Dreaming of a white one?

During the too-short lead-in to Christmas 2018 I dropped up to the Open Gate Brewery on my way home one evening, to check in with the final releases of the year. The venue is in something of a wind-down, planning to close for a major refurbishment during the month of February. As such, there were only three new beers for me to try.

Hoppy Return Lager made certain promises with its name that the beer failed to live up to. Though a full 5% ABV, it arrived looking a very pale white-gold colour with no head. It is full-bodied, so no criticisms there, but the flavour was all wrong. For one thing there wasn't very much of it, coming across plain and grainy. There's a strange touch of banana as well. It took me a while to notice that flatness was also an issue, making the dead taste seem even more lifeless. I had it side-by-side with the mass-produced Open Gate Pilsner, and it's nowhere near as hoppy or characterful as that one. It's inoffensive, and has apparently been quite popular. Just goes to show.

I wasn't sure what I was getting when I moved on to the Winter Pale Ale. This was also 5% ABV, and a dark gold colour, heading for pale amber. Though brewed with American hops it did a wonderful impression of English bitter, being dry and tannic. There was a spicy floral-herbal seasoning which reminded me of beers that make strong use of Challenger hops, in particular. The hopping is raw, fresh and cold, the beer smelling like walking into a brewery's hop fridge. Yummy. It's light, clean and refreshing, something I'd very happily have sat over a pint or two of if I hadn't been rushing around.

That just leaves the 10% ABV madman, Spiced Barleywine. This had an even stronger herbal aroma, of real herbs this time, rather than hop-derived analogues. Sweet ginger biscuit is what the flavour offers, with the spicing warming the back of the throat pleasingly. Oddly, ginger isn't mentioned as a feature on the official description, just cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. The texture is remarkably thin for the strength, and it doesn't really match the style. There's a certain richness to it, a long and Christmassy satsuma and ginger finish. But it's also dry and quite astringent. I got a tiny twang of marker-pen phenols as it warms, but thankfully that's mostly masked by the spicing. In conclusion: jolly.

And with that we head into the teeth of my Christmas and New Year tasting notes, starting in England on Friday.

Tickers ahoy!

Two late-2018 canned releases from YellowBelly today, both featuring a ticker-tape parade motif on the label. In the first, YellowBelly is teamed up with Shane from Rising Sons brewery in Cork, for 'tis a collaboration between the two. Grand Parade is a session IPA, 4.3% ABV and utilising Citra, Simcoe, Mosaic and Azacca hops. As it poured I thought I was going to end up with something completely opaque but there's a certain pale translucency in the glass. The texture is light, but before the flavour tails off into a fizzy orangeade thinness it offers a tasty mix of mango, pineapple and mandarin, leading to a more assertive grapefruit and lime bitterness. It's fun to encounter the Big Citric Hops and the Big Tropical Hops working so well in tandem. The end result is quenching, quaffable, and despite that tiny watery bite, well-engineered for the session.

Next up is The Wolf of Malt Street. This time it's a collaboration with Wicklow Wolf, described as a Black Forest stout, with oats and cherries but relying on the malt for chocolate flavouring (though not using chocolate malt). It's 6.2% ABV, but so rich it could pass for a full-blown pastry monster. Cherry syrup dominates the taste: sticky and purple. There is a decent stout underneath, one which might have been better off without the embellishment. I could detect its molasses and caramel sweetness and would liked to have been given more of this, but the busy cherry chases it away quickly. It's fine, and there are no surprises or flaws here. It's just a little too dessertish for my out-of-step tastes.

I'm sure it won't be long before the parade of 2019 YellowBelly releases hoves into view.

Bernard revisited

Clearing out the lager stash today: a few beers that have probably spent a bit too long on the fridge awaiting the opportune moment. No time like the present.

