Sorry I missed you

I missed out on the DOT Brew seasonal megapack, largely through logistical issues, so I'm afraid there won't be any pre-Christmas epic run-down of barrel-aged beers with long silly names. Instead, you'll have to make do with the DOTs I bought singly in November and December, to wit:

Bright Lights Big City is the latest in the Teeling Distillery giftshop exclusives, and it was surprisingly pleasing to be able to pick this up from the actual distillery giftshop instead of the reception where the beers have been sold for the last 18 months or so. These little returns to normality are so appreciated. It's an amber ale aged in single-grain whiskey casks which were previously used for Cabernet Sauvignon and is a clear garnet red. I expected the wine would make a sizeable contribution and sure enough it's there in the aroma: oak and raisins. The texture and flavour are both lower key than I'd expect for 5.9% ABV. It's light and fizzy in the mouth and there's no whiskey spirit to taste. Instead it's gently fruity -- cherry and red grape -- with just a mild sawdust dryness in the finish. It's fine but I think a bit more malt and hop heft should be taking the place of the barrel's shortcomings. This is not how DOT normally goes about its business.

The red theme continues in a different direction with 4yr Old Wild Raspberry, the first in what I understand will be a new range of wild beers from DOT. The label says it's light and crisp, though at €15 I'm hoping for something more committed than that. In the glass it's a deep blood red colour, while the aroma is mildly funky, with a concentrated raspberry syrup vibe rather than sharp berry. That thick sensation continues through the texture and flavour, with more than a hint of Ribena about it. I expected highly-attentuated spritz but it's not one of those and I'd put it more at the dessert end of the meal than an aperitif. This isn't what I was expecting, and I don't think it justifies the price tag. It's not funky or complex and show little signs of spendy barrel ageing. I'll let it go as the first of a new series, but if this is to continue there ought to be fireworks next time out. 

Dessert proper is a stout. Last Night was brewed as an exclusive for Molloys off licences and is a 10% ABV imperial milk stout with coffee, cocoa and ex-rum whiskey barrel ageing. Hella festive. It is extremely black and doesn't really bother with forming a head. There's much less aroma than I expected, just some mild coffee roast, and it's unforgivably thinly textured for the spec. Alas that problematic nature follows through into the flavour. There's a tangy, sweaty sourness hitting up against sweeter milk chocolate; a vinegar sharpness and a cardboard staleness. It does the bare minimum for a chocolate/coffee stout but something has gone wrong here.

Oof! Maybe I dodged a bullet by not buying that big box. Barrel ageing is a cruel and capricious mistress, I guess. The results here do not show it in a good light.

The clone wars

Is it just me or are the Aldi knock-off beers getting more and more on-the-nose with their branding. I literally spent a few seconds boggling at Hofflegen when I first saw it on a shelf, so blantant the purloining of Hoegaarden's image.

I still bought a bottle of course. The label helpfully tells us this is brewed for Aldi by trustworthy Belgian giant Palm, although a brewery that doesn't have a headline witbier of its own in Belgium's bestsellers. It matches Hoegaarden's strength at 5% ABV, but not its colour, being quite a brackish-looking muddy ochre.

The aroma is much brighter, brimming with citrus sunshine and a fresh spice from crushed coriander seeds. The texture is smoother than these usually are, with less interrupting fizz: unorthodox, but I like it. It's very sweet on the palate to begin with, almost like a non-malt ginger beer, but a certain breadcrust crispness in the middle leaves no doubt that it's a wheat beer. Beyond that there's just the faint bathroom-cabinet scent of the herbs before a rapid fade-out leaving minimal aftertaste.

I know how badly-made witbier tastes, and this isn't one of them. Yes it avoids the harsh dry grain effect by overcompensating a little the other way, but as a cheap and unfussy refreshment beer, this is well worth keeping in stock.

