Lacadaisical

As I was leaving the pub, several cans of Lacada beer fell into my bag. It's strange how often that happens when Simon is in the vicinity.

Once brought home and duly chilled, the first to be poured was Tide Line, a table beer of 3% ABV. These tend to be pale and hazy but this one is interestingly dark: rose gold or amber. For all that the gravity isn't up to much, they've loaded it with interesting hops -- Citra, Galaxy and Vic Secret -- which starts to pay off in the beautiful mandarin-zest aroma. The flavour doesn't quite deliver on that promise, though if it did, the whole thing would probably end up tasting like another pale ale. Instead, there's a more serious bitter earthiness flecked with jaffa rind and some rough wood bark. There's no quick finish for this lightweight either, with everything lasting long into the finish in a nicely satisfying way. This is not an easy-drinking thirst-quencher, but requires a bit of time to drink and consider. Your liver will thank you for that.

Slemish is, of course, a mountain IPA. This is supposed to be a hybrid of east and west cost variants but this example looks very eastern, being an opaque yellow colour. The aroma, too, is only lightly citric but big on tropical juice. So all the pine and grapefruit must be in the taste, right? It's not. The fuzzy New England mouthfeel might well have made that impossible. There's a faint hint of lime, but it's not clean or even properly bitter. The rest is a sort of grainy mish-mash including sesame seed, chalk and butane. The latter brings a heat that I think is excessive for 5.7% ABV. I fear that in trying to hit both coasts that they've brought the worst of each: the grittiness of New England IPA hitting the hot harsh bitterness of the other sort.

From IPA to double IPA. Ciento was one Simon was pouring samples of while we were still in BrewDog Dublin. The name references that it was their 100th brew. It's 7.5% ABV and west-coast styled, deep orange in colour and heavily textured. Tastewise it's another serious one, as of course it should be: IPA is altogether too frivolous these days. Thickly dank resin and clove spice is the aroma, turning to marmalade on biscuit as the flavour. I got a tiny rubbery twang as well which upset the equilibrium but thankfully didn't ruin it. By and large they've nailed what they set out to make here: proper west coast from the actual north coast.

We hit the properly strong stuff with the barley wine Port Na Spaniagh at 10% ABV. It's a dark amber in the glass, murky and headless. It smells fruity, like an autumnal orchard, all plum and fig and blackberry, with a rich and cakey malt undertone. The texture is very thick and it's one of those beers you have to pull past your teeth with considerable physical effort. Your reward when you do so is a beer that puts its strength right at the top of its profile, all chewy fruitcake, sticky dates and jammy damsons. While filling and warming, it's not inappropriately hot or headachey, without any of the phenols or higher alcohol that can spoil this sort. You needn't expect much by way of hop, but there's a certain herbal aniseed quality providing an old-world balance to the cake. Once again Lacada has brewed something serious that demands your attention, and it's worth giving it.

And so, inevitably, we're down in the dark at Jonsey's Locker. This imperial stout is 13% ABV and aged for a year in Irish whiskey barrels which I suspect may have come from the brewery's local megadistillery. In the glass it's purest black with a heavily nicotined head. The aroma is sweet, sticky, and slightly burned, like caramelised sugar or treacle. It's not terribly smooth, the silkiness of the texture compromised by slightly too much fizz. I missed the creaminess when I found the beautiful moccha/latte foretaste, shot through with generously-poured espresso. It turns more to milk chocolate and vanilla at the end, a gentle finish where some beers like this go all out for the spirit burn. This is refined and very classy, showing all the wallop of a silly American pastry stout but with nothing gimmickier than an Irish whiskey barrel involved.

Slemish aside, this is quite an impressive set, with the stronger beers showing a talent for packing the flavours in where there's room to accommodate them. Cheers Simon!

The kennel club

Another BrewDog post so soon? Once again, I'm pleading circumstances. In March the Scottish brewery's Dublin megapub generously hosted the National Homebrew Club's first national competition since 2019. I went along to lend my palate to proceedings and, when done, hung about to drink beer, catch up with friends and await the results. It was an opportunity to try out some newish beers from both headquarters and the onsite brewkit.

