SMASH mouth

Self-proclaimed Single-Malt-And-Single-Hop beers were all the rage in the early days of Ireland's current beer boom but fell out of favour, perhaps as breweries grew up and found their feet. Not that White Hag hasn't already learned the ropes thoroughly, but here they are with four new SMASH IPAs badged the "Union Series".

With the first pair, I considered a blind tasting to see which I prefer, then decided I'd rather just enjoy them like a semi-normal person. It happens occasionally. All are 5.5% ABV and lightly hazy, with Strata being the first I opened. The aroma is a bright mix of citrus and spice: mandarin and incense, mango and cut grass. There's a fun funky side to the flavour, tasting of ripe and mushy tropical fruit pulp. A different sort of sweetness comes from a mild marzipan element. This is balanced by a dry rasp of cap-gun smoke, finishing on a sterner lemon-peel bitterness. Most of all it tastes fresh: the flavours loud and distinct. Single-hop beers often lack complexity, and while this isn't a multi-dimensional wonderland it has two individual sides to explore and enjoy.

Looking identical, but made with Galaxy, is SMASH IPA Galaxy. The aroma is less punchy, but there's a  similar mix of soft fruit and firework spices, with the latter's brimstone waft being most prominent. Once upon a time, Galaxy was the last word in juicy hops, spilling oodles of mandarin and satsuma. Maybe the goalposts have moved because I didn't get any of that from this. The sulphury spice thing is the main act, and I'm guessing that's more a yeast residue characteristic than hops. There's a faint orangey tang behind it, fading to a metallic buzz before finishing on a harsh watery fizz. This is much less impressive than the Strata one. It's tolerable, refreshing even, but not the Galaxy showcase I was anticipating. Funny how these things work.

Round two brought Idaho 7 as the first of the pair I opened. There's quite a dry and pithy aroma here, suggesting it'll be a little severe to taste. It's not really. The flavour is more marmaladey orange and lime rind, with plenty of balancing sugar. You get a little oily dank with your hard citrus, but not much else by way of complexity. It tails off on fizz, like Club Orange or Orangina: something with bits in anyway. This isn't an exciting piece, and suffers from exactly the one-dimensional quality I feared I would find in the Strata. There's a certain modern-hop ennui from the punchy bitterness and weedy resins. American hops have been doing this for a couple of decades; we didn't need Idaho 7 to come along and start doing it too. It's far from an unpleasant drinking experience, but doesn't offer anything new.

Neither was I expecting anything new from Citra: we all know what that stuff tastes like at this stage. Or so I thought. There's an almost smoky buzz to the savoury aroma here -- not what I normally get from Citra. This is elaborated upon on tasting, with fried onion being the first flavour to spring to mind. Lemon and lime arrives later, but it's soft, not sharp, and the fuzzy murk taste is loud enough to make itself felt through it. Much like the Galaxy one, this brings a hop I thought I knew, but presents it in an understated and slightly disappointing way. There are better Citra beers around than this, though I'll admit not all of them are single hopped.

Despite only one proper hit out of four beers, I hope White Hag keeps the Union Series going. Aside from the soundness of the concept -- 440ml of 5.5% ABV IPA is the Goldilocks Zone for trying out a hop -- there just isn't enough of this kind of educational experimentation on the beer market these days, and there are so many new hops to try. Bring them on!

On the lash

Whiplash puns. They're running short. But the beers keep coming. Five today, the first three with a Belgian angle.

The previous trilogy included a grisette and this one starts there too, with Grisette Traminer, 4.1% ABV and intriguingly including lychee, orange zest and rose flower among the ingredients. It's the sickly pale yellow of wallpaper paste and smells like a full-on saison: peppery, funky and floral, all at once. It's quite fizzy, which interferes with the desired white-wine effect, but that emerges once it settles on the palate. I think it's the combination of Hallerau Blanc hops with the rose which gives it a convincing Gewürztraminer perfume taste. It's fun, and the saisony funk prevents it from turning silly or gimmicky. Though light bodied, there's plenty of complexity to keep it interesting, while it also manages to be thirst-quenching and palate-scrubbing. An all round good time, then.

