On the rebound

It's been a while since I had any Boundary beers on here, so let's get a rake of them logged and blogged.

We'll start (broadly) sour with the 4.5% ABV To Here Knows When. They're calling this a Berliner weisse though honestly I think "pastry sour" would be more appropriate, despite the lack of lactose. The added ingredients are cherry, plum and tonka bean, and I think it's the latter in particular which gives it a cakey sweetness. The tonka mince-pie effect is most of what's going on, with the fruit playing second fiddle in the background. It took me a few sweet mouthfuls before I noticed it's actually very light-bodied and fizzy: the flavour is that of a thick and smooth beer. It's not an unpleasant experience, but it's an unsettling one. I would be happier if tonka went back to haunting imperial stouts instead (see below). 

Today's pale ale is called Life's Carousel, an adventurous name for a pretty basic 4% ABV beer brewed with Simcoe and Cascade. But basic doesn't mean bad, by any means. It's specifically designated "west coast" pale ale, and it is indeed amber coloured and only slightly hazy -- they could have tried harder on the clarity front. I expected bitterness but it's remarkably sweet, with lots of orange candy and hints of chocolate. There's a light and sherbety effervescence which further enhances the candy store effect. The finish is quick, which at least prevents that sweetness from building up, but it's still a little cloying. It's not just for stylistic reasons that this needs to be more bitter. 

The pilsner Dispiriting Exercise seems very much pitched at the likes me. I mean, drinking ones that come in 440ml cans often is quite dispiriting, but I do it anyway. Boundary's is a very light 4.1% ABV and an extremely pale yellow. The head is fine and fluffy, but doesn't last as long as on mainstream continental brands. Fears of blandness are dispelled by the aroma which offers soft stonefruit and a little dry grass: not pilsner, but promising. That dry grass thing -- from Saaz and Tettnang -- is the main feature of the flavour. Normally this would be a problem for my palate, which tends to find it too severe. Here, however, there's a bonus sweetness to counterbalance it, plus a surprisingly rounded and soft texture. It's still definitely a craft take on pils, but it's one that works, being characterful but also refreshing. That's enough. 

Little Wonder isn't blessed with a sub-style, being badged bluntly as just "Lager" and includes rice and maize in the grist. If anything it's even paler than the previous, but they've got their fermentable money's worth out of the adjuncts as it's 5% ABV. It smells quite appley, which isn't a good sign. The flavour continues in that disturbing direction, starting at tart green apple skin and continuing through clove rock and into pear drops. If the aim was to get something supremely clean, crisp and bland, like the big breweries make, it hasn't worked. The hop they've used is Lórien, which is new to me, and the grower says it should taste of melon and cinnamon. While that does ring true for what I'm tasting, to me it's too close to acetyl aldehyde or warm-fermentation esters -- not desirable in any lager. Whichever way you slice it, this one isn't for me, and apologies if that makes me a craft lager philistine.

Boundary has been doing its bit to keep the black IPA flame alight and their latest, Compare Notes, was on tap at The Black Sheep some weeks ago. 6% ABV is a good strength for these, offering a big enough base for the flavours I expect. Sure enough it's smooth and a little chewy, with just a smidge of tarry stickiness. They've gone for classic American IPA effects, beginning on a pure squeezed-grapefruit aroma, leading on to a flavour that combines that with other sharp citrus. Still there's a fun sweetness to the lemon/lime/grapefruit combination, while the roast sits at the back, only speaking up in the finish. Black IPAs can be quite serious with their strong grain-and-hop bitterness. This is one of the fun ones, all spritzy and quite refreshing while still absolutely properly to-style. I wholeheartedly approve and would like to see more of this, and more like this.

Excellent Gif Work is a 10% ABV imperial stout featuring the return of the tonka beans. Usually I can take or leave the unsubtly spicy additive but Boundary has made good use of it here. Yes, it's unsubtle, and the tonka is immediately obvious in both the aroma and flavour, bringing its signature cinnamon character. The base beer, however, is powerful enough to hold it in some level of check. There's luscious creamy chocolate in spades, and a herbal cola dryness. It might have been sticky and cloying without the tonka, but the spicy sparks really help offset any sugary excesses. The long tonka finish gives it two kinds of warmth in the end, the spice and the inherent alcoholic glow. I shared the can, but I don't think this would have been a hardship to drink all of.