The first beer to catch my attention was Black Heart. BrewDog has been marketing this heavily as a Guinness substitute, and just like with Ansbach & Hobday's London Black last year, I wanted to put that to the test. Unlike London Black, however, this one does actually meet the brief. They've matched the strength of Draught Guinness in Britain where it's 4.1% ABV. They've got the texture spot on, while the flavour is very dry and rather boring, presenting an equivalent amount of toast and roast but lacking the tangy sourness which is Draught Guinness's only real nod to having character. Mission accomplished, I guess, though BrewDog normally makes much more interesting beers than this. I would like to try them side by side if I ever get the chance.

I have Steve to thank for a taster of Pie in the Sky, an imperial stout with cherry and vanilla, produced by the wild-fermentation sub-brand, OverWorks. This is stout on a technicality only; mostly it's a sour beer in a broadly Belgian fashion, the added cherries lending it a certain air of Rodenbach or similar. I'm not sure what the vanilla is meant to be doing -- hidden balance, perhaps -- but it doesn't get in the way, while the cherry is quite realistic. Best of all, the sourness isn't tokenistic or apologetic but full-on and puckering in a most invigorating way. Excellent stuff.

The other pair today came from BrewDog Dublin's own brewery. They do a good line in puns which would have me here more often if they hadn't built the place half way out to sea. First up, I can't resist a sour IPA, and this one promises extra refreshment with the addition of fennel. They've called it Fennelope Cruz. It's 4.6% ABV and a pale and hazy yellow. The sourness is on the subtle side here, but I think that suits it, making it taste zesty rather than puckering. The fennel gets a good run, adding an unusual savoury quality to it. This is the sort of high quality creativity that one hopes for from a small brewery producing nothing but once-off experiments.

The final one is not. I headed for the door after the Italian-style pilsner called Canem & Circenses. Cool name but disastrous flavour. If they did the bit of the lagering process which is supposed to remove the diacetyl, it didn't work. This was intensely, horrifically, buttery -- concentrated to the point where Steve described it as cheese-like and he wasn't wrong. Urgh. In the background there are hints of what it should have been, with notes of mango, peach and fruit chews. This doesn't say pilsner of any kind to me, but at least it would have been drinkable. As is, it wasn't.

At least I got a couple of good beers out of the excursion, and plenty of very tasty homebrew as well. Thanks to the Club for inviting me along, and to Outpost Dublin for hosting. Sort your lager out, though, eh?

Down and up

It's been a while since I've had any Mourne Mountains beer on here. I don't get to do much beer shopping up north and they have only just returned to the shelves down here, so I'm well behind on what the Co. Down brewer is doing these days. Here's two of them.

Happy Trails is an IPA, and even without any further indications on the can I assumed this would be hazy: one just does now. Sure enough it's completely opaque, and quite a dark colour, a kind of sunset orange. The density of appearance leads on to quite an assertive aroma, bringing thick and sweet tropical notes, all ripe guava and mango. The flavour is surprisingly different, having a green and leafy bitterness, primarily offering celery, spinach and damp grass in quite a Germanic way. Despite the thick texture, the hops don't hang around long and it finishes quickly and without fuss. I hoped for better from this. Sure, there are no flaws, which is far from a given with this sort of thing, but possibly its lack of character could be considered a flaw by itself. The recipe needs a lot more hops, I reckon. That ought to be possible in a can costing €4.49.

The same outlay got me a 7% ABV oatmeal stout called Bear Grease. This was much more to my taste, being properly dense and black, with a strong aroma of espresso, dark chocolate and a certain nougat nuttiness. The mouthfeel is appropriately full and serves the principal purpose of delivering the flavour. Said flavour is absolutely bang on for the style, being coffee and chocolate again, with a caramel sweetness and lighter autumnal fruit notes of blackberry and blackcurrant. The aroma's nut side develops into a smooth marzipan paste in the finish. Despite all the complexity in evidence, the flavours are very well balanced and integrated, making this a beer which can be enjoyed on any number of levels: a straightforward wholesome warmer; a properly flavoursome stout; or something a nerd can pick apart in a stultifyingly forensic way. It's all good and I liked it a lot.