Calendar cans

It's an inadvertently-built collection of Hopfully beers today, two recent releases and one that had been sitting politely at the back of the fridge waiting to be opened.

So first off I owe apologies to the brewers that it's nearly Christmas and I'm only now getting around to their Halloween seasonal, Boo. It's a sour ale of 5.5% ABV with added raspberry, cherry, blackcurrant and lime. That sounds like it's really doubling, quadrupling, down on the sourness but there's lactose as well. In the glass it's a pale hazy pink and smells quite yoghurty: creamy with a strong forest fruit vibe. I thought I knew what to expect, so was astounded when the cherry proved to be the dominant feature of the flavour. The lactose adds a cakey sweetness which makes the whole thing taste a bit like a cherry bakewell, which I happen to love. There's the faintest of tartness, more to do with the lime than the sour culture. Overall, it's really good. I don't normally like these non-sour sour beers, but it turns out all you need to do is pile in the cherry to keep me happy.

A hazy IPA is next. Headlights is brewed with what ought to be two quite contrasting varieties of hops: soft Nelson Sauvin and sharp Citra. The yellow-emulsion appearance marks it as one of the classy ones. Its aroma is pithy rather than juicy: a fibrous jaffa orange effect. The flavour is almost smooth and juicy but there's a bump or two in there, an element of gritty roughness with savoury fried onion. I tried hard to ignore it but it kept interrupting the fun. The fun is fun, however. It's more the minerally side of Nelson than the grape, but that's still good, and then there's an acidity rather than a bitterness per se coming from the Citra, helping to balance the soft vanilla sweetness which comes with the style. They have so nearly nailed the New England thing here but something has gone very slightly awry with the hops, to my taste anyway.

Another seasonal beer finishes things, one with a rather more appropriate name for December. No clove or cinnamon here: Joy to the Box is an oatmeal imperial stout with chocolate, coconut and pineapple. Intriguing, but does it work? It's a bit of a murky boy, a muddy pale brown rather than proper black. The handsome tan-coloured head didn't last very long. The aroma, unsurprisingly, is pure Bounty: all the oily coconut against a rich and sweet chocolate background. 8.5% ABV plus oatmeal is a perfect recipe for smoothness, and it gets that bang on, slipping silkily across the palate, with just a polite prickle of carbonation keeping things lively. I was worried it might be hot or cloying but there's none of that. It's so smooth that the foretaste is pretty much missing, sliding past unnoticed. Only the finish and aftertaste are left to speak for the flavour, and while a lot of that is more Bounty -- you really need to like both chocolate and coconut in beers for this -- there's a piquancy too; not quite bitter but definitely acidic. It took me a moment to realise it's probably the pineapple. It doesn't taste like pineapple under everything else as I guess there's no room for a different kind of sweetness, but it prevents the whole picture from being purely two-dimensional. Despite the appearance, this is good clean fun; a very satisfying big midwinter stout where the bells and whistles are in excellent harmony. 

Hopfully continues to surprise. There's something different in all three of these, including the IPA. I look forward to having my expectations further confounded by these Brazilian cuckoos in 2022.

Otter and colder

Dec's been busy. Despite the time required by mixed fermentation, barrel-ageing and whatnot, there's a bunch of new Otterbank beers for me to catch up with. Let's see how they've got on.

First though, it's the latest in Otterbank's Mates Rates series, brewed at Third Barrel, this time with the Falconers Flight hop blend. As usual it's a tart session IPA of 4.9% ABV, and misty blonde in colour. The aroma is vaguely citric but not very exciting. There's rather more excitement in the flavour, bringing one on a tour of new-world features, including lime peel, lemon sherbet, fried onion, dank resins and ripe mango. The effect is made all the clearer by the tightly tart base, a sourness that serves the hops, rather than being sour in its own right. It all works very well, nicely complex while still light and sessionable.

