Lightness into dark

Is Lineman eventually going to run out of telephone-themed beer names? Dial Tone feels like we're starting to get down to the hard core already. It's a pale ale of 5.3% ABV and steadfastly old-fashioned with its translucent orange colouring and big piney aroma. I expected a gum-curler but there's a lot of nuance in this. It opens on that hard west-coast bitterness, all grapefruit and lime, but it softens after a moment to a much more gentle mandarin and tangerine effect. Then before the sweetness can take hold it all fades out on a clean tannic dryness. Those who want their pale ales juicy get a modicum of service from this, while the elderly beardos also receive a polite nod in the direction of their tastes too. Sultana, Talus and Centennial is the hop combination which wins the day. Very impressive stuff.

It's a sad state of affairs when an imperial stout advertises itself as all-malt and adjunct-free. That's the novelty now. With Further, Lineman is sending out a signal to all the low-to-no-nonsense stout drinkers, of which I consider myself one. Let's go! At 8.9% ABV it's quite modest but it looks powerful: jet black, tar thick and with a loose head the colour of nicotine-stained pub walls. Classic. The blurb promises a coffee effect without the use of coffee and the aroma makes good on that: a heady cloud of stewed percolator vapours. That's followed in the foretaste by a big bitterness, very coffee-like, but again the old sort you could stand a spoon in; no latte art or aeropress frippery here. A fascinating complexity unfolds after it: raisin and cherry; rose petal and lavender and then a rich chocolate fudge warmth, turning almost to a solvent burn. It's superb, displaying the depth and density of continental imperial stouts quite a few points stronger. With Astral Grains and Gigantic, Lineman has already shown a real aptitude for big stouts, and I'm calling this as the best one yet.

Both of these do a great job of mixing modern multi-dimensional beer flavours with a polish of quality that too many young breweries leave out. If you've not yet made room for the Lineman in your drinking life, these two are perfect to start with.

Let's play!

Though better known for a traditionalist core range that belies the brewery's youth, Dundalk Bay does throw us the occasional special. They've gone particularly craft-oriented with this latest pair, albeit in styles which other Irish breweries release on a weekly basis.

We start light with a Brewmaster Mango & Passionfruit Sour, a 3.8% ABV job, paying tribute to brewery supplies company Ger 'Er Brewed. The visuals aren't great. After several weeks in the fridge the fruity gunk seems to have clotted on the bottom of the can and plopped out into the glass after the beer. Initially the head looks promising but disappears quickly, as usually happens with these. There's no doubting the fruits as both are very obvious in the aroma: sweet and a little juicy. The sugar stays well behaved in the flavour, thankfully, tasting clean and medium-tart. Neither mango nor passionfruit are especially loud, and kind of hide behind each other, melding into a more prosaic tangerine and plum effect. There's a residue of sweet passionfruit in the aftertaste but that's as assertive as it gets. It's OK. Unexciting, but refreshing and easy drinking too, which I'm sure was the plan.

I'll be disappointed if that happens with the second one -- Brewmaster Double IPA -- though it is only 7.5% ABV. No heading qualms here: there's an enthusiastic thick pillow of froth on top, guarding a hazy orange body, suggesting west-coast-without-enthusiasm. The aroma is a strange mix of tart and tropical, a sort of curdled grapefruit candy. That settles into something altogether more palateable on the, er, palate. I think it's an attempt at the high-sweetness, high-bitterness of old-school American IPA but it goes about it in an odd way which doesn't quite work. Instead of crystal malt toffee there's a softer, perfumey, fruit-chew sweetness; and rather than the dry piney bitterness you get a squeeze of grapefruit juice which is acidic but quite fuzzy. I fear this guy has a touch of the New England Disease. It definitely doesn't have the clean west-coast vibe down. So, yes: I didn't get a simplistic easy-drinker, but I think what I did get goes too much the other way.

By and large, Dundalk Bay's best beers so far have been lagers and stouts. I wouldn't object if they stayed more in that lane.

Fun Guy Four

Back in the heyday of craft beer (c.2010) yeast series were all the rage. Mikkeller did one, BrewDog did one, and presumably whatever American brewery they were stealing their ideas from did one too. Such technical noodling has gone a bit out of fashion lately but Trouble is back at it. What better way to sell four beers at a time to idiots like me?