Coconut, chipotle and vanilla is a combination I can't imagine comes together anywhere other than in a microbrewed stout. Here, they're in No Comma Before Please, another 10% ABV imperial job. It's quite a thick and foamy one, very creamy and dessert-like, despite the chilli. The flavour's dominant feature is good old malt-derived chocolate, with a bit of sweet coffee oils. The vanilla is at work there. Unusually, I had to look for the coconut, and it is discernible, but subtle. I like that: a reminder that coconut in a stout doesn't always have to recreate the sensation of having a Bounty bar lodged in your throat. And then the smoked chillis are no more than a seasoning, something I'd likely have missed if not told they were there, but there's a sharp and dry catch in the finish here which indicates their presence. You could probably list a load of other ingredients in it and I'd likely find them too. Everything is nicely blended together with none of the novelty ingredients going too hard. This is a dessert stout first and foremost, thanks to the vanilla, but they've put a twist in it to make it more interesting than most.

Take a moment to note that none of this cross-section is hazy IPA. I'm sure I could have added one or two if I'd wanted, but it's commendable that Boundary still puts out plenty more besides.

Beat the January rush

I feared I might have missed the new-year specials when I rocked up to Rascals for an overdue visit in late February. Thankfully everything was still in stock -- shout-out to all the dry Januaryers of Inchicore.

First up is a big surprise style: cream ale. Nobody around here makes them and I've never really seen the point of them, but my continuing unprofessional development is what pilot brews are for. This isn't a straight example, which is good. Instead they've made it a Blueberry Coconut Ale. Does that improve it? Probably. The problem with cream ale is it's generally tasteless, whereas this has a nice dollop of soft creamy coconut and a gentle berry tartness which I don't think I could have identified unaided but adds a different character and balances the coconut sweetness well. Perhaps cream ale is the way to go with this: a base so dull it tones down any additives. As a result this 4.1% ABV purple job is spared busyness and is nicely drinkable and easy-going.

That was number 74 in the Rascals pilot series. 75, then, is called Campfire Brown. Brown what, you can decide for yourself: it's cold fermented. With the smoked malt and 5.3% ABV it sounds like they're going for something similar to Schlenkerla Märzen, which you could say is the archetype of smoked brown lager, but you probably shouldn't. If that's what they were aiming at they haven't hit it. This is sweet, very much like a typical brown ale -- caramel to beat the band up front, and only the way it finishes quickly giving away the lager side. The smoke is relegated to a back seat, so at least there's no unpleasant kippery flavours. Overall, it's a bit basic. Something for brown ale fans for sure, but in a reverse of the previous one I expected something more to my taste from the description.

Luckily I didn't have a description for the final beer of this visit, only that it's a Coffee & Oatmeal Stout and 4.2% ABV. No pilot number. Served nitrogenated, it looked a little pale in the glass: brownish-red, not black. The gas doesn't hold the aroma back, and there's a strong smell of fresh roasted coffee from the get-go. The body is surprisingly full for the strength, in a good way: this could almost pass for something in the foreign extra category. And then there's the coffee. The flavour goes massively on this: the burnt and oily crunch of a coffee bean eaten raw. The creamy texture softens this, making it seem a little like a frothy Irish coffee or a coffee cake. This is the sort of one-dimensional beer I have no problem with: it's all stout and all coffee, and probably some oatmeal, and as long as that's what you're after, it delivers. I like the idea of something as extreme as this being a permanent house beer. I hope it sticks around.

Meanwhile, back at home, a new take on IPA, which is of course just what the beer world needs. They're not the first to try and hybridise east and west coast IPAs, though they've opted for Midwest IPA as the name rather than "mountain" IPA which Odell has tried to popularise. So what do we get? It's 6.1% ABV and brightly golden in a very west-coast way. Citrus sprirtz is the aroma too. I mean, if you're going to lean one way or the other, west is best. The bitterness is restrained but far from absent, and there's a sizeable dollop of satsuma and kumquat which may be the intended nod to the east, but it's not juicy, not fuzzy and has no vanilla or garlic. What we've got, then, is something that tastes like a traditional American pale ale of a lower strength than this is, one where the flavours are bright and clean and accessible but not terribly engaging. I drank it on a Wednesday. It's a good Wednesday beer.

