Casks from the Cellar

2021's doubtless plentiful sequence of DOT beers begins with this bunch, all launched in the dying days of last year. No IPAs this time -- we're going all-in with barrelly darkness.

The first is an exclusive to Blackrock Cellar, picked up on a sunny pre-Christmas spin to the coast. The big can is Taking Liberties, a barrel-aged red ale of 7.9% ABV. It needs a strong light source behind it to appear red, being otherwise stout-black. The aroma is sweet and slightly vinous: a touch of port and maybe some dark sherry. A lovely smooth texture and faint carbonation helps that sense, though the silky, creamy, milk chocolate foretaste brings us back to beer. The whiskey barrel elements are on the down-low, bringing a mild oak and toffee-pudding warmth to the second half, with a touch of sweet smouldering turf. While it's maybe a little plain given the heft and density, it can't be accused of being overdone. A nice bit of mellow winter fare.

I thought it would be interesting to compare this immediately with a more established DOT red. Rum Red Dark is now on edition number V. This is a blend of III and IV, neither of which I'd tasted, plus some fresh beer. The barrels are whiskey again, but ex-rum, of course. It's still pretty dark but a fair bit paler than the previous. And despite being stronger -- 8.6% ABV -- it's lighter and much more easy-going. There's a freshness to the flavour, a summery hum of strawberry, raspberry and sweet cherries. The age only really shows in the finish where there's a mature and musky oak spice, and that's what the aroma offers too. There's an almost sour briskness of a Flanders red in the smell. Neither whiskey nor rum make any obvious contribution to the picture, though I'm sure they play a part in a more subtle way. This wasn't what I was expecting, and I'm glad I wasn't hoping for a fireside sipper. I was quite content with some unseasonal summer sunshine in my glass, however.

It's back to Blackrock for the finisher, another annual reiteration. Joël's Barrel Aged Vietnamese Coffee Stout first appeared in these pages in 2018 when batch II was 6.9% ABV. Batch VI sees it grown to a strapping 8.95% ABV. The coffee is much more pronounced, though it's still smooth and sweet, with creamy vibes of Irish coffee and tiramisu. The wine thing is back: drier this time, more grape skin than flesh. Throw in a gin and tonic and you'd have all the drinks for a three-course meal. Again it's light-textured for the strength, and this time I would have preferred a bit more dessertish weight. Nevertheless, it's a fun beer and makes good use of both coffee and barrel ageing while still not going overboard on either.

This was a fun session, and showed lots of different things barrel-ageing can do, even in broadly similar strong dark beers. That my palate wasn't clogged with booze and vanilla by the end is a testament to DOT's skills.

Don't call it a comeback

Whatever happened to De Struise? It's not just that I haven't been swanning around the Low Countries in over a year; I haven't encountered any of their beers in the wild for nearly three. And I've been looking too: their reputation as masters of big, strong and dark beers is entirely well deserved. Am I missing a piece of the puzzle, or did they slip out of the hype bubble at some point?

Today's beer dates from the height of their pomp: a 2013 vintage of Sint Amatus 12, presumably a cheeky swipe at their neighbours St Bernardus and Sint-Sixtusabdij. It's badged in unBelgian fashion as a "quad", and is 10.5% ABV. Though there was a bit of fobbing when the cap came off, the head is thin, forming no more than a patch of bubbles on the swampy brown body.

The aroma is properly quadrupel-like: a warming mix of ruby port, sultanas and figs. The booze vapours are strong enough to suggest it has been fermenting away in its own time and it's possible that a point or two could be added to that ABV. In the flavour, the sweeter side of the fruit is more apparent, raisins in particular, with a squeeze of black cherry and a dusting of chocolate too. The texture is appropriately full which, in combination with that mild fizz, makes it very wine-like. The only nasty surprise is a mild phenolic TCP thing, lurking late in the finish. Not enough to spoil things, thankfully. For quad purists, there's a toasty dry side to the style spec which is entirely absent here, but I don't miss it at all.

This is a beautiful beer and very much the sort of thing De Struise's reputation was built on. I hope they're still producing it and its ilk, and that people are still buying them.

Witch hops?

The Union Series of single-hopped IPAs from The White Hag reaches numbers five and six with a couple of new additions late last year.

I opened the Azacca one first. It gets busy with the fruit early on, the aroma giving off sweet clementine and apricot, exactly as I'd expect from this hop. There's a decent kick of bitterness: Azacca's tendency to make beers taste like Skittles is held in check by a pleasant pithy bite. The candy is still in there -- I'd be disappointed if it weren't -- so as a showcase for the hop it works well. There is a bit of a fuzz to it, however: a grittiness that spoils the enjoyment a little. Overall, though, it's good fun. I might have liked the hop flavour to be a bit stronger but I can also see how that would run the risk of turning it too Skittleish.