In fact, thinking back, perhaps I should have known at the start it would play out like this. Stouts like Wee Honey and Whiskey & Vanilla have been highlights of previous forays into the Mourne Mountains lineup. I'll be looking for more of the same next time.

Don't call it a comeback

New pale ales from Irish breweries are back on the shelves after a winter hiatus. Here's what I've picked up in the last couple of months.

They like a session IPA at Kinnegar. Brewers At Play No. 29 is one, as were 7, 8, 14, 18 and 22 in the sequence. Play to your low strengths, you might say. This is 4% ABV and a murky orange colour. There's a lovely bright and fresh mandarin aroma and lots of fizz. The flavour is understated, offering little beyond a basic orangeade note, only a touch of vanilla, finishing a bit watery with a carbonic bite. Still, it's designed to be refreshing and absolutely nails the brief: no frills where none are required.

Western Herd has got hold of some kveik and made an IPA called Magnus Barefoot, because Norway or something. It's a very opaque yellow and short on head. The aroma is an interesting mix of citrus pith and softer stonefruit so I wasn't sure what kind of IPA I was actually going to get. Turns out it was neither of those things. The first flavour is a spicy cinnamon and aftershave kick, followed by a rasping talcum dryness. Where are the hops? There's a little of the pithy orange from the aroma hovering in the background but it doesn't last long. And... that's it. The beer is a lot less exciting than the can art. It's a mercy it's only 5.6% ABV so doesn't take up too much of one's capacity. I get that kveik is all about turning beer around quickly but this tastes raw and unfinished rather than fresh.   

"WEST COAST HAZY IPA" in block capitals on the label is unnecessarily upsetting. But so it is with Wave Sweeper, new from The White Hag. Breweries seem to be putting a concerted effort into aligning the features of east and west coast IPA, though with little success that I've seen. Let's see how this one goes. It looks eastern: pale yellow and completely opaque. The aroma has a certain lemony crispness, though there's also a hint of lemon curd's vanilla. The flavour dispenses with any sweet aspects and tries hard to present nothing but sharp lime and grapefruit with a little pine resin herbal complexity. Unfortunately there's a savoury twang from the murk which gets in the way and prevents it tasting like a properly clean west coaster. A gallant effort, but I still think east and west should continue their separate IPA ways.

There's no stylistic prevarication with White Hag's Danaan, released around the same time and badged simply as a "juicy IPA". I got a pint of it at UnderDog and thought it was no such thing. The flavour began with a strong hit of garlic, backed by other green vegetables: celery and spinach, primarily. The aroma too brings the allium, although there it's more of a white onion thing. And then there's a rasp of bitter murky dregs for an even less enjoyable kind of savouriness. I have no doubt that this is the very heights of fashion and may well be just how haze aficionados like it, but as far as I was concerned the juice was entirely AWOL and it's very much not to my taste.

Let's see if Hopfully can do any better. First of today's set from them is Softseats, one which looks the proper opaque shade of pale yellow. It's no lightweight at 6.8% ABV but it smells innocently sweet, of vanilla in particular. "Innocent" is a good descriptor for the taste too: there's nothing sharp, harsh or untoward here, all is smooth and gentle. It's a little lacking on the fruit side, offering not much more than a a touch of ripe banana and a rub of mandarin pith. The rest is custard, with a hint of marzipan around the edges. I like how it doesn't try to do anything clever and instead is just a nice beer to drink -- some hazy IPAs give the impression of trying to be God's gift to brewing and the epitome of hop utilisation. This is just tasty and I respect that a lot.

While there's no inherent reason not to mess about with the basics of New England IPA, coffee is a strange choice of addition but that's what Hopfully has gone for with Longlegs. It looks perfectly normal: an even opaque yellow colour. The texture is pleasantly soft and creamy -- on the good side of normal for the style. And then the foretaste is a powerful and unsubtle blast of freshly brewed coffee. This is creamy too, like a latte. Only a minor tropical tang on the finish brings us back to the basics. It's a bit of a mad chimera, and it absolutely shouldn't work, but it does. Above all it's fun, and more than a little silly, but fair play to the brewery for giving it a go.