The base is Lucky, the 4.4% ABV pale ale they released last spring, and four yeast varieties are being showcased. Though the names meant very little to me, I set them up blind to avoid any possible prejudices. It was fascinating to observe the effect different yeasts have, even on a punchy hop-forward beer like this.

All four poured a pale yellow but there was a noticeable difference in the appearances. The New England one was noticeably hazier: not quite opaque, but a witbier grade of cloudiness. A yeast I assume is a close relation, Fruitbowl, was slightly misted too, while Sanders (a name I recognise from the WHC collection) was only faintly cloudy, and Saturn was completely clear.

Obviously, with Talus and Simcoe as the hops, citrus features big in the aroma. This was especially the case in Saturn, so I'm guessing this is the most neutral of the yeasts, letting the hops do their thing with minimal interference. That said, there was a decent zest quotient from the aroma of Fruitbowl as well. New England offered the same only fainter while Sanders began settling into the wooden spoon position with barely any aroma at all. Slightly tropical, perhaps, but that's being charitable.

We'll keep the focus on Bernie as we move to the flavour: it's dreadful. A hot chemical burn of butane and bitumen. The citrus is still there but you have to work around the nastiness to find it. In all honesty I probably wouldn't have noticed the off-flavour, were it not for the fact it's completely missing in the other three. It fades as the beer warms but I offer no forgiveness for that initial shock.

I would say Fruitbowl was my third favourite. There was nothing wrong with it per se, but it showed a few of the standard bum notes that you get with hazy pale ales: a cloying vanilla sweetness and some rough and earthy yeast fuzz. There's a decent oily dank in here as well and, again, I would probably have nodded this through in different circumstances, but two of the other beers did things better.

They're both standard-bearers for their sub-genres. Saturn brings all the distinct zestiness out in the flavour: clean lemon rind, finishing quickly and crisply with just a residue of citronella oils left behind. The worst I can say about this is that it lacks complexity: it does its thing, does it well, and then leaves. But on the other hand this is a 4.4% ABV quaffer; you are definitely not meant to sit around with four tiny sample glasses of something like this, sipping and and typing and typing and sipping. Naw, Saturn Lucky is a drinking beer.

My pick of the bunch, then, was New England. I didn't realise that was the name of a yeast rather than a broad umbrella term, but here we are. I really liked how it retains the sharp and clean zesty qualities of the hops even while it churns them into a fuller, sweeter, juicier package. It's very much on the clean side of the hazy spectrum, with no savoury gack or pointy edges. I often use "lemon tart" as a descriptor for these kinds of beers when they're done well and it applies perfectly here.

Phew! This was a tough intellectual exercise, but great fun to do. The brewery has chosen the yeasts well, as these are four markedly different beers. My top two are indications that it makes no difference to quality whether a pale ale is clear or hazy, as long as it's well assembled. But you knew that anyway.

Cheap and exotic

Cheapie beer doesn't have to mean mass-produced chemical fizz. I'm a sucker for anything that looks interesting in the bargain corner of the supermarket beer shelves.

The first isn't actually from a supermarket, but was only €2.50 for the half-litre can. Gaffel Lemon Radler is from one of Cologne's respectable Kölsch houses -- it's odd to see their sober traditional brand on this Hawaiian shirt of a can. That helpfully informs us it's 40% Kölsch and 60% lemonade, of which 7% is lemon juice. That's enough to give it a real lemon taste: tangy and zingy with minimal syrupy sweetness. A dry tannic quality finishes it off. This is quality stuff. Admittedly there's little sign of the beer underneath the lemonade (it's only 2% ABV) but neither is it a sticky alcopop mess. There doesn't seem to be a grapefruit version yet but here's hoping one is in the pipeline.

A litre of Lithuanian rye beer for a fiver? Thanks SuperValu! Ruginis from Aukštaitijos Bravorai is 5.2% ABV and a pale copper colour, mostly clear with a few light floaters. I'm guessing it's cool-fermented as it has the clean crispness of a lager, albeit a strong one: think bock or Märzen. That effect is accentuated by a weighty malt sweetness: honey, spongecake and brown sugar, with characteristics in common with the farmhouse beers you only get in Lithuania. The finish is dry more than bitter and I don't really see where the rye fits in. There's perhaps a very faint ghost of pepperiness but that's your lot. It's quite autumnal, or even wintery: filling, warming and calorific. I quite liked it, although it's far from the sharp grassy number I was expecting.