The other half of this pair is the iconic Nelson Sauvin. Does this hop still have the power to turn heads as it did a decade ago? The visuals and vital statistics are the same as the above, and the aroma is quite muted, just vaguely juicy. But the flavour: oooh, that's Nelson. Here the bitterness has been appropriately dialled back -- Nelson in quantity can be a bit severe -- and there's all the luscious cool white grape, ripe peach and canned lychee that made the hop a celebrity. You also get a little, but only a little, of the sharper pitch of pith harshness, and it serves to balance the beer well. Welcome back, Nelson. Missed you bro.

An addendum to this pair is an ESB White Hag created as a collaboration with Manchester's Cloudwater. For us Irish, that particular initialism has long signified our beloved national power company, rather than "extra special bitter", so it was inevitable that a brewery in these parts would name one Electricity Supply Board. Turns out it was White Hag. The beer is a lovely chestnut red colour, and crystal clear. It's the picture of a cask pint, though a short-poured and unsparklered one, given the 440ml can and poor head retention. The aroma has the proper mix of dark fruits, nuts and chocolate: properly and seriously beery. It's a couple of years since I last drank the Fuller's original, but this strikes me as having very similar features. Brown sugar, raisin and cinnamon spicing give it a mince-pie foretaste, and then a sharp and acrid bitterness creeps in behind. Don't be misled by the colourful can, this is serious and traditional fare, using all of its 6% ABV to deliver a malty powerhouse.

Azacca is the modern interloper here. ESB and Nelson Sauvin IPA seem strangely retro in the rapidly moving world of beer fashion. It's nice to be able to look back over one's shoulder now and again.

Bitter over sweet

A couple of quick ones from Thornbridge today.

First up is Pondera, their contribution to the west coast revival. For some proper west coast cred they've called in Firestone Walker from California to collaborate. It's a pale yellow colour with more haze than one might expect for west coast, though the aroma is a bright and zippy citrus. So I was expecting lemon zest going in, forgetting that it's a full 6.7% ABV. That extra heft means the flavour is bigger too, and a thick oily dankness is the first thing out. Citrus follows, concentrated and realistic, like lime peel. The oils give it a long finish, and there's a fun peppery spice at the fade-out. Big and chewy; strong and well-hopped with signature American flavours: this gets the west coast stamp of approval from me. Lovely stuff.

Something less serious next. Thornbridge began making an ice cream porter called Lucaria several years ago, but deeming that insufficiently silly, has released a series of ice-creamier variations, including Strawberry, Mint Choc Chip, Rocky Road, Christmas Pudding and this one: Salted Caramel, the only one sold by the can. It doesn't smell as sweet as I anticipated: there's a dry wafer effect with a little mocha but nothing daft or extreme. It's only 4.5% ABV (original Lucaria was 6%) and the thinness makes the chocolate difficult to carry, causing it to taste very sweet but also watery. I couldn't detect any salt, and the caramel just melds into a general chocolatey sweetness. Though perfectly drinkable, and not cloying, it's a bit dull overall. Maybe all the massive pastry stouts have trained me to expect a bigger hit, and maybe the market does need the candybar effect in a lighter package, but this wasn't for me. I think a slight ABV boost would have helped it enormously.

I like how different these two randomly selected Thornbridge beers were from each other. I guess that's the kind of variation you need to be putting out to stay viable these days. The occasional IPA of Pondera's quality helps too, I'm sure.

Strictly for the birds

I suppose I may throw one token post in the direction of this month and its customary abstemiousness. I have long been a fan of the Hitachino Nest beers from Kiuchi Brewery, and this 0.3% ABV one caught my eye recently. It's a ginger beer with added yuzu fruit, called Yuzu Ginger Non Ale.

It's a deep amber colour in the glass, with just a very faint misting of haze. The aroma gave little away, though I thought I could detect a pinch of dry ginger. The ingredients include hops and yeast, so it is a beer beer, but it tastes like one of those ginger beers that are cultured rather than brewed. For one thing it's as thin as a ginger ale mixer, and brimming with sugar, even though that's not a separate ingredient. I can't say I picked up on the yuzu -- there's no bitterness to speak of -- but the ginger is there, in a sweet and candied way, rather than spicy.

This isn't really a substitute for real beer if you're not drinking. It's a bit of a fun novelty, and might work well in the summertime, over ice with a slice of lime. Otherwise there are better beerier alternatives out there.

