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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-125012482017-10-20T08:31:00.838+01:00The Beer NutWhy is that man photographing his pint?The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-29131417742472555542017-10-20T08:31:00.000+01:002017-10-20T08:31:00.852+01:00Next!I've been writing about the Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS all this week, but before we tumble headlong into the rest of September's festivals (four more countries to go, folks) I want to catch up on the assortment of Irish beers I drank at home and in the pubs during the summer.

On the very day I posted my last Irish beer round-up I picked up a can of The White Hag's Atlantean, their new IPA in the fashion of (consults atlas) ah, New England. It looks the part: an even sickly yellow and a thin skim of head. Lots of sweet pineapple in the aroma, verging on oversweet but promising enough to make me go in for a sip. It's surprisingly watery when it hits the palate; at 5.4% ABV it doesn't really have an excuse for the hollowness. Around the edge of the crater there's a quite bitter allium burn: simultaneous garlic and spring onion. As the harshness fades there's a tiny hint of peachy fruit but it doesn't stick around to play. My problem here is that this has all the hop features of a really good modern IPA but the malt simply is not there to carry it, which shouldn't be the case given the strength. The absence of a firm controlling hand makes the hops too hot and allows a nasty yeast twang to creep in too. I guess the Vermont yeast was supposed to provide the substance but for some reason it fell asleep on the job. Anyway, it's a surprise pass from me.

I had no idea what to make of the announcement that Black Donkey had released a smoked rye saison. Smoked. Rye. Saison. I did know that I had to try it so trooped along to 57 The Headline at the first opportunity to get hold of this alluringly-titled Bog Fire. I got a murky mugful, a fairly bright orange-ochre colour. The aroma is sweet and smoky, which was a good start as I had been fearing something acrid and harsh. It's not, and not on tasting either. The malt sweetness starts it off, all marmalade with just a slight backing of grassy rye. Then the smoke layer comes on top, but still sweet, like crispy maple-smoked bacon. The saison element only really emerges as the beer warms, presenting as a juicy honeydew melon feature, further softening the smoke. It gets a little harsher in the finish as a dry astringency creeps in, but not enough to upset a very well-constructed beer, one which makes great use of its constituent parts.

Keeping the murky theme going, we turn next to Edelweiss, new from White Gypsy. This surprised me at first with how dark it looked, and then by how dark it tasted. There's a definite whack of caramel, or even toffee, in here -- enough to add a sense of dunkelweisse to the whole picture. There's also banana by the bucketful, in the form of those foam sweets rather than any real fruit. The saving grace is a decent kick of green noble hops adding a flavour of celery in particular, but you do have to go looking for that, so heavy are the malt and yeast components. Though a modest 5% ABV it's a very chewy offering, and that density only accentuates the sweetness. It wasn't to my taste and I'd prefer everything except the hops to be more tightly restrained.

Endless Summer, a collaboration between Donegal Brewing and its neighbour Boghopper, arrived at UnderDog, appropriately enough, in early September. This is a 4.5% ABV pale ale, a middle-of-the-road golden colour with just a very slight haze. The aroma is sweet, and a little sticky, reminding me of bright pink raspberry-flavoured ice cream sauce with a sprinkling of orange sherbet. The flavour is very different, however. From the first taste I got a harsh acridity, savoury like yeast, but with overtones of smoke as well. At the very end there's a brief flash of orange, but it's not enough to save the overall taste. The base beer behind the flavour is thin and fizzy, with a dry chalkiness, which accentuates the severity of it all. I couldn't say if it's an infection, a fining issue, or if it's merely over-bittered, but however you slice it it doesn't result in a happy beer drinking experience.

At the same strength, but done much better, is the new Brú Pale Ale, recently added to the core range of the Trim brewery. It's very pale, presenting like more like a watery lager than a pale ale, and topped with a thick layer of fine mousse. Nothing lagery about the flavour, however: combined Bravo, Calypso and Denali hops give it a serious hop kick, a sharp leafy bitterness, turning from al dente vegetables to oily lime juice after a minute. The body is light but has sufficient weight to carry the hops and offset any possible harshness, though you can forget about any malt contribution to the taste. It's a simple little chap, but very well made and a steal at four half-litre bottles for a tenner.

Staying in the Midlands, the very Midlands, Marooned is the first beer from Dead Centre Brewing and I picked up a can at DrinkStore. The cheering you can hear from the sidelines is because Dead Centre will be setting up in Westmeath, the only county in the Republic of Ireland currently without a brewery. For the moment they're brewing at St. Mel's in Longford, and props for informing the drinker of that clearly on the can. The packaging generally sends very specific signals: a 440ml can, with clean minimalist branding and an almost forensic description of what the beer is made from. But does it walk the walk?

Marooned describes itself as an oatmeal IPA and is 5.5% ABV. There was lots of foam as it poured but this subsided after a while, leaving a hazy orange body with a thin skim of foam. The aroma is superb: fresh tropical peach and pineapple, and a sharper garlic or spring onion element. Perle, Simcoe and Mosaic are the hops, and I'm guessing the Mosaic went in very late. My mouth was watering before the beer came near it. The oatmeal gives it a smooth texture and there's more to the grain side than that: a firm and slightly sweet bready malt character. Really, though, the hops are in charge. It loses its tropicality somewhat on tasting, but the spicy green scallions still walk tall through it, with a more traditional backing of jaffa orange. The finish is quite quick, but that just adds to the clean drinkability. There's a lot of Rye River's Francis' Big Bangin' IPA about this one, just at a more manageable strength. A great first move.

I chased YellowBelly Mortis up and down the country before I eventually caught it. The brewery released a very limited quantity in late August and I hoped I'd find it at their bar at the Great Irish Beer Festival. It wasn't there, but Danny directed me to the Abbot's Alehouse which was due to tap it up that evening. Unfortunately they didn't do so until after my train left. So when it landed at UnderDog a week later, I made sure I wasn't going to miss it.

It's a dark sour beer brewed with black cherries. It presents like a stout: pure black with an off-white foam on top, and it smells quite stouty too, with an aroma of treacle in particular. The flavour is... singular. There's a very strange blend of coffee roast and chocolate sweetness with sweet cherries. Normally this is the bit where I'd say it tastes like Black Forest gateau, but it doesn't. It's only 3.8% ABV, with all the thinness that comes with, and while it's not sour per se, there is an attenuated tang running through it. Despite the oddness, it's quite a simple beer once you're in the middle of it: all the shocks are at the front. I rather enjoyed the way it takes normally disparate tastes and blends them together into a weird but fun cocktail. Three more dark sour beers are due to follow it. Consider me intrigued.

