The Hags of summer

Three new White Hag releases for you today, all on a broadly summerish theme.

The first is a Kölsch-a-like called Keltoi, brewed in collaboration with French brewer Mont Hardi. It's a style you don't see much of from local brewers; I guess it was a stepping stone before they had the equipment for proper lager. But it has its place, and a sunny afternoon al fresco is one of them. In the glass it's crystal clear yellow, topped with a rocky head of pure white foam. It's very perfumy tasting, a sweet and sharp burst of concentrated flower petals right from the start. This fades into a gentler cantaloupe and apricot after a moment or two, but it's still no crisp-and-easy quaffer. This beer demands your attention. It's big-bodied too, despite a mere 4.8% ABV. It's not often I find myself wishing for a beer to be plainer and less complex, but I would have preferred something that tastes closer to an actual Kölsch rather than the pale ale this really is.

2021's iteration of the Púca series of fruited mixed-fermentation ales brings Pineapple to the party. Can you believe this is the sixth one? It's clearer than any previous version for some reason: the pale gold of a sweet German wine. Pineapple ice lollies and soft drinks were a regular feature of my childhood, and the aroma from this brought all those memories back. I was expecting a sweet flavour to follow so was surprised at how intensely sour it is, a real face-puckerer, at least to begin. Once you're used to it, it's possible to appreciate the lemon and pineapple flavours bopping around in the background. I wouldn't have thought of that as a natural combination but it really works: the citrus is a second sort of tartness and then the pineapple balances it. An additional herbal complexity turned out to be coriander, which was another surprise, but a pleasing one. As usual this is a mere 3.5% ABV and I think that it might work well as a summer session beer, even despite the intensity and busyness.

Sticking with fruit but shifting to IPA we finish up at the Tangerine Shebeen, a collaboration with English brewer Round Corner. It's certainly tangerine-coloured, a bright and opaque orange. There's a decent amount of juice in the aroma too, sweet enough to shade into cordial territory. I feared it might be sticky, but it's quite light, befitting the 5.7% ABV. The flavour also keeps things easy-breezy. There's a fun citrus spice up front, the sort I associate most with grapefruit rind. Then an ice-lolly orange taste takes over, but only briefly. It finishes very quickly, adding to the soft-drink feel. Nothing in here is identifiable as hops, which is a little disappointing for an IPA, but at the same time it is superbly refreshing and highly enjoyable on those terms alone.

I'll leave the Kölsch aside, but otherwise The White Hag has done a great job of bringing the summer to my beer glass a few weeks early.

The Big Three

Today's post harks back to the early days of Irish microbrewing, when the producers felt that the path to success was to copy what the mainstream was doing. As a result, every beer that came out was either a pale lager, a red ale or a stout. Things are very different nowadays, but those three styles are still around, even if they're not produced at the same rate as the myriad variations on pale ale. I've picked a handful to see how things are at the old school.

We'll start at Dublin City Brewing. Well, sort of. Even though their cans have been claiming the beer is brewed at the new facility in Parnell Street, company representatives are regularly in the media explaining they brew under contract and their own brewery will be commissioned any day now. One or the other, lads. Anyway, Pioneer Pilsner is their first limited edition, designed to be a hoppy cut above their core Liberator lager. Its rich golden colour suggests to me that they're going for something Czech style, and the malt-driven flavour confirms it for me. This is no crisp and grassy number but a smooth and biscuity experience. There is a smattering of fruit esters on top of this, but it's not too disturbing and adds to the enjoyable chewy character of the beer. While it's not exactly how I like my pils, it's a hard one to fault, other than on that questionable provenance.

The OGs of Dublin microbrewing also have a new pilsner on the scene. Porterhouse Hammer is hard to come by: you'll find it on the brewery's web shop, and I got my can at their off licence in town, but otherwise it doesn't seem to be out there. "Just like a pilsner should be" is the bold promise on the can, and at 5% ABV they're not skimping on the alcohol. It's quite a dark shade of gold, heading almost for amber, with a generous topping of fine white foam. The aroma is biscuit malt, with a tangy and almost vinegary counterpoint. The carbonation is low, showing only the faintest tingle. That vinegar thing -- white, sharp -- is present in the foretaste. Might this be why the beer isn't more widely available? It doesn't totally ruin it -- to the rescue comes a grass and wax bitterness and a grain-husk dryness. It's inescapably tangy, though, in a way that pilsner should not be. Lager has never been a Porterhouse strong point, and this one may be in need of a do-over.

