X hits the spot

I'm not sure what was behind the arrival last year of Xibeca, a lager from Estrella Damm, which comes in a full litre bottle. The World Cup? Regardless of unseasonable reasons, it's a new beer to try.

I wasn't expecting much from the golden 4.6% ABV job, and I was right not to. It's very much lowest-common-denominator stuff, smelling of sweet and a little under-attenuated malt, and following that up with a taste of golden syrup and nothing behind beyond a watery, fizzy, finish. Overall it tastes very basic and cheap, the sort of thing that a supermarket might put out under an own brand to indicate that they really really don't care about beer.

Having a whole litre to finish was no particular hardship, though I would recommend having something available to distract you should you be minded to attempt the same. Go sportsteam!

Thiols and barrels and bears, oh my

"Does it have thiols in it? I'm not drinking anything without thiols." This appears to be what brewers are banking on their end users demanding these days, because there's a lot of thiols-as-marketing around. What's a thiol? I don't know, I've never seen one. Third Barrel's Electric Eyes has them, though, according to the can. It's a hazy IPA, though modest at just 5.6% ABV. The thiol-optimised hops are Idaho 7 and El Dorado and they come through quite intensely in the aroma, especially El Dorado's tropical-flavoured chew sweet impression. There's tropical juice aplenty too, and a mild bitter spicing. The flavour is an odd mix of bitter and sweet, presenting aniseed, jaffa pith, garlic and orangeade, set on a light and fizzy body, missing the fluff of most sweetly hazy jobs. Oddness aside, it's quite good, brightly fresh and enjoyably complex, showing off aspects of its two hops I'd hadn't found before. That's because of the thiols, you know.

No thiols are listed on the session IPA Day Drinkin 4: The Dank Knight. It might still be worthwhile, however. Like the previous three in the series it's 4% ABV and hazy yellow, but this time we get Idaho 7, Mosaic and Columbus for hops. Dank? Not really. That word implies resinousness to me and this is precisely as light as the ABV implies. There is a slight herbal spice thing, however, which could be classified as dank if it showed up in a weighty US-style IPA, but this ain't one of them. Enough on dank. What you do get is lots of fun citrus zest, lemon in particular, with touches of orange and grapefruit. For a session IPA that's perfect. It's fun and flavoursome while unfussy and very drinkable. No complaints here.

There was another new one from Third Barrel client Crafty Bear in mid-November called Colour Change. This is a very hazy pale ale, its opalescence putting me immediately in mind of Trouble's iconic Ambush, though it's a tad stronger at 5.4% ABV. Once that was in my head there was no escaping it. The aroma, too, sang of mandarins and vanilla, though with perhaps more of a bitterness than the Kildare lad. The flavour, it turned out, didn't swing that way, and instead it's a beautifully smooth and sweet affair, piling in the fruit and brushing it with just a cheeky hint of savoury garlic on the end. Overall it's very good, though. Crafty Bear is a sporadic producer and I don't know how permanent any of its beers are, but I could see this one being a steady seller, just like Ambush.

Loose on the Juice has been around even longer, and the fact it was still around in January and was tasting banging-fresh on draught in UnderDog suggests I wasn't drinking the first batch. The ABV goes up to 6.3% ABV and the body is quite dark for something hazy. While the previous one smelled of mandarin but didn't taste of it, this follows through fully on the same promise: bags of juicy mandarin, though not a lot else. A tiny hint of coconut in the finish is its only nod to complexity. There's very little heat for the strength too. Again, this is a great example of how to bring out the good side of hazy IPA, and could also be a go-to if it sticks around.

A late add to the Crafty Bear set is Shape Change, a session IPA.  It's a sort of a beige colour in the glass topped by plenty of loose white head. The aroma is fresh and very New-Englandish, showing lots of lemon curd with a rub of garlic. This is no weakling at 4.5% ABV and the body shows off that full-sized gravity, being round and fluffy, carrying the flavour all the way through to a long finish. Said flavour is an uncomplicated mix of citrus and candy: not quite juice, but definitely fruit-based and sweet. It doesn't do much, but you do at least get plenty of it. Though designed as a session beer, this hits pretty much all the points required of a bigger American-style IPA. I'm not a huge fan of this flavour profile in general, but I think they've made a great job of it here.