A double IPA head-to-head next: tall cans at 20 paces. Perfect Union was a late September release from Galway Bay, brewed in collaboration with NOLA of New Orleans. The can was a gift from head brewer Tom. It's 8% ABV and uses a Vermont ale yeast, so is unsurprisingly hazy, with some fairly substantial chewy lumps floating around in it. Allium is the main thing the hops bring: fried onion and oily raw garlic first, though a softer juiciness follows, accompanied by a candied malt sweetness. The carbonation is low leaving the texture quite dense and sticky. That garlic napalm creeps back in the finish. Bottom line: it's grand. Lots of happy hops while avoiding the worst excesses of strong IPAs. A bit more fruit and a bit less garlic would be nicer, of course.

And in the white corner, Let It Happen, the third in a series of hop specific double IPAs after Saturate with Mosaic and Drone Logic with Simcoe. Now it's Citra's turn. Woo! The ABV matches Perfect Union point for point, and while it's paler it's not a whole lot clearer. There's a cleaner, sharper bitterness, though there's still a definite waft of spring onion around the edges. No Vermont yeast so a lighter, and frankly more enjoyable, texture. It's remarkably easy drinking, the alcohol driving the hop flavours without adding any heat of its own. No fireworks again, but an elegant double IPA, all characteristics integrated into a single coherent piece. Let It Happen is more softly spoken than Perfect Union, and a better beer for it, I think.

A Whiplash victory lap, then, and a glass of Fantasm Planes. I missed this when it sold out at the Great Irish Beer Festival so was delighted to find it on tap at UnderDog some time later. The official description is that it's Kölsch-style, but that must just be the background technicals, because it doesn't offer anything a drinker would expect from a Kölsch. For one thing it's very hazy, and for another there's a very distinct New World hop flavour: huge peach and mango in the aroma and flavour, with just a spark of resinous dank at the end. The texture is smooth and creamy, though the murk doesn't interfere with the taste. This is a beautiful, easy-drinking, low-bitterness hop-forward pale ale and I loved every sip. At 5.5% ABV it would be exceedingly pintable if it were available as such: I had to make do with my 33cl serve and wanted more at the end.

Staying in UnderDog for a couple more, here's Azacca Saison, a new special from Black's of Kinsale. Hops and saison can be a winning combination but this one doesn't quite have the formula right. The flavour is mostly quite simple, with an old fashioned orangeade element at the centre, the impression helped by the light and thirst-quenching texture. That's enjoyable even if it's not very saison-like. The problem comes later, with a harsh and savoury yeast streak, mixing farmyard funk with seasoned meat, leaving the beer tasting dreggy and a lot less fun. It seems to be the rougher and more evil side of saison that has come through, and it left me wishing for something cleaner to show those hops off better.

That didn't stop me from picking Otterbank Brown Brett as my next beer. This 6% ABV barrel-aged brown ale makes great use of the Brettanomyces it was brewed with: there's a beautifully dry funk in the aroma, continued in the earthy foretaste where it unites with high-cocoa dark chocolate. It's a lovely balance of sweet and dry; candy and rot; a snap of wafer coated in warm gloopy caramel. I couldn't taste anything that the barrel may have added, but there's plenty going on without it.

Cashing in on the all-conquering Dublin football team, 5 Lamps released Up the Dubs in time for the All Ireland final last month. I caught up with it rather later at 57 The Headline. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it when I tried it, other than I found it far too sweet. Research revealed that it's a wheat beer with apricots, and that helped things fall into place, even if it didn't improve it any. There's a certain jammy quality, though nothing I would readily identify as an apricot flavour. The body is thick like a weissbier and there's an artificial metallic bitterness tacked on at the end. Overly-sweet weissbier is always a turn-off for me, and the addition of fruit to this one just makes it even more sickly.

Proprietor Geoff was kind enough to share a sample of King Kumquat that Rascals had dropped in. This kumquat-flavoured IPA was launched at the Brewtonic Beer Festival at the end of September, which I was sad to miss. It's a collaboration with new Dublin brewer Hopfully. This is a beer of two halves: the aroma is that of a serious US-style IPA, all leafy and resinous, and then the fruit explodes outwards in the flavour. It doesn't taste like orange, strangely enough, and I got more of a lime kick from it, as well as a greasy quality, like coconut. It's very tasty and beautifully clean: a beer that looks like a novelty on paper but has a wonderful integrated elegance in the way the taste is constructed.

At a family wedding at the Farnham Estate in Cavan it was a pleasant surprise to find beers from the local client brewer Hyland. We don't get these in Dublin even though they're brewed here, and I'd never tried the red. Celtic Red Branch is a pretty good example too, big on sweet summer fruit balanced by an assertive roasted dryness. It's full-bodied and filling, despite being just 4.5% ABV. I had been drinking Smithwick's beforehand, and a bottle of this was like suddenly switching into 3D.

Finally, a chance encounter with a new pils. Dublin's Persistence Brewing doesn't seem to get its beers into my usual haunts but I found P42 unexpectedly on tap at Jo'Burger in Smithfield. And very impressive it was too: it absolutely nails the Czech pale lager style, from the bags of damp grass in the aroma, to the flavour which piles more of that onto a sweet honeyish base. It's perfectly crisp and assertively bitter in a way not enough pilsners are, and works as both a sipper and a quaffer, depending on one's mood. There's even a rising note of diacetyl as it warms, which just serves to make it taste even more like Pilsner Urquell. My only other quibble was a slight plasticky twang on the end: the noble hops coming through just a smidge too loudly, but if that's the price of super Saaziness I'll take it.

Time to open another draft post to collect the next swathe of Irish randomers, but in the meantime, let's get back to the festival circuit.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-20202320384299666572017-10-19T08:37:00.000+01:002017-10-19T08:37:06.752+01:00An American beer booth in DublinIt was a very pleasant surprise to learn, in the run up to the 2017 Irish Craft Beer Festival, that the Brewers Association from the US would be taking a stall there. It seems to be a thing they do at festivals around Europe now, promoting their members' beers to the export market. For me, and probably most of the people who bellied up to the bar over the three days, it was an opportunity to try lots of American beers that we don't normally get over here.

The BA's London agent Lotte was pouring, and her first recommendation was Saison aux Baies Amères: Chokecherry from Left Hand. This is 6.8% ABV and a beautiful polished copper shade. It's raspingly dry at first, turning gradually sweeter as notes of honeydew and cantaloupe begin to emerge. There's a seam of summer berries running through it as well, as one might expect, but also a lot of boozy heat, the sort that turns me off high-strength saisons. Dropping the strength a few points would do it the world of good.