Voodoo strangers

Through the latter half of last year I found myself accumulating an array of beers from New Belgium and then omitting to actually drink them. When the multiple Voodoo Ranger variants arrived, this began looking more like a challenge than a leisure activity. It was only towards the end of the Christmas break, with stocks running down in the beer fridge, that I eventually began tackling them.

First up, a Sour IPA. I was intrigued by the method here: rather than simply souring an IPA mash, this is a blend of finished IPA with a "wood-aged golden sour ale". It doesn't say if that was a mixed-fermentation creation, but it's New Belgium so let's guess it was. It's a hazy dark orange in the glass, with a floral and tangy aroma. I wonder if I've left it sitting too long to get the benefit of the hops. There is a decent amount of hop flavour left, however: a floral orange-blossom effect, turned sweet by a surprisingly heavy malt base. 7% ABV is a lot for these, which tend to work best when light and refreshing. This is more of a chewer, and the sourness level reflects that too. Its dominant feature is quite a punchy lactic tartness, landing right from the first sip and only subsiding when the sticky malt sweetness takes over. This isn't what I was expecting, and different from most any take on sour IPA that I've tried, but it's well made and has its place; perhaps more as a digestif than aperitif.

And with that, bring on the Rangers! Four of them, starting back in time with Voodoo Ranger 1985. It's 6.7% ABV and hazy, like IPAs in 1985 weren't, and my heart sank a little when I read "mango flavor & spice" on the side of the can. It smells like a witbier, which is a perfectly acceptable use of spice in beer, I guess, and with that idea planted, I realised it looked like one too: pale yellow with a fine and fluffy froth on top. First impressions on tasting were, well, unimpressed. The spices are muted, and there's no IPA hop kick. The fluffy creamy texture is pleasant, but there's a gap where the foretaste should be. After a while, the mango emerges, sweet and syrupy, and then a trace of the Belgian herbs and spices: coriander, cardamom and ginger. But that's your lot. It's underwhelming as an IPA, as a gimmick, and as a beer. I will admit it was a couple of weeks past the best before, but if I've missed anything through neglect it must have been damn subtle in the first place. A big nope on 1985, then. What were they thinking?

"American Haze" is the codename on the next Ranger, this one a mere 5% ABV and lacking daft ingredients. It is hazy as promised, an opaque pale orange. I didn't get much of an aroma from it -- elderly can problems again? -- but what was there seemed quite savoury, and a little dreggy. With haze comes sweetness, and this tastes like orangeade, nicely zingy and refreshing; sweet but light with it. In contrast to that half-aroma, it's perfectly clean-tasting with no murky twangs. Any issues with freshness have not affected the flavour unduly because it's still absolutely vibrant. It's an accessible and fun number, unlikely to impress any Heady Topper fans, but none of them have much of a sense of fun anyway.

More haze please, but bigger! That lands me Higher Plane, an 8.5% ABV "hazy imperial IPA". It looks a little deeper-coloured in the glass, with an almost Tequila Sunrise effect: red at the base and bright orange towards the top. Again not much aroma, and this one is a couple of months fresher than the previous. There's a mineral dryness on the nose, but little else. The first sip brought booze, and lots of it. I got a sort of Duvel sense at the outset: that alcoholic grain-and-honey vibe. Fruity peach and apricot liqueur chase that, before a hot and slightly acrid bitterness escort it down the throat. It's a bit odd, and quite extreme, though not without charm. Overall, I found it a smidge too hot and sickly to be properly enjoyable. I'm beginning to think these Voodoo Rangers have little in common with each other, beyond their totemic can skeleton.

Last up, no haze, just Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, presumably one of the earlier brand extensions. This one is the full 9% ABV and resembles American double IPAs when I first drank them: that perfect clear amber colour with a rich aroma, full of alcohol and citrus. That said it's surprisingly unbitter. In keeping with the style specs, there's lots of malt, and the hop side isn't quite strong enough to balance the sticky sugar from that. What you get instead is a gentle buzz of non-shred marmalade or orange jelly. It finishes quickly and unobtrusively, which I'm taking as a good thing. I doubt even 2008-me would be all that impressed with this. While inoffensive, it's lacking that loud American punch that made beers of this sort so exciting in the first place.

I didn't think I'd ever say it, but haze seems to be the way to go where IPA is concerned, at New Belgium anyway.

Not so scaldy

There was a late rush of beers from Whiplash at the tail end of 2020. Of particular interest to me were the darker ones as this is an area where the brewery excels, even though most of its output is crowd-pleasing hazy pale ales. I am not the crowd, so let's see how much they pleased me.

