Line up

Usually, Lineman beers arrive here in ones and twos but I have an unprecedented trio of winter releases today, kindly dropped off to me by the brewery before I got around to buying them.

In a seasonally appropriate way, dark and strong is the theme, and the lightest of the bunch is a brown ale at a mere 6% ABV. Big Calm's can makes all the promises of the style: smooth caramel, coffee and chocolate. And it's not lying. Fresh and rich espresso is present in the aroma as well as lingering long into the aftertaste. That provides a bitter roasted balance to a central toffee sweetness. While that's all rather jolly, and makes for an exceedingly drinkable, refreshing, brown ale experience, I think it could do with being a touch bolder, especially given the strength. The mouthfeel is a little thin and the flavour somewhat muted as a result. I let it warm to see if more character would emerge but it didn't make much difference. Were this presented at 4% ABV or below I would be singing its praises. At 6% I think it should be heftier, enjoyable and all that it is.

From brown ale to stout, and the new one is called Phases. "Barrel aged export stout" is the blurb and I decided to play Guess The Barrel. From the massive hit of sweet vanilla I reckoned bourbon, and I was correct. This is not a subtle affair, and tastes not so much like it was matured in whiskey barrels but rather that a couple of shots have been poured directly into the can. There's a raw oak quality to it, and a substantial alcohol burn, even at the relatively modest 7.8% ABV. An underlying seam of smooth chocolate rescues it, softening it and adding a degree of luxury. It's good, but I prefer a bit more nuance in this kind of beer. Hence I bought an additional can to put away for a while and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

The finisher is a whopper of a barley wine, Insulator, aged in port barrels and finishing at 14.8% ABV. It looked to be pouring flat at first, but a modest head formed gradually, a function of the beer's extreme viscosity. Still, it carries that well -- thickly textured but complex enough that you only need a sip at a time. The port side is very well represented, starting with the raisiny aroma which also includes a hint of chocolate but surprisingly little booze. In the flavour that turns to full-on red wine, possibly even a fortified one. There's an oaky dryness in with the sweet grape, leading on to a peppery finish. It's still definitely a beer though, with that sweet chocolate element running all through the flavour, plus rich bourbon biscuits and a very slight greenly bitter buzz of hops emerging as it warms. The Lineman signature is the balance: it's not hot or any way extremely flavoured. Instead this powerhouse is balanced and approachable; one to savour and explore.

One each of this lot makes for a very decent winter's night in. Despite appearances, they don't have much in common but complement each other nicely. A symphony in garnet.

Bring the blackness

It's a veritable dark beer jamboree out there at the moment. I'm loving it. Today it's three random selections of the black stuff from the beer fridge.

The new seasonal from Hope is first, their Emmer Stout, named for a heritage variety of wheat used in the grain bill. Much as I love a bit of recipe experimentation, it's a stout, and quite a hoppy one at that. What are the chances of me being able to spot that they've done something fancy with wheat? The aroma is a mild but pleasant blend of dry roast and sweet flowers. Though only 5% ABV it has a lovely full texture, creamy with just a gentle fizz. That roast I picked up in the aroma is very much at the centre of the flavour: no candy with your cream, just burnt toast and coffee grounds. It's an old-fashioned rawness, finishing on a zinc-like metallic tang. I'd like to think the emmer had something to do with that, but I'm not sure it does. "Nutty and fruity" says the label. Nah. Still, I have a lot of time for this sort of dry and bitter stout, even one verging on harshness like this.