Belgian Pale Ale is not an en vogue style for fashionistas so fair play to Whiplash for taking a punt. Always Half Strange is their contribution: Hallertau Blanc (again), Azacca and BRU-1, 5.7% ABV and hazy as you like. Or don't like, but it's hazy. It smells Belgian, all farmyard funk and rough yeasty waxiness. The flavour also has that raw and very Belgian unfiltered quality; a little bit saison and a little bit tripel, but nothing of British or American pale ale. I get fuzzy apricot skin, straw-strewn barnyard and a pinch of grapefruit. It's heavy, chewy even, and built for sipping. As it warms, a more floral side unfolds, all rosewater and lavender. I could well believe this came from one of the more modern and progressive Belgian breweries so I guess it passes the style test, and it's actually enjoyable even if I was hoping for something cleaner and sharper. Adjust your stylistic expectations and you'll be fine on it.

A tripel brings this first set to a conclusion. The USP for Backdrifts is that it's brewed with oats. There's no half measures with the ABV, clocking in at a sizeable 9%. They've used orange zest, which had me expecting a degree of citrus bitterness but it's surprisingly tropical, smelling and tasting of pineapple, coconuts and cantaloupe. There's a Belgian complexity behind this sunny fun: white pepper plus apricot esters. I think I prefer my tripels with less fruit and more spice, but this is still a damn good example. I'm especially impressed by how it uses the alcohol heft to push the multifaceted flavour without turning hot or any way difficult to drink. There's an elegance to the architecture here that's better than many a Belgian example.

Whiplash isn't just about New England IPAs, then. This set may be an aberration, but I'll take them. I was left wondering what are the chances of something clear or dark next?

My answer came not long after with two new hazy pale ales.

First up was Honest Promise, brewed for UK retailer Honest Brew but on sale here too. It's the familiar pale yellow of pineapple juice and smells nicely tropical to match. It goes all in with that on tasting. Pineapple indeed, but lots of mango and guava as well. A juicily thick texture suits the flavour, though the finish is quick and clean. I don't miss the lack of bitterness -- it doesn't try to complicate matters unnecessarily. Only a mild dry and gritty bite, presumably from the unfiltered murk, bugged me a little. Otherwise, this is a happy little number, easy drinking and flavoursome. Maybe it would have been nicer to have it under the 5% ABV mark, but never mind. Good job.

I'm sure there's a story behind Sophie De Vere's graphic for Jupiters but I don't mind not knowing what it is. I'll take weird-for-the-sake-of-weird. This is another pale ale, a tiny bit stronger at 5.1% ABV, and a denser eggy yellow. Galaxy and Denali are the hops. It's another dry and gritty base, this time without the sunshine-saturated hopping to offset it. I found it rather serious. There's a strange sort of rotten-fruit funk in both the aroma and flavour. Suspecting Denali, I went looking for previous reviews of beers using the hop and found myself describing it a few years ago as "sweaty". That's it. It's a sort of stale musky, musty thing; the opposite of fresh. This was not the transcendent celestial experience I had wanted. At the risk of sounding basic, I prefer my hazy pale ales to be juicy, not dry.

Whiplash has been a standalone brewery for a year now. Though they have a strong international reputation for cloudy double IPAs, it's nice that they give the local market plenty more besides.

January already?

For some time now I've been of the opinion that stout is the ideal style for alcohol-free beer. For a start there's all those lovely non-beer dark malt drinks, plus the excellent Švyturys GO Juodas, and then the couple of experiments from the Guinness Open Gate Brewery which turned out well. Diageo has now gone all-in with a full-production Guinness 0.0. It differs from the experimental ones, and their Pure Brew NA lager, by starting out as normal Guinness from the bright tank and is then de-alcoholised and re-flavoured with fructose and other non-specified additives. They sent me a couple of cans to try out.

As expected, it's fairly convincing. The texture is spot on, so it certainly feels like drinking a Guinness, and there's the tangy sour bite at the top which is the Guinness signature move. The seams are more visible when you look closer: that sweet and worty effect which plagues non-alcoholic beers is present, but neatly muted by bitterness and roast. There's also a lingering metallic edge which I don't think you get in clean-to-the-point-of-bland Guinness. So it's not flawless, but simply by being a stout it's streets ahead of the other dealcoholised options out there.

This is very much an idea whose time has come and I can see it doing well.

Edit on 11/11/2020: Diageo have just announced a total product recall due to microbiological contamination. I haven't suffered any ill effects but you can't be too careful.