Utah's Epic Brewing garnered quite a bit of attention from the standers-by and no beer lit up so many faces as Elder Brett, their 9.4% ABV Bretted saison with elderflower. It's a bright pale yellow colour with a big funky aroma: loud and blousey from the word go. The flavour is sharp at first, with a hot and minerally diesel quality. This calms down after the initial hit, becoming more like a fruity Gewürztraminer or even light fino sherry. A green note of chard or bok choy helps offset the elder sweetness while the Brett funk plays solidly all the way through. It's tough going to drink; definitely a sipper; but absolutely worth it. Even a small taster goes a long way here.

So I expected big things from Hopulent, Epic's IPA. It wasn't my sort of thing, however. 8% ABV and all thickly toffeeish. It's a vernacular I keep thinking has died out in American brewing, and then being surprised to find it's still out there. This one is classically constructed and flawless, I guess, but not for me. Onwards.

New Belgium's Voodoo Ranger IPA is in a similar vein but I enjoyed it more. It's a percentage point lighter, for one thing, and has a bigger fresh hop aroma, even if it does smell more of garlic than citrus fruit. While still thick and heavy, the flavour profile is clean and the malt and hop elements are distinct. There's a old world herbal quality -- swatches of thyme and mint -- that I found quite charming and which softens what I thought was going to be a much brasher beer. This still isn't the sort of IPA I would go for by choice, but it's well made for what it is.

The inevitable fruit IPA slot goes to Guava Islander by Coronado. Another 7%-er, more allium in the aroma, and more toffee in the flavour as well, which was especially surprising since it's a very pale beer. The brewer's blurb promises an experience "bursting with tropical goodness" but that's not what I found. There's a strange, but not unpleasant, peppery character, but not much else to separate it from the previous heavy malt-laden US IPAs.

Before turning to the dark side, the oddness of Ska Brewing's Pink Vapor Stew. Beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger with Belma and Citra hops on a massively sour base. As one might expect there's only room for some of that to actually come through to the drinker and I found it was the apple and ginger making the most noise. The sourness was almost at vinegar levels too, which turned something that could have been a fun mix of fruit and spices into a much more serious proposal that required careful sipping so as not to strip one's tooth enamel completely. I think I like the idea of the recipe more than I enjoyed the rather extreme beer which resulted.

To the porters and stouts then, and Pay It Forward, a porter with cocoa from West Sixth Brewing in Kentucky. This is an old fashioned dark brown colour with a tall layer of foam on top. There's a gorgeous smell of Fry's Turkish Delight from it, and this complentary combination of rosewater and dark chocolate continues into the flavour. A dry roasted finish helps keep it from becoming too sweet. The cocoa has been applied carefully and judiciously in this one, helping bring out the porter's essentially porteriness instead of trying to add a new dimension and spoiling it. I liked this a lot.

An imperial stout comes next: Wrecking Ball by No-Li Brewhouse up in Washington state. This is a very substantial 9.5% ABV and packs a whole lot of lovely complexity in there: thick ristretto coffee, bitter liquorice, spicy cigars and a sticky liqueur or fortified wine fruitiness. And yet despite this it's worrying light of texture and exceedingly easy to drink. It's just as well there was only a small sample available: that could have got messy.

I had never encountered beer from St. Louis's O'Fallon Brewery, but was interested in its Smoke Porter when it passed my way. There's too much smoke in it, however. It smells like smoky bacon crisps while it tastes of kippers. At the same time it's also very sweet -- too sweet -- and I ended up with an impression of smoked candyfloss. I don't mind very smoky beers and think subtlety is generally over-rated where they're concerned, but this was just way too full-on and far-out for me.

Lotte didn't want to let me try O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer. Sure nobody really likes pumpkin beer, do they? This one was pretty good, however, offering a range of lovely autumnal flavours like maple, brown sugar and sweet potato, as well as the inevitable cinnamon and nutmeg, but not too much of them. The sweetness here is better suited to the beer. Sneerers gonna sneer, but this did everything I want from a pumpkin beer and I feel not an ounce of shame about it.

Cheers to Lottle and the BA crew, and indeed to Bruce, Carly and all the brewers for yet another entertaining festival. I couldn't stay longer because Beavertown's Extravaganza in London was looming, and I'll get to that shortly.

The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-9812686068428261782017-10-18T08:35:00.000+01:002017-10-18T08:35:10.546+01:00The regularsContinuing this week's posts on the Irish Craft Beer Festival 2017 at the RDS, we come to the usual suspects, the breweries that show up year after year but always bringing new, interesting and experimental beer to liven up the offer.

Perhaps it's a bit cheeky of me to include Urban Brewing among them, since it was technically the first outing for the Docklands brewpub. But it had set up right next to its parent Carlow Brewing so I'm going to treat them as the same stand. Urban Brewing Double IPA was the new offer there. Haziness is still very much the house style at Urban and this 7.4%-er is a deep fuzzy orange. The flavour is a bit fuzzy too, blending marmalade citrus and grassy herbal notes on a big and chewy gut-warming base. Though properly bitter, its flavours don't have the proper distinctness that comes with pouring clean. Like pretty much every Urban Brewing offer so far, more time in the tank would definitely improve it.

There's a more deliberate haze in the new release from Carlow itself: Stormburst. Having received some (unfair) ridicule for invoking New England in the branding of its clear 51st State IPA, the brewery has now decided to get a bit closer to the spec. Stormburst definitely looks the part: a milky orange colour, barely letting light through. And there's the semi-official second signature of NEIPA in a smack of garlic, oddly juxtapositioned against some juicy manadarin. It's maybe a little understated compared to the way breweries with more craft cred and much bigger price tags do this sort of thing, but if you like the style and don't want to shell out the big bucks, this one walks the walk.

Eight Degrees is usually an early port of call for me at the RDS and they had one new seasonal and a festival special one-off on the go. Monsoon is the latest in the wind-themed IPA series and the first with added fruit. Mango and lime are the guilty parties here, though it's only really the latter that adds anything to the flavour: a sharp bitterness up front fading to pithy dryness at the end. It's not all about the acid, with the malt carrying a lime jelly flavoured sweet quality as well. In addition to the absent mango, I couldn't find much sign of the hops either, but despite this I enjoyed the overall quenching spritziness. IPA isn't always about the hops these days it seems.

The brewery acquired a Grainfather homebrew kit recently and used it to kick off what became a Pinot Barrel-Aged Stout. It débuted at ABVFest at the beginning of the month and followed that up with an appearance here. I wasn't wowed by it. It's very sweet, for one thing, packed with chocolate and caramel. There's also a sawdust flavour that I've come to associate with barrel-aged beers where the wood and liquid haven't really melded properly. Offsetting that there's also a rich balsamic edge, which is fun, but the whole picture just didn't hang together properly, I thought. I think I'd have been happier with just a straight stout.

The Boyne Brewhouse specials machine is still chugging away happily. On the roster here was the first Boyne Brewhouse Session IPA, hitting the style markers by being 4% ABV, pale yellow and lightly lemony. It does fall into the thinness trap, however: more bulking out would improve it.