I think Sour for Sibling is the first Third-Barrel-brewed can outside of the Mates Rates series. It's a kettle-soured pale ale with added mango and passionfruit, so perhaps better suited to high summer than the depths of winter. I'm literally drinking it by the fire as I write this. The passionfruit is very apparent from the aroma, delivering a blast of pure and cool tropicality from the get-go. It's quite plain on tasting, with only a mild acidity and quite a low level of carbonation. It's 4.9% ABV again so is a little too heavy to get away with being a quaff-and-go thirst quencher. Still, there's a decent dose of passionfruit in the flavour, closer to the level of a juice drink than a beer. Overall, there's a certain echo of YellowBelly's revered Castaway from days gone by, but it lacks its depth and kick. Perhaps that's the difference between kettle souring and mixed fermentation. This is fine when you need a few drops of sunshine on a dismal day, just don't expect too much of an adventure from it.

Now we get to the real stuff: the bottled beers created at Otterbank HQ in Donegal using the full array of microbial weaponry at its disposal. First today it's a respectful tribute to gueze called Ode To Brussels. At 6.5% ABV it's on the strong side, though is surprisingly pale, with just a modicum of haze and a superbly resilient head of fine bubbles. Gunpowder spicing on the nose: check. Lemon zest meets old oak in the flavour: check. Waxy bitter finish: also check. This is a convincing analogue. I don't think I can ding it on accuracy; only on personal taste. It's a little too heavy and thick for my liking, with a kind of brown-sugar faro sweetness which interrupts the sour and spicy fun. I've definitely tasted real geuze like this but they're not my favourites. Still, full credit for the mimicry, and it's also a highly enjoyable and complex beer.

That's followed by Thanks, Julius & Lars, a tribute to Julius Simonaitis and Lars Marius Garshol for their work classifying Lithuanian farmhouse yeasts, one of which is of course used here. It's a whopping 8.1% ABV and pours a rose-gold colour with a bit of murk still floating in there, but mostly clean. Tastewise it's not a million miles from Flemish oud bruin. There's that slightly fruity vinegar effect, like good quality balsamic, with a dash of HP Sauce. The wax is back to give it a different sort of sharpness on the end. Like the aforementioned Belgian style, this isn't brimming with complexity or anything, but it's tasty as long as you have a substantial tolerance for sourness. It definitely leans towards being stomach-curdling but I think the high gravity means there's enough residual sugar to provide the necessary counterweight. I found myself sipping merrily through it, perhaps a little more speedily than I should have.

The Pioneer brings us into the double-figure imperial stout zone, aka my happy place. This is 11.9% ABV and aged in whiskey barrels with added Brettanomyces. It doesn't really smell of either, however, showing a red-wine aroma with a touch of cork. Normality resumes in the flavour: after an initial tart kick of berries and oak, there's a roasted coffee richness with a gentle alcoholic warmth. I suspect that the Brett's contribution is primarily in the texture: it's no sticky monster but has been thoroughly attenuated. While not thin by any means, it's lighter of body than most stouts this size. I also detected a modicum of mushroomy funk without it turning full barnyard. There's a lot to explore among the elements here, and it takes a bit of getting used to. A bigger, bolder flavour would improve it, but I guess the Brett had other plans. I'm not sure the wild yeast improves it.

The big gun comes out with Gimp Mask a 75cl monster of a Bushmills-aged imperial stout. No funky stuff is advertised, and it's not really sour, though there's something going on. To begin, it's a pretty straight-up hefty stout, full of coffee and cocoa. What surprised me about that is the barrel's contribution. Maybe I'm too used to unsubtle bourbon, but this one doesn't taste like whiskey has been near it. Instead there's that red wine effect again: raisin and Ribena, with a stickier pine resin background. I expected much sweeter and warmer this time, especially at 12.5% ABV, but this doesn't swing in that direction any more than The Pioneer does. There's a gentle sort of tartness, complicated with a little chocolate. It took me the full 75cl and about three hours to get the measure of this one: it's definitely built for slow consideration rather than a festival shot glass. Between the two of this last pair, prepare to have your preconceived notions of barrel-aged imperial stout at least wobbled a bit.