Expand your mind, extend your brand

I've been working through some of what's on offer from Oskar Blues at the moment, beginning with Slow Chill, badged as a Munich-style Helles. It's weird and inappropriate to get one of these in a small can so I picked a wide glass to help make it seem bigger. Apart from the quantity, the appearance is bang-on: a crystal clear pale gold with a lasting layer of fine foam. The aroma is quite biscuity, with a touch of lemon spritz. The texture, again, is beyond reproach, being pillow-soft and sinkable.

I don't think they've quite nailed the flavour, however. While there's a sufficient malt element it's not the fresh white bread of the Bavarian real thing but quite a worty dry-malt-extract sweetness. The bitterness is too high as well; a grassy kick more like you'd find in a northern pils that conflicts with the sweet malt side instead of complementing it. There's an aftereffect of fluffy effervescence which is pleasant, but takes away any sensation of crispness. Not a bad effort, overall, but not something that'll convince any regular drinkers of actual Munich Helles. I'm sure the brewery will be on better form with the IPAs.

From a Slow Chill to a Thick Haze, presented as a New England-style IPA though not completely hazy and with a fair whack of bitterness. It's not even very thick, though it is a full 7% ABV. While the aroma is peachy and tropical, the first hit from the flavour is an intense pithiness with added lemon rind and damp grass. Late on there's a brief flash of peach and mango but it makes way for the return of the bitterness, giving the beer a waxy finish. I wonder were they aiming at cloning the flavour profile of Heady Topper -- my memory of that one arose while I was drinking. It's not what I was expecting, but overall I liked it. There's plenty of poke from the hops and the booze. IPAs really are the go-to style for Oskar Blues.

I highly enjoyed the Can-O-Bliss Tropical I had back in the summer. It turns out that the brewery has a slew of C-O-B variants available for the curious and brand-loyal. Sign me up, I guess.

First of those today is Can-O-Bliss Hazy, sticking with the series-mandated 7.2% ABV. Once again it's light on drugs, big on old-school citrus pith. You get a noseful of freshly-peeled satsuma and a flavour packed with dry tannins, incense spicing and full-shred marmalade. Mwah! It's like a hot whiskey but without the whiskey, and very easy going despite the strength. Hazy? Well it's not clear, but nor is it the custard emulsion that the cool kids insist upon. This is another blousey beauty; full strength yet accessible, with enough complexity to hold your attention without being at all busy. Is there a danger that these are all a bit samey? A cynical attempt at drawing in the tickers with different labellings of basically the same beer? To test this I immediately opened...

... Can-O-Bliss Citrus: same strength and looking the same translucent orange-yellow. This lacks the dryness in the aroma but has a similar orangey effect beyond that. As the name implies, it's much more bitter: an abrasive tang right from the first sip. The malt body helps balance that, and when the initial hit of gastric acid fades there's an exotic mix of jaffa pith, coconut oil and pine resin. They've called it citrus but it's through that and out the other side: a more intense, concentrated blend of exotic flavours. It's not very exciting though. I liked the kick, the punch, the rasp, but it doesn't finish anywhere nice. It's unbalanced. Though it's not unpleasant, I prefer both of the previous takes.

The latest edition to hit the shelves locally is Can-O-Bliss Resinous. It's cool to see that word front and centre on a label, but would the beer deliver? The appearance is as usual and there's the same lightly fruitsome aroma. It's sweet and tropical to begin and I had to look for the resin: I don't think I'd have picked this as "the resinous one" from a blind line-up. There is a certain oily dank that emerges as it warms but it's not the main feature. We're back in Satsuma Town for that. My scepticism about the series consisting of very similar IPAs was rekindled. I can't complain about the beer or its quality, mind.

Top of the line is Can-O-Bliss Double IPA at 8.2% ABV.  The visual theme continues here: an eggy yellow shade. Big hop and big malt jump out of the aroma right from the start: a warm lemon drink with a toffee on the side. That toffee thing is very strong in the flavour; intensely sweet to the point of turning tangy. The Citra comes in next but is held in check by the malt, delivering quite a mild charge of limey bitterness. There's plenty of more nuanced hop flavour too, including a clean and zesty citrus sorbet and a juicy mandarin-and-passionfruit angle. After a moment or two it's possible to forget how strong and sweet it is and just enjoy the hop party. This is a beer out for a good time. Be careful with it.

