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.

Well I never!

It started with a tweet from business journo John West: where is local Sapporo lager brewed? I know that Asahi is brewed at Shepherd Neame in Kent; I noted more recently that cans of Kirin Ichiban come from Weihenstephaner in Bavaria, of all places; but Sapporo was not on my radar. And indeed has never featured on this blog. Asking around finally yielded an answer from local distributor David of Noreast: Europe's Sapporo is brewed at the Guinness brewery in Dublin. Cor!

As it happened I had a bottle in the fridge, so took it out to toast my new-found knowledge. Sapporo is a handsome deep gold colour. It smells boringly sweet, like a million other mass-produced ersatz pilsners. But the flavour does have something going for it. There's a classic central-European grassy hop bite, which was a very pleasant surprise. It also has the full and soft texture of a decent helles making it a lot more satisfying to drink than stereotypical dry and gassy mainstream Japanese-style lager. A decent crunch of malt husk finishes it off.

While I'm on the subject of Asian lager, I lunched in Arisu Korean barbecue on Capel Street recently (highly recommended) and was bemused to see they stocked imported Hite lager. I explored the beer of Korea in Seoul a couple of years prior to starting this blog and Hite wasn't a particularly fond memory, though neither were Cass or OB for that matter. Still, here it was: man up and give it a go. Straight from the bottle, of course.

On this occasion it reminded me a lot of Tiger: it has that horribly thick and estery banana flavour I always get from Singapore's flagship beer. It's barely tolerable when ice cold, but any degree of warmth at all turns it sickly and difficult, in a way that this sort of chugging lager shouldn't be. If you can't create the complexity of Sapporo, at least make it dry.

All of these macro meanderings were enough to guilt me into getting some proper Asian craft beer. That involved another tasty lunch, this time at Yamamori's restaurant on Ormond Quay. It has been far too long since I last tried any Kiuchi beers, which the chain imports into Ireland. The Hitachino Nest Lager was entirely new to me and happily fitted the theme of this post.

I was expecting something exceedingly average, but this it an absolute beaut. It's a plain yellow colour topped by a fine white foam, and at 5.5% ABV is a little stronger than the norm, but that's very much in its favour when it comes to accompanying food -- once again the body is wonderfully full and satisfying. The first sip provided a juicy burst of melon rind, turning to bitterer orange pith on the end. I don't know how this was done, but I suspect it may be down to the judicious addition of Sorachi Ace hops: enough to give it a very distinctive taste but without drowning the consumer in coconut oil. Amazingly, this bright and zingy flavour was still present even as my bottle was coming up hard on the stated best-before date. It's a robust little owl.

Given some of the rubbish that gets sold in Asian restaurants around here, and Yamamori's exclusive hold on Kiuchi, it's a shame Sapporo isn't more prevalent. Its weight would make it a much better counterbalance to spicy food, for one thing. I can understand why they don't sell it at Arisu, however, and I still wouldn't swap the Hitachino Lager for it.

Endangered kiwi

...flavours of citrus, pine & tropical fruit... says the label on Mac's Green Beret, an IPA from a New Zealand brewery that's been off my radar for a while. I picked up the bottle in The Wine Centre on my way home from Kilkenny during the summer.

It's 5.4% ABV and an attractive gold colour. The flavour wasn't doing it for me, which is the point I looked at the best-before and discovered it was over two months past the date.

Tropical fruit? Not so much. The signature Kiwi bitter grassy thing is still there, and there's a solid big malt base, all golden syrup and light toffee. Beyond that, however, this beer is sadly dead. The absence of hop has caused it to fall out of balance. Letting something like this rot on the shelves so far from home does nobody any favours.

I'd have poured one out for it but y'know, I'm writing here.

UK hun?

British craft beer is unavoidable these days. Most of the handful of talked-about producers have a presence here, though I can't help noticing prices have stayed buoyant as sterling tanks. Anyway, here's a few that I've tried recently.

London is the hub of the British new wave and Bermondsey's FourPure is one of the most solidly reliable of the capital's brewers. Its Southern Latitude, which showed up on the taps at 57 The Headline, is in the daring style of New England session IPA. It's 4.4% ABV and a not terribly sessionable €6 for a 400ml glass. It doesn't look very New Englandy either: quite dark and almost completely clear. The flavours are clear too: juicy peach and then a double dryness from high carbonation and a slightly aspirin tang. It's refreshing, though, which does meet the session IPA requirement of the spec. Not FourPure's best work, however.