Back to Third Barrel for some stronger stuff to finish on. First up: Dubbel Impact, only about the 13th commercial beer to use the name in recent years. Like Van Damme himself, it's a big boy: a full 8% ABV and looks a darker brown than most dubbels. The head is half-hearted and doesn't last long, somewhat spoiling the appearance of what should be a foamy, hearty ale for jolly monk types to quaff. Without the froth it looks a bit Calvinist. In the flavour, the Belgium factor is quite low: not much by way of fruity esters; no plums or figs, and surprisingly little heat. What you get instead is a rich cakey chocolate effect with a little clove spicing, some sugary toffee and floral topnotes. A dry roasted edge finishes it off neatly. It's good, but not exactly what I'm after in a dubbel. I really miss the dark fruit. Far be it from me to ding a beer purely on stylistic grounds, but this is one of those. Close your eyes and think of porter.

Lastly a stout with salted caramel called Set To Smooth. Set to fizzy, more like: lots of foam on this as it poured, and quite an actively sparkly mouthfeel. The beer behind the bubbles seems a little thin too, given the not-insubstantial 7% ABV. Still, the salted caramel is absolutely there in the flavour, sweet with a mildly sweaty tang. There's a bit of complexity with that as well: hazelnut, coconut and a dab of hop resin. While it tastes good, as long as sweet is your thing, I find the thinness hard to get past. It really ought to be bigger and stickier, and just seems a little vapid without it; a pastry stout for slimmers. Them's the breaks, I guess.

I should be grateful that Third Barrel is turning out more than an endless stream of hazy pale ales, but that does seem to be what they're especially good at, on this showing at least. Maybe the dubbel needs more thiols? Just a suggestion.

Mellowing with age

Since its very beginning, The White Hag has made its name primarily on big, bold and strong beers. At first glance, today's three recent releases don't seem like they're in the same race at all. Let's get them open and find out. 

Low-alcohol beer is not really the brewery's area of specialism so Not Being Televised, at 3.5% ABV, is something of an outlier. The name references the collaborating kiwi hop merchants, The Hop Revolution, of Nelson. Indeed, Nelson Sauvin is one of the hops, joined by Motueka and Pacific Sunrise in this session IPA. It's pale but not watery looking, fully hazed up and all. The aroma shows two aspects: a typical New-England orangey juiciness and the harder grass bitterness that I associate with New Zealand hops generally and Motueka specifically. The murk gets a little bit in the way of the flavour and the earthy grit caught my attention before the hopping did. It is a touch light on the latter front, offering only a quick burst of soft citrus and sharp cabbage leaf, before it all tails off. I think it would be unfair to say it's watery, but it's not far from it, and you'd know it's a low-strength job. So it's fine for what it is but it's not one to get excited about. The hops are good, however I think it would benefit from more of them.

A stout comes next, in collaboration with Italian brewery Brewfist. It's called Gola Secca and is a modest 4.8% ABV. It looks well: black on first impressions though ruby red when held to the light, and topped by a fine off-white head. The aroma leads on roast though adds a leafy green bitterness to the background. That bitterness comes right to the fore on tasting, unfolding into fresh cabbage leaf and a pepper or nutmeg spicing. There's some cocoa for balance of a sort -- a less severe bitterness than the veg -- and then a long herbal buzz for an aftertaste, suggesting aniseed and spearmint to me. They advertise it as "dry", and while it starts there it goes off in a number of interesting directions, none of them passing close to pastry. I liked it, and particularly how it demonstrates that you don't need a high ABV for a stout to be interesting.

The White Hag's first beer, back in 2014, was a red IPA called Fleadh. They've re-used the name for a similar-but-different red ale of 5.5% ABV. The pour seems flat at first then settles with a loose head, the way a much stronger barley wine or the like might. It's definitely red, or amber, translucent with even a pinkish tint. Fruit candy is suggested, softly, by the aroma, while the flavour isn't much louder. There's a surprising watery thinness and a broadly sweet taste of strawberry jelly and glacé cherry. I get a savoury rosemary and oregano element as well. The can suggests I should be interpreting this as grapefruit and juniper, and the latter is fair but it definitely doesn't have the classic American citrus flavours, despite the application of Centennial and Simcoe. What it's really lacking is the malt body to hold this all together and give the hops a platform to work from. As is, it doesn't live up to its party inspired name.

The stout wins, out of this lot. Otherwise, I think the brewery does better at stronger beer styles overall.

A sorry stout

I do love an apology beer. This one was very kindly supplied by an off licence to atone for a small mistake in an online order. It's called Catch Me If You Can and is a 10.3% ABV imperial stout, bourbon aged and with added molasses, crackers and assorted spices. It's from California brewery The Bruery, best known (to me anyway) as a brewer of big stouts.

It glooped blackly into the glass and appeared completely flat at first, before suddenly frothing up in a most inconvenient manner. The head eventually settled into a thick layer of foam, resembling nitrogenation though nothing like as persistent. The mouthfeel is smooth and slick, troubled only by a faint sparkle.