Hope has gone the Czech route more explicitly with Limited Edition 24: Bohemian Pilsener. There is a little haze to the gold here, and the hops get more of a look-in than in the above. The grassiness is intense, shading over into lemon rind and hard wax. It lingers long on the palate, almost oily in intensity. There's just enough malt weight to balance this -- it's a sufficient 5% ABV. And despite the strong contrasting flavours there's a clean finish so you're done with the experience pleasingly quickly. It's not as well integrated as the real Czech thing, going for bold and brash instead of smooth. This is very much a craft take on the style, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Can art of the year so far is this beauty from Western Herd on their Loop Head pilsner. The beer inside, 4.5% ABV and hopped with Perle and Saaz, is lightly hazed again and smells very herbal, beyond Saaz's damp grass and into sage or eucalyptus territory. Crispness is promised on the label and fully delivered: it's beautifully clean and nicely dry despite a slight spongecake vibe from the malt and a soft texture. The hops aren't overdone and the elements are very well integrated. Inspecting it closely I get hints of spiced red cabbage, fresh spinach and pine nuts. Really, though, it's a beer for quaffing -- perfect session material. "2021" beams the lighthouse on the can. This deserves to continue shining longer than that.

With Irish breweries clearly capable of great lagers, it's a shame it tends to be an occasional novelty rather than something they all have in the core ranges. I blame the drinking public, of course.

On to the reds then. There aren't anywhere near as many of these around as there used to be, and breweries don't seem to feel under any obligation to brew them. A ticker seeking exclusively Irish reds in Ireland would have a hard time of it.

We'll stay with Western Herd for the first one. Their original range included one called Fox Catcher, at 5.3% ABV. Its place has now been taken by Atlantic at a more normal Irish red strength of 4%. It's quite a dark example, verging on brown. The aroma has that beery quality particular to red ales and darker bitters: lots of tannin with metallic old-world hops and a faint sticky caramel sweetness. It's all quite subtle, so the flavour was a surprise: it's intensely bitter, and almost acrid. The zinc and tin hop character sparks on the tongue and continues to smolder late into the experience. There's a softer toffee side too, but I was half way through before my palate had adjusted enough to let me taste it. There are no technical flaws here; I'm certain it's as the brewer intended it, but it's far too much of a workout for me. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan of red ale to go dictating how it should taste, but for me it should be mellow and easy-going. This is the opposite of that.

Solas Red is brewed by Rye River for Tesco and comes with a €2 price tag on the half-litre bottle. You get a handsome glassful for that: a limpid garnet colour topped by a lasting off-white foam. The aroma is bitter and roasty, and very grown-up: definitely your granddad's sort of beer. It may as well be wearing slippers and smoking a pipe. I was all ready for a charming retro experience, but... the bitterness. It's gastricly sharp, tasting almost vomit-like to begin. On the fade-out that turns to harsh tangy metal, which is less unpleasant, perhaps, but still far from enjoyable. And then in the middle there's the intense sweetness of ersatz milk chocolate with some instant coffee and strawberry jam stirred in. It's like they assembled all the elements of good red ale, but used the cheapest and nastiest version of each. I was thoroughly sick of it by the half way point, but at least the lacing on the glass was pretty. This beer is much more fun to look at than to drink.

Neither of the reds did it for me. I have no reason to miss the style then, I guess.

Now stout I would miss. And stout is still plentiful among local breweries. What I'm looking at today is your classical Irish variety, built for session drinking with no fancy ingredients. Few brewers are turning new ones of these out.

The first is from The Porterhouse, and it's very specifically one with no fancy ingredients. Porterhouse Irish Stout is the Oyster Stout they've been brewing since 1996 only minus the molluscs. I've long loved the velvety chocolate effect of Oyster so was fascinated to see how that would hold up in the changed recipe. At 4.6% ABV it occupies the middle spot between their Plain and XXXX. The aroma is certainly chocolate, with some toffee sweetness added in. It's a long time since I last had bottled Oyster, but one would miss the smoothness of the draught nitro version. This carbonated one has a pointy quality that doesn't sit well with the flavours. The milk chocolate is definitely there, though, with a minty herbal tang and a layer of hard toffee. Given a moment to warm up and flatten out it's even creamy, like the original. While there's nothing fancy going on, it's a well-made session stout and all the better for the presentation in a 500ml bottle. If the thought of oysters had been putting you off before, I strongly recommend getting hold of this.