Barrel-ageing is almost as commonplace as dark beer these days and the next one does both. Brehon's Oak & Mirrors has been around a while but I didn't encounter it until I took a trip up to Martin's of Fairview in November. Despite being very dark and pouring very thickly, it's only 7.5% ABV, and they've made the questionable decision to call it an "imperial porter". I thought it was another one with little aroma, but inhale deeply and there's a rich and sweet honeyed whiskey quality -- not porter, not even beer, but still delicious. The flavour is much more multifaceted. There's a smooth chocolate sweetness which makes it squarely a modern porter: decent and unfussy, at least to begin. A subtle peaty smoke winds in afterwards, along with dry oak splinters and an almost savoury cola-nut side. It's fun to explore, but the best bit is that every sip brings more of that lovely pot still aroma. I was afraid this would be overdone and difficult, but Brehon aren't new to the barrel game and their experience shows through here. You can age it, but it's damn good right now.

While I was above in Martin's I spotted a few loose cans of Moka Panda from BRÚ. This imperial coffee stout is normally only sold as part of their seasonal mixed eight-pack so it felt a little transgressive to get a single. I have a low thrill threshold. It's a dense black colour and smells of coffee but not in a good way: the hot bitter harshness of spent grounds. 10% ABV gives it a creamy texture and plenty of alcoholic warmth, veering into Irish coffee territory. The dry roasted thing is there on the end, but doesn't interfere with the fun beforehand. There's not much going on beyond that malty strength and its thick lacing of coffee, one which leaves a powerful cold-brew aftertaste, but I liked what it does. The previous Panda Nero extension, Double Panda, did something similar, stripping out the original's busy sweetness to create a purer stout experience. I am in favour.

Much more dark beer still to come, before the days start to lengthen again.

Keep on keeping up

It's an epic rundown of the beers from the Third Barrel brewery in Dublin today. As ever, they've been busy with beer under their own brands and those they brew for others.

Before we hit the hoppy stuff, Third Circle has a lime and mint gose for us, called Empire State of Lime. It's a clear golden colour and smells herbal, the traditional coriander still putting the hours in. There's not much sourness to the flavour; it tastes crisp and clean, almost like a lager, with a light body to match. The added ingredients are subtle: no more than a gentle zesting with lime and I wasn't able to pick out the mint. I'm not sure whether to be glad it's not a messy riot of flavours, or disappointed the complexity isn't more, er, complex. It's fine, though. Simple refreshment at 4.8% ABV is what it delivers and there's nothing wrong with that.

Why did Third Circle call a 4.6% ABV pale ale Big Love? How big or lovely could it be? It's a pale yellow colour and hazy. There's not much going on in the aroma: a little lime spritz maybe, but that's strictly a maybe. The good news is it's not thin, but there's not a whole lot going on in the flavour. Zesty sherbet starts it, and there's a floral echo in the finish, but that's about all you get. A grainy, savoury side emerges as it warms, which I guess makes it more interesting, but not better. This is passable but fails to deliver on the promise of hazy pale ale, either good or bad.

Two beers from TwoSides to follow, beginning with the pale ale Lazy Daze. This is a light 4.5% ABV though again the haze gives it plenty of body. There's still a refreshing amount of fizz propelling zesty orange with a sweeter vanilla following behind. Citra and Azacca are the hops, and I'm beginning to think the tropical candy that the latter brings when it's on its own is very easily drowned out by more intense varieties. That certainly seems to be the case here. Overall, it's an easy-going and approachable job, better suited to pub pints than home cans, I think.

Something stronger to follow: Talus in Wonderland, a hazy IPA designed to show off the titular hop. I think it manages it too, starting with the powerful pithy aroma, a blend of oranges, lemons and grapefruit, one sniff warding off any possibility of scurvy. There's no backing down in the flavour and a pleasingly hard bitterness sits front and centre, unusual for a hazy IPA but quite welcome. In the flavour it's still lots of the aforementioned citrus fruit but joined by even stronger lime plus a sweeter red apple side. It's fun right up until the finish when a common haze flaw creeps in: a dry and acrid gritty, chalky element. That puts a bit of a damper on things, but only briefly. Before this point it's all good fun, and very much one for the pith-loving Sorachi and Sabro fans, though minus the more extreme side of those varieties. What's not to like?

