and I was lucky enough to get to attend them in three different countries. While I tot up the particular highlights, I'm aided by something suitably strong and wintery.

Kinnegar has substantially re-jigged its sweet stout Winterland for its second outing. Now it's gone imperial, with the ABV up at 9% and coconut as the added ingredient. Is that Christmassy? Christmassy enough, I guess. It's thick in the glass, shimmering black under a tan coloured head. The aroma is sweetly floral, suggesting rosewater or cherry liqueur to me. They haven't gone overboard with the coconut, and before that arrives it's a roasty and bitter old-fashioned stout, perhaps more in the Foreign Extra genre than imperial. There's a slightly unctuous quality, giving an early impression of super-strong filter coffee and leaving that as residue in the finish. The coconut makes an appearance in the middle where it's very much dry and toasted rather than fresh and moist. This tones down the novelty factor and complements the dark grain well. Despite the slight severity of the bitterness this fulfils its role as a cuddly winter beer very nicely.

So I am positively aglow as I face into...

The Golden Pint Awards 2022

Best Irish Cask Beer: Brehon Black Hills
Options around Irish cask beer have been severely limited this year and it didn't feature at any of the Irish festivals I went to. On the plus side, JD Wetherspoon has a new commitment to Irish cask, making arrangements with Brehon and Dungarvan to have at least one of theirs on the handpumps at any given time. I've not yet seen Dungarvan's Black Rock stout in the wild, but have had the pleasure of Brehon's excellent Black Hills (aka Ulster Black) oatmeal stout and it really sings in this format. Do not pass it up if you see it.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Third Barrel Funk's Old Brother
This aged Brettanomyces-fermented red ale showed up at the Fidelty festival over the summer where it wowed me with its endlessly unfolding complexity.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Land & Labour Bière de Rhubarbe
Ireland's spontaneous-fermentation guru would be claiming a few spots if this were a top ten instead of single winners. However, this was the one I thought most accomplished of the offerings so far, and was a highlight of the Mullingar Wild Beer Festival where there was plenty of competition.

Best Irish Canned Beer: O Brother Opus One
We have not been short of big stouts this year, with Lough Gill, Larkin's and Wicklow Wolf all releasing multiple versions. Opus One, a 12.5% ABV job given a gentle whiskey barrel treatment, was my favourite of the lot. Everything to enjoy about the style was ably demonstrated.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Eik & Tid Barbar
When I'm compiling these, I try as much as possible not to refer to notes. I'm looking for the memorable ones. This Norwegian sour ale I found on tap at BXLBeerfest was one of the year's showstoppers for me. I don't remember exactly how it tasted, but I remember how it made me feel. A close second place goes to the mighty Keesmann Herren Pils, and drinking it at source in Bamberg was one of my year's beery achievements.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: HORAL Oude Geuze Mega Blend (2021)
I've had a few vintages of this and they haven't all been brilliant. This one, however, was utterly magnificent, even by the standards of high-end oude geuze. A  nine-way collaboration seems like a recipe for watered-down mediocrity but instead they've made something better than I've had from any individual producer.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Hoppin' Frog T.O.R.I.S. the Tyrant
It was fun going through all the B.O.R.I.S. variants back in February, and it isn't often that such a variant would outshine a classic original. T.O.R.I.S. did, though, simply by bigging up what was already there. Fair play.

Best Collaboration Brew: Otterbank/Third Barrel Time Will Tell
Like our Irish Keg winner, this was another heavy red ale given the Brett 'n' bugs treatment with spectacular results. It arrived in April as the first in a collaboration series which then went no further. Was the brew day that bad?

Best Overall Beer: HORAL Oude Geuze Mega Blend (2021)
The fact that I drank this in early January and I'm still thinking about it means it's the obvious candidate for the top prize. I have another bottle too, so you may be seeing it here again.

Best Branding: Larkin's
Brightly coloured cartoons of anthropomorphic animals aren't just a sound financial investment, they also look good on beer cans. I've been enjoying the most recent Larkin's rebrand, especially the action foxes on the imperial stouts.

Best Pump Clip: Ca' del Brado Cerbero
I went through my photos for the year and found very few pumpclip images. It seems cool bars and festivals don't use them much any more. I liked the shaggy purple doggo on this old ale from Emilia-Romagna's finest, however.