It's back to dodgy provenance again for the last one. I am unconvinced that Sullivan's brews Black Marble on its pilot kit in Kilkenny, rather than above at Dundalk Bay where most of their production happens, though I'm happy to be corrected on that. At 5.1% ABV it's substantial, so I was expecting to enjoy it. It's a pleasingly dense black with a firm head the colour of old ivory. Bitterness, both roasted and herbal, forms the aroma, and on tasting too, it's bitter. You can add coffee to the mix, and a little of a lactic sour tang of the sort found in Guinness. It's very old-fashioned tasting, eschewing chocolate and latte and everything else sweet and cuddly, going instead for boiled veg, old tweed, liquorice and ready-rubbed. The finish is long and pinches the tongue cheekily with its acidity. Creamy this ain't, but it works. Though perhaps not as bitter as the likes of Porterhouse's XXXX, it's on that continuum. By the looks of things this is mostly intended as a draught beer and I hope I can find a tap once normality resumes. A large bottle from the cooler was great, but a pint would be sublime.

There was no nostalgia for me at the end of this set. Good pilsner and solid stout will always have their place, but nothing beats variety. I'm very glad I have the opportunity to leave and come back to drinking beers like this. Now, what IPAs do you have?

Wild new directions

They've been riffing on some familiar themes down at Wicklow Wolf, with a couple of radically different variants on pre-existing beers.

I guess there was a certain inevitability about an IPA named Call of Juicy being followed up with a black IPA named Call of Juicy: Black Hops. And here it is, number 18 in the Wicklow Wolf Endangered Species series. Like many a black IPA it's more a deep coffee brown colour than actual black. The aroma offers a lovely bang of citrus peel and green vegetables: exactly what I want from the style. The New England roots show quite considerably in its flavour, which is unusual. It's sweet, with a mix of vanilla and orange ice-pops, lacking the tarry bitterness I like in west-coast black IPAs and which is promised by the aroma. Rather than a serious palate-puncher, this is fun, and maybe even a little silly. I found it juicier, cleaner and overall much more enjoyable than its pale predecessor, even if it didn't deliver what I was after.

The brewery's Locavore series has moved to the next stage in its evolution. Originally, this existed to showcase the produce of their hop farm in the Wicklow mountains. Now they've gone mixed-fermentation, harvesting yeast from up there as well. The plan is to have four releases per year, and Locavore Spring 2021 is a barrel-aged Brett amber ale of 9.5% ABV.

The pour was completely flat, suggesting the yeast hasn't been too busy in there. It's a dense dark brown colour rather than amber and smells deliciously funky in a pure Brett way, with added boozy raisins and damsons. The fruit gets a coating of chocolate in the flavour, and you can be doubly sure Brettanomyces was involved as there's a lot of funky farmyard here. I also picked up a big dose of dry tannin, reminiscent of Italian red wine, so was pleased to read that Chianti barrels were what they used. It shows. The syrupy flatness is off-putting, however. This would be improved with some sparkle but there's absolutely none of it. Instead, it's a dense and vinous affair, built for wintery sipping. While I liked everything going on -- funky, fruity and highly complex -- I think it needs more body and better condition. As the brewery's first foray into this kind of thing, it's very promising, however. Roll on summer and the next twist in the Locavore story.

Two more new ones landed shortly afterwards, including the core addition Raindrop. It's a bright pink sour ale of 4.2% ABV with the tried and trusted combination of raspberry, blackberry and blueberry. Does that make it taste like a fruit-of-the-forest yoghurt, like all of these do? Only a little. It's lightly textured and quite subtly flavoured. Blackberry is the most pronounced of the three, with raspberry in the back seat and the blueberry barely detectable. All of it is on the down-low, however, and so is the sour element: crisp and tangy rather than sharply tart. It's a little watery in the finish, but not unpleasantly so. The lightness combined with gentle carbonation makes it refreshing and very easy drinking. Beers like this are often quite jammy and a chore to get through; this one keeps things accessible and fun, and is all the better for it.