Nothing says "brewer with young children" like a DDH IPA called Go Getters Go Get! Stone Barrel pays tribute to the future classic kids' TV series with this one, 6% ABV and brewed with Sabro and Enigma. It's a pale orange colour and has quite decent head retention where most of this sort don't bother. Sabro equals coconut, of course, and that's present right from the start of the aroma. There's an oily, resinous side too, suggestive of bitterness to come. Sure enough a dry and tight bitter flavour sits next to the coconut taste giving this softly textured IPA a fun west-coast twist. "Tropical" is mentioned on the label, but I don't really get that. I don't miss it either. This is a very good thirst-quencher for a medium strong beer, its various flavours clean and distinct with a dry finish making it pleasingly moreish. Aced it!

The next one on the same label was another DDH IPA of 6% ABV, this one called Keep On Keepin On, using Mosaic and Idaho 7 and, surprise, it's clear! Well, almost. There's a faint misting to the bright golden colour but it still looks beautiful. Tropical fruit aromas are promised on the can and very much delivered: Mosaic's sweetly fleshy passionfruit effect is front and centre. That turns a little more citric on tasting, but not especially bitter with it. Instead it's a Lilt-like combination of sweetened grapefruit, lime jelly and pineapple. The impression of sticky, gummy fruit is helped by a thick, almost chewy, texture. Above all, this beer is tremendous fun. It's clean, bright, and very fresh-tasting. One advantage of buying and drinking local, I guess, but I'm sure the brewer's skill in recipe formulation has something to do with it.

Third Barrel, meanwhile, is Addicted to the Shindig. This is a hazy IPA of 7.2% ABV and brewed with Strata, Citra and Simcoe. It's quite a dark orange shade, something I've come to regard, for no good reason, as less desirable than bright yellow in these beers. There's lots of lovely fresh juice in the aroma, equally balanced between the sharp citric and soft tropical. Tropical wins in the flavour, and there's a resulting lack of bitterness which is a little disappointing. Big mango only gets you so far. The alcohol is very apparent, and there's a weight and a burn that says more than 7.2% to me. The fruit tails off quite quickly too, with a wisp of fried onion on the end. On balance, this is decent, if a bit simple. Hazy IPA for beginners, maybe?

Quit Keeping Me Down is not hazy but is a double IPA, 8.2% ABV and brewed with HBC 630 and my old friend Mosaic. It was a bit flat in the glass, a flaw not helped by its thick texture. Mosaic is not on its best behaviour here, beginning with a fried onion aroma before leading into concentrated caraway in the flavour. There's a brief splash of honeydew melon in the finish but it's nowhere near as fruity as I'd like, and certainly not tropical. The poor carbonation is probably the least of its problems. This one didn't land right at all. It's just as well Third Barrel doesn't bank entirely on IPAs...

Their fanciest release yet is a 75cl silver-foiled bottle containing Red Wine Barrel-Aged Mixed Fermentation... beer, I guess. It's a mildly murky amber/garnet and smells of both sweet and fruity red wine -- Italian, were I to guess -- and funky farmyard Brettanomyces. The Brett gives the mouthfeel a rich slickness while the first flavour element to land is a dry tartness leading to a slightly harsh acidic burn. This is quickly softened by red fruit elements, cherry and raspberry in particular, which then align with the sourness and funk to create a resinous balsamic effect. It certainly can't be faulted on the complexity front. What lets it down a little is a thinness. The initial richness doesn't last and it turns somewhat harsh on the end. I blame the fact that it's only 7% ABV: a bit of a gravity boost might have helped round it out, though equally might simply have provided more fodder for the Brett. Still, it's a classy number and demonstrates that Third Barrel can do barrels and Brett with the best of them. I'll be very interested to see what comes out of their Wild programme next.

It goes without saying that a whole new raft of wares from the brewery is already in circulation. They'll just have to wait their turn. I hope there's a hazy IPA in there.

