The local scene

The summer beer release schedule has been in overdrive lately. Today's round-up is just from the busy brewers of Dublin and its periphery.

None busier than Rascals lately, with the pilot kit at full tilt, as well as several bigger releases, and their taproom the most convenient place to find them.

Born Sippy answers the need for a house lager, though I can't say I wasn't disappointed they didn't bring their magnificent Rain Czech back. Unfiltered, says the menu, and yet it's a very clear pale yellow. Dry hopping with Mandarina Bavaria has given it an unorthodox amount of fruit flavour, sweet peach and mango more than mandarins, I thought. There's not much under this: I suspect the base lager is a bit bland. The brewery claims it's in a Bavarian style but it lacks the big fluffy malt softness that I regard as the helles hallmark. Crispness and bitterness are missing too. Despite these quibbles, it gets the job done: properly refreshing; clean and characterful; just like a house lager should be. Cans are also available if you can't make it to HQ.

An elaborate witbier follows. Smooth & Witty has added orange, chamomile and honey. Sugar bomb? Actually, no. The honey flavour leaps out, but it's not sickly or sticky, more floral and herbal. The chamomile brings a balmy bitterness, mellowed by the soft wheat of the underlying beer. The ABV is a modest 4.7% making for easy drinking, and while it's complex, the flavour isn't busy, staying balanced and harmonious. This is a delicately perfumed take on the wit style which pulls some interesting tricks without losing sight of its roots. I approve.

The Boss is a double IPA of 8.2% ABV, opaque orange and big on super-fresh dank. There's a tropical hit at the front: mango and pineapple, then the spiky herbal grass on a thick resin base. That thickness is a big feature: the whole thing is dense and chewy, the body aided by a slightly gritty yeast fuzz, but not one that gets in the way of the hops. And yet it's not hot or soupy, partly thanks to the invigorating low temperatures they serve their beer at, but also because of an almost astringent dryness in the finish, of the sort usually found in much stronger hop bombs. Overall it's a monster of balance: banging out the hops, piling in the booze, but staying clean and very drinkable. Get it while it's fresh.

Despite my diligence I thought I'd missed their Dubliner Weisse so was pleased to find it at their tap-takeover in The Big Romance last Thursday. It was my first visit to Dublin's height-of-cool hangout for beer, vinyl and toasties. Far from a traditional Berliner weisse, this beer is 4.7% ABV and brewed with added raspberry, lactose and vanilla. It is, therefore, not sour: showing just a smooth tang on the finish. Before that it's a riot of candy fruit: cherry lips and Refresher chews, the sweetness building to a jammy finish with an almost sugary crunch. I managed a whole pint but it was starting to get a little cloying by the finish.

On the day it was released another brewery produced a very different beer with the exact same name. Third Circle's Dubliner Weisse is a straighter sort of Berliner. At least I think it is: I got a blast of lemon zest from the first sip, though the Citra hops may have something to do with that. Behind this there's an intense stony dryness; a kind of cement grit I associate with lambic beers from De Troch in particular. This is definitely a beer of two halves: one I enjoyed and one I didn't. At just 3.8% ABV it is refreshing and quenches the thirst, which is what I was after, but that harsh mineral finish rubbed me up the wrong way. I understand it's a one-off, thus solving the naming issue, so if you want to compare notes with me, try it soon.

Sibling brand Stone Barrel have had their Slammer nano IPA on the market for a while but I only recently got round to trying it. I was thirsty so wasn't too bothered about the murky appearance. The aroma was enticing: ripe mandarin and a touch of peppery spice. It's the latter that forms the main part of the flavour: a mix of white pepper and nutmeg -- not what you might expect from an IPA. Behind it is a serious bitter dankness, all steaming grass cuttings and dark boiled spinach. Fruit, mostly grapefruit, plays a very minor third-level role in all this. The texture is light rather than watery, and it achieved the task I set it: the quenching of a thirst. Yes I think it would be a better beer if cleaner and clearer, but I would definitely be happy to slam a few of these in a row.

Returning to drinking at the source, The Porterhouse staged a grand launch event for the new(ish) brewery last month. With it came two brand new releases, further signs of this veteran keeping up with current beer trends.

First up is the session IPA Be.Low, at 3.6% ABV. It's quite a pithy and bitter job; dry with a powdered chalky finish. I found it a little severe for session drinking, and dare I say not very modern: take that how you will. Slow sipping gave time for some fruit esters to emerge as it warmed but it's still not great. Porterhouse representatives have been using the creation of this beer to deflect calls for the return of TSB. It will not do.