So this is what it looks like when Otterbank gets into its stride. The stouts didn't really do it for me, but the clean, pale sour offerings were adequate compensation.

Play to winter

Kinnegar's Brewers at Play series reaching 20 coincided with the brewery's tenth anniversary so they celebrated by splitting it into two different lagers.

Brewers at Play 20÷2: Anniversary Pilsner was first out. It's 5% ABV and a bang-on medium clear gold. The bang-on-ness continues in the aroma and flavour. The former is mild and unobtrusive, with just a faint dry hay quality suggesting that noble hops are on their way. Said hops get properly delivered in the flavour: grass, spinach, celery, finishing dry and almost shading towards the unpleasant burnt-plastic effect I sometimes get from traditional German hops, but not here. The taste is buoyed up on a thickly textured weighty malt base which sacrifices the beer's crispness a little but does make it a more complex experience: no simple quaffing lager this. I enjoyed how it treads that line between easy lager and multifaceted sipping beer -- something the best German brewers do effortlessly but is unusual for Ireland. Mission accomplished, I guess.

Pilsner is easy but rauchbier is hard. I was intrigued and a little apprehensive about how they would fare with Brewers at Play 20÷2: Anniversary Rauchbier. It took me a while to find out because it's very foamy and I only have a wee Kinnegar glass. That did give me time to appreciate its deep chestnut colouring. The aroma suggests they've nailed it, all warm soft ham and bacon, with no harsh kippers. On tasting it has a lot of the signature Schlenkerla flavour, and the fact that I find myself trying to find points of difference is a testament to its quality. The smooth richness isn't quite there: it's a little sharp and thin, the carbonation interfering with the taste somewhat. And there's a very slightly harsh edge to the foretaste meaning it takes a moment for the smoke's more genteel side to kick in. But these are inconsequential details; they really have managed to recreate the classic Bamberg rauchbier experience in a very impressive way.

Life can't be all play, however. It looks like number 15 in the series has graduated to being a normal part of the range. Winterland is a new milk stout with vanilla, slightly beefed up from BaP 15, the ABV rising to 5.3% from 4.8%. Although it's sweet and creamy, it goes for coffee roast in a big way so ends up tasting like an Italian coffee-infused dessert: tiramisu or affogato, with a crisp wafer biscuit on the side. The gravity boost hasn't given it the full-on creaminess that I wanted from the previous iteration, but it's definitely an improvement. I particularly liked how the dessertish qualities are balanced by quite an intense roasted bitterness. With this one, they're definitely not playing any more.

Play resumed shortly afterwards with Brewers At Play 21: Barleywine. Just barleywine (or "barley wine" if the creeping Americanisation of European beer styles bothers you): no kooky ingredients or post-fermentation treatments, simply a hefty and warming 10% ABV. In the glass it looks comforting and thick, chocolate-brown, turning garnet when held to the light. It smells sweetly of fruitcake and cola, and the mouthfeel isn't as heavy as I had been expecting; though it's far from thin, there's a lightness of touch which really aids the drinkability. With an American name and an American at the helm, I thought we were in for some big Bigfootesque hopping, but that's kept on the downlow to allow the malt take centre stage. It's glacé cherries and strawberry jam in the middle, with a harder metallic bitterness in the finish. Its olde-worlde stylings might miff a few punters more used to the brasher barley wines, but I liked the understated quality here -- perfect calm winter sipping fare.

Keep 'em coming, Kinnegar! The games are only just beginning.