Gill trip

Prolific Sligo brewery Lough Gill has three for us today. I tend to associate their output most with fruited sour beers and amped-up pastry stouts, but they're only reverting to type with one of today's selection.

The latest in this year's slew of Irish witbiers is Bán. The name gives it an Irish twist but otherwise it's straight-down-the-line Belgian-style, with wheat, orange peel and coriander. So it goes with the medium-orange hazy appearance, though the aroma lays on the herbs a little more thickly than most of these. Same for the flavour, unsurprisingly, but before you even get to the oily coriander there's the very dry wheat husk to contend with. Witbier shouldn't taste rough but this does. There's a strong bitterness from the hops and no balancing zest or sweetness from the orange. The finish is slightly funky, with a saline sweaty quality. Maybe Hoegaarden has infantilised my palate for witbier, but this is an acquired taste which I was not prepared to try and acquire.

The brewery turned five years old recently, marking the occasion with a re-imagining of one of its original recipes, Thieving Bastards. Five Candles is paler than the precursor, and clearly labelled as an Extra Special Bitter -- I marked TB down originally because I wasn't sure while drinking it what it was meant to be. I'd like to think there would be no mistaking this one: it's a rich amber colour and mixes weighty caramel malt with distinctively English hops which are a little floral and a lot tangy. A serious waxy bitterness in the finish gives it an assertive personality: this is no bland brown bitter. 5% ABV is modest and it tastes bigger, with bags of comforting warmth. It's a very well-made example of ESB and it's nice to see the style represented on the off licence shelves locally. A cask version, now...

That's it for the solid, reliable, 20th century styles. Obviously there has to be some contemporary nonsense, and in fairness Lough Gill does contemporary nonsense better than most. Loconut is an imperial stout of 10.5% ABV with coconut, blueberries and vanilla. Blueberries tend to disappear into the background of beers but they were immediately apparent from the aroma of this one as it poured. They're still there when sniffing the glass, and the coconut too: fresh and greasy, and surprisingly complementary. On tasting... omg blueberries. All the blueberries. Too much blueberries? Quite possibly. It's very jammy and extremely sweet with it. I found myself searching for the stout side of the equation, finding a little chocolate, a tiny pinch of roast, but all of it buried under the mashed blueberries. I was disappointed at first: it's hard drinking; unsubtle, too sweet, and not properly beerlike. The saving grace is the aftertaste: there's a lovely afterglow of fruit-infused milk chocolate that makes the initial difficulties worth suffering through. This isn't Lough Gill's best work in the silly stout genre, but my main takeaway is that proper blueberry stout is possible. I have hope for the future.

Taken together, they're a pleasingly diverse bunch. The colours alone bring us on a journey.

Tidy Toronto

A pair of double IPAs today from the Great White South-Of-Here: Collective Arts in Toronto. Both have been hanging around in local off licence fridges for several months now but are still within date, and sure freshness is overrated anyway.

First up is Good Monster at 8% ABV. Citra, Amarillo, Mosaic and Simcoe is a promising line-up of classic hops, and it wears the New England badge, pouring an innocent hazy pale yellow. The aroma is fun, and not very New Englandy, with a mixture of lime candy, jaffa zest and a sterner grapefruit rind. It's a very not-juicy citrus combination. The texture is light and fizzy at first, but after a second the slick and hefty mouthfeel arrives, and with it a clean, blue-flame, alcohol burn. The hops are carried along on this, still with the citrus zest, but I detect also a wave of Mosaic's softer tropical side: passionfruit and mango. There's a little boiled-sweet malt as well, suggesting a gap where some of the hopping may have faded, but it's still very enjoyable. The flavour profile is one I associate more with easy-drinker session IPAs, and I liked how the obvious strength made me take it slowly and savour it. It's a quality piece of work overall and I give full credit to the specific hop combination for making it sing.