A Milkshake IPA is not something I'd ever have expected to see from the venerable House of Porter, but here we are. It's not a total bandwagon-jumper, eschewing basic strawberry and raspberry for more exotic starfruit and prickly pear. The latter is a favourite flavour of mine, and one I don't think I've encountered in beer before. It's pleasingly dominant too, adding a kooky pink-bubblegum taste. The lactose flavour is muted, appearing only right at the end, though I'm guessing it adds the creamy texture. The substantial 6% ABV probably helps too. The middle has a proper hop bitterness -- a hard and green vegetal note injecting much needed grown-up seriousness. The only real downside for me was the aroma: an off-putting artificial plastic thing. Overall, though, it's a fun addition to the line-up.

The latest seasonal release from JW Sweetman is a nitro red ale, a style which doesn't stir my enthusiasm, though we're promised bonus American hops in this Washington Red. It's red all right, a gleaming shade of copper. Though the flavour is muted by the cold nitrogen, it has a decent amount of fruit character, predominantly strawberry and red apple, leading to quite a hard grapefruit bitterness in the finish. Between the two sides there is enough going on to hold one's attention for the duration of a pint, while the smoothness ensures easy drinking. It won't set anyone's world alight, and there's better beer in the core range, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, if you must have a nitro red.

For Indie Beer Week I visited Priory Brewing in Tallaght for their open evening. It's an ambitious set of plans they have for their current near-nano set-up. My main mission was to try their recently released grodziskie, Holy Smoke, a particularly light one at 2.8% ABV. It's a very anaemic yellow but isn't thin in texture nor lacking flavour. The smoke is laid on luxuriously thick, bringing a certain sweetness too, like maple-cured, or even candied, bacon. This fades to leave a refreshingly dry finish, without any of the harshness or acridity you sometimes get from this sort. Overall it's fun, interesting, but still extremely sessionable and refreshing.

For more frivolous sour action there's Hope Limited Edition 15: Pineapple and Passion Fruit Sour. This is dark orange coloured and has a clean tangyness, the sour much more restrained than in, for example, the Third Circle Weisse above. I'm not sure I would have guessed the fruit, though fruit is definitely present. It's not quite as sweet as real pineapple nor as passionfruity as passionfruit tends to be. I might have guessed mango or guava instead. It's good, though. Nicely balanced between the fruit and the tang, with neither dominating.

More citrus? How about a new one from honorary Dublin brewery Trouble? Amanda Rin is a pale ale with mandarin in it. The bitterness is very low, and here the fruit brings a kind of floral perfume vibe: lavender and Turkish delight; chew sweets and Parma Violets. Orangeade too, of course, or even Tanora. I'm guessing this is designed to be easy-going summer drinking and it succeeds at that, although the ABV is a little high at 5%. Subtle and complex don't apply here; enjoyable does, however.

That's it for today. The backlog-clearance of Irish beers will continue through the week.

Tropical Norway

Norwegian beer is a little thin on the ground around here at the moment, so today I'm raising a glass to the randomness of Marks & Spencer's selection, whence came this first pair.

First up is Dag, a pale ale from Ægir. It flopped out of the wide-mouthed can forming a tall stack of foam which faded quickly. I think the pour may have knocked a lot of the fizz out of it as it's barely sparkling. From the rose-gold colour I was expecting a significant malt contribution in the flavour but it does live up to its "sitrus" billing, with a spritzy blend of mandarin, satsuma and lemon. The bitterness is restrained and the hops get busy with fruit instead, plus an off-kilter herbs-and-coconut effect. Served colder than I had it, this would be a great refresher, and though not malt forward in taste it has plenty of texture for a mere 4% ABV. A solid effort, overall.

Amundsen is a new brewer to me, the offer a very unNordic passionfruit pale ale called Lorita. Again with the pull-off can lid, and again with the low carbonation. This one is a pale and hazy pineapple yellow and the passionfruit gets most of its business done in the aroma: all fresh and juicy. That takes an unexpected about-face when it comes to tasting: more cordial than fresh fruit, and with a wide streak of dankly bitter hops. The contrasting flavours took a bit of getting used to, but I came round to them eventually. I think I was expecting a total fruitbomb -- as passionfruit usually delivers -- whereas it's actually balanced and properly complex. There's a lasting finish of tangy and fresh citrus hops. While I'm generally disapproving of the adding of fruit syrups to pale ales, if you absolutely must, this isn't a bad example of how to balance it.