On a less orthodox note there was Cascara Kölsch, which just sounded wrong from the start. Despite this, it once again meets the main style requirement extremely well: it's crisp, it's yellow, and the flavour balances dry grain with a gentle fruitiness. All very classic and refreshing. The coffee element is barely perceptible and I doubt I'd have noticed it if I hadn't been warned in advance. I still think it's probably best not to call something Kölsch if it's been hacked about with. Not hacking about with Kölsch is a fundamental aspect of the style.

Down to the breweries I only annoyed for one beer now. It was good to see N17 back in the hall, going for a 100% cask offer, and with a new beer too: Nut Brown Ale. The best part of this was the aroma, a beautifully rich warm chocolate effect, almost fattening -- a sensation that may have something to do with the robust 5.6% ABV. The flavour is somewhat plainer but still offers a tasty mix of milky coffee and succulent raisins. Above all it's smooth easy drinking, as a brown ale should be. Very nicely done and I hope to get the chance to drink a whole pint of it at some stage.

I didn't take the time to get the full story behind Killarney Brewing's Lemoncen, only that it's an IPA at 5% ABV and dry hopped. I liked it though; there's a classic blend of juicy mandarin, bitter citrus and a kind of minty herbal quality that intensifies to the point of real dankness at the end. No half measures here.

Trouble Brewing was touting its collaboration beer with Stillwater Artisanal, Killwater. It's a sour ale with hibiscus, so a cheery pink colour and with a pleasant tart aroma. It tastes sharp at first, but turns a bit claggy after that, heavy with syrup. An intense lemon pith bitterness helps cut through this, but it's still not easy drinking, at once pointy and severe while also overly sweet. I was after something mellower and this definitely wasn't it.

My last beer on my way out was The Rainmaker, a new US-style IPA at a full-on 7% ABV and utilising Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops. It's a pale and hazy yellow with a flavour -- even after a full evening on the beer -- that's clean and smooth. It does lean a little on the garlic and onion side of the hop profile, but I can forgive it as it's not overly bitter nor any way hot with alcohol. Good stuff.

But that's not the end of my account of the festival. There was one other bar I spent some time at, and it's getting a post of its own next.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-19871675034144478882017-10-17T08:36:00.000+01:002017-10-17T08:36:02.312+01:00As fresh as they getThe Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS in Dublin last month saw the début of a brand new Irish brewery, so new it didn't have a logo on the substantial stand. It's always good to see the product come before the branding, and product it had.

Larkin's Brewing Company is based in Rathcoole, Co. Wicklow, and on this showing seems to have gone for continental lager styles as its speciality: a refreshing change, literally and metaphorically. There was an IPA, however. You have to have an IPA. Larkin's American IPA is a biggie at 6.8% ABV, with a slick greasy body, oozing with lupulous oils from the Simcoe, Citra and Mosaic hops employed. The aroma is funky and dank, almost to the point of being cheesy. A much cleaner flavour follows, however: a crisp and chalky alkaline effect. It's unorthodox for an IPA but bodes well when turning to the lagers.

Larkin's German Lager is where I actually started, and was very impressed. No real complexity or tricks here; no twists or turns, and certainly no off-flavours. This is a straight down the middle quality pils: clear gold, with a beautiful peppery rocket-like noble hop flavour at the centre. Magnificently refreshing and moreish with a flavour which shows enough hop boldness to keep the drinker entertained all the way through. Just 4.7% ABV too so I'd have had another except...

... my head was turned by Larkin's Schwarzbier. It's an extremely rare style in Ireland, for no good reason at all. Of those that make it out of Irish breweries, very few have the dry roasted crispness that I love in classics like Köstritzer. Sadly, the Larkin's version I got is no exception to this rule, although it was the tail end of the keg. I got a murky brown sample, with a flavour leaning heavy on chocolate. The darker, drier elements were in there, but too well hidden. I will be trying this again if it gets a more general release, but for the moment it's a very cautious welcome from me.

Inevitably there was Larkin's Kölsch and this was another elegantly executed version of a classic style. The carbonation was suitably low, and there was a pleasant mineral bite in the flavour, balancing the mild malt sweetness and enhancing the drinkability. A few more hops might improve it, but it delivers on what the style is supposed to offer much better than most imitations, and better even than a couple of Cologne originals too.

I was far from the only punter wowed by the offerings. Oddly, however, the beer that most commentators seemed impressed by was Larkin's Czech Amber. Now, polotmavý has never been my favourite type of beer -- it dilutes the good features of both Czech pale and dark lagers -- and this one was bang on style in that regard. There was nothing at all wrong with it: it's clean, dry, and with a touch of mild celery passing as a hop character, but I couldn't really get much else from it; it just passed over my palate and away without making an impact. Ireland doesn't need amber lager the way it needs schwarzbier, but I'm not going to complain about a well-made one if other folk are happy with it.

Larkin's seems to be pushing ahead with more in this vein: a doppelbock is in progress. What happens beyond the festival circuit largely remains to be seen, but I pray there's a market around here for unfussy and well made beer of this nature.

More from the RDS tomorrow...The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-80647711656429305852017-10-16T08:34:00.000+01:002017-10-17T08:59:26.797+01:00Visitors in the hallAs usual, September brought the Irish Craft Beer Festival to the RDS. The proliferation of beer festivals across the country means that this isn't the massive showcase it once was, but even with reduced brewery numbers the team put on a great show over the three days. Enough for me to dedicate this week's posts to it, and I only made it along to one day.

There were a few first-timers, including one brand new brewery launch, which I'll cover in my next entry. Lough Gill arrived in force for their RDS début, with a bunch of specials I'd been trying, and failing, to get my hands on elsewhere in Dublin. Wild Rosé is the second in their "Wild Atlantic" sour series, a wheat beer like the first but this time flavoured with grapes. Very Italian. It's 5.7% ABV and a light orange colour, offering a highly complex mix of light and summery peach fruit with a harder waxy bitterness. The sourness is fairly mild, but not missed with everything else that's going on.

The series continued with Barrel-Aged Flanders Red, a bit of a beast at 6.7% ABV, quite thick with balsamic resins and brimming with rich and ripe tamarind. Its weight means it loses out on the clean tartness I enjoy most about the style -- the chewiness doesn't sit well next to the sourness for me. All in, it's accessible, drinkable, and a decent effort, but I will stick with my Rodenbach thank you.

From sour to strong, Hoppy Scotch is a 9%-er which does exactly what the name suggests. It's brown and tastes of wholesome toffee, but also of fresh and green leafy hops. This makes an almighty riot of noise on the palate, the two sides crashing into each other like a medieval battle, but bizarrely it works and the drinker gets a big, filling, malt-driven beer that also delivers an IPA's worth of hops. Pure alchemy.