A slight boost in ABV and a simplification of the hop bill brings us Surround Sound: Lotus at 8.2% ABV. It's a similar pale and hazy shade; possibly a bit denser looking, or maybe that's just the glass. There's a little of that boiled sweet effect in the aroma, suggesting again some dear departed hops. The flavour has a decent wallop of bitterness, plus that edgy alcohol burn, but not so much of the hop flavour itself. Lotus is not among my favourite hops -- more to do with unfamiliarity than any distaste -- and this isn't the beer to convince me of its virtues. There's a certain orange and lemon candy or sherbet but nothing especially pronounced. The bitterness is the only factor which renders it acceptably IPAish. It's fine. It's a clean hazy double IPA, and not all of them can say that. A lack of complexity is to be expected from single-hop beers.

I don't often drink back-to-back double IPAs but this pair made the task easy for me. I liked how they both left no doubt as to their strength but never turned hot or sticky or cloying. Something for all DIPA brewers to aspire to, I think.

Monstrous beasts

I've built up something of a backlog of Wicklow Wolf beers over the last few months. That's partly down to the sort of beers they've been producing, going in for strong and dark in a big way. I love it, but finding an occasion to make time for that kind of thing is tricky. I got round to them eventually, however, and here's what I found.

A tiddler starts us off, namely Apex Nobó, yet another variation on their Apex oatmeal stout. This one has added cocoa and coconut and is the lightest of today's set at 5.5% ABV. Not that it looks weak: it pours densely and is topped by a head the colour of milky coffee. The coconut is apparent in the aroma where it sits next to the promise of a green vegetal hop bitterness. It seems this will be a beer of contrasts. Coconut dominates the flavour too, arriving in at the very front and spreading oleaginously across the palate from there. The stout character suffers under its ministrations. Yes it has the oatmeal creamy texture, but there's no roast, and I didn't get much chocolate either. The promised hop tang appears only briefly at the end. I've said before that none of these variants have improved on the original and this is no exception. If you live for coconut in stout this will provide full satisfaction; me, I was too bothered about the good flavours being smothered by the gimmick.

Guardian of the Galaxy black double IPA was one of the brewery's best offerings last year. Now we learn that, together with DOT, they aged a portion of it in rum barrels and stole a name from a different science fiction franchise to create Hitchhiker's Guide. This is badged as a "dark ale" rather than any sort of IPA, so I assume the hop side has taken a dive. It looks slightly paler too: a cola brown or red rather than black. The aroma is very spirituous, with a touch of the fusel effect I often detect in rum and rum-flavoured things. Although it's a whopping 11.6% ABV, the texture is surprisingly light and there's not much of a booze kick. In fact the flavour is quite muted in general. Yes it's rummy. I've come to regard rum as the raspberry of spirits: when added to beer it tends to dominate everything. Here's it's subtle and pleasant: bringing a dash of vanilla and molasses, but nothing severe. It sits on a gentle base of milk chocolate and runny caramel. My only issue is that something this strong and convoluted should be more complex. Time seems to have smoothed out the multifaceted character that made the original so excellent. You're left with something extremely elegant, but running the risk of seeming bland with it.

The pale one in the set is the deep ochre Locavore Autumn 2021. The Locavore project began as a single annual beer using the brewery's own hops. For this barley wine, not only are the hops their own but the barley is too and, amazingly, the whiskey barrels it was aged in were made from Wicklow-grown oak. Now that's commitment to the bit. The end result is a 13.5% ABV whopper, so viscous it pours like it's been nitrogenated, a surge of fine bubbles forming the thick head. It's smells a little sickly-sweet, ripe forest berries on sappy young wood. The mouthfeel is as thick and oily as expected, and this helps create a kind of coconut greasiness in the foretaste. Blackberry and strawberry follow, before it turns bitter in the finish -- an almost Saaz-like grassiness. The barrel's contribution is slight, adding nothing more than a spicy seasoning and letting the malt do the talking, which is as it should be. Honey and dessert wine are mentioned on the blurb and I fully concur with that. It's a sticky sipper but still a superb interpretation of barley wine in the style of the classic American versions. This is very impressive stuff, even regardless of the all-local conceit. I would love to see it added to the brewery's annual roster.