They take us further from IPA purity with Electrick Sheep, a sour one, no less. It's a big beast at 7% ABV and hopped with Citra, Amarillo and Galaxy. The high gravity makes its presence felt in the texture, which is heavy and cordial-like with quite a significant sweetness. The sour isn't long behind and is a very simple and straightforward jolt of something that tastes a lot like lemon juice but is actually the work of lactobacillus plantarum, according to the can. I like sour IPA but I like them to be refreshing, and this one is just too heavy for that. Neither the souring culture nor the hops add enough complexity for it to really get off the ground. It's OK -- a fun and weighty party-in-the-mouth palate-thumper -- but I would have liked more subtlety and nuance. 

Lough Gill has given us something altogether more serious with Look West, in that rare substyle, red IPA. Canadian brewery Spearhead gets their logo on the label too. This 6.5%-er is a red IPA to its bones, and it provided me with an opportunity to analyse why I don't get on with the style. Which I will now explain to you. I like American amber ale, to which it's related, for the mix of fudgey malt and sparking hop pizzazz. When you dial all of that up into a red IPA the spark gets dampened and the result is both harshly bitter and cloyingly sweet. That's what this is. Nobody eats toffee with a side of grapefruit; the flavours simply don't get along. The result here is sweaty, rubbery, sticky and hot. I'm sure it's exactly what the brewer meant it to be but it doesn't suit this blogger's palate one little bit.

Here's hoping for better with the brewery's latest hazy IPA, Yellow Warning, brewed in collaboration with La Muette in France. It's not yellow, it's orange, and not quite full-on hazy. Citra and Sabro are the hops, and the zest from the former is beautifully loud and bright in the aroma. Where's the Sabro? In the flavour: a sizeable dollop of dessertish coconut, front and centre. Behind it, the pith which Sabro also brings, though mild rather than sharp. And that's it. While it's 6.3% ABV, the body is light and the taste balanced and accessible with no savoury side, which is great. Maybe because it was the first beer of my weekend (not that you asked) but I found this downright gluggable, in a way that something of this strength probably shouldn't be. 

The Lough Gill offer tops out at 8.2% ABV and a double IPA called Tasmanian Dive. The name is a reference to its use of Galaxy and Eclipse hops from Oz. It's a very fashionable shade of opaque eggy yellow and the alcohol makes its presence felt right from the get-go, in the aroma. It's there with quite a liqueurish and sticky-smelling tropical syrup thing. I get an immediate sense that this one will be hard work. The mouthfeel is nicely light and fizzy, not allowing that big gravity to cloy the palate. There's a large and immediate hit of bitter herbal acidity, all garlic and ginger. The fruit behind this is similarly bitter, going for zest and spritz rather than juicy tropicality. The booze suggested in the aroma doesn't really show up in the taste. Instead, it all fades quickly, which is the only disappointing feature of an otherwise highly enjoyable assertive double IPA.

Cold IPA next, and Galway Bay is refusing to take a side in the cold IPA cold war, choosing to use both lager and ale yeast in its first example, called I Hear You Like IPA. More importantly, Simcoe, Colombus and Strata are the hops. Much like with brut IPA before it, I'm beginning to think that "cold" means nothing more than very very pale. Because this is a very very pale yellow, barely misted with haze. Simcoe's signature piney resins occupy the aroma, and the flavour has a certain dankness to match that. Another pattern I'm noticing is onion, and it's perhaps not surprising that if you make a very hop-forward crisp and clean beer, the hops will take it as an invitation to be sharp and tangy. In the full understanding of how little such things count for most IPA drinkers, this is quite unbalanced, and left me hankering for more malt to offset the hopping in both taste and texture. It's not bad, but is a bit efforty -- making a cold IPA because that's what people are doing nowadays. It's not an improvement on IPA. Yes, I am old.