A couple of pale ones from Czech brewer Bernard first. Bezlepkový Ležák is, as the name states, the gluten-free lager. It's 4.9% ABV and a deep, almost reddish, gold colour. It's fairly sweet but not overly so, the grassy metallic hops confined to the very finish. The texture is nicely weighty, making it a good lager for colder evenings, but while it has the soft golden syrup mouthfeel typical of Czech lager it's missing the related malt flavour. This is perfectly drinkable but forgettable too.

I wasn't sure what to expect different from Bernard Celebration, it being a whole 0.1% ABV stronger, though the masses of froth was a surprise. It looks a little brighter, perhaps, but still that coppery tone. The thick mouthfeel is back and it's carrying more flavour here: liquorice, toffee, and yes proper Saaz-y cut grass. The finish is properly lager-clean, departing the palate with a wisp of herbal anise. Once again this is pleasant drinking but far from the best that big Czech lager has to offer.

Neither of these was as good as I was hoping for. I bought them along with an old favourite, Bernard Dark, and that one is still absolutely excellent. Overall, though, Bernard remains in the lower league of Bohemian breweries.

Very common

Don't mess with a classic. Or maybe do. I'll say this at least: the arrival of a Dry-Hopped version of Anchor Steam Beer did make me go out and buy a bottle of the original version for comparison.

The newbie appears a little hazier, though is still the same rich copper shade. From the aroma the malt seems to be still in charge, but there's a zesty lemon sherbet that wasn't there before. And that's the same story on tasting: an unsubtle citric hop layer, all lemon curd and liquorice. The original, crisp, Anchor Steam Beer is still visible, but it's like it has been crop-dusted with a thick layer of hop perfume.

It works, and it's actively pleasant to drink, but I'm not sure it's really an improvement. It doesn't magically become a modern west-coast IPA, and fully retains its old-world stylings, in the manner of a 1950s sweetshop. Part of me expected it to be near identical to Anchor Steam but this is definitely its own thing.

Most importantly of all, there's precious little that tastes like this on the shelves these days.

Lager incognito

I do my best to get a good mix of the world's beers onto this blog, something that can be tough in Dublin where the speciality beer market is small and tends to be dominated by the micro-giants of the British and American craft scenes. I'll pick up an oddity or an outlier any time I see one, and today's post concerns six of such, from countries where beer isn't the most famous export.

From Redmond's I took home this handsome 600ml bottle of Nigerian lager. Star is premium quality, cold filtered, and finest lager beer. It's 5.1% ABV, a perfect limpid golden colour, and the main fermentable, according to the ingredients, is sorghum. It tastes, bizarrely, like a non-alcoholic beer. It has that porridgey sweet character, all wheat and honey. I can't imagine anyone would find it refreshing. No hops, no crispness, nothing that makes lager worthwhile. Doubtless this is a lifesaver in its home market: the beer you drink when goddammit you just need a beer. The large format is efficient, but I can't see it appealing to anyone but the ticker in Ranelagh, looking for something  different before Redmond's closes.
Bintang is from Indonesia and a 620ml bottle cost me a princely €3.55 at Asia Market on Drury Street. It's 4.7% ABV and counts sugar among its listed ingredients. Despite the green glass it wasn't skunked, which immediately put it on my good side. As did the foretaste: sweet, but in a proper bready helles way. It thins out quickly, alas, introducing a cidery tang with a slight plastic burr and a spark of metallic zinc. Nevertheless you have to work to find these off-flavours. If you were just drinking it like a normal person and not trying to describe it, I reckon you'd be happy. Especially if you'd paid Indonesian prices for it. Despite the relatively minor flaws, this is a good example of mass-market Asian lager.

From the same shop came Pearl River, a Chinese lager, the bottle 600ml this time, and the ABV 4.9%. I've never seen this in the wild and could tell immediately why the discerning restaurant trade prefers to stock Tsingtao. It's very sweet right from the outset, bringing fruity notes of red apple and quince, fading to an exotic floral quality: lotus and hibiscus. None of this is unpleasant per se, but there's none of the crisp bitterness I look for in a pilsner, while it's also not weighty enough to fit as a more malt-forward style. Falling between the two poles and tasting weirdly fruity gets it a thumbs-down from me.