The pilot series has moved on since February but I think that's enough for today. I'll be back at Rascals for their Happy Days festival in a couple of weeks.

Long live strong beer

Today's candidates come courtesy of the clearout bin at Craft Central. I swerved all the unsold American hazy IPAs and went for styles where a bit of age wouldn't be a problem. As it happened, both of these were well within their best-befores, the brewery allowing for a two-year shelf life which was barely half way through. That all seems fair. Both are from Berlin brewer Fuerst Wiacek.

Can one was Dream #5: Baltic Porter. I detected a bit of squidgeyness on the unopened can but it wasn't flat, pouring with a tall head and with enough fizz to stand up to a high-gravity dark-malt body. 9.5% ABV is the strength: adequate, with an entirely appropriate heat. An aniseed aroma tells me that they've aimed for the fundamentals of Baltic porter and hit them square on. The flavour calmly unfolds a heavy roast, like thick coffee dregs, treacle or molasses; a metallic bitterness which is hard though not harsh, and then the herbal side which includes the aniseed and to it adds rosemary and eucalyptus. Oils, grease, thickness and booze: what's not to like? This is pure textbook stuff, in a fancy-dan craft can with craft artwork but tastes exactly like a well-reputed 19th century Polish brewery put it out in a half-litre bottle. Majestic.

Dream #4: Barley Wine is a step back in sequence but a step forward in strength at the full 10% ABV. It's a deep honey-amber shade and hazy, while the aroma suggests densely sweet sugar; none of your hop fireworks of American takes on the style. Wine by name and wine by nature, the flavour opens on a strongly sweet grape or raisin vibe. This fades quickly to leave hard-boiled candy and hot cream sherry or whisky liqueur: something from the back of your granny's drinks cabinet. It's charming in its own way, but not classy like the Baltic porter. I liked the unashamed heft, but I also get why the Americans looked at this sort sort of heat and density and decided what it needed was a boatload of C-hops. I think I would have preferred something more in that direction: the base is great but it needs some fireworks to launch from it.

Great stuff here from the Berlin brewery and I did well to get them for a knock-down price. I would have no problem with either recipe graduating from one-off special to regular rotation.

Pale Black

Black's of Kinsale supply the goods today, mostly at the pale 'n' hoppy end of the spectrum.

First it's a matching pair of 5% ABV fruited IPAs with American hops, beginning on Pineapple & El Dorado IPA. It's very pale indeed, a light-lager yellow and smells strongly of tinned pineapple or pineapple-flavoured candy. That matches well with the El Dorado hops, to the point where I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. This certainly delivers what's promised on the label: sweet, fun and a little bit daft. There's just enough of a leafy dry bite in the finish for it to qualify as a proper IPA, something that not every fruited-up example does. It would perhaps have suited a summer release better but I liked the ray of sunshine it brought to the January evening on which I drank it.

That was followed swiftly by Mango & Mosaic IPA. This isn't an identical twin, being darker, looking denser and hazier. Sweet fruit syrup is there in the aroma again, but there's a fun twist of black pepper as well. That comes right to the fore in the flavour, turning to a savoury, spicy, cedar and pink peppercorn kick. I love it. The fruit sweetness sits in second place behind it, not syrupy or overdone, but not really tasting like either mango or Mosaic either. Again it's just dry enough and bitter enough that I don't feel gypped having been sold an IPA. That spice, though, is fabulous. I adore peppery beer, however it's done, and this is smack bang in my wheelhouse. While deliciously complex it's moreish too and I would have been well up for another straight after.

The next one, Stratasbeer Intergalactic IPA, is also 5% ABV. From the moody portentous branding I thought it would be much stronger. Strata and Galaxy are the hops, of course, and it's a medium yellow orange with a fair bit of haze thrown in. The aroma is nicely juicy, with the mandarin effect which Strata does so well coming through in particular. The body is light for the strength, making for something quite quaffable, while the flavour is not quite as juice-forward as the aroma promises but shows good zest and peel from the orangey hops. That's it, though. The finish is quick, there are no flaws, but no bonus complexity either. I've lost track of what Black's puts out as a core range these days, but if there's a vacancy, this would fit right in.