Upping the ante further, at least in alcohol terms, was Lough Gill's Imperial Coconut Porter at 10% ABV. There wasn't all that much going on in the flavour, however: caramel, a touch of red fruit. The strength is hidden well, though unfortunately so is the coconut. This one will please those in need of a high-octane easy-drinker, and we've all had days like that.

The usual daring line-up from Lough Gill, then, and a damned passable mead as well. Doubtless bigger things are on the way.

The other western newcomer was Bridewell, toting their second beer Bridewell Red. Though a little high on the alcohol side at 4.8% ABV, it's surprisingly light, with zesty redcurrants where you might expect caramel and strawberry. There's a fun marzipan sweetness as well. Obviously it's designed to be an easy and approachable beer, catering to the masses while Bridewell gradually expands its draught-only reach beyond the immediate locale, but it packs a tidy amount of flavour in there, all of it good.

A little closer to home, Costellos of Kilkenny was showing off its latest extensions to the range. White Rhino is an American-style IPA and very much in the classic mould. 6.5% ABV gives it some serious substance and it uses that to leverage plenty of serious hop action. The aroma is all naughty resinous dank while the flavour punches out wholesome green spinach with an uncompromising grapefruit bitterness on top. This is not a beer for lightness or juicy tropicality; more a joyous throwback to the days when you knew where you stood with an IPA.

Its companion rejoices in the too-clever-by-half name It's Spelt Dinkel. This is a light and pale top-fermented beer of 4.1% ABV, brewed with spelt, aka "dinkel wheat", geddit? Grain is the main feature of the flavour, to the point where it tasted a bit like a low-rent light lager to me. The middle is watery and full of dry corn husk, with only a tiny quiet bitterness in the finish to add character. I don't really get what the spelt adds to the picture and am inclined to chalk this one up as an experiment that doesn't need repeating. Something for the lager drinkers, though, I suppose.

It was great to see all three brewers making it to the festival and expanding their ranges. For the other newcomer it was all up front on day one, and I'll get to him tomorrow.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-9390400431834581592017-10-13T08:13:00.000+01:002017-10-13T09:06:10.605+01:00Let loose the mooseHop City's HopBot IPA has been around on the local scene for some time now, though only recently has my curiosity graduated beyond the "idle" phase and caused me to buy a bottle. Despite the innocent cartoonish stylings of the label it's a very serious 7.1% ABV and pours a stern dark amber colour. Although it comes from Canada (Hop City is an Ontario-based craft spin-off of New Brunswick's Moosehead) this is definitely channelling the United States, and some time in the 1990s. It is, for one thing, resolutely bitter: a scorching green pine foretaste, softening only as far as lemon peel and no further. By way of balance there's a heavy sweet toffee character but this really just adds its own noise to the cacophony, rather than attempting harmonisation.

Initially I was enjoying this: it's a total nostalgia trip back to the days when citric hops and crystal malt were the last word in beery sophistication. But half way through I started to see why it went out of fashion. It's just too harsh, too bitter, and at the same time too sweet. This clunking robot could do with an upgrade.

I had better luck with Barking Squirrel, which is badged simply as a lager but turned out to be the amber sort, 5% ABV and with a lovely copper colour and enticing liquorice aroma. It tastes as wholesome as it smells, heavy on the chewy amber malts, loaded with oatmeal biscuits, treacle spongecake and a faint apothecary bitterness too. The best-before was almost up on the bottle but it still tasted plenty fresh, the clean and crisp finish entirely free from flaws.

This sort of amber, Vienna-ish, lager is not the most exciting of styles, but it's possible to appreciate when it's done well, which is what this is.

And from the Moosehead mothership comes Boundary Ale. This I hadn't seen before and picked it up when I saw it sitting next to HopBot in Redmond's. "Well-Crafted" it says on the cap, in that bum-clenching voice big breweries use when they're frightened of small ones. It's 5.3% ABV and a handsome copper colour, topped by a welcoming pillow of white foam. It smells a little soapy, but not excessively so: no more than you'd find in a brown English bitter, which I guess is the style they're broadly pitching at. It tastes primarily of caramel, feeling like it's going to build to become saccharine sweet but stopping quite quickly. I think that metallic element is from the Fuggles and Goldings hops which are dominant in this. They've used black malt as well, which adds a slight roasted complexity and moves it away from English bitter into Irish red territory.

This is a decent enough beer, if far from exciting and definitely overstating its case with regard to the US hops it touts. In the craft stakes it's not going to be giving the likes of Dieu du Ciel or Unibroue much by way of competition. It shouldn't be surpring that lager is where Moosehead performs best overall.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-86865679939457575072017-10-11T08:16:00.000+01:002017-10-11T08:16:02.672+01:00Bonus Basque

Well this was a nice surprise: one of the visitors to UnderDog donated a bottle of Basqueland's Imparable IPA to the management, and the management were kind enough to share it round when I was in. Hagstravaganzers may remember Basqueland as one of the guest brewers at this year's festival; that was the first time I'd come across their wares.

This one is a beaut: 6.8% ABV and making great use of that extra strength to pile the hops in. The aroma is seriously dank and weedy so the kicking resinous bitterness that assaults the palate on first tasting comes as no surprise.

It's pale and murky so I suspect that the slick and sweet vanilla element that comes next is connected to the suspended bits. There's a touch of balancing herbs as well, adding a floral element, but that nowhere near takes the edge off the big and fresh west-coast burn which is this beer's signature move.

The pale, hazy and hoppy stylings put me in mind of some of The Kernel's best IPA work. I'm guessing it doesn't travel well, or much, but I'm glad this one got out and about. Cheers Barry!The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-74111115887520430782017-10-09T08:22:00.000+01:002017-10-09T08:22:07.350+01:00Unexpected items

Perusing the selection in Molloy's off licence on Francis Street, my eye was caught by these three from Lithuania's Rinkuškiai brewery.

First up, Alaus Kelias, at 5.5% ABV. It looks like an average lager, a clear golden colour with a full head which vanishes quite quickly. The Lithuanity kicks in from the first taste: a sweet mix of honey and brown sugar, defining characteristics of Lithuania's unique farmhouse beers, yet wonderfully clean and still managing to be refreshing. There's a slightly under-attenuated malt stickiness in the texture, but like the sweetness in the flavour it doesn't build or make the beer difficult to drink. Once you get used to the sweetness -- and I was expecting it so didn't mind -- the whole thing is rather tasty. It's kind of what I expected from a mainstream take on traditional Lithuanian beer so I was interested to find out where they went from here.