I came across Mozambique's 2M quite unexpectedly in a delightful little Portuguese bistro on Mary Street called Nando's. The Dali-esque pour gave me a coating of bubbles on the inside of the glass but absolutely none on top -- not a good sign. The colour looks fine but the texture is very thin and the flavour isn't up to much either. Like many a crappy hot-country lager there's a tinny bitterness which has nothing to do with real hops, and lots of green apple. The only nod towards proper beer here is a sharp malt-husk note that pokes through briefly towards the end before being smothered by the long appley finish. It is, in short, terrible.

We round things up at the Pho Viet restaurant on Dublin's Parnell Street. I had never seen Vietnamese beer in these parts before, and Pho Viet has two of them. I began with Saigon Export. Though only 4.9% ABV there's a lovely weighty softness to the texture here, a little like a proper Bavarian helles. That comes with a sizeable, though not out-of-control malt sweetness: spongecake, leading on to candyfloss. That meant it had enough substance to still taste of something when served freezing cold and consumed along with a bowl of sharply spicy broth. It's easy-going, moreish, and completely flawless. I would drink this even if I didn't have to.

What were the chances of my luck holding out for the second Vietnamese beer, Hanoi? The first sip proved that to be zero. This one was much more what I was expecting: thinner, paler, with a half-hearted head and a sugary twang. That begins as no more than a blip but rises gradually, and eventually takes over the whole show. My hat comes off to the brewer who managed to achieve a recipe which is both watery and syrupy at the same time. A wholly-anticipated tinny finish brings us in. On the universal quality scale, this fits in beside your mate's dodgy kit-brewed lager: drinkable, but not something of which anyone involved should be proud.

It's a dismal and uncaring world out there. Those of us who are fussy about our beer should take the occasional moment to reflect on how good we have things.

Industrious fraternity

The unavoidable Northern Monk features in today's post. They really produce a lot of beers. Here are some of them.

Marking/advertising the opening of their new outlet in Manchester, they released a six-way local collaboration called Don't Mess With Manchester. It's channelling the spirit of Boddington's with its paleness, though not so much with the yeasty murk that spilled from the can towards the end of the pour, resulting in a glass of lemon curd. The aroma is a little unsettling: sharp yeast and caraway, and I was sure it was going to be another one of those. It's not though, happily. I think it's the ABV that rescues it: it's only 4.5%, so light, and only gently carbonated. A mild tropicality forms the main flavour: mango, peach and satsuma. This is spiced up with a pinch of fried onion and drizzled with zippy lime. I've often disliked beers with all these features, but here they're balanced and harmonious, making for an easy-drinking modern-tasting session pale ale.

Back in Leeds, their Dark City festival took place in mid-November. As with Hop City in 2017, they marked the occasion with a special edition imperial stout. This one is called Devil's Delight, brewed as a collaboration with Lervig, 9% ABV, and with added vanilla, cacao and butterscotch. A brewer desiring butterscotch flavour in a beer is a new one on me -- most of them manage it without additional syrup, but howanever. It's properly black, topped with a tall tan-coloured head. It smells a little desserty: of chocolate sauce and vanilla custard in particular. The texture is creamy and the flavour pretty much as sweet as I expected. The butterscotch is present but not overdone, the vanilla quite prominent and there's just enough of a trace of roasty stout to make it worthwhile. While definitely a pastry stout, this is one of the more subtle and mellow sort.

Somewhere between the two is Watching Crag, a black IPA of 6.6% ABV. I was on guard from the brownish colour but the aroma was much more exciting, a blast of citrus zest exciting the senses. Where I was expecting a dense and bitter flavour it turned out to be bright and clean and downright juicy, packed full of mandarin and peach. A dank oily buzz introduces a more serious note to the finish. Strangely for most versions of this style, there's no intimations of darkness: no roasted grains or even bitter liquorice. It's a pure optical hoptical illusion, convincingly pale-tasting and delicious to boot. From the broody name and can art (not pictured) I expected this to be serious, verging on grim, but it's actually tremendous fun to drink.