Mango and peach are next for the sour treatment in Takes Two To Mango, a collaboration with Otterbank. It's a mostly clear golden colour in the glass and smells dry and crisp at first, with an emerging fruit candy sweetness as it warms. Again the flavour is subtle. I get soft and fresh peach but not so much of the mango, and it's even less sour than Raindrop, with a very mild, slightly saline, tang about the height of it. Although the ABV is up to 5% it's still light and refreshing. The label says it's designed for summer and I can see that completely. While it's very gulpable, I would have liked the flavour turned up a bit more, especially the sourness. I'm a big boy, I can handle it.

There's lots of creativity in evidence down at the Wolf's lair. They certainly can't be accused of cranking out samey IPAs one after the other.

Three, times two

Triple IPAs are a clear indicator of the law of diminishing returns in beer hype. Less than a decade ago, double IPAs were exciting and much sought-after. Triple IPAs barely register in hype circles and I've not yet heard anyone name a qudruple IPA that they think is worth trying. Less hype is better. I should be happy about it. It's still odd to see it happening. Anyway, here are two TIPAs from Barcelona's Garage Beer.

Starting on a mild 9.6% ABV we have Game After Game. A bright and hazy orange body is topped with lots of foam. There's decent head retention too, by modern IPA standards. The aroma mixes cloyingly sweet tropical fruit syrup with a harsh allium savoury side. Oh dear. This isn't going to be a gentle one. It's not overly thick, which is a mercy, and there's no yeast bite or gritty fuzz. The alcohol is very prominent, however: a heat that's verging on unpleasant. An initial sweetness helps soften that a little on tasting, the concentrated mango and peach not extreme, but not lasting long either. Half way through it fades, letting a rasping green spring onion and kale effect take the reins. The finish is a sharp edge of pure alcohol, like a shot of high-end vodka. While not difficult, it does suffer from the over-wroughtness typical of triple IPA. I kept wanting to reassure the flavour and ask it to calm down. And with that in mind, I faced into its big sister.

This beer is Obscene. For a start the ABV goes up to 10%. Oo-er. The aroma mixes fruit-flavoured candy with a harder plasticky bitterness for which I'm guessing we have Sabro to thank. It's in the mix here with Citra, Mosaic, Comet and Loral. Happy juicy Mosaic is the most prominent in the flavour, bringing crisp pear and succulent honeydew. The clean-burn alcohol common in triple IPAs is the next thing I noticed, and it very much gets in the way of any subtleties. It may be clean but this is not a beer of nuance. A lime-skin bitterness is the third and final piece of the puzzle. This is a gentler affair than the previous one, less busy and less sweet. It's fine. Another bullet dodged.

I don't really get the attraction of beers like this. I like that they're not simply the next step beyond double IPA: they don't bump up the malt quotient and aren't sticky or harsh as a result. But you don't get extra hop impact from the extra ABV. They're just harder, and hotter. It all stinks a bit of machismo to me.

Giving the people what they want

For some unfathomable reason, my posts about Aldi's off-brand lagers are perennially popular with you lot. Never above a bit of click-bait, I filled a basket with ones I hadn't tried on a recent restocking expedition and then dared myself to tackle them. At one stage there was a grand plan to try them blind next to the brands they're aping, as I did with the Peroni one, but it started to look like too much fizz to get through, so these will be judged on their individual merits alone.

We begin with the Budweiser twins. I'm sure there's a very good reason for Aldi offering two different Bud lookalikes, though can't help thinking it must be confusing for a target demographic not used to making choices when it comes to beer. It could be that there's a transition afoot. Breysers is the legacy brand, one which has been around for ages. "100% premium quality ... authentic American style beer ... made in France" is all the essential data Aldi wants to get across to us. In the glass it's a proper pilsner gold with decent head retention, so therefore nothing at all like Bud on that score. There's a slightly metallic tang in the aroma, which does say American light lager to me, but at least suggests the possibility of hops. In the flavour, hops came there none. It's a surprisingly thick and sweet affair, very much unbalanced to the malt side. An initial hit of candyfloss and barley sugar tails off into an unpleasant musty damp-grainsack twang. The upside of all this residual sugar is a big and fluffy Helles-like texture, which is nice and süffig, but very much not the crispness that Bud drinkers will be seeking. This is a poor effort overall, a dismal beer and nul points for resemblance to its originator.