Away from M&S, I have another tropical-tasting Norwegian beer in my notes so I may as well wedge it in here. Lervig's Liquid Sex Robot showed up on tap in UnderDog a while back and, despite the puerile branding ("double dry-humped"; "orgasm in a can") is a very decent IPA. It's a bright and hazy orange colour, 7.9% ABV, and quite old-world sweet to begin: I got orange cordial and boiled candy on the first sugary sips. Yet, cleverly, it doesn't feel too heavy and there's no building, cloying, weight. Instead, the late stages bring a fresh and spritzy hit of mango and mandarin which balance the intensity and make for some remarkably easy drinking. Perhaps a little too easy for a full-strength double IPA, though: it's less of a complex and chewy palate-pounder than most and I can't help thinking that maybe all that alcohol is just for show and doesn't really bring anything useful to the taste.

The fruited pale ale is the best of the set? Norway is crazy.

Tinfoil hat time

The true beer adventurer checks out the cheapie Lithuanian cans in the supermarket, searching for any traces of that country's unique brewing culture sneaking through unnoticed. So it is with this pair from Volfas Engelman in Kaunas, purchased in my local supermarket for €2.20 a pop and both sporting natty metal headgear, presumably to keep the rat piss off.

I wasn't expecting an explosion of honey and sourdough from the Pilzeno, mind. "The bitterness you feel is from the old formula of various aromatic hops" is the epitaph-worthy inscription on the full-pint can. The beer itself is a wan pale yellow, mostly clear with a few suspended bits, and an approachable 4.7% ABV. It tastes, or at least feels, stronger: weighty and thick, like a märzen or bock. The flavour is simpler, however, being bready like a Dortmunder, low on hops and finishing quickly and cleanly, with only a trace of fruit esters. I deem it insufficiently hopped for a proper pils but it's still quite tasty. There's the satisfying filling quality of a stronger lager and... oh! I get a tiny pinch of honey right on the end, perhaps showing a little Lithuanian character after all. Your €2.20 goes a respectably long way with this one.

Beside it in on the shelf was Rinktinis, literally "Select". A little stronger at 5.2% ABV and altogether more polished looking: clear golden with a lasting head. It doesn't taste markedly different to the previous one, being a similarly weighty pale lager, emphasising its malt side with little contribution from the hops. The clarity means it's crisper than the other, but that comes at the expense of character: there's certainly no honey or fruit. It was heavier going and definitely harder to find things to say about.

Overall these are a solidly Germanic pair, not as interesting as I'd hoped but still worth throwing a handful of change at when you fancy a lager you haven't tried before.

Black ballast

UnderDog recently staged a takeover of Ballast Point barrel-aged offerings. It was the place to be if you like 'em dark and strong. I went along the day after to see what was left. Plenty, as it turned out.

Sea Monster (right of picture) is an imperial stout at 12.4% ABV, this being the Willet bourbon edition. The aroma is a gorgeous mix of rich cocoa and creamy Irish coffee plus a slightly savoury autolytic note. Its texture is nicely full, and it generates a subtle warmth without excessive heat. In the flavour I found a dialectical struggle between chocolate and bourbon: both out, loud, and proud. The first few sips were far too easy to drink, but it did turn a little curdling in the stomach before long. Not a session beer, then.

I was thoroughly intrigued by the description of Indra Kunindira, a barrel aged curry stout. I mean, what's not to like? This one is a mere 7% ABV and has spent time in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. That hasn't muted the mix of curry spices, which are very apparent in the flavour: separate and distinct from the beer flavours. They add a fun savoury complexity and a mild spicing to a chocolate-filled base. The bourbon adds a substantial amount of vanilla to this, and it all narrowly avoids being a complete mess. The chilli pepper and coconut save it, however: that's the bit that raised a smile every time I took a sip. More curry beer please, brewers.

Round two brought a Brandy Barrel Aged Belgian Quad at 12.7% ABV. It's almost as black as the rest and the flavour is much more savoury than I was expecting from the description: an almost acrid, hard, earwax effect. The booze heat rescues it, mellowing the beer and dulling the drinker's senses. There's a certain classy spirit charm in the finish, a happy belly-warmth, but effort is involved to get there.

On the other side, a red wine Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout. It's like all the water evaporated out of the fruit as it fermented and what was left for the beer has a hard and concentrated jam quality. It tastes powerfully of raspberry and strawberry. All that sugar leaves very little room for stout, just a dusting of milky chocolate pudding with a hint of vanilla. I want imperial stout to be big and bitter and boozy, but this is none of those things. It's a fruity milksop. Passable. Fun, even. But not the good stuff.