We go to Lidl for today's finisher. I had written before about a couple of their Steam Brew series, noting that the intriguing Imperial Stout had escaped me. Well, I finally caught it. It's a bit of a lightweight at just 7.5% ABV, but looks well: a properly pure silken black with a rocky ivory head that says traditional stout to be sure to be sure. And then it smells like a pilsner. What? There's a cool, clean, biscuit-and-grass thing that shows its German roots very clearly. And it tastes of very little. My guess is that it is indeed cool-fermented so should probably be classed more as a Schwarzbier than an imperial stout, but that's OK -- I'm down with Schwarzbier. The only thing is it's not a very good one. You have to work to find the slightest traces of roast while the high gravity has been smoothed away to nothing. Only a faint vegetal tang in the finish suggests stout, but not of the imperial kind. This is highly inoffensive, very easy to drink and was dirt cheap, but it's no kind of introduction to the joys of imperial stout. Even a big lager brewery like Eichbaum could have tried a bit harder here.

Down at the budget end, you win some and you lose some. Perhaps the true reward is the money we saved along the way.

The old reliables

I'm determined not to become one of those beer drinkers who know what they like and like what they know and don't mind telling you about it, repeatedly. This blog has always prided itself on the variety of beer described within, covering everything and anything, because it's always at least interesting (to me). So it's with no small pang of guilt that I find myself passing over a lot of what's on the market at the moment, from UK and US breweries in particular. Endless hazy IPAs in eye-catching cans at eye-watering prices. I try to buy the occasional one but have found myself feeling less and less inclined. None of them come with the promise that this will be good, this will be worth it.

And so, conversely, I am continuously cheered up by new releases from breweries I know and trust. Three more from Odell? Yes please!

First up is a golden ale called Kindling. It's only 5% ABV so maybe the Duvel glass was overkill. It does look similar: a clear gold with a faint misting of floaty bits. The flavour opens on quite an intense sweet fruit vibe: lychees in syrup, tinned peaches and cheap brown apple juice. I get no bitterness to speak of, just a dry waxiness that speaks more of honey than hops. Thankfully the whole thing finishes quickly and crisply, like a lager. This is undemanding summer drinking, and great value at €2.50 a can. There are some interesting complexities to unpick but it's too light to really impress with them. It was one and done for me.

Only a slight bump in strength for the next one, and a step sideways stylewise, for the 5.1% ABV blonde ale Peach Stand Rambler. Surely if it's standing it can't be rambling? Makes no sense. Regardless, it's another clean looker and definitely smells of peaches: fresh and luscious with background notes of honey and lemonade. That made me think it was going to be sticky, but it's not. There's just enough weight to carry the fruit flavour but no more than that. Said flavour is the peaches again, and more the skin than the flesh, with an edge of bitterness to it. There's a fade-out of apple and breadcrust, rendering it extra refreshing. This is a lovely example of doing fruit-infused beer in a clean and understated way that doesn't gum up the palate with syrup or jangle the nerves with sugar. Just the sort of quality I come to Odell for.

Something a bit more exciting to conclude, then. Solarized is a yuzu double IPA, the first I've found, I believe. It's an opaque deep yellow colour and smells pleasingly juicy, of both real citrus fruits and fresh hops on a New England setting. The flavour dovetails perfectly with this: creamy, sweet and tangy tropical fruit with a delicate lacing of bitterness on the finish. A big fluffy texture comes with that, and there's a soft warmth too, entirely befitting the 8.2% ABV. It's a gentle and friendly sort of double IPA, showing lots of complexity but accessible at the same time.

Absolutely no regrets, then, about choosing these over spendier beers where I'm less certain of the quality. As long as they still have new wares for me to try I remain a very happy Odell customer.

Who do you brew?

Today it's a big bunch of beers from the busy beavers of Bluebell, churning out cans for all-comers, it seems.

The parade of cuckoos begins with Otterbank, and the second iteration of Mates Rates tart session IPA, this time with Citra. The hop is very distinctive, that lime-rind kick is prevalent in both the aroma and foretaste. It's still subtle though, and isn't allowed take over completely. There's an unexpected lemonade sweetness in the taste: fresh and zesty, matching well with a cleansing fizz. The finish is quite quick, and I thought that even at only 4.9% ABV there should be more going on in this. It's a little one-dimensional, though: unchallenging and built for the session.