My affinity for the Can-O-Bliss series remeains unshaken, and I will be buying more as and when they appear. You can take it from me that it's a sign of good American IPA.

All passion, no fashion

A new trilogy from the Third Barrel collective today, all styles that have fallen out of favour in recent times, for no good reason probably.

The first is an India Pale Lager under the Stone Barrel marque, called Get Some. It seemed a little flat as it poured, though maybe I had it chilled down a little too far. The aroma offers a pleasant buzz of juicy mandarin and mango, from a liquid that's an almost perfect clear golden amber. It's only 4.6% ABV and that helps keep it easy drinking. Those fruity Loral hops, too, are subtle and mannerly, not interfering with the work of the crisp, clean and refreshing lager beneath. Summer is past, but I can enjoy a sunny lager like this at any time of the year.

American wheat beer never really caught on here, with the exception of Carlow's Curim, still out there 22 years after it was first brewed. Third Circle Speaking Easy is a dry-hopped example of the style, though we are not given to know with what. It looks like a witbier: yellow and hazy, though the head isn't up to much. There's kind of a tropical fruit pulp funk in the aroma: ripe pineapple in particular. I was expecting that to unfold in the flavour, but it doesn't really. There's a soft wheaty texture and a dry grain flavour but the hops are very muted. A lemony bitterness, with a sprinkling of coconut, builds as it goes, but it's otherwise quite bland. There's nothing wrong with this but I don't really get what it's meant to be.

I was not anticipating any blandness from today's final beer, Break From the Haze: a west coast IPA of 8.5% ABV in the Third Barrel range. It looks polished and perfect, an enticing rose-gold colour and completely clear. There's an interesting balance here. The high gravity gives it a density and a certain golden-syrup sweetness, and then there's the scorchingly dry and bitter west-coast effect, the hops rasping across the palate and down the back of the throat, accompanied by a stimulating peppery spice. It's not as boldly flavoured as I was expecting, but it's good, making full use of that strength to deliver something sippable and satisfying. Though not badged as a double IPA it brings some of the chewy warmth that the good ones have.

That's a full fortnight of blog posts, selecting more or less randomly from what's on offer, featuring not a single New England IPA. Could the hazy reign of terror be finally coming to an end?

A wolf in the shadows

With dark beers not exactly en vogue at the moment, it's pleasing that one of the island's best breweries, Wicklow Wolf, has a fan of them at the helm. I almost whooped when I saw that Locavore 2020 was going to be a stout again, but before that, two more from the dark side of Newtownmountkennedy.

Guardian of the Galaxy is a collaboration with DOT Brew and is a double black IPA. It's a style that has always been niche, but Galway Bay's Solemn Black and YellowBelly's Bushido have been stellar examples and set the bar high. I like that they chose the hops not based on the sensory effect of their combination but on the spacey names: Galaxy, Strata and Comet. It smells like it worked: that gorgeous mix of green veg, citrus fruit and fresh coffee that shouldn't gel together but it does. There's a little extra candy in there, suggesting this won't be as bitter as most of the breed. That proved to be an unfair prejudice: there's dank and resins aplenty on tasting, as well as lots of citrus pith. There was something a little artificial about the latter: marmalade, shading to jelly. The ingredients cleared that up by listing blood orange (extract? oil? syrup?), and I don't think that adds anything positive, but it's separate enough from the dark malts and dank hops to not interfere. On the malt side it's not so much roasty as smoky, a balanced kind of acridity, and the finish is proper new-world hop bittering; the sort of dryness that big black IPA presents better than any other style. There's enough novelty here for those who like silly craft beer, but there's a no-nonsense backbone too. A warmth from 8% ABV makes it ideal after-dark winter drinking.

Also 8% ABV is Apex Tiramisu, third in the Let's Fuck About With A Perfectly Good Oatmeal Stout series. The dessert effect is achieved with coffee, cocoa nibs and lactose. It smells strongly of coffee, one of those dense ristrettos made of barely-diluted beans. The coffee effect is there in the foretaste too, though a little gentler tasting. It's a coffee richness, not just roast and bitterness. But that's about it for complexity. Having crunched the bean on the surface and licked the coffee powder, I expect the cream cheese and boozy sponge to come next in a tiramisu but they don't materialise here. What you get is a jolly decent big coffee stout, untroubled by lactose or brown sugar. I like that. It tastes serious, grown up, and un-fucked-about-with. If you were looking for a stout that actually tastes like tiramisu the way the S'mores one last month tasted of s'mores then you'll be disappointed, but you deserve that. This is punchy, dry and stimulating; a real, how you say, pick-me-up.