Derbyshire's Buxton is a rare sighting in this part of the country and we owe the presence of Myrcia IPA to The Headline's management relentlessly pursuing it. This is another session IPA, 4% and claiming to be hop bursted. What's not to like? The aroma starts it off well, bright and lemony, but the flavour is very muted and consists predominantly of yeast. It ends up tasting as mucky and dreggy as it looks. Searching desperately for a lighter point I found a slight lemon buzz but no freshness and no real hop character. I guess the lesson is that you need a clean beer to get the benefit of loading all the hops into the end phase of brewing. As is, this was a huge disappointment.

Scotland is inevitably represented here by BrewDog. Their latest "India Pale Weizen" Nine To Five Wizard warranted a special daytime launch event in UnderDog. That was all quite jolly, and proof that BrewDog can still draw a crowd in this town. The beer itself wasn't all that impressive, offering little more than you'd get from a standard weissbier -- banana, cloves -- just given a little extra poke at 7.5% ABV. The lovely smooth texture is perhaps its best feature, coming with a very mild burn, hops or alcohol, at the end. I'm chalking it up as a definite positive that the extra hopping has not been allowed to interfere with the classic flavours as so often happens in poorly conceived hybrid styles like these.

Seemingly the only Welsh brewery that counts in craft circles these days (where did Otley disappear to?) is Newport's Tiny Rebel. Two of theirs came my way lately. One was a can I drank in Brewery Corner in Kilkenny: Clwb Tropicana. This is a fruited IPA, or "tropical" IPA, as the branding insists. It's pale yellow and smells of Lilt. The texture is sticky; the flavour is sickly, and there's no real beer character going on. I have now witnessed a pub customer working along the fruit IPA selections on a particular bar, so it seems beers like this are answering a market demand. This specific one, however, demonstrates clearly to me what's wrong with the whole segment.

Meanwhile, on draught, over at The Headline was Cali American Pale Ale. It's quite a severe beer: a chalky asparagus bitterness being the main feature, and all at the front. I waited for the middle to happen but it didn't really. It feels like there should be a sudden inrush of tangerine or something, but nope. I couldn't stay cross with it for long, however. That one punchy mineral feature is something I enjoyed coming back to sip after sip. This is a no-nonsense beer, take it or leave it, and I'd happily have another.

Dessert, then, and the dark side begins at Wild Beer's Millionaire stout. "Salted caramel" is your Brucie bonus in this one. And yes, it's a little bit sticky, though not overly so. Really it's just a typical, ungimmicky, sweet-ish stout, tarry of texture but with light easy-going flavours of vanilla and honey, as well as a proper hop bitterness. I was genuinely convinced it was a strong one so was very pleasantly surprised to discover it's only 4.7% ABV. I could have handled a pint of this no problem, though maybe just the one.

My nightcap is Eldon, an oak-aged imperial stout from Thornbridge. A modest one, though, at just 8% ABV. It smells enticingly of rich and thick churro sauce and lays on the cocoa heavily in the flavour too. The oak (chips, I assume) has been used previously for Bourbon but I wouldn't have guessed it: no sickly vanilla or heavy booze, a honeycomb sweetness being the only possible nod to the liquor. There is, however, a dry sawdust taste that doesn't add anything positive. With every sip I get the impression of a very well-made strong stout which would be a better beer with less done to it. It's still pretty good, though, getting rounder and smoother as it warms. Definitely a good one to finish on.

I'll have been in and out of London on a flying visit by the time this gets posted, so expect a report on further British craft experiences in the near future.

Taking the Mikkel

I have to admit, I'm surprised that Mikkeller still generates a buzz. The Danish gypsy brewer is a veteran at this stage, and in the highly fickle world of "craft" beer few brands generate enthusiasm for so long. Mikkellermania may have peaked some years ago, but when UnderDog dedicated a swathe of their taps to the beer, excitement ensued.