Said session continues with Mates Rates Mosaic. There's an unsettling dry and savoury aroma here: caraway seed and rye cracker. I don't like when Mosaic does this. Thankfully there's very little sign of that in the flavour. This is another quite subtle one with a mild stonefruit taste next to the minimalist tartness. I had hoped for more of the juiciness you get when Mosaic is on song. These Mates Rates could do with a bit of a hop boost if they're going to make the varieties a central feature. With Citra you can get away with being economical but that won't work for everything.

From TwoSides next, Hazy On A Sunny Afternoon required specific conditions to be in place before opening. This is a light pale ale of 4.3% ABV and, with the sun behind it, it is indeed a sunny shade of hazy yellow. The fluff gives it plenty of texture; no danger of thinness here. I was expecting lots of tropical fruit but it goes for the bittering first, a kick of grapefruit and lemon peel in the opener, presaged by the same in the aroma, with a slight savoury edge as well. Just when it seems like that's going to be the whole picture, there's a gently juicy layer of mango and cantaloupe in the aftertaste. This is nothing fancy; it's designed to be refreshing and drinkable, and it delivers exactly that. The decision to go bitter was the correct one.

Beer name of the year so far is another TwoSides job: Now That's What I Call Mosaic. It's a 6% ABV IPA, pale and slightly hazy, and quite a chore to pour, with an inconvenient amount of head forming. Eventually I got it under control and it's rather decent. Not the tropical explosion I was hoping for, but neither the caraway disaster of Mosaic-gone-wrong. It's broadly sweet but dry too, like a refreshing cup of lemon tea. The alcohol gives it lovely rounded mouthfeel, though it's also squeaky clean and quite sinkable. There's a bit of a pale English bitter feel, which is no bad thing -- it certainly feels like one of those more than anything American. Maybe, given the name, a bit more hop welly would be good, but it's decent stuff on its own merit; no complaints here.

More branding genius comes from Fat Walrus next. I love the artwork on Amuse the Muse, taking its inspiration from "muse" being the origin of the word "mosaic", and that once again being the hop in focus here. It's 5.4% ABV and a translucent orange colour. The Mosaic is impeccably behaved, a deliciously juicy peach and mango opener leads on to a refreshing tea-like dryness. It's quaffable but also with just the right amount of substance to be satisfying too, a low level of carbonation engendering happy thoughts of the pub. A bang-up job by the portly pinniped.

Crafty Bear writes a big cheque with the name of its chocolate milk stout Full Stout Ahead. It walks the walk at 7.5% ABV with a big and creamy texture. The carbonation is down to a gentle sparkle, giving it a nitro-like smoothness. So far so good. The flavour is also full, but I found it pulling in different directions. On the one hand you have the milky milk chocolate sweetness which also features in the aroma and is fully appropriate to this sort of thing. However, it's also hella bitter: that sharp and tarry vegetal thing which, for me, is usually the hallmark of a serious, grown-up and delicious stout, but it doesn't work in this one, clashing dramatically with the other side. The end result is rather acrid and difficult. There are some lovely elements here, but together? Sorry, no.

I do get a slight impression that Third Barrel saves the big hop doses for its own beers, though if you're looking for something hazy and sessionable brewed for you, it's definitely the place to go.

Own-label

It's another selection of beers from the three-headed beast of Bluebell, still churning them out like there's no tomorrow. Maybe they know something we don't.

Last month, Third Circle gave us Catching Sunshine, landing on a suitably warm and bright day in early June. They describe it as a "New World Pale [Ale]", hopped with BRU-1 and Mosaic. Alas, it's the wrong Mosaic. This looks like a witbier -- hazy and yellow -- and it tastes like a wheat beer too. That dry, husky savoury quality that Mosaic sometimes imparts in lieu of soft tropical fruit is the centrepiece of the flavour here. Coupled with the big fuzzy texture you get something that closely resembles an American wheat ale. The can says it's slammable, but it's too dry for that, almost to the point of acridity. Only as I finished the glass did I find a tiny dankness lurking in the dregs, but literally too little and too late. For something claiming to be double dry hopped it just doesn't bring the hop party. I demand a hop party.