That brings us back to Apex. The Imperial Four Bean version reviewed in here last year has been given the bourbon barrel treatment to become Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Four Bean Apex. That boosts its ABV from 9.5% to 12.7%. There's still no mistaking the tonka, however, its cinnamonesque spicing in full control of the aroma. As with the original version there's not much else going on in the flavour: a hint of coffee, a dusting of chocolate powder and a small squirt of vanilla and that's your lot. It doesn't taste beefed up or boozed out by the bourbon. While the barrel ageing of the previous beer added a subtle complexity, here they may as well not have bothered. It's just too strongly flavoured to get the benefit. If it's to be brewed again the tonka needs to be dialled right back, or removed. Three beans is plenty. Don't get me wrong, this is still a lovely, soft and warming imperial stout with a comforting sweetness that's not overdone. 

All this, and new vintages of the Locavore winter stout and the iconic Pointy Shoes imperial stout too. I don't know if Wicklow Wolf exports much of its product but they make fantastic examples of what Irish microbrewers are doing. It deserves recognition.

The other Bay Brewery

Dundalk Bay Brewery, the beer-making offshoot of metal fabricator Spectac, cut its teeth on straightforward traditional recipes for the pub trade, and I'm sure that's still what keeps the lights on. They've had a playful side since fairly early on, however, and that has definitely shifted up a gear since they appointed Dave Guilfoyle as head brewer. He seems to have brought the same level of creativity here as to his previous jobs at Pearse Lyons, Trouble and Bo Bristle.

That observation was prompted by pouring Brewmaster Tropical Hazy IPA. Breweries who don't specialise in trend-chasing haze but try and chase it anyway tend to turn out examples that are orange and, too often, clear. I had Dundalk Bay down as one of those breweries but this lad is properly yellow and opaque, looking just like the cool kids made it. The aroma is a pleasant mix of vanilla and meringue meeting citrus zing. There's a nice blend of creaminess and lightness, so I was surprised to find it's a very full 6.8% ABV. That should have guaranteed me a big flavour but I found it a bit limp in that department. The vanilla is still there, and there's a savoury kick from the hops, but it's lacking fruit analogues: no citrus, no juice. While it looks the part, it fails to walk the walk. I blame the hopping: it needs much much more than what it got. This is a great beer if you want an easy buzz: it slips back beautifully smoothly. It won't please the insufferable hopped-up hazeheads, though. While I have no particular quibble, I think it just misses what it set out to be.

Another beer was released at the same time, and can you believe it's taken this long for an Irish brewery to produce a Nitro Imperial Stout? I'm happy it was Dundalk Bay who eventually got round to it because I'm a longstanding fan of their imperial stout. Let's hope they didn't ruin it, eh? The widget rushes, the beer surges, but it doesn't look like they've gone overboard with the nitro: a slim and trim layer of cream sits over the jet-black base and from it emerges a proper aroma of caramel wafers and milky coffee. I thought I was in for sweetness but BOOM there's a blast of green vegetal bitterness right up front and I love it. It's creamily textured, of course, but there's a little prickle of cleansing carbon dioxide too. Once the hops have calmed down you get still-bitter tarry black coffee and a mildly sweet vanilla for a modicum of frankly unnecessary balance. The gas is the only gimmick here and it's a respectful one. The rest is simply a gorgeous, classically constructed, 8% ABV imperial stout. A round of applause for this from me.

It's cool if DBB wants to hone its haze into something more fashionable, but do not touch that imperial stout recipe. We need this sort of antidote to all the pastry everyone else is churning out.