The new kid is Brookston, though they've gone more old-school in their blatant theft of Budweiser's image. This time the can gives us no clue as to the beer's origins, though does tell us it's "premium" four times on the front. Methinks the lager doth protest too much. Maybe it's my imagination because the photos are very similar, but I thought that this bore a closer resemblance to Budweiser: a slightly paler shade of golden. The sweetness has definitely been dialled back but that horrible sackcloth staleness remains, with a weird ready-salted savoury bite. Alongside the extra crispness, there's an accompanying watery quality, making it feel like something has been cut out of it. Some bonus points for tasting and feeling a little like Budweiser, then, but none for being actually enjoyable.

Next on the list for the homage treatment is Carlsberg, and Karlskrone is the Aldi answer. As with the previous two, the ABV is 4.3%, matching the Irish versions of the mainstream brands. It looks well in the Carlsberg glass: the right shade of bright and shiny gold. The aroma is innocent: weighty malt and a mild noble hop grassiness. All very promising. As with Breysers above, the malt leads the flavour, but it's not quite as intensely sweet. There's a certain level of crispness, and no off-flavours. Although it could be accused of being bland, I think there's enough character on display here to tip it into acceptability. I don't know that I would consider it an acceptable substitute for Carlsberg, however -- it's still too heavy and sweet for that. If you don't mind your lager being a little on the sugary side, I would almost recommend this. It's the first one of the sequence to offer actual value for money.

I didn't realise Staropramen had a sufficiently high profile to warrant a clone, but here one is. Strana is a little different to the others in that we are told the brewery of production, and its none other than my old mucker Pearse Lyons of Dundalk. Close followers of the own-brand lager scene will know that Lyons makes an excellent Czech knock-off for Tesco, called Manislav. Strana is the same ABV (5%) so I'm guessing the recipe is at least somewhat similar. It comes in a green bottle, too, so was giving off skunky vibes even before I brought it outside. That's really only in the aroma, however. The flavour is a flawless mix of crisp grain and grassy hops -- hallmarks of a classic Saaz-based světlý ležák. Definitely a cut above the others so far. Shame about the UV-permeable bottle, though.

Finally, what if San Miguel, but cheaper, asked nobody. San Marcos is Aldi's answer. "Tradicional cerveza especial ... brewed in Italy" says the label. It's a little lightweight compared to the real thing at 5% ABV, and looks somewhat pale by comparison too. I'm not at all a fan of that Spanish lager so no points will be awarded for similarity here. It's cleaner, drier and easier to drink, and more appropriate to warm weather. But there's a nasty element too; a plasticky tang that prevents it from being clean, bland and decent like the Karlskrone. The extra strength means it probably works OK as a food beer, where other flavours will mask the flaws. As such, if you're looking for something cheap and relatively cheerful for Mediterranean food -- Spanish or Italian -- this is worth a punt.

A couple of diamonds in this particular rough, then. I haven't decided yet whether I'll tackle the remaining clones. The Corona and Heineken ones are only sold in multipacks and that's a commitment I am not yet ready to make, even for the clicks.

Curiouser

Larkin's value range of sub-€4 cans has seen an expansion. I have four new ones for you today.

You don't see many American-style wheat beers these days -- Lidl's Rye River one has the local market pretty much sewn up -- but now here comes Immortal Game. This is 5% ABV and hazy in the glass, like a weissbier. It's very much not one, however, having a clean and crisp flavour. Dry grain husk is balanced by a sweeter orange-cordial effect. It is, above all, thirst-quenching and refreshing, even though it's strictly speaking a bit strong for that purpose. That said, I took my time with it and still enjoyed it: though simple, there's enough complexity to keep things interesting. Kudos to Larkins for making a wheat beer instead of just another pale ale. Style diversity is an objectively good thing.