Best Bottle/Can Label: Whiplash Chimes
Second year in a row for Whiplash, which I doubt anyone familar with the brewery's can art will be surprised at. Chimes is a pale ale produced for the Bunsen chain of burger restaurants. "Let's put a burger on it, which is also a bunsen burner". Simple, a bit daft, but it amused me and that's what counts.




Best Irish Brewery: Galway Bay Brewery
I'd be prepared to give them this on foot of the return of Märzen To The Fire alone, but we also got new Two Hundred Fathoms, a West Coast IPA that actually means it, a bunch of stouts and some fun tinkering in the broad Belgian farmhouse genre.

Best Overseas Brewery: Moersleutel
The Dutch brewery graduated from one whose beers I enjoy when I find them to one I actively seek out. It was all imperial stouts until this year's Borefts Beer Festival where I tried a double IPA they'd made and it was at exactly the same high standard. They're occasionally available in Ireland, if you want to find out what the fuss is about.

Best New Brewery Opening 2022: Original 7
This was a tough one. 2022 has been much more about breweries closing than opening. We said goodbye to Metalman and St Mel's, and are watching with concern as Eight Degrees slips into a zombie half-life while the stupid multinational that acquired it tries to find a buyer. There have been rays of light, however, especially up north, but nothing that I've actually been able to drink. I haven't had any beers from Cork's Original 7 either, but I'm giving them the award for what they represent: the spirit of independent brewing after Molson Coors has come in and absolutely trashed the brand you built previously. Let's hope for something similar for Eight Degrees.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Foeders
It has taken me far too long to find my way to this geeky heaven in Amsterdam, very much one of those for-people-like-me bars. An excellent beer line-up and lovely service. If they gave the floor an occasional sweep it would be nearly perfect.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2022: UnderDog @ The Legal Eagle
"Will it / won't it" was the talk of Dublin's beer scene since version one shut up shop during the throes of the pandemic. Consequently there was proper elation when Dublin's only beer-first pub found a new home, where the winning formula of constantly rotating high end beers and first rate service has been reinstated with more legroom and actual windows. Most pleasing of all is that fact that the regulars are back and once again we have place to pull up a barstool and set the beer industry to rights with whomever is there to listen. There was a late contender for the title with the arrival of Fidelity on Queen Street just last week. More about what's going on there early in the new year.

Beer Festival of the Year: BXLBeerFest
So many great candidates but I'm picking this one because it was the most me of them. The range of beers and breweries wasn't the biggest, but there was a theme of wild and funky running through it which I wasn't expecting but valued hugely. The atmosphere was upbeat, the seating was plentiful and at the end you got to go drinking in Brussels. If all that seems like the kind of thing you might enjoy, stick it in your calendar for late August.

Supermarket of the Year: Polonez
There wasn't a whole lot of special interest beer at my usuals, but I did enjoy the occasional foray into the eastern European supermarket chain for exotic items, mostly of the lager variety.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Mace SCR
I usually go in for something specific and come out with a bag bursting at the seams. Serendipity, thy name is the Mace on the South Circular Road, at the back gate of James's Hospital.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
Can't argue with the numbers here: I bought more beer from Craft Central than anywhere else in 2022. The system is simply too easy: new beers arrive, they go up on the website, I order them and pick them up next time I'm passing. There's a slight premium to be paid for the convenience but it's very much worth it to me.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: none
I usually award this one by default for the single book I read during the year, but I don't even have that for 2022. A symptom of wider malaise in the beer publishing industry? Nope, just me being bad at reading.

Best Beer Blog or Website: BeerFoodTravel
April was the only month that Liam didn't have a new post for us, which counts as prolific in beer blogging these days. It's all great stuff too, meticulously researched and entertainingly written. This Golden Pint is very much a personal token of appreciation for the effort that goes in.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @alldoomandgloom
In-jokes are the best jokes; the more specific and audience-tailored the better. Ross gets to them faster and better than I do. I don't know how much longer I'll still have a Johnson to give, but for now it's his.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: @PilotBeerUK
They last collected this one from me in 2016 but they're still at it and it never gets old. I don't get to drink their beer and daft tweets is the second-best thing a brewery can produce.

There. That'll do for 2022. I have a generalised bad feeling about what 2023 will bring to the small and independent brewing sector in Ireland and abroad so I'll sign off with a wish of good luck to all who may be affected.