Next it's a beer I missed on its initial go around so was glad to catch up to: RedRye Redemption. Although it's red, it's also an IPA, so it's a pale shade of red, more amber when held up to the light. The ABV is only up to 5.5%, and I found the texture lacking as well: not the chewy maltbomb-with-hops that this style does well. Instead, it feels and tastes pale, with standard new-world IPA flavours, particularly assorted citrus pithiness. You do get a buzz of dry rye bitterness but it makes you work to find the malt side, offering merely a hint of coffee in the finish. It's a decent and unfussy sort of mid-range IPA, the label promising more adventure than the liquid delivers.

The light fades completely with Cult of the Coconut, an oatmeal stout with coconut chips and cacao nibs. The aroma is pure coconut, concentrated and oily, like in a cosmetic emulsion of some sort. It dominates the flavour, though slightly differently, being drier and crisper, and matched with similarly strong chocolate notes creating a strong echo of the Bounty bar. The chocolate side fades quickly but the coconut lingers long on the palate. While it's undoubtedly fun, it does lack beer character: a bit of roast or hopping might not have gone amiss. This is very much a product of the pastry-stout era, which may not suit everyone, but approach it with the appropriate sense of playfulness and it works.

It was good to be able to say hi to Black's again. They tend not to feature on here as much as they used to, perhaps because less of their beer shows up in Dublin. They've still got the hang of things, however.

Top stuff

I'm trying out a new brewery today: HopTop, based in Budapest. First the fundamentals, then a bit of silliness.

To begin, a Vienna lager called Bécsi Ászok. It's one of the paler ones, I guess, being only faintly reddish with a haze as well. 5.3% ABV makes it a stronger version than most, I think. It's... a good medium-sweet lager. Biscuit is the main feature of the flavour; thin and pale ones, for a refined afternoon tea. No bitterness balances the grain and sugar but it's not so thick or sticky that that becomes a problem. There's not much else on offer; despite being from a "proper craft" brewery this isn't a sip-and-consider beer but a decent, unfussy, quaffable lager. The 33cl can and modern graphics are merely misdirection.

Next is a dark lager which they elected to call Dark Lager. Such things are usually black so it was a bit of a surprise to find this one is reddish brown. The result is a little lacking in roast or crisp dry bite, which is what I was hoping for. Instead there's a sweet biscuit and raisin quality and I got over my initial disappointment quite quickly. While this is every bit a clean lager, though one with a fair heft to it at 5% ABV, there's a rounded richness too. In Germanic terms it's less a schwarzbier and more like an Alt. 

Belga Meggy translates as "Belgian cherry" so I guess this next one is a kriek? It's 4.8% ABV and a cartoonishly bright scarlet colour, though the head is white, not pink. The aroma is extremely sweet, beyond jam or jelly and into some kind of industrial concentrate that's meant to be heavily diluted before tasting. The flavour pulls it back a little, but only a little, and it's the full Bakewell tart with a side cherryade experience -- not so much cherry as a ten-year-old's idea of how cherry should taste. As such, it has a lot in common with the syrup-derived gutter krieks of industrial Belgian lambic: there's still a faint echo of a fully attenuated sour beer lurking meekly in the background. It's not fancy or quality or anything but I have a sneaking fondness for it. Beers like this are what got me interested in interesting beer in the first place. It's one that I enjoyed, but don't necessarily recommend.

The set tops out on one described as an "imperial rauchbier". A reichbier? This is Smokey Blinder, 8.1% ABV and a muddy ochre colour. It smells quite kippery, which is never a good sign in a smoked beer, while the mouthfeel is thin with lots of fizz. That at least keeps it clean -- it would have been very easy for this to be a sticky mess, but I'm guessing I have lager yeast to thank for chomping through that. The smoke flavour, which is the only flavour there is, is nicely savoury with a pleasant hammy effect, just like the good stuff from Franconia. It begins crisply and finishes with a different sort of crispness, like brittle bacon bits. Not only is there little malt residue, there's no alcohol heat either. All in all, it works. You just have to ignore the awful appearance.

I bought these as an experiement to give the brewery a try-out and I think I'll be buying more from them at the next opportunity. While the prosaic styles are fine, I think they have a rare flair for silly novelties.

The throwback

A drizzly grey evening seemed like the appropriate occasion to open this Californian take on brown bitter: Firestone Walker's Double Barrel Ale. I hadn't realised when I bought it what a throwback it is, being the first beer the brewery ever produced, in 1996.