A little tinge of regret, then, that I don't make more time for these spendy Northern Monk specials. The brewery does seem to know what it's doing.

The January booze

With the over-indulgent festive season behind us and a mean old January under way we might find ourselves counting the pennies for something to drink. Luckily, Aldi commissioned a basketful of new Irish beers late last year, doubtless intended for Christmas celebrations but they'll do just as well for the lean early weeks of the New Year. What have we got in the basket?

From Cotton Ball in Cork comes a pair branded as though from the "Hawthorn Tales Brewery". I began with Hawthorn Mischief, a 4.8% ABV lager. It looks great: a crystalline gold with a pretty white fluff on top. The texture is quite heavy, and suspiciously ale-like, and there's a honey and flowers combination of the sort you'd find in an English golden ale. It re-lager-ises itself with some distinctly noble hop bitterness, all grass and celery and red cabbage. The balance of malt and hops isn't subtle, both sides absolutely roaring, but it works quite well. Think of it as a winter lager for holing up and hunkering down with.

Hawthorn Fury pale ale also looked handsome: an attractive coppery amber, and unfashionably clear with it. It's very strong for an Aldi own-brand, all of 5.8% ABV. Perfume features again, this time with a candy chew sweetness, in both the aroma and flavour. There's a blast of Lucozade, Tizer, or similar artificial fruit to begin, turning powerfully bitter quite quickly, introducing an incense and cedarwood complexity. The strength amplifies all of this, almost to the point where it becomes harsh and acrid but it doesn't quite tip in there: the bitterness fades quickly from the aftertaste leaving just an echo of that candy and scent.

The best thing about both of these is the boldness: no watery lowest-common-denominator recipes here.

Aldi's second new fake brewery is "Roadworks Brewing Co." Considered next to Hawthorn Tales their combined branding looks like the girls and boys birthday card sections circa 1985. This pair were brewed at Station Works and are the first beers I've seen bearing the address of the new brewery in Dundalk.

The pale ale is called Brewers At Work, and the label helpfully warns that it's going to be a bit hazy, which it is. The aroma is sweet but citrussy, saying candied orange peel to me. The texture is light and effervescent, entirely in keeping with the 4.5% ABV, but I'm not sure there's enough flavour to prevent it going watery. What's there is a scattering of sweet tropicals: melon, mango, passionfruit, and just a tiny bite -- a nibble -- of witbier-like lemon citrus. I guess this is designed to be refreshing, a job it would do well. It's easy drinking and has enough flavour to dodge being bland, but only just. I think I would have liked a bit more substance. Bear it in mind for al fresco sessions on longer days.

Caution Hops Ahead IPA trumps even Hawthorn Fury in the ABV stakes, at 6.5%. It's certainly not as light as the matching pale ale but it does have a lot in common with it, namely the sweet candied fruit. It's a little bitterer but no more than a marmalade, say. There's a smidge more power to it, but not as much as you might expect for a full 2% extra. This is another pleasant and easy-going one, no big hop powerhouse, but flavourful, and with plenty of bang for the low price.

I'm tacking an English interloper on the end here. Marstons-brewed The 1079 Project has been in Aldi for a while, but always as a four-pack. I never felt inclined to take the chance. But now they've been separated and come in at less than a euro a can each so I didn't have an excuse. This is a dry-hopped pilsner, though we are not told with which varieties. It's a limpid golden colour with a head that fades quite quickly after pouring. After the first sip my Sorachi sense was tingling: that slightly sickly note of moist coconut. There's an almost gloopy syrup background and a savoury poppyseed contrast. It's grimly heavy and not at all pils-like.

Where's the value in this lot? That first lager and the IPA, I guess, though none of them are exactly delightful. When's payday again?