I actually don't know how we fitted in a third set, but anyway that featured Piper Down, on the left there, a scotch ale here in its bourbon-aged form. It's 7.8% ABV, a deep brown colour and quite flat, with just the thinnest of heads. I thought the texture was a little thin but that could be just in comparison with what had gone before. Oak dominates the flavour, sitting next to an intensely sweet maple syrup effect. Bourboning-up an already sweet beer style isn't a great idea in general and I think Ballast Point have just about got away with making something palatable out of it.

The other brown lad there is Navigator, a doppelbock. They aged this in a brandy barrel, and I'll admit I was suspicious of any attempt to "enhance" a lager in this way, however strong and dark the starting beer may be. It finished at 10.7% ABV -- definitely overclocked for a doppelbock. But it tasted fantastic. The sour aroma was a little off-putting but this translates to a lip-smacking vinous quality on tasting: port or madeira. The wholesome cookie malt base remains in place and you get to enjoy the classic lager aspects alongside the barrel-aged complexity. Very nicely done.

That was it for the barrels, but a couple of weeks later another dark Ballast Point job showed up on tap. Mocha Marlin is a coffee porter at a modest 6% ABV. It is extremely coffee, from the real mocha aroma to the oily ristretto flavour -- sharply astringent and harshly dry -- to the earthy spent-grounds finish. That's all well and good if you like coffee, but some of us like porter too, and there's absolutely no sign of the base beer under this: any roast or chocolate notes from the malt have been unceremoniously subsumed by the additions. No doubt it will have fans, but I found it hard to like.

They don't much go in for subtlety at Ballast Point, and I wasn't really expecting to find any here. There were some interesting flavour combinations, though. If nothing else, it was an education on the ways of wood.

Three beers from 100 bridges

All going well, by the time this is published I'll be in Wrocław. It's the home of the Stu Mostów brewery, which has become a regular fixture at the Galway Bay pubs in Dublin. I thought I'd better get my notes on their range up before I have a bucketful of other Polish beers to tell you about.

At the January tap-takeover in The Black Sheep I gravitated straight to Salamander Black IPA, a beer style I try to encourage where possible. This was a good example, redolent with spices and herbs, with liquorice in particular, alongside peppery red cabbage. The dry roast bitterness is perhaps a little higher than I'd like, especially given the quite thick and sticky consistency, and the prodigious 6.8% ABV. Overall, though, it had enough complexity of flavour to prevent any of the extremes from dominating completely.

I followed that with WRCLW Pils. This is a beautiful example, showing the kind of creaminess normally only found in the finest German pilsners. It's packed with bitterness too, offering loads of spinach, as well as a certain level of diacetyl which adds a richness rather than being an off-flavour. This is a wonderful harnessing of all that makes good pilsner great.

A short while later I was in Against the Grain where WRCLW Imperial Stout was pouring. The tap badge says it's nitrogenated but it really didn't look it: just a thin skim of ivory bubbles which faded to nothing very quickly. The body is jet black and there's plenty of density, fitting for its 11% ABV. The flavour was too sweet for my liking, however: lots of banana esters, plus sugary toffee and milky coffee. There's a modest bitter herbal kick in the finish but it's not hard enough to bring the rest of it to heel. A big slice of banoffee with a liquorice chew on the side? I'll pass.

The forecast for the coming weekend in Wrocław is a warm one. If I have to stay to drinking pils that won't be a hardship on this showing.

Wegbiere

Even though there aren't many Wetherspoon pubs in Ireland they still come in useful as places to grab a quick pint on the way to somewhere else. Two such in today's post.

I could have sworn I've had Ringwood Old Thumper before. It's certainly not a rare beer, available bottled in Ireland and frequently on cask in the UK at the pubs of its parent brewer, Marstons. But I couldn't find a review of it so here we are, tapping this out in a laptop in The Linen Weaver, Cork's JD Wetherspoon, ahead of the 2019 Easter Beer Festival at Franciscan Well. It's a 5.1% ABV strong ale, a dark red colour and thickly textured. The flavour is rich and fruity, bringing ripe strawberries, plump raisins and a marmalade bitterness. This picture is completed by a wholesome brown-bread base. While not an exciting beer, it's a very decent take on the style, offering plenty of flavour; balanced though leaning towards the malt. I'm sorry I left it this long.