To follow: Seno Rūsio, 5.4% ABV this time, and a slightly dark shade, with a copper tint. Again, head retention is not a strong point. Though just as full-bodied, it's a lot less sweet than the previous beer. The problem is that it doesn't really replace the absent honey with anything. There's just a faint metallic hop bitterness alongside the residual malt, but not enough to balance it. I got a certain Irish red ale vibe from this one, something about the way the heavy sweetness meets tangy hop bitters. If it just veered further in one direction or another it would be a better beer.

Lastly we come to Rinkuškių Drumstas, stronger than the others at 6% ABV, but paler too, and smelling distinctly hoppy: the fresh spinach and cabbage of eastern Europe's varieties. It's light bodied, for a very refreshing change, and the honey malt is reduced to a supporting role in the flavour profile. Again, though, it's diminishing returns where the substitute flavour is concerned: the hops are there, but no more than you'd find in a very mild pilsner. And there's a hollow wateriness too, like you'd find in, well, a poorly-made pilsner. It's perfectly drinkable, and quite refreshing too, given the strength, but lacking in complexity and originality.

As someone who's been blathering on about Lithuanian beer to anyone who'll listen since I got back from Vilnius, I liked the way that these offer an intimation of what the national beer is like in that unique culture. The Alaus Kelias is the closest, however, and it's the one I enjoyed most, perhaps because it tastes that bit different to the lagers of the rest of Europe. The other two seem like standard Euro lager given a Lithuanian twist, which is much less interesting. Nevertheless, it's good that the Irish beer drinker has these beers to help acclimatise before a trip north-east. While they're not exactly full-tilt šviesusis, that's definitely lurking in the background of all three.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-57834577278861257562017-10-06T08:59:00.000+01:002017-10-06T08:59:04.942+01:00Double dareFive breweries and three beers in today's post: yes, it's collaboration time! Breweries doing things that they wouldn't normally dream of themselves, but when another boy dares them to, away they go.

Our first test subject was created at the Firestone Walker brewery in California with the assistance of London's Beavertown. The skeltonised heraldic animals on the can are almost too on-the-nose. The name is West Side Beavo, 6.5% ABV and based on Firestone's iconic Pivo pils but combining classic US hops with UK newcomer Jester. It's a crystalline pale gold with surprisingly little aroma. The flavour doesn't hold back though: a huge and spicy pine resin bitterness overlaid with luscious mango and guava. There's a mineral edge too, a touch of hard sulphur that brings a degree of seriousness to the otherwise quite jolly fruit-filled lager. Lots going on here, and all of it good. Well done to everyone concerned.

And obviously with Firestone Walker being very much yesterday's brewery in fashion terms, Beavertown were quick to keep in with the cool set, creating an IPA with the far-too-cool-for-the-likes-of-you New England brewer Trillium. I bought a tin of it in the supermarket.

Beaverillium is the name, giving the old portmanteau thing another try. It's a soupy looking beast, New England IPA meets London murky under a shroud of finest beige. The aroma is fantastic, though: bags of fresh dank, like walking into the hop fridge at a brewery, one of the good ones. Sadly, the fun ends abruptly there. I got a massive whack of sickly green onion right from the get-go, rendered extra severe by a thick and gritty texture which leaves the beer feeling unfinished. It sweetens after a moment in the mouth, the too-real onion turning to the cartoon pickled onions of Monster Munch or Meanies. That's kind of amusing, but it doesn't let the beer off the hook. The finish is a split decision between fried garlic and bitter lime, adding yet more noise and colour to a beer that was already quite loud enough. It's a riot of a thing: mad, brash, and piling on everything that's currently hot in the fast-moving world of ultra-hip beer. It left me wanting to try it again after it spent some time calming down in the bright tank, however.

Finally, it's Fool's Gold, a sour stout co-created by The White Hag and BRLO in Berlin. And yes, that is the dirtiest-looking glass I've ever been served a beer in. For shame, P. Mac's. This ugly dark brown headless yoke is 5% ABV and offers parallel strands of sweet creamy coffee with a neutral sour culture. The two sides don't even acknowledge, let alone complement, each other all the way through. For the most part you get a smooth easy drinking session stout and the cleansing refreshing features of a Berliner weisse, and then they part ways even further at the finish, with the stout turning dry and roasty while there's a tangy lactic finish on the sour side. It really does give the sensation of drinking two, admittedly rather good, beers at once. I think it might help if all the flavours were more pronounced, however. Subtlety is not beneficial in a quirky beer like this. Ramp it up and damn the consequences: that's the collaborative way.

Collaborations may not always result in the best quality beer, but they rarely make for boring drinking.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-25072650187501266752017-10-04T08:39:00.000+01:002017-10-04T09:10:13.138+01:00Brrrrr-ooklynI'm stealing a march on the encroaching winter with a couple of seasonal beers from Brooklyn Brewing, designed for the darker end of the year. Both are from last year's crop, found in the bargain bin at the supermarket back in the spring and consumed at the height of summer. It would have been a bit weird to publish this post then, however.

First out is Insulated, a dark lager. It's certainly dark: only when held up to the light does it turn out to be a very deep, clear garnet rather than black. The head on top is creamy and almost stoutlike, and there's a roasted bitter quality to the aroma that adds to that impression. The flavour is quite plain, lager-clean, I guess. There's a touch of autumnal fruit, blackberry in particular, a herbal liquorice bitterness, and then that dry roasted bite to finish. This one is more about the feel than the flavour: it's big-bodied, satisfying and filling, engineered to be comforting without boosting the ABV to an unreasonable, unsessionable, level. At 5.6% it's just big enough to add a little warmth to the drinker's life. Plain and honest dark lagers are too thin on the ground around here so it's great to have this one.

Next it's the inevitable pumpkin beer, the butt of many a beer joke but presumably still the backbone of lots of American breweries' seasonal ranges. Brooklyn's, which has been around for quite a while now, is called Post Road, presumably after the colonial-era highway that ran between New York and Boston.

Top marks, once again, for appearances: it's a perfect crystalline orange-amber shade, looking like a liquid pumpkin in my rounded glass. Pumpkins don't really taste of anything so I can't say there's much of a pumpkin element; the main feature is the nutmeg: front and centre in both the flavour and aroma. Behind this is a suitably autumnal crust of brown sugar, and there may even have been some hops, but they have since gone away. Surprisingly for this sort of seasonal there's very little malt character, giving it a thin and watery finish. The basic requirements of pumpkin ale are met, and I'm sure it does well for the brewery commercially, but it's really not a very interesting beer, nor satisfying to drink.

Dark lager is superior to pumpkin beer: you heard it here first, folks.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-68382995036002396382017-10-02T08:58:00.000+01:002017-10-02T09:16:44.093+01:00On the path to greatnessA new event for my 2017 calendar was The Great Irish Beer Festival in Cork, now in its second year. It's organised by Franciscan Well but unlike their other events happens in the salubrious surrounds of City Hall. The name overstates the case a little bit: only 15 breweries were pouring beer at the gig, spread across two halls, so there was a manageable number of new beers for me to try, most of them local.