By return post

Look who's back! I can't believe it was 2018 when Post Card last featured here.  The brand is owned by drinks industry veteran Jonathan Spielberg and was originally brewed at his Craftworks/Select Batch brewery. When that closed it disappeared, of course, but Jonathan is now involved in a new start-up brewery in Co. Kildare: Farringtons. With production under way, Post Card has cuckoo'd its way in. I spotted two of the cans on my last visit to Martin's of Fairview.

Ha'penny Bridge was one of the beers they brewed before but the recipe has changed so I'm giving it another go. Having previously been 5.2% ABV, this is now 4.4% and quite a deep amber colour, in a way that's far from fashionable these days. It looked a bit flat as it poured and the carbonation is very faint, the aroma suffering as a result. Still, there's plenty of flavour and it's a resolutely old-fashioned one: American pale ale in the Sierra Nevada mould. You get a jangling pine and grapefruit bitterness, spritzy at first, turning dank and resinous at the end. That sits on a base of crystal malt, from which comes occasional flashes of toffee. It's all good, solid fun, but the poor conditioning does let it down a little.

The next one is much more en vogue: Poolbeg Haze, a New England-style IPA with Mosaic, Citra and Idaho 7. First impression is... it's barely hazy at all. Still, it smells like a NEIPA: juicy and slightly unctuous. Again the carbonation is lower than it should be, but again the flavour manages to present itself well despite this. Satsuma, mango and pineapple suggest the hops are doing their jobs well, though the Citra is a little quieter than I'd expect. There's a certain vanilla sweetness, but not so much that it makes the beer cloying. And of course it's clean: no murk = no grit. This is quite an easy-going affair and doesn't taste the full 5.8% ABV. Still it has plenty of character and offers everything you might expect from a hazy IPA except, y'know, the haze.

There are more in the revamped Post Card range and I'll be keeping an eye out for them if they ever cross to my side of the Liffey. Carbonation issues aside, the revival is promising so far.

Let there be lager

It's an all cold-fermented Irish session today. Nearly half of the offerings are from Galway Bay, a brewery which has been fairly churning out the lagers this past while. No complaints here. In time for Wies'n season they popped out Festbier, an Oktoberfestbier looking very much in the modern German style: 5.8% ABV and a rich golden colour. It's a while since I last had one of the six Munich archetypes, but this seemed pretty much on the money for a clone. It's richly full bodied with a matching golden syrup sweetness. The hop side is rather more pronounced than in the real McCoy, however: they're subtle; this goes big on peppery green noble hops. That's a little jarring at first, but you get used to it. There's a surprise in the finish when a weird almond/marzipan effect shows up. I wasn't expecting that, I don't think it's part of the spec, but I liked it. I think it's fair to say Galway Bay have put their own spin on Oktoberfestbier here, while staying true to the fundamentals. The result is a million times better than those awful sticky orange efforts from the Americans so, if nothing else, thanks for not giving us one of them.

I was excited to learn that the brewery followed up last autumn's Czech-style pale lager with a dark version, so here's Tmavý Ležák, brewed with the same attention to detail (decoction, Saaz) as the last one. It looks a little on the pale side to me, ruby-red rather than cola-brown. The aroma is toasty and wholesome and the texture full and satisfying, while still fully quaffable. 5% ABV seems to be the sweet spot for these. It's not hugely flavourful, but what's there is good: a gentle mix of caramel and liquorice with floral topnotes and Saaz's grassy rasp on the end. Most of all it's a comforting beer, one to take hearty mouthfuls of, not delicate sips. I hope to get to try a pub session on it at some point this winter as it's ideally suited.

Galway Bay moves away from the continental takes with the next one: NZ Pils: Motueka. It's paler and pilsier, 4.9% ABV and yellow with a very slight haze. I think of Motueka as a very herbal and bitter hop, with harsh medicinal characteristics, so I was surprised by the fresh lemon aroma, one which has a certain meringue-pie sweetness. The flavour pivots again, though staying on the dessert trolley, with overtones of coconut and oaty flapjack. There's spelt in it, which might have something to do with the unusual grain taste. It's fun, and possibly a little silly, and very far from a classic pils -- sweet, bitter, but not crisp. If the aim was to put the titular hop at the centre of the flavour then it worked. Fair play. Which Kiwi variety is next?