Lagerland land lager

The Veltins prestige brand, Grevensteiner, has been available in these parts for a while. I've had the Helles and the Radler, but never Grevensteiner Original. How remiss of me.

Expecting a crystal-clear serving of gold I picked an elegant stemmed glass for it, so was surprised when it poured out murky and brown, more suited to a clay mug. It was then that I noticed "Landbier" on the label's smallprint. I have limited experience of Landbier, but I'm reasonably sure that murky and brown is par for the course.

Not that this is a bad thing. The aroma, for a start, is lovely and smells of fresh brown bread with a topping of crisp celery. The hop side is quieter in the flavour, letting all that wholesome wholemeal do the talking. Although it's 5.2% ABV and describes itself as "süffig", it's not really what I'd associate with the word, being light of body with a very quick finish. That does at least mean it's clean and easy drinking, but then if I wanted that I could have stuck with the Helles.

All said, this is bang average, not really delivering on the promise of the appearance or aroma. There's a certain amount of rough and rustic charm but not really enough to make it properly interesting.

The epic of Gill

Blimey. Lough Gill is no friend to the slow-paced beer reviewer. While my attention has been elsewhere, their new releases have flourished, eventually claiming a whole wing of my beer fridge to themselves. Nevertheless I knuckled down and have, heroically and at great personal cost, written a review of them all. Here we go then.

We start very normally with Breakers, a pale ale of 4.2% ABV and gluten free. Interestingly, for something that presumably uses a clearing agent to strip out gluten, it's somewhat hazy. Mosaic is among the hops and it's very apparent in the aroma with its bright tropical melon and passionfruit. Strata and Chinook are the others, and I think the juicy mandarin foretaste is a result of the former. From Chinook I normally expect bitterness but there's precious little of that on show here, only a tiny piquancy in the finish. I don't mind, however. Fresh and juicy is how it wants to play things, and it's very successful at it. This doesn't taste in any way compromised and I would quite happily drink a few in a row.

"Keep it pale and slightly hazy but load it with gluten" said someone, presumably. That resulted in Sligo Bay, slightly stronger at 4.6% ABV but looking identical. We're not told the hops, only that they're American. The aroma is similar to the above, though a little more citrus than tropical, and tangerine or satsuma in particular. Very good, though. So it was a surprise to find a flavour that goes nowhere. There's a vague tang of orange peel, fading quickly to leave a mildly unpleasant rubbery residue. It's not badly flawed, but it's not quite right and overall very basic. Hop it like Breakers, please.

Sour ales with fruit in are inevitable. We just have to accept that, and especially with Lough Gill. First up is a mere 4%-er called Pain & Perfection, brewed with mango, passionfruit and guava, alongside lactose. Not too much lactose, mind: for a "pastry sour" this is nicely tart and sharply refreshing. The billed fruits are all discernible, though pushy passionfruit is loudest, as always. There is a smooth pulpy thickness to the texture, but more like you'd get from pure smushed fruit than a milkshake, which is good. Above all, though, that cleansing lightly sour tang absolutely makes this beer. If the aim was to be bright and sunny, complex yet low-strength, then it has achieved it perfectly.

"Gose IPA" is a new designation on me, but that's what Gose Again is: 5% ABV and containing coriander, salt and lemon zest. It does, in fairness, smell like an IPA with a blast of piney American hops -- El Dorado and Idaho 7 says the can, helpfully. The texture is slick and saline, more like a gose, and the salty tang rides right up front in the foretaste. So it's strange that everything is muted thereafter: no coriander and little by way of hopping. There's only a faint sourness too. Instead, it's dry and crisp, like a water biscuit, but similarly lacking in character. All told, this didn't really give me what I want from an IPA or a gose.

The sour ones finish with a hardcore 7.3% ABV offer called Speaks For Itself. I wasn't expecting much actual sourness, given that it includes raspberry, coconut and marshmallow. Marshmallow! Still, it doesn't look thick and gloopy, being pale orange and quickly headless. It smells like a Mikado biscuit, a mix of  jam and and coconut, so the special ingredients are pulling their weight. That's how the flavour goes too: raspberry jam, pink marshmallow and a brush of coconut oil to finish. No sourness, but a clean and neutral base on which the daftness dances without impediment, boosted by a high gravity that makes it extra syrupy as it warms. Props, then, for it being every bit the novelty beer that the description suggests. I found the jangling sweetness quite tough going, however.