Despite the complicated array of add-ins it smells quite simply of mushy banana, and that's in the finish of the flavour also, but before it there's a more orthodox milk chocolate character. You would need to be told about the spices to spot them. I could just about detect the advertised ginger, but cinnamon, clove, nutmeg or allspice? *shrug* 

The general bigness of this beer is its best feature: it's filling and very satisfying to sip. If the advertised flavour is what attracts you then I'm afraid you're in for disappointment. It's especially surprising how little bourbon character there is. I'm fine with mildly spiced chocolate, and especially for free.

All the family

O Brother's place on this blog tends to be in the regular Irish IPA round-ups: they do like an IPA or two. Today, though, there's enough diversity on offer from them to warrant a standalone post.

Talus Lager, for instance, isn't their norm, even though they've made plenty of great pale lagers in the past. This appears to have been exclusive to UnderDog with this name and may be called something else somewhere else (edit: the brewery seems to have subsequently settled on "Cloud Hopper" as the name). On the pub's opening night it didn't seem to be getting many fans but when I came to it a week or two later I was impressed. It's odd, for sure: the hops are sweet and fruity, making it taste of peach and apricot, but the lager base is perfectly clean and crisp with a snap of wholesome grain husk. Maybe some found the contrast too jarring but I think it worked, resulting in something thirst-quenching and palate-cleansing while also easy to drink and only 4.3% ABV. What's not to like in that?

A canned collaboration with a pub? What's that about? Anyway, Lionn Ruadh na Samhna is a red ale produced with top Galway boozer Bierhaus at an admittedly pintable 4.7% ABV. It does suffer one of the the standard can problems: being unfiltered there's dregs in the bottom, and there's no way of knowing when they're in danger of ending up in the glass. So they ended up in the glass. Despite the modest strength there's a rich and sumptuous aroma, full of surprise chocolate with a busy buzz of peppery hops. The flavour goes the same way, adding marzipan, lemon peel and sandalwood, the hop resins lasting long into the finish. The name being as Gaelige wrongfooted me into expecting an Irish red, but it says "hoppy red ale" on the can and it means it. As such this is very much along the lines of American amber ale, though without the weighty body they tend to have. Nobody is making beer like this any more and its a damn shame -- I have a lot of time for American amber, done well and served fresh, which this is.

There must be hops, of course, and we'll start there on Overnight Success, a 5.1% ABV pale ale. It's very hazy and exhibits most of the things I don't like about haze and which aren't always present. Big vanilla dominates the flavour, given an unwelcome rub of garlic and finishing on a dry and savoury caraway bite. There's lots of chalky, gritty, bittiness from the haze proteins, matching the unpleasant flavour with an unpleasant mouthfeel. Hazy beer doesn't have to be like this. Other breweries are perfectly able to make it full of flavour but also clean and enjoyable. It shouldn't be a chore to drink. 

A full-on IPA is next, the 6.6% ABV Illuminate. It's hazy again, of course, and topped with a pleasing stiff froth. Alas the aroma is one of those savoury ones, smelling like rye bread and chopped onion rather than anything juicy. The flavour is better, thankfully. Not juicy, exactly, but sweet and orangey, like cordial. At least part of that is attributable to the alcohol which is punching above its gravity here, adding weight and a certain heat. The finish is quick, however, and my overall impression is of something not terribly complex -- satisfying to drink in its own way but offering up little for forensic sensory analysis.

And a stout to finish. I was a bit sceptical that How Now Are You is only 5.5% ABV yet badged as "Foreign Extra" style. Surely it would need to be north of 6% for that? It arrived black anyway, though sorely lacking in head which is never a good look for a pint of stout of any stripe. There's a fair bit of fizz, again a bit disorientating, though I will never opine that it should have been nitrogenated. It is possible to have stout that's properly creamy and foamy without that sort of flavour-killing intervention. And I'm very glad it wasn't used here because the flavour is absolute redemption. In keeping, I guess, with old-style export practices it may not be brewed extra strong but it's definitely brewed with extra hops, and there's a superb buzz of crunchy green veg and bright summer flowers provided by an unorthodox but extremely welcome hopping. Behind this there's a little sweet chocolate, almost missed because the mouthfeel is thin but present nonetheless. This is nearly superb but needs a little tweaking on the gravity, I reckon, to work properly. If O Brother were in the habit of re-brewing things like this, and minded to bring back their much-missed cask programme, I think this would be an excellent candidate.

In general it has been a slow start to the year for new releases from Irish breweries. O Brother is one I'd like to see picking the pace up.

Compare the Cashmere

Three new beers from Trouble Brewing today, all with one thing in common.