A month later and the O'Brien's Summer Drinks Festival took place at their Blanchardstown branch. I popped in to The Great Wood across the way since I was in the neighbourhood. The only unfamiliar beer they had on was Admiral, an English-hopped IPA from Acorn in Barnsley. It arrived a dark ochre colour and tasting every inch the old-school bitter. Strong tea and milk chocolate were the mainstays of the flavour, with no discernible hop aroma or flavour, just a harsh metallic bitterness. This made for quite tough drinking. While it was definitely well-kept and showed no off-flavours, it still felt flabby and tired. A throwback that's difficult to throw back.

I expect there'll be a lot more of these random drop-in cask ales featuring on this blog once the central Dublin branches of Wetherspoon open.

They go low

If low-to-no-alcohol beer is going to be the coming thing in beer -- and it seems to be -- that ought to be reflected in these pages. Here, then, are a smattering of that genre being given the usual once-over.

Vedett Extra Session IPA offers some alcohol, all of 2.7%, enough for a bit of a tax break in some European jurisdictions. The visuals aren't great: it pours like an American light lager, a watery yellow with the head crackling quickly away to nothing. "Powerful citrus" is promised on the label, and the aroma is certainly lemony. It tastes like lemonade at first, then introduces a plethora of Belgian herbs, adding more than a hint of bath salts or, more uncharitably, Lush shop. There's not much of a base to carry it, and it's up to you to read that as unacceptable wateriness or refreshing lightness. I can see both sides. On balance, I think I liked it. It doesn't do anything strange or clever within the spec, but it's also a boldly flavoured hop-forward session IPA, one I could drink more than one of.

At the bottom of the scale is Mikkeller's Drink'in the Sun, an "American style wheat ale" at just 0.3% ABV. I'd seen lots of mentions of it but hadn't previously taken the time to give it a spin. The appearance is promising: a bright and slightly hazy orange-gold. The texture is a little watery, and there's a worty sweetness of the sort I associate with the mainstream no-alcohol beers. However, the hopping is assertive and interesting. I get summery notes of mandarin, pineapple and coconut, finishing on an aspirin bitterness. I really wanted to like this but I feel it doesn't quite work. The wort and the aspirin undermine the good work of the hops, removing its ability to be properly refreshing, the way full-strength beer is.

A teensy bit stronger is Brooklyn's Special Effects at 0.4% ABV. It's a dark lager, pouring a handsome shade of auburn. They've badged it as "hoppy" and indeed there's a very pleasant lemony tang at the front of the flavour. This bitterness builds quickly, passing through grapefruit before turning to aspirin. It fades just as fast, though, so no harm done. The body is light and clean though there is a certain sweet wortiness hovering in the background. It's counteracted by a dry black-tea quality, which combines well with the hops to make it genuinely refreshing. I doubt anyone would mistake this for an alcoholic beer -- the tell-tale compromises are there -- but I actively enjoyed drinking it. It doesn't over-reach the way the Mikkeller one does.

Shout-out to my boy Quentin for recommending this next one: Perlenbacher IPA Non Alcoholic from Lidl. 0.5% ABV, it's amber coloured and smells worty, but in a good way, like a brewery at work. This is a major part of the flavour too, and there's a lemon hop flavour and a tang of aspirin, very similar in profile to the previous beer, but lighter and lesser. The texture is quite thin too. I think this needs a little more bitterness to make it taste closer to real beer and offset the busy malt. There's nothing unpleasant about it, however and it works well as a thirst-quencher.

This can of Flat Tire from Swedish brewer Brutal aka Pistonhead came as a freebie from Geoff in 57 The Headline. It's also 0.5% ABV and pours a wan cidery yellow with no head to speak of. Mosaic and Centennial are the signature hops, and sure enough there's a mix of the citrus and tropical notes they're known for. The wortiness is down to a minimum and there's a deliciously dry base for the hops to perform on. This one tastes closest to real beer of the set, just not a very good beer. Like the Vedett, the lack of malt substance to carry the flavour lets it down. I could still see myself drinking a few in succession, however, which can't be said for most of them.

And one of our own to finish: Main Sail from Dungarvan brewing, the only 0.5% ABV beer from an Irish micro that I'm aware of. So far, anyway. It's a bit thin and slightly worty but does a great job with the compensatory hops. There's a lovely crisp citrus bitterness with notes of lemon cookies and sherbet. This is every bit as good as the hoppy non-alcoholic offerings from many much bigger breweries.

Vedett wins this round: the benefit of having between five and nine times the alcohol content of the others. It seems you can't just strip the stuff out and expect things to taste as good. The Pistonhead one shows that adding loads of good hops really helps, however.