On to the IPA section, beginning with a Wrong Turn. The label specifies that it's a "decoction west coast IPA", which is interesting on a very nerdy level. What difference would decoction mashing make to a presumably hop-forward beer? In the glass it's pretty hazy, which is frankly unacceptable when the "west coast" designation is trotted out. The aroma goes very big on west coast pine, with touches of lighter lemon candy around the edges. Simcoe is one of the four hops named, and I suspect it's the busiest of them. The body is surprisingly light for 6.5% ABV, though the hops aren't unbalanced as a result. More citrus and pine is on offer, the lemon turning to grapefruit and the pine to Amsterdam alleyway. But there's a sweet side too, which I'm guessing is the decoction at work, intensifying the malt lending the beer extra balance. It works rather well. Big hops on big malt was the defining feature of the original American IPAs, whose profile now gets called "west coast" so perhaps I'll forgive the haziness this one time.

They were at it again with the subjunctive-dodging If I Was In LA, described as "California IPA" but  distinctly clouded. It smells juicy and tropical too, with a delicious but inappropriate waft of tinned pineapple. On tasting there's a bit more of a resinous bitterness, but not much, and the peachy-mangoey tropical side is still in charge. Citra and Mosaic are the hops, and I get a slight buzz of onion as it warms, for which I blame the latter. Otherwise it's all enjoyable in its own way, even if it's a long long way from Sculpin or Torpedo. It is a little on the thin side, despite the murk, and definitely doesn't taste the full 6.8% ABV.  

Last year the brewery brought out a quartet of imperial oatmeal stouts, of which I could only track down three. I was delighted to see them back for 2022, meaning I could finally get my hands on Shield, the one I missed. It's a whopping 12% ABV and brewed with coffee, so I was expecting an Irish coffee effect but doesn't really have that. The texture is quite light, not creamy, and the spirit/barrel side is understated, arriving as a late waft of vapour but without any real contribution to the taste. That does leave plenty of coffee, so maybe an espresso martini is a better cocktail analogy. Whether it's the grains or the coffee that's providing the roast dryness I can't say -- perhaps it's both -- but there's plenty of it. This is nice; easy going; nothing to scare the horses. Let it be noted without comment that it was 14% ABV last year. Regardless, I'm hoping for something louder from the next ones.

There are three new Celtic-themed barrel-aged stouts in the series for 2022, and I immediately detect further signs of cold feet around ABV as two are a trifling 10% ABV. We'll begin with one such: Ogham, a bourbon barrel milk stout with cocoa nibs. The barrel absolutely plays the advantage here, piling sticky vanilla into the flavour, leveraging the milky chocolate to produce something sickly sweet beyond the bounds of decency. The stout loses out in this, with no roast and negative quantities of bitterness. A cola dryness is the only faint saving grace, but I could still feel it curdling in my stomach. This is too big and too sweet. Perhaps a point or three more on the ABV might have rescued it.

As they say at Lough Gill: Onward! The other 10%-er is Life, again a bourbon barrel milk stout and again with cocoa nibs. But here they've added actual vanilla as well. After the last one I am apprehensive to say the least. It doesn't smell horrifically sweet, so that's a plus, the chocolate coming across as quite dark. It's milkier to taste, for sure, but nowhere near as sickly as the previous. The flavour is all rather well balanced and integrated, and I think the key is in the bourbon -- it's much less loud and pervasive here, allowing the stout to stay a stout despite the add-ons. There's maybe a little too much milkshake for serious stout drinkers, but they should lighten up anyway. Life is fun.

My third of the new ones, perhaps appropriately, is Trinity. I didn't even look at what it's made with before taking the first sip. I couldn't detect any novelty here, just the basic good imperial stout formula of fresh black coffee, dark chocolate and a shot of plain whiskey. In fact there's no addition, it's a straight oatmeal stout at 12% ABV aged in bourbon barrels. They're well-behaved bourbon barrels again too, giving up their warmth but not the yucky cloying vanillins. There's even a faint fruit complexity, in the finish -- damson or raisin. Overall, it's a classy sipper and tough to fault.

Unless there's been a late add, and I wouldn't put it past them, that's all from Lough Gill from this year. There's some impressive stuff in the above, showing a brewery that's good at what it does in several different ways at once.