I don't get to put many new releases from Killarney Brewing up here as their distribution is very limited in my part of the world. On a day trip to exotic Carlow over the Easter break, however, I picked up a bottle of Full Circle, their IPA. "What coast is it?" I yell at the bottle, "TELL ME!" I suspect, however, the recipe predates the IPA civil war, or at least ignores it. There are no oats in the ingredients, the brewery's description mentions both juice and bitterness, and while there's a haze when poured, it's a more old-fashioned sort, signifying a lightly processed beer rather than deliberate trend chasing. The aroma offers a light rasp of lime and grapefruit on a toasty malt base -- all very Sierra Nevada -- and then the flavour adds in some softer sherbet and lemon drizzle cake. There's a little roughness from the murk but it doesn't interrupt the main hop action. On balance I think this leans much more to the more traditional side of American IPA, and does it rather well at only 5% ABV. Characterful yet sessionable is the sweet spot. 

Trouble released something they're calling a "cream soda" pale ale, named Soda Dream. A glance at the ingredients reveals lactose and vanilla, suggesting to me a deliberate avoidance of the divisive word "milkshake" in the branding. Well they can't fool me. The beer is 5.4% ABV and hazy orange. Its aroma is surprisingly bitter, with a juicy tang but no lactose. That does arrive in both the flavour and mouthfeel, that latter being very thick and slick -- milkshakes for sure -- and the taste quite artificial. I don't know which candy of my childhood was loaded up with vanilla essence but this tastes like that one. I'm not a fan. It's too sickly and the promise of citrus made by the aroma is reneged upon. On the plus side, milkshake pale ale fanatics can buy this without asking for a plain paper bag to put it in. 

The latest from Lineman is a hazy IPA called Loose Ends. Not that they've badged it as hazy, of course: that's up to you to find out when you open it. It's hazy to the bone, however, being a pale yellow and smelling of garlic, vanilla and lime peel. For all that the flavour is strangely dry, to the point of being a little acrid, smoky; phenolic, maybe? There's something not quite right about this, which is very unusual for Lineman. My in-house back-up taster didn't detect anything awry so maybe it's just me, in which case I'll simply deem it not to my taste and move on.

IPA enthusiasts Outer Place have gone cold for their seventh: Polar Sequence. The pale gold colour belies a hefty 6.5% ABV, as does the light and accessible mouthfeel. The lager yeast has a slightly detrimental effect on the flavour too, making it finish quickly and cleanly, which is a shame here because the foretaste is lovely. It's a sharply invigorating grapefruit kick laced with naughty dank resins and a hint of white pepper. I wanted it to go on forever, but it insisted on departing abruptly. The malt side of the equation is deliciously crisp, and I guess that's just part of the deal. So while I wanted more from this, it does what it does extremely well and I should be happy with that. 

Number eight from Outer Place, Wildfires, is their eighth IPA but the first in the west-coast style. With everything else they've done being hazy I was a little sceptical about that, and sure enough while it's not murky there's a substantial misting in this one. But does it taste clear? The good news is yes, it pretty much does. The bad news is that the smoky sharpness I noticed above in Loose Ends is also in this, which was brewed on the same kit. It's harder to peek around it, but before it takes over the palate there's some fun heavy pine resin and a leafy bitterness, but no grapefruit or related citrus. And then burnt plastic and old rubber running long into the finish. It's hard to say if this would have worked for me if everything were kosher. I'm still waiting on something properly clear from Outer Place, or maybe even a non-IPA.

Back to the supermarket, finally, and there's a new one in the Journeyman series, produced for Centra and SuperValu by Pearse Lyons. Journeyman Double IPA is 7.5% ABV and a very murky dark orange colour, looking a bit muddy. The aroma is clean, however, presenting a sharply old-school west-coast front, loaded with pine and grapefruit. That meant the foretaste was a surprise, being candy sweet, all cake icing and succulent mandarin. The dryer bitter side waits a moment before appearing, scorching the tongue in the middle section before fading to leave residual dark sugar as the finish. For a supermarket cheapie it's quite well put-together, offering fresh and bold flavours which may not be en vogue at present but are still great fun to encounter.