Neither beer is perfect, but both kept me happy all through drinking them. Is this Ireland's best dark-beer brewery? Lineman might be up for the challenge but the wolf still leads the pack.

Running dogs

Today it's one of my occasional glances at some of the many BrewDog beers coming and going on the local market at the moment. There's no particular pattern to the selection.

Pale Ale is first. Wot no adolescent garage band name? This is a recent addition to their core range, sorry, "Headliners", replacing the rightfully much-derided Indie from a couple of years back. This, too, is 4.2% ABV but it brings a proper hop game, with Chinook, Citra and Simcoe. It's a reasonably clear pale amber and has a decent level of thickness on the palate; not watery and with just enough fizz to propel the hop fun. The aroma is lightly spritzy; inviting without being loud, while the flavour neatly combines cloudy lemonade and grapefruit juice with a danker funky side, but also some juicy mango and peach. It's complex enough to keep this beer nerd interested, while also easy-going, unfussy and well suited to by-the-pint drinking. Not very rock 'n' roll, but solidly decent.

I didn't know what to expect from Jagged Edge "spiky India Pale Ale" but the name and description intrigued me. It's 5.1% ABV and in the glass it's almost clear, hazed up a little with floaty bits. The aroma is mild but pleasantly tropical, in a non-committal way. It commits on tasting but I'm not entirely sure what to. The tropical fruit is there to an extent, in contravention of the can's "to the bitter end" promise. Rather than bitter it's dry -- the intense tannins of over-stewed and undrinkable tea. Then there's kind of a sulphurous rubbery twang on the end: too much boing to be spiky. Whatever new vista of beer flavour they were trying to unlock with this one, it hasn't quite worked. It's all just a bit busy, with the soft fruity hops and the hard acidic ones pulling in opposite directions. You'd be better off with Punk.

Speaking of which, the latest brand extension of the brewery's flagship is Double Punk. Kind of amazing it's taken this long. 8.2% ABV is pretty standard for one of these, and I'm deliberately not going to go comparing it to Punk even though it has the same hops or whatever. Appearance-wise it looks identical to Jagged Edge, floaty bits and all. The aroma is pure American grapefruit: what I would regard as the epitome of classic west-coast hopping. It carries that through to the flavour, presenting dry and acidic on the tongue, with just a buzz of dank resins in the background to offer some complexity. I enjoyed how straightforward it was: big hops, no messing.  It's very clean for the strength too, and although it's quite weighty and built for sipping, it's not hot. The only thing that really slows you down is the bitterness. And if you can't handle that then you shouldn't have chosen a double IPA.

I do like a sour IPA so wasn't going to pass on Fake Empire, badged as a hazy version of same. It's not too cloudy; translucent rather than opaque. The aroma is juicy satsuma, with a hint of tartness, but no more than you'd expect from an actual citrus fruit. The flavour is clean and, yes, juicy again. Technically it's sour, I suppose, but very gently so. If the intention was simply to accentuate the hop-fruit effect, then that worked. There's a pinch of lemon zest with the orange, but it's still only a light bitterness. Overall, this is balanced, accessible and very drinkable, if unnecessarily strong at 6.2% ABV. While I enjoyed it, I prefer sour IPAs to have more of a bite than was on offer here. Juice fiends will lap it up, however.

A big stout to finish: Layer Cake. This is 7% ABV and sports a huge sticky pink marshmallow flavour, with a soft texture to match. Chocolate brownie, cocoa nibs and vanilla are also promised but there's really not much chocolate in here, and zero stout for that matter. I searched for nuance: some roast, a little coffee? No, just the vanilla beans, adding a different kind of sweetness. This is a pure gimmicky novelty and barely a beer. Thankfully it's not very thick, which goes some way to keep the cloying side in check, but it's still not easy going. A full can would be a big ask. I'm OK with silly dessert beers when they're fun, but this wasn't even that. Hard pass.

What have we learned? BrewDog is still out there even if they're not in the beer headlines every day. And they still brew some very decent beers, alongside a spirit of experimentation that doesn't always hit the mark.