New England IPAs, conversely, are commonplace. What can Bravo Zulu offer us that we haven't had before, other than that €3.25 price tag? It's a foamy beast, taking a while to get under control in the glass. Beneath the head it's pale and translucent, somewhere between the full-on beaten egg of the big-hitters and casual NEIPA's orangey mist. The aroma gets the juicy in early: peach and apricot (hello Mosaic!) with a faint and worrying garlic twang behind. The flavour goes more for vanilla than either of those, and there's an orange cordial accompaniment, for the Super Split effect prized by Irish NEIPA fans. It's pretty decent. Sweet but not cloying, with a nice level of fruit and no interruptions: a settled and cosy sort of hazy IPA, or a gateway to the more intense stuff, perhaps. Personally I would prefer some level of bitterness, but I can't really criticise it for that if it's not meant to be there.

As a '90s kid I appreciated the shout-out in the name of Atlantic 353. Happy longwave days. This is a west coast IPA, albeit a modest one at 5.5% ABV. It's clear and amber in the glass, so full marks for appearances, though there's not much of an aroma, just a faint tang of grapefruit. I liked the full texture and low carbonation, giving the impression of a much more American strength. In the flavour it's a beer of contrasts: sweet first, with caramel and toffee, and then a hard bitterness: grapefruit is the gentlest aspect, but there's also aspirin, zinc and candlewax. The two sides don't really gel together, fighting with each other the whole way along. Thankfully they're not long about it, and the finish is quick and clean. Still, I found this rather harsh for my tastes. It's very retro and reminds me of the time when high-IBU American beers were too much for me to take. I'm aware I was in the minority then, so modern-day haze dodgers will likely find this just the ticket.

The latest addition to the range is Night Tide, a coffee stout of 5% ABV. I can't remember the last time I had a stout with coffee that wasn't either pumped up with alcohol or full-on pastrified with a load of other stuff. Immediate points for retro value again. Mind you, I can see why brewers do now put lactose in these, because it's inescapably thin with a sharp and pointy fizz. Thankfully the intensity of the cold-brew coffee rescues it. The aroma is a straightforward crowd-pleaser, all rich and roasty. In the flavour there's a dash of dark chocolate and a wafery crispness to add complexity, but the coffee is bold and worn prominently. Also prominent is the bitter finish, blending vegetal old-world hops with yet more coffee. This is delightfully old fashioned and a refreshing contrast to what stout-with-coffee tends to be these days. It brought back fond memories of homebrew days before coffee stouts existed commercially.

I confess I was sceptical going into these. Larkin's is on record saying the Curious Society range is pitched at the mass market and designed to be accessible. Too often that's a euphemism for boring. These are far from that and are perfect for dipping one's toe in the world of beer diversity, with change back from a fiver.

What's that it looks nice

Strong and dark is how my missus likes 'em. It does mean that there's always imperial stout in stock, as there should be in every properly-run household. And occasionally there's something new for me to beg a taste of. Here's two such.

Wander Beyond's Half Moon is a big ol' imperial stout of 12% ABV and includes oranges, cacao nibs and vanilla as well as the usuals. They've hopped it with Mandarina Bavaria, but I imagine that's just for thematic cohesiveness since it's unlikely to be discernible under everything else. It smells like an imperial pastry stout: that mix of heavy caramel, milk chocolate and wafer biscuits. The texture is surprisingly light, with a busy fizz. On the flavour, oranges are conspicuous by their absence. It goes big on the chocolate, which doesn't sit well with the assertive carbonation. The sweetness, bitterness and savoury side are all what you'd get from dark chocolate or cocoa powder, and there's only the faintest hint of Jaffa Cake orangeiness on the finish. I'm down on gimmicks in beer generally; poorly rendered gimmicks like this are unforgivable.

Origin of Darkness strikes me as less ambitious. This is from Collective Arts, in collaboration with Mikkeller. There are a bunch of them, but the one in front of me is an 11.3% ABV bourbon-aged imperial stout with almond milk and coffee. It smells burnt; a very studenty aroma of black toast and sweaty laundry. Not a good start. The flavour picks up on the positive nutty elements, with hazelnut in particular coming though, plus chocolate and caramel for a broad Snickers effect. It's weighty without being hot, which is good, but the basic strong stout is somewhat lost under the bells and whistles. This is very much built for the novelty-chaser, and that fact it's one of a whole series of similar efforts only serves to confirm that. I'm not in a rush to try the rest. You will know from the description is this is your sort of thing or not; there are no surprises.

Thank you dear, but no thanks on both of these.