I stuck my head in on a Friday afternoon to see what was what. Tap 1, and beer of the moment, was SpontanDoubleBlueberry. This is an attempt to recreate the lambic brewing process, with mixed results in this drinker's opinion. It looks dark and tarry in the glass, the deepest of purple with a shock of violet foam on top. The first flavour to come through isn't sourness, nor fruit, but bitterness: the tannic bite of berry skins. A harsh Bretty funk follows, rough and uncouth. I was expecting some fruit flavour but that didn't really emerge until the beer had warmed up a ways, and was heavy and jammy, perhaps reflecting the weighty 7.7% ABV. And sourness? It's buried in there but it's not a central feature. There was the saltpetre spark of proper geuze, doing little other than reminding me I'd rather be drinking a proper geuze. There's certainly a lot going on in this one, but I definitely preferred the lighter and cleaner beers I've had from the Spontan series.

Hallo Ich Bin Berliner Weisse Mango has been around in cans for a while. I just had a quick taster as a contrast with the Spontan. It's a bright pale yellow, thin and clean, and with a sharp, slightly metallic, sour bite. I could barely taste the mango at all: there's certainly no fruit-pulp thickness. It's simple and refreshing fare and for the price usually demanded it ought to be offering more.

It's hops from here on in. I had not realised that the Mikkeller Single Hop Series, which I started drinking in 2008 and last encountered back in 2010, is still running. The beers are all 6.9% ABV and they seem to have acquired double IPA siblings now.

There were two varieties available: Citra and Mosaic in both single and double versions. As a fully-certified Mosaic hound I asked for a taster of the Mikkeller Mosaic IPA first. I was not expecting the aroma of toffee. The hop flavour struggles to come through the heavy malt sweetness, and manages to bring only the savoury side of Mosaic when it does, and none of the fun fruit. I decided not to struggle through a full glass of that.

So instead I surprised myself by opting for Mikkeller Citra IPA instead. Unsurprisingly it's sweet again, though the aroma does include plenty of fresh grapefruit to help cover the caramel. The texture is thick and this helps the hops do their thing: a lovely oily lemon and lime flavour, coating the palate at first, while building to a bitter crescendo. A juicy counter-melody of mandarin adds a tasty extra dimension, though I also detected a burr of yeast bite spoiling things ever so slightly. But overall an excellent performance.

How would that stack up in a double IPA? Remarkably well. Again just a taster, but Mikkeller Citra Double IPA really emphasises the tropicality, piling in mango (more than in the Berliner weisse) and cantaloupe. It doesn't have the whole toffee thing, leaving more room for hop fun, and there's no trace of alcohol heat; an amazing achievement at 8.9% ABV.

With thoughts that I should have given the Mosaic Double IPA a chance too, I headed off. I suppose it should be of comfort that Mikkeller is still doing the Spontans and the single hop IPAs after all these years, and that people are still enjoying them. Perhaps even craft beer radicals settle down at some point.

In for a Treaty

The Beoir AGM happened in Limerick last month. It's the first year that my attendance was not compulsory, but I had never been to the city, nor experienced its beer scene, so there was no way I was going to miss it. The meeting was kindly hosted by The Wickham Tap, Galway Bay Brewery's new pub and their first outside Galway or Dublin (Kilkenny will follow next month). We also dropped by the handsome Smyth's, the cosy Nancy Blake's and the very handsome Mother Mac's.

The latter three were all pouring The Market Quarter, a new pale lager that was being launched that weekend. In total a group of twelve pubs in that area are carrying it on draught, having commissioned it from local brewery Treaty City to be, according to the Leader, "for traditional drinkers and craft beer enthusiasts alike". I like to think I can speak for both of those demographics and I reckon they've nailed it. It's a light 4.2% ABV and an approachable medium-gold. The flavour bursts with fresh tropical flavours, mango and pineapple in particular, before finishing clean. There's a palate-scrubbing fizz to please the mainstream lager drinkers, but it's not thin or overcarbonated, just great session drinking. I would worry about how well the fruit will hold up if it has to spend more than a short time sitting in the keg, but hopefully that won't be an issue. Well done to all concerned.

Our guide for the day, the redoubtable Cyril, had arranged for us to visit Treaty City Brewing itself, where we got a guided tour by the enthusiastic proprietor Stephen Cuneen. Local, local, local is the mantra. I always feel better about not being able to get my hands on a beer when I learn it's deliberate. I hadn't tasted any of the core beers so happily there was a table of sample bottles. Yes, I brought my bottle opener.

Harris Pale Ale is the one that's been around longest, named after Limerick's most legendary drinker. This is quite a dark amber colour and dry tasting, mixing up metallic aspirin bite with a touch of roasted grain. It's reminiscent of decent dark English bitter and is similarly moreish, despite a sizeable ABV of 5%.