That's it for now. Keep it hoppy!

Promise kept

I told you that when DOT completed the launch of its core range, first presented in the media in June of last year, that I would let you know. Easy Amber was the straggler, featured in the press coverage but only available to drink from March of this year. Better late than never, of course, and I snapped one up as soon as I saw it.

It's an even 5% ABV and quite murky in the glass, more a muddy brown than amber. The aroma is an enticing mix of sweetness and spice, like ginger cake. On the palate it's quite subtle, presenting a complex mix of cherry, raisin and chocolate up front, with a cedarwood spicing peppered through it. The murky look leads to a murky mouthfeel and I can't help thinking it would be better if cleaned up more. Still, the essentials of amber ale are well represented and it's nice that having one as a go-to is now an option.

A single-beer DOT post is of course impossible, so what else we got here? Victory in a quiz at 57 the Headline resulted in a bagful beers from the pub's beer brand, Two Yards. In that were two versions of Over A Barrel, a barrel-aged milk stout created in collaboration with DOT. I covered the original, Cognac, version in late 2020. One sequel uses Recioto dessert wine barrels and is a percentage point stronger than the first one at 9.2% ABV. I'm not familiar with Recioto itself, but this beer smells extremely herbal, more like a vermouth than a sticky. The wine side comes out more in the flavour, although it's very much oak and cork over fruit. There's also a brisk sourness which is very strange for a milk stout. Despite all the weirdness this works very well. As with many of DOT's more involved beers, style designations aren't much of a help in determining what you're going to get. This one takes you all over place but the destination is still delicious.

The strongest one in the set is Over A Barrel Bourbon which is 11.2% ABV. We're back to stouts that present as stouts, and this one has a lovely coffee aroma, pure and unadulterated. The texture is creamy and the flavour is smooth, with no jags of spirit or booze, possibly even risking an accusation of blandness, at least next to the Recioto one. It's not bland, though. Espresso coffee is at the centre of the flavour, accompanied by significant lactose-derived creamy sweetness, but there's also a malt whisky aspect which tastes mature and classy, not the crash-bang vanilla I associate with bourbon. While definitely sweet, this is a no-nonsense beer which keeps all of its different elements balanced and in check.

What's particularly interesting from drinking the stouts side-by-side is what a difference the barrel makes. The base recipes may be the same but the results are very divergent. Being able to find this out is one of the things that makes the DOT project so worthwhile.

At the tail end we have Verjus. This very experimental small batch arrived on draught at a bijou beer event in Lucky's on Meath Street just before Easter. It's a mixed-fermentation sour beer of 4.4% ABV with added raspberry, cherry and the titular ingredient, verjus, which is made from squeezed immature grapes and supposedly adds a zesty citrus taste. Of course, raspberry tends to dominate anything it's put in, and so it goes with this hazy pink emulsion -- sweet candy hitting up against a buzzy sour sharpness with a hint of redcurrant jelly. I liked it but didn't really get the novelty factor, or much indication of what the special ingredient brought. I guess there'll be more verjus in the next one. Let's be having it.

A full core range is all well and good but it's the off-kilter ingredients and processes that I come to DOT for. 

Flight of the navigator

The Northside is the east coast and the Southside is the west coast in this pair of geographically confused double IPAs, brewed by Hope for Craft Central. Both are 8% ABV and hopped with Columbus, Citra, Mosaic and El Dorado plus a dry addition of Galaxy. For the most part they look well: Northside is pale and an opaque yellow colour while Southside is an almost red shade of dark amber, though disappointingly murky. Clarity would have heightened the contrast further.

I started on Northside as the less bitter of the two, 45 IBUs as against Southside's 65. While there's a hint of vanilla in the aroma, there's also lots of sharply bitter smelling American hops, which perhaps given the selection shouldn't be surprising. Sure enough there's no juice in the flavour either, and first out is a rough and dreggy murk. That's disappointing. The vanilla sweetness is still there, with an added fruit chew element, where the fruit is artificial, not fresh. And then there's the hard green hops, acidic and tongue-coating, suggesting green cabbage and lime rind, accentuated by significant alcohol heat. This isn't a typical, or especially good, example of double New England-style IPA, which is a shame in a comparative project like this.