Limón is a pale ale of 4.5% ABV and brewed with Cashmere and Cascade hops, plus a cheeky fistful of lemongrass. It's amber coloured and slightly hazy, suggesting they haven't skimped on the malt nor gone overboard with filtration. The aroma is impressively lemony: fresh and spritzy, like an actual zested fruit. That's what the flavour does too, adding a properly bitter aftertaste to the sunny front end. This is not a complicated beer and both body and carbonation are medium, meaning it's not simply a down-the-hatch refresher, though I do believe it could be put to that purpose if required. There's enough substance for it to be satisfying, staying just on the happy side of gimmicky. I can see it working well on draught in the pub, if given the opportunity. It's not a no-nonsense beer, but the nonsense is kept to the absolute minimum.

Trouble becomes the third brewery to create a beer called Ár gCairde for Mo Chara in Dundalk. This one is a hazy pale ale and 5.1% ABV. Cashmere features again, along with Idaho 7 and Mandarina Bavaria. There's a touch of the pithiness found in Limón repeated in the aroma here, and I'm assigning that to Cashmere. It doesn't smell particularly distinctive for what it is, however. The texture is a little watery, which is a surprise given the strength and the haze, and what flavour there is tails off quickly. At the beginning it's quite a generic citrus-and-vanilla, with a harder savoury edge of burnt plastic or sesame paste. I'm not a fan. The can promises juicy -- and Trouble normally knows juicy -- but this isn't it. There's not enough flavour, and what's there isn't particularly enjoyable. Drinking it straight after the Limón was like moving from stereo back to mono.

So I left it to another day before opening the decider of this set: Katana. Cashmere for the triple and the return of Cascade in this 6.4% ABV IPA. It appears to be in some sort of obscure IPA sub-style which isn't at all hazy and a sort of golden amber in colour. It'll never catch on. Dry and bitter, right? Lashings of grapefruit and pine? Nope. This is soft and quite tropical in both aroma and flavour, giving me cantaloupe, nectarine and plum with spiky herbal grassiness on the finish. That tail-end does grow in prominence as it goes along, covering the stonefruit flavour somewhat, though the ripe and juice-driven aroma remains. Despite the hard-edged name it's fun: bright and fruity while at the same time weighty and warming, bringing almost a touch of Belgian style to an otherwise very American IPA. It's not following any beer trend I'm aware of, and all the better for that.

Cashmere's zippy zesty lemon is what holds these three together as a set. Even though they're all types of pale ale with a hop in common, I got three quite different experiences. It probably goes to show that drinking a beer is the only way to find out what the beer is like. The specs on the can aren't much help; drink all the things.

The black pool

I wasn't able to make the Craic Beer Community pub crawl in January but did catch up with the beer launched at it a few days later in The Black Sheep. It's that rarest of beasts a dark mild, brewed by Hope and named Horizon. First impression was how pale it is: very definitely ruby or garnet rather than black. It's only 3.8% ABV but I suspect that's more to do with a high finishing gravity than a low starting one because it's very sweet and quite thick. Though lightly carbonated and keg-cold it's still not terribly quaffable. The flavour manifests as milk chocolate of the especially milky sort. Cocoa notes are minimal, as is any bitterness, roast or fruit complexity.

This is not mild done to my taste and comes across more like a milk stout to me. Not to discourage any breweries thinking of formulating one, but could we have a bit of roast? For me?

That brings us to another Dublin-brewed dark beer in a seldom-seen style. A surprise hit of the lockdown era was Barrelhead's HopburgH Helles, brewed and matured in the then-mothballed JW Sweetman brewpub, and sold by the resolutely untrendy half-litre bottle. Matters have moved on since: JWS has changed hands and the new owner has taken the brewery out; Barrelhead has rebranded as Hopkins & Hopkins, and established a brewery of its own, upriver in Smithfield. And now there's a second release: HopburgH Schwarzbier.

It's a favourite style of mine so I'm glad they chose it. Like the Helles it's 5.2% ABV and comes in the same squat bauarbeiterhalbe bottle. It's black as billed, showing cola red around the edges. A persistent off-white head tops it. Full marks for the visuals, then. The aroma is quite sweet, suggesting the caramel of a dunkel rather than schwarzbier roast. To an extent that's present in the flavour too, but here it's joined by the appropriate toasted grain element. It is predominantly dry rather than sweet, so all is well. All told it's not very strongly flavoured, offering just tiny sparks of dark grain, savoury herbs and tangy treacle. That does mean it's very easy drinking, especially with the rounded body and soft carbonation.

This is a highly enjoyable beer, made to the same level of understated quality as the Helles. It's very much built for drinking rather than tasting, however. Buy several.