We start light, at 7.1% ABV. Heart of Chambers is a "coffee and oatmeal double porter" created in collaboration with fancy-pants coffee merchants 3FE. I picked up an early growler at UnderDog. My jibe about the lightness is shredded by the texture: it's extremely thick and creamy in a beautifully silky-smooth way. A fair whack of warming booze comes with that. The coffee isn't subtle, beginning with a raw-grounds roastiness that lasts all the way from the aroma to the finish. It would have been better without that, but it doesn't ruin the party, because everything else is spectacular. I love when coffee contributes that cherry and rosewater quality and this has it in spades. A more orthodox latte flavour follows, combining with creamy vanilla to create a kind of coffee cake effect. It intensifies on the palate, passing Tia Maria and finishing back at the sharp burnt roast that started in the aroma. Malt? Hops? Nahhh, this is all coffee, and if you don't like coffee in beer stay well clear of it. I enjoyed its uncompromising boldness and the complexity. Half a litre was plenty, mind.

Second-weakest of the dark ones is a 7.2% ABV Baltic porter called Melody Noir. Other than a strength that's perhaps lower than the 8-9% norm, there's no messing with the style parameters here. It's a bit softer than a Baltic porter might typically be, lacking the dry lager crispness in favour of a velvety milk chocolate cream. It would be at risk of getting cloying were it not for quite a hard liquorice bitterness: if you're going to provide balance in a beer this weighty there's no point doing it by half. The mission is successful and the whole thing is very satisfying to drink. Despite its popularity, Whiplash is no novelty brewery. When they make beer I don't like, it was meant to be like that; when they get it right for me, however, it's just the way I want. Melody Noir is that, for Baltic porter.

Something more Whiplashy follows: Disco Mystic, a straight, hazy yellow double IPA, 8% ABV and using Strata and Citra. A properly punchy blend of heavy dank resins and lighter citrus zest forms the aroma, with a little hint of savoury garlic at the edge. Nothing too disturbing, however. It's mostly quite sweet, with the juice element balanced against bitterer pith. Though the texture matches the ABV -- full and rounded -- it's clean and not cloying or sticky. This is well-balanced and easy-going fare, for a big IPA. While not offering any unusual complexity, it does its thing well, demonstrating Whiplash's polished expertise at this kind of beer. Very much a fan-service piece, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A triple IPA of 10.5% ABV is next, and we're still not finished. Headlines is a three-way collaboration with Garage, Naparbier and Barrier. It's a very savoury guy, pouring thick and soupy into the glass: pale orange with a strong aroma of garlic and sesame paste. That oily, acidic garlic twang is where the flavour begins, and forms the bulk of it, to be honest. A generous sprinkling of white pepper is the only other complexity. It's far too rough and gritty for tropical sweetness, and I can't find any citrus pinch either. Ooof. You'll love it or hate it, I guess. As a true-to-style traditional hazy triple IPA, it's bang on style. The way you react to the description is likely what you'll think of the beer. 

Next up, taking a break from the big booze, is a mere 5% ABV pale ale called Hot Pursuit. This is hella hazy: pale yellow and full-on foggy in the glass. The aroma is fresh and fruity: OJ straight from the squeezy machine; a bit of apricot or nectarine, early in the morning at a continental market. You get a more intense acidity on tasting: your American style grapefruit job primarily, with an aftertaste of tangerine and satsuma first, then dry cotton and chalk dust. Yes, it's one of those hazy ones. On balance... yeah, I suppose my thirst did get quenched. It's an unexciting pale ale, the sort of thing haze enthusiasts keep in stock for everyday use. A can of the flagship Rollover session IPA shortly afterwards hit the same spots much more satisfactorily. Still, I'm sure Hot Pursuit will find an audience. 

A dark and double-figured beer to conclude: Fatal Deviation, Barrel Aged. The original version of this massive imperial stout tasted of "a decadent mix of espresso and gallic cigarettes" when I reviewed it in 2017. The new batch has had over a year in bourbon barrels, bringing the ABV up to 11%. The only remnant of the tobacco effect is a nicotine-coloured head. The aroma goes light on sweet American whiskey and big on sappy wood with just faint coffee and chocolate behind. The flavour, too, wears those oak resins at the front, and there wasn't much else at first, when I opened it cold. Given time to warm up, there's an affogato effect, of vanilla mixed with strong espresso. The bitterness level is low, but at the same time it's not a sugary, sticky mess. The alcohol is there to boost the flavours and succeeds without getting in the way. Overall, it is mellow and slow going: entirely appropriate for something costing €15 a can. You can bet I made the most of it.

A pretty decent showing here, on balance. I would really like if more strong porters like Heart of Chambers and Melody Noir were part of the brewery's regular throughput. Hold the French toast.