A 3.1% ABV mite comes to the rescue: It's the Little Things, a micro IPA, also double dry-hopped, this time with Vic Secret and Citra. It's a lively chap, foaming up busily with a giant quiff of foam at the end of the pour. The strength is a smidge high for the micro badge but it's put to good use: that plus oats in the grist mean there's plenty of body, completely avoiding the telltale thinness these often show. And that gives the hops more space to play. There's a serious oily funky dankness in both aroma and flavour, livened up with sharper lime zest and damp grass. There's an impressive malt backbone underpinning this, giving it a balancing fruit-candy sweet side. Very impressive, all-in-all, both for what it is, and as an IPA of any kind.

I wasn't going to get any hop party from a cherry and coconut imperial milk stout and Third Barrel's This Is An Outrage! is one such: 9% ABV and a very dark red colour. Amazingly the cherry trumps the coconut in the aroma, smelling quite hot and spirituous. Coconut catches up in the flavour, though the cherry is still plenty loud, the two joined by their affinity for chocolate, of which there is also plenty. A surprise roasted bitterness finishes it off after all the sticky sweetshop silliness has ended. This is an unashamed novelty beer and it was a brave move to put these flavours together but it absolutely works. 

We get back on a hop kick with Nelson from Stone Barrel, although it is an India Pale Lager which too often means the hops don't get a fair say in the taste. Enough prejudice. This is 4.7% ABV and looks deliciously clear. The aroma gives us that mineral kerosene punch of concentrated Nelson Sauvin hops, and I'm on board for that. The flavour is much softer but still pure Nelson. White grape is a typical characteristic and here it's bitter like the skin. That settles into a juicy but still tart gooseberry and cranberry effect. It doesn't have the sudden curtain-down quick finish of a lager and I don't miss it. The hops are oily enough and the malt body big enough to let it sit on the palate a while and smoulder. In regard to a previous release, Third Barrel's Mr Blue Sky, I said that Nelson Sauvin enthusiasts in particular would like it. That goes double for this guy. It's fun, characterful and absolutely worthy of that swaggering mononym.

Beer five is under the Third Barrel brand itself, Random Act of Hopiness [sic], brewed for Martin's Off Licence. While only 5% ABV it claims to be "triple dry hopped", getting separate charges of Citra, Galaxy and Citra again. It's a pale and hazy orange, and with unusually excellent head retention for this sort of thing. There's a concentrated orange cordial aroma, Galaxy getting the better of the two Citras, I reckon. That turns to a fun chocolate-orange oily sweet thing on tasting, with a tangy lime boiled-sweet effect in the background. It's very unusual, but completely successful. I was half expecting another humdrum hazy job and was very pleasantly surprised to discover it's not one. There is a slightly savoury white onion kick which I didn't care for, but that's easily ignored. The modest strength makes it light and quaffable, and on a sunny day it wasn't long disappearing.

The big guns are unleashed first with Why Always Me?, an IPA hopped with Simcoe. It's double dry hopped, which of course somehow means hazy, and smells super dank and resinous in that signature Simcoe way. 7.2% ABV gives it plenty of body, and it's only slightly full of New England fluff. Vanilla and orange juice flash briefly in the foretaste before it returns to the serious business of crisp cabbage leaf, black pepper oils and high-octane marijuana. It's a lovely example of how to bring east coast sensibilities to grown-up IPA hopping, or how to sneak proper bitterness into the haze-drinker's diet. This beer has plenty of great stuff for both sides of the divide. Cast aside your preconceptions, dive in and enjoy.

The final flourish for now is And We Have Lift Off, an 8% ABV whopper from Stone Barrel, with Mosaic, Enigma and El Dorado. That'll be fruity, I thought, but it's hot and dank in the aroma; heady and sharp. There's an early bitterness on tasting, followed by savoury raw onion and sesame paste: not my sort of thing really. I drank it cold which gave the flavours a clean distinctness which didn't endear it to me further. Only in the aftertaste do you get a light buzz of soft tropical fruit which was too little and too late for me. Even though it hides the alcohol well, in the flavour at least, I found this tough going. The hop combination, and in particular Mosaic being all dry and naughty, wasn't for me. Lift Off is immediately followed by a near miss.

This post was originally meant to include a selection of third-party beers also brewed at Third Barrel but it ended up far too long. So tomorrow you get a special bonus Tuesday post. Lucky you.