While we wait for that, let's head for the Back Lawn. This is a pale lager of indeterminate style from Ballykilcavan. Unfiltered and unfined, the label tells us, though after a month or two upright in my fridge it was perfectly clear and a rich Czech-like golden. The aroma is mild, but lagerish: grain, and maybe a hint of golden syrup, or maybe I'm just in a Czech frame of mind. For all that, the flavour is not complex. There's not much going on here -- balanced to the point of boring. There's a maybe a little white bread and a faint hint of grass, but otherwise it's not-sweet, not-dry and utterly sparkling clean. I guess it's an impressive achievement for a farmhouse microbrewery, but I think this 4.2% ABV job is really designed for tap-based quaffing rather than long-winded analysis from the likes of me. Let's move on.

Something more in my line from the same brewery follows: Clancy's Cans #7: Haunted Wood, a dunkel. It looks the part: a proper clear garnet colour with a generously thick Germanic head. The aroma is soft caramel with a hint of roast and a pinch of green noble hops. It all seemed in danger of being authentic but dull, but the flavour woke me up. There's a surprising bitterness up front, dry with a mixture of wax and cabbage leaf. That softens in the middle, as far as liquorice and well-done toast, before turning full-on metal and spinach in the end. This is quite nice, being flavourful and assertive, but it lacks the nuances of the real thing. I'm still pleased to see locally-brewed dunkel, though. More please!

Eight Degrees is rattling through its late-starting annual series of specials. Third up is Original Gravity Hoppy Lager. The ABVs start to pass beyond the mainstream here, with this one at 5.7%. It seemed a little thick as it poured too, though maybe that's more a function of the low temperature at which I served it. It's a nicely autumnal golden colour and very slightly hazy. Eight Degrees's founders cut their teeth at VLB in Berlin and use a brewkit built for German lagers so I expect this one to be done properly. It promises a blend of noble and new world hops though the aroma says neither to me, specifically. There's a floral and spicy character like you might find in an English golden ale, which was a surprise. The spice becomes citrus on tasting, grapefruit in particular, and there's a softer peach and cantaloupe juiciness behind this. Finding the noble side took a minute, but it's there in the finish: peppery rocket and dry hay. In keeping with proper lager, the flavours don't scream. It's subtle yet complex and far from bland. Crispness comes as standard, of course, and there's no aftertaste to speak of. I enjoyed its calm and classy cleanness keeping the promise of "Hoppy Lager" without falling into any of the usual India Pale Lager traps.

A bruiser to finish: Lupulos Borealis, a seasonal special from Rye River. They call it a "hoppy pils" but let's not get too hung up on style as it's a big 6% ABV. In the glass it looks like a typical India Pale Lager, being a bright golden with just a cheeky misting of hop haze. The aroma is all about those hops: grassy with tropical fruit, reflecting the use of Motueka and Strata, and seemingly in quantity. The contrast is even more intense on tasting: Motueka's bitter herbal/medicinal side is out in force, yet softened in the finish by juicy mango and mandarin. The body is quite slick and heavy, reflecting the strength, but there's just enough crispness to keep it refreshing and prevent it coming across as just another pale ale. There's a slight bum note in a savoury caraway dryness that spoils the party a little but I found that faded after the first couple of mouthfuls. Overall, it's a good time. IPLs usually trip up somewhere along the line but this one strikes an excellent balance. Maybe an unorthodox high strength is the path to success with these.

A renaissance of lager in craft brewing is a common overstatement -- there aren't that many in Ireland at least. These fit into a broader picture of style diversity which we've been seeing this year, along with all the IPAs. Continental brewers still have the edge, I think, but there's not much wrong with any of this lot.