The lightest of the set is Hells Gate Lager at 4.2% ABV. I think there's a sneaky reference to the intended style in the name (don't tell AB-InBev) as it's quite sweet and softly textured, with elements of candyfloss and spongecake. This is balanced with a few sprigs of fresh spinach leaves: no doubt a German noble variety or two at work. It's maybe just a little too sweet for my taste, even for a helles, but it's perfectly well made.

Treaty City hasn't turned out a porter yet so Thomond Red is as dark as it gets. And its pretty dark for a red: a cola brown colour with an almost dunkel-like sticky treacle aroma. The caramel arrives to the party early and I was fully expecting it to talk loudly over the top of the other guests. However it leaves room for some clean, green celery hops, a smattering of ripe summer fruit and a roasty finish that prevents it from getting all sticky in the end. Irish red full house then, pretty much, and probably the most complex offering of the set.

The IPA, Shannon River, was a bit of a let-down after that. They've gone too sweet in this one, resulting in a dark orange colour and buckets of orange candy all through the flavour. There's a certain minerally dry bitterness quality too, but it fights with the sticky malt rather than complementing or balancing it. The whole thing is just discordant, rendered extra loud with the volume turned up to 5.8% ABV.

There's a definite sweet theme running through the range, which is perhaps why the red ale is the best of the lot. This may be to do with local tastes so it's very promising that the newest beer, Market Quarter, doesn't have it. Turn your treacle to tropical fruit, Limerick, and embrace the 21st century.

Getting Lough'd

I had somewhat lost track of Lough Gill Brewery since the beginning of the year, having last tried a new beer from them just before the Alltech festival in February. So when I made enquiries in DrinkStore I ended up coming away with three cans from the Sligo brewery I'd never tasted before.

First to get opened was the Sour Wheat Ale. I was hoping for something light and refreshing, but the 5.7% ABV suggested otherwise, as did the dark and murky appearance. I had plenty of time to contemplate that as I waited for the foam to subside sufficiently to allow me a sip. It's as heavy as I expected, with a slick and briney salinity. There's a touch of lemon behind this which, combined with a grainy crunch, calls witbier to mind. Overall I'm not keen on it. The sourness is too strongly lactic, more like something gone off than deliberately inoculated, and the grain tastes stale and husky, possibly as a result. It's doesn't compare well with the cleaner and lighter Irish sour beers out there.

Time for a complete contrast: 'Round the Clock is a coffee and oatmeal stout, a path that has been trod by many breweries previously. It's 5.2% ABV and a rich chocolate brown colour. They've gone all-out for the coffee here, and there's a lot of dark roasted, even gritty, espresso in the flavour and aroma. The harsh bitterness isn't helped by the thin texture and if that's all there was I'd be giving it up as a bad job. But! This beer does have a redeeming feature in a floral complexity that runs backwards and forwards through it. It's a meadowy sweetness that doesn't quite take the edge off the sharp roast but does manage to distract my attention from its worst excesses. It's still some fairly tough drinking, lacking smoothness. You'd really want to be into your coffee, or at least your beer that tastes of coffee, to enjoy it fully.

Finally for now, Lough Gill's Irish Sloe Barley Wine, the first in a series of strong beers, and at 9.5% ABV it definitely qualifies. I was struck by the colour of this: after two cans of murk it's a gorgeous crystalline garnet. On sticking the nose in I'm met with typical barley wine characteristics: heavy slabs of alcoholic toffee, but there's a cheeky sour twang suggesting the sloes are mixing right in the middle. And so it proves on tasting: there's a chocolatey syrupy sweet thickness that would be cloying if left to its own devices, and where a classic US barley wine (hi Bigfoot!) would lash in a load of big citric hops, this utilises the fruit to give it a tangy edge that cleans up the malty excesses and renders it drinkable, while also giving it a uniquely complex flavour. It's almost plummy, like you might find in a Belgian dubbel, but lighter, spritzier, and altogether cleaner -- think cranberries. For a high-gravity palate-thumper this has been carefully and subtly put together. It's not often you encounter an Irish beer that isn't just slavish copying the way they do things abroad but this expresses a terroir all its own.

So, one super-impressive beer out of three. Not bad. There'll be more from Lough Gill in my round-up of the Irish Craft Beer Festival in a few weeks.