And so to Southside. There's a nice lesson here in the uselessness of IBUs as a measure of anything because it tastes less bitter than the other one. The hops seem to be subsumed into the weighty, chewy malt base, leaving only a subtle jammy summer fruit effect in both aroma and flavour. There's a savoury tang of white onion and a heavy resin character, though more the flavour than actual bitterness. I liked how subtle and well-integrated it all is, but it's not the hop firework that American style double IPA is supposed to be. It's a pleasant sipper, overall, if a little lacking in the personality I would expect for a special edition.

The beers do demonstrate well how different they are from each other, despite the similar specs. It's just a little bit sad that neither displays their style's best attributes. As a beer to drink rather than an experiment to evaluate, Southside has the edge, even if the reasons it's better aren't the reasons that west coast is better than east coast. Which it is.

Confounded expectations

I've been enjoying Third Barrel's 4% ABV session IPA series, Day Drinkin and I notice they have abandoned the numbering system for iteration five, simply telling us it's Strata, Citra, Simcoe. As usual it's a hazy yellow in the glass. There's a decent whack of juice in the aroma, though a little chalky grit as well. The flavour is not so much juice as citrus flesh: the spritzy zing of real mandarin and satsuma. Not much happens beyond this, and it finishes quickly, but that's to be expected. This is for warm-day drinking, built to quench thirst rather than provide content for stuffy beer reviews. I have no idea if they have plans to stop messing with the recipe but I would be perfectly happy if they did so here.

West is West, a collaboration between Third Barrel and Beer Hut, makes a pretty unambiguous claim. We're talking clear amber, pithy and piney with plenty of bitterness and, above all, clean, right? This is none of those things. Instead, it veers haze-ward, being a murky pale orange colour. The mouthfeel matches that, soft and fluffy, and it was only as I was assessing this that I found a pinch of bitterness at the back. Beforehand it's marmalade and chew sweets; not juice, but not far off. You need to let it warm to grow the bitterness into lime rind and and something leafier and more vegetal. That shouldn't be necessary. In general, I don't particularly object to cryptoNEIPA of this sort, but calling it what they did feels like rubbing in an injustice.

New from Third Barrel's lodger Crafty Bear is a cherry milkshake IPA, which is not something I've encountered before and was a bit apprehensive about. Othello is the name, 6.2% ABV and a dense orangey-pink colour. The aroma is more milkshake than IPA and short on fruit, offering only vague vanilla. Luckily the flavour is altogether more engaging and succeeds in putting the cherry syrup front and centre. Vanilla backs it and I was braced for a jarring bitterness in the finish but none came, only a very faint leafy green buzz. As an IPA it doesn't really pass muster but as a happy, chewy, summer fruit beer it works. I've had much, much worse milkshake IPAs.

A stout to finish, and Third Barrel becomes the second Irish brewery to release a tribute to the late popstar Prince, after Rascals in 2017. But while that was a straightforward lager, Rainin Purple is much more involved, being a milk stout with added raspberry, lychee and rosewater -- although none of those flavourings appear on the ingredients list. It's a substantial 7% ABV and dark brown in colour with lots of unexpected busy fizz. I'm sceptical about the benefits of putting anything else in a stout with raspberry: it does tend to cover everything else. But while this is indeed raspberry-forward throughout, the other features are discernible, particularly the sweet and unctuous lychee in the aroma and the exotic, Turkish-delight, rosewater in the flavour's finish. They are subtle, however, which means the different elements don't jar with each other, presenting a harmonious picture. At the centre of the taste is a candybox confection of raspberry and chocolate, smooth and sweet after the carbonation subsides. The alcohol is very well hidden. It's perhaps not as complex, or busy, as I thought it would be, but it's still very enjoyable and ideal dessert fare.

Adding fruit to IPA and stout wouldn't normally be my thing, but here are two examples of it done well. There's no excuse for not cleaning up that IPA though.