If it's meant to be a bitter it doesn't look like a good one, being dun-coloured and murky. A head forms but doesn't last long. The aroma is sweet, though more in a fruity way than malt: I get red grape and cherry in particular. So it goes with the flavour: no biscuit and no caramel, but a very tasty raisin and plum pudding effect set on a lightly carbonated base. It tastes clean too, with the murk minding its own business throughout. It is just as drinkable and refreshing as a cask bitter, even if it doesn't taste much like one.

It's an unusual beast and doesn't really fit the profile of any beer style I could identify. That's not a criticism, however. With beer fashion moving as fast as it does, it's lovely that a recipe from the mid-1990s is still around for me to catch up with.

Untamed beasts

Time for one of my occasional Canvas catch-ups, thanks to a trip over to Blackrock Cellar, the primo Dublin stockist of beers from down the country that rarely make it to Dublin.

First it's a beer described simply as "golden sour", named Bella and 6.5% ABV. It pours quite lifeless and is a dark, orangey shade of barely-gold with no proper head. They've used white wine barrels for ageing, and I get quite a lot of fresh oak in the aroma, with a tarter wine or vinegar edge. I detect something Bretty at work in the flavour as there's a gummy sweetness, akin to tinned peaches, right up front. Light white wine -- cava or prosecco -- hovers in the background before it cleans off quickly leaving a mildly tart acidic bite. I was afraid it would prove as flat as it looks but there's a definite sparkle here, helping it stay clean. The absence of funk makes it a simpler beer than others of this sort. I enjoyed it, though: it's certainly unusual and there's lots to explore in what it does.

It's described as an "amber saison" but Yera is only a little bit darker than that, and it's a little stronger too: 7.2% ABV. Again it's almost flat but not quite, and again the alcohol is extremely well hidden. Here, they say, the yeast culture used includes their abbey strain and I do get a certain plum-and-aniseed Belgian character. There's a mild red-berry tartness and a layer of soft toffee as well. "Saison" is a brave pick for a style because it tastes nothing like one, nor like any other preconceived beer style really. The disparate elements described above don't really gel together into a coherent whole, the way they would were this Belgian. It's fine, but I found myself wanting much more complexity from it.

The next two are coffee-infused, and for a change, Canvas didn't grow all the ingredients for these themselves but sourced the coffee, ethically, outside of Tipperary, in Africa. I began with Radical Rhino, the lighter of the pair at 4.3% ABV and labelled a "farmhouse stout". Soured stout doesn't usually appeal to me, and this one gives that as its first impression, pouring flat and muddy brown, with a concerning vinegar tang in the aroma. That's the direction it picks and so it continues. Unlike the previous ones with their bit of sparkle, this is genuinely and unfortunately flat. The sour tang is at least minimal, but so is the coffee, and that really should be a main feature. There's a touch of funk in the background, but it's a bit plain overall, watery and thin like a lacklustre Flanders red. This is one of the Canvas experiments that didn't work out for me. It needs much more body to be a stout, even at low strength.

I had to follow that with another along same lines: Zesty Zebra, though this is badged as a "dark farmhouse ale". I'm not sure what the difference is meant to be. This looks even worse, a dirty, dreggy ochre colour, though the sparkle is back. Again, sourness covers up the coffee and I would have no idea there was any in here had it not been flagged. It ain't zesty, that's for sure. This has the same basic Flemish red tartness as the previous one, with a little herbal bitterness but not much else. And again it's OK if your demands don't run much further than that. Drinking the two side-by-side was a bad idea as I was bored two sips in. There's actually a third in the series which wasn't in stock when I went shopping. Perhaps that's a mercy as I wouldn't have enjoyed yet more of the same. 

Finally, 99 Brett Balloons, and it was nice to get proper head formation for a change. This one is all of 5.5% ABV and suffers from the same muting of its flavour as the last two. It does taste of Brettanomyces though: a nice mix of funk, spice and tropical sweetness, but I'd prefer the volume to be turned thoroughly up. It is nicely drinkable, however -- light and smooth with just enough complexity to hold one's interest. Raise the gravity, and the gumminess, and this would be a potential classic. 103 Brett Balloons, anyone?

As always with Canvas, the daring experimentation is part of the package you're buying, and sometimes the things you can learn from the beer are more important than whether it tastes good. The likes of these are very much not for the prescriptivist drinker.