We set up camp opposite Rising Sons, who coincidentally had the most beers on my hitlist. To begin, a half each of two beers brewed to celebrate the visit of the International Space University to Cork Institute of Technology over the summer. Small Step is a session-strength pale ale. It's a hazy pale yellow colour and has a fun peachy aroma. The flavour is harsher, however: a hard green bitterness, like celery stalks. The soft fruit returns in the finish but not soon enough to redeem the beer for me. It's just the wrong kind of bitter.

You know what's coming next, of course: Giant Leap, which is a black IPA. 5.1% ABV and a murky dark brown colour, it goes in for coffee in a big way, especially in the aroma. The flavour mixes it pleasantly with sherbet fruit, the end result being spicy rather than bitter, and the best feature is the smooth effervescent texture making it nicely easy drinking. It's very much on the porter side of the black IPA equation, however.

Mayhem is a recent addition to the Rising Sons line-up, described as a hoppy saison, and it really draws the juiciness out of both those words. There's a deliciously fresh cantaloupe flavour, beautifully thirst-quenching. A sprinkling of white pepper finishes it off. It could stand to be crisper; there's a slight dry bite in the finish but not as much as saison typically shows. What it lacks in crispness it makes up for in lusciousness.

Last one before moving on was Rising Sons Nitro Extra Stout. I wasn't expecting much but this is beautiful: massively bitter with bags of healthy green veg in the flavour and all coated with a luxurious layer of high-cocoa dark chocolate. Like the benchmark Wrasslers XXXX it manages to punch through the suffocating effect of nitro on taste. There was a nitro pale ale as well but I decided not to push my luck too far.

The next bar over was Torc, featuring the experimental Extra Pale Ale. "Extra-Pale" is to be taken as a single element, explained proprietor John: the idea was to make it as pale as possible. But there's lots more extraness about it. For one thing the ABV is a substantial 6%. And for another the hopping level, mostly Citra, is absolutely off the charts. It's intensely bitter: a concentrated spinach and vine leaves taste, and the closest thing I've drank to biting a hop pellet. Despite the imbalance it's perfectly clean tasting and hides its strength very well. I don't know how much of it I could drink but it was certainly an interesting experience.

Amazingly I could still taste other things after that. It was into the main hall next, to try the new rye beer from West Cork: The Rapids. This is pretty typical of the style, a murky shade of orange with a sharp grassy bitterness and touches of thick-shred marmalade. The texture is big and weighty, surprisingly so for just 5.3% ABV, and the overall feel is of something wholesome and unprocessed. Solid stuff.

There were a couple of new ones from YellowBelly, including another saison, Periodic. There's a heady aroma from this one, all pears and booze, despite the ABV being just 5.1%. It tastes very sweet, with more squashy ripe pear in the flavour and some white plum as well. Later a herbal element creeps in too: vanilla pods and cardamom, making it taste like a middle eastern dessert. This is just too heavy and too cloying for my liking. Lack of crispness is a real problem this time.

And there was also Mind Reader, the lager that gets transformed into Commotion Lotion by the addition of Buckfast. And much like Commotion Lotion it's a fun and clean fruit salad of a beer, getting full value out of its strawberries, raspberries and pineapple. It's very nearly too sweet but the clean lager base pulls it back from the brink in time.

By this time we had been joined by regular visitor Sid Boggle and decided to skip out early to pay a visit to The Abbot's Alehouse. I was hoping to try the new sour cherry beer from YellowBelly but it wasn't on. I made do with their Red Noir instead. It's 4.4% ABV so I expected a typical Irish red, and while this does have a to-style profile, there's a lot more flavour than you'll find in most Irish red ales. It's thick and smooth, full textured and jammy, the flavour packed with summer fruits. Not a subtle beer, nor especially complex, but very satisfying to sink a pint of.

The other attraction at The Abbot's was available: Buxton Rain Shadow imperial stout. 10% ABV on the nose, it's dark and foreboding in the glass. An aroma of liquorice, coffee and alcohol sends an early signal that it's one to be careful with. The flavour is much cleaner than the smell suggests, with no real alcohol heat despite a very dense texture. The liquorice is there in spades, as well as an acidic bitterness, turning almost metallic, and tasting like boiled green cabbage. It's a beast of a beer and utterly uncompromising in its taste. But if you go along with what it's trying to do it's a very enjoyable experience. Just the ticket to finish the night on (trainbeers excepted).

One beer that did make it off the train and home was Sullivan's Kiwi Lime Pale Ale, donated by Alan Smithwick who was looking after the Sullivan's bar. This was brewed on the pilot kit in Kilkenny and is a collaboration with Dublin's Hellfire Brew Club. It's bottle-conditioned so poured a little murky despite my steady hand, and featured a tall bouffant of white foam. The lime zest was added late, with the dry hops, and the fresh lime really comes out well in the aroma, enticing like a lime sorbet if you're posh, or a HB Loop-The-Loop ice lolly if you're not.

The texture is light, with less body than might be expected at 4.7% ABV. But that's not a problem, because the end result is insanely refreshing. Both of the fruits jump right out in the flavour, and because their green bitterness is entirely complementary to the Cascade and Perle hops, this one can't be accused of being alcopopish or otherwise unbeery. Real kiwi flesh dominates the foretaste, then the oily lime swings in behind, adding a lasting bitterness that coats the palate. The earthy hit from the Cascade is secondary and almost unnecessary: all the required citrus is already there. The sorbet effect never quite goes away, hitting just the perfect level of bitterness allowing all the fruit flavour to come through undisturbed. This is a total triumph, an ideal summer quencher, and very deserving of scaling up into full production, whenever that's an option at Sullivan's.

And on that high note, a big cheers to Shane from Franciscan Well who very kindly comped our tickets, and to all the brewers I hassled through the afternoon. GIBF is another feather in Cork's already-bristling beer festival cap.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-63299683814068326002017-09-29T08:01:00.000+01:002017-09-29T08:01:01.113+01:00Well I never!It started with a tweet from business journo John West: where is local Sapporo lager brewed? I know that Asahi is brewed at Shepherd Neame in Kent; I noted more recently that cans of Kirin Ichiban come from Weihenstephaner in Bavaria, of all places; but Sapporo was not on my radar. And indeed has never featured on this blog. Asking around finally yielded an answer from local distributor David of Noreast: Europe's Sapporo is brewed at the Guinness brewery in Dublin. Cor!

As it happened I had a bottle in the fridge, so took it out to toast my new-found knowledge. Sapporo is a handsome deep gold colour. It smells boringly sweet, like a million other mass-produced ersatz pilsners. But the flavour does have something going for it. There's a classic central-European grassy hop bite, which was a very pleasant surprise. It also has the full and soft texture of a decent helles making it a lot more satisfying to drink than stereotypical dry and gassy mainstream Japanese-style lager. A decent crunch of malt husk finishes it off.

While I'm on the subject of Asian lager, I lunched in Arisu Korean barbecue on Capel Street recently (highly recommended) and was bemused to see they stocked imported Hite lager. I explored the beer of Korea in Seoul a couple of years prior to starting this blog and Hite wasn't a particularly fond memory, though neither were Cass or OB for that matter. Still, here it was: man up and give it a go. Straight from the bottle, of course.

On this occasion it reminded me a lot of Tiger: it has that horribly thick and estery banana flavour I always get from Singapore's flagship beer. It's barely tolerable when ice cold, but any degree of warmth at all turns it sickly and difficult, in a way that this sort of chugging lager shouldn't be. If you can't create the complexity of Sapporo, at least make it dry.

All of these macro meanderings were enough to guilt me into getting some proper Asian craft beer. That involved another tasty lunch, this time at Yamamori's restaurant on Ormond Quay. It has been far too long since I last tried any Kiuchi beers, which the chain imports into Ireland. The Hitachino Nest Lager was entirely new to me and happily fitted the theme of this post.

I was expecting something exceedingly average, but this it an absolute beaut. It's a plain yellow colour topped by a fine white foam, and at 5.5% ABV is a little stronger than the norm, but that's very much in its favour when it comes to accompanying food -- once again the body is wonderfully full and satisfying. The first sip provided a juicy burst of melon rind, turning to bitterer orange pith on the end. I don't know how this was done, but I suspect it may be down to the judicious addition of Sorachi Ace hops: enough to give it a very distinctive taste but without drowning the consumer in coconut oil. Amazingly, this bright and zingy flavour was still present even as my bottle was coming up hard on the stated best-before date. It's a robust little owl.

Given some of the rubbish that gets sold in Asian restaurants around here, and Yamamori's exclusive hold on Kiuchi, it's a shame Sapporo isn't more prevalent. Its weight would make it a much better counterbalance to spicy food, for one thing. I can understand why they don't sell it at Arisu, however, and I still wouldn't swap the Hitachino Lager for it.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-81752444249263171952017-09-27T08:36:00.000+01:002017-09-27T08:36:04.187+01:00Endangered kiwi

...flavours of citrus, pine & tropical fruit... says the label on Mac's Green Beret, an IPA from a New Zealand brewery that's been off my radar for a while. I picked up the bottle in The Wine Centre on my way home from Kilkenny during the summer.

It's 5.4% ABV and an attractive gold colour. The flavour wasn't doing it for me, which is the point I looked at the best-before and discovered it was over two months past the date.

Tropical fruit? Not so much. The signature Kiwi bitter grassy thing is still there, and there's a solid big malt base, all golden syrup and light toffee. Beyond that, however, this beer is sadly dead. The absence of hop has caused it to fall out of balance. Letting something like this rot on the shelves so far from home does nobody any favours.

I'd have poured one out for it but y'know, I'm writing here.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-57855974018494370082017-09-25T08:12:00.000+01:002017-09-25T08:40:21.412+01:00UK hun?British craft beer is unavoidable these days. Most of the handful of talked-about producers have a presence here, though I can't help noticing prices have stayed buoyant as sterling tanks. Anyway, here's a few that I've tried recently.

London is the hub of the British new wave and Bermondsey's FourPure is one of the most solidly reliable of the capital's brewers. Its Southern Latitude, which showed up on the taps at 57 The Headline, is in the daring style of New England session IPA. It's 4.4% ABV and a not terribly sessionable €6 for a 400ml glass. It doesn't look very New Englandy either: quite dark and almost completely clear. The flavours are clear too: juicy peach and then a double dryness from high carbonation and a slightly aspirin tang. It's refreshing, though, which does meet the session IPA requirement of the spec. Not FourPure's best work, however.

Derbyshire's Buxton is a rare sighting in this part of the country and we owe the presence of Myrcia IPA to The Headline's management relentlessly pursuing it. This is another session IPA, 4% and claiming to be hop bursted. What's not to like? The aroma starts it off well, bright and lemony, but the flavour is very muted and consists predominantly of yeast. It ends up tasting as mucky and dreggy as it looks. Searching desperately for a lighter point I found a slight lemon buzz but no freshness and no real hop character. I guess the lesson is that you need a clean beer to get the benefit of loading all the hops into the end phase of brewing. As is, this was a huge disappointment.

Scotland is inevitably represented here by BrewDog. Their latest "India Pale Weizen" Nine To Five Wizard warranted a special daytime launch event in UnderDog. That was all quite jolly, and proof that BrewDog can still draw a crowd in this town. The beer itself wasn't all that impressive, offering little more than you'd get from a standard weissbier -- banana, cloves -- just given a little extra poke at 7.5% ABV. The lovely smooth texture is perhaps its best feature, coming with a very mild burn, hops or alcohol, at the end. I'm chalking it up as a definite positive that the extra hopping has not been allowed to interfere with the classic flavours as so often happens in poorly conceived hybrid styles like these.

Seemingly the only Welsh brewery that counts in craft circles these days (where did Otley disappear to?) is Newport's Tiny Rebel. Two of theirs came my way lately. One was a can I drank in Brewery Corner in Kilkenny: Clwb Tropicana. This is a fruited IPA, or "tropical" IPA, as the branding insists. It's pale yellow and smells of Lilt. The texture is sticky; the flavour is sickly, and there's no real beer character going on. I have now witnessed a pub customer working along the fruit IPA selections on a particular bar, so it seems beers like this are answering a market demand. This specific one, however, demonstrates clearly to me what's wrong with the whole segment.

Meanwhile, on draught, over at The Headline was Cali American Pale Ale. It's quite a severe beer: a chalky asparagus bitterness being the main feature, and all at the front. I waited for the middle to happen but it didn't really. It feels like there should be a sudden inrush of tangerine or something, but nope. I couldn't stay cross with it for long, however. That one punchy mineral feature is something I enjoyed coming back to sip after sip. This is a no-nonsense beer, take it or leave it, and I'd happily have another.

Dessert, then, and the dark side begins at Wild Beer's Millionaire stout. "Salted caramel" is your Brucie bonus in this one. And yes, it's a little bit sticky, though not overly so. Really it's just a typical, ungimmicky, sweet-ish stout, tarry of texture but with light easy-going flavours of vanilla and honey, as well as a proper hop bitterness. I was genuinely convinced it was a strong one so was very pleasantly surprised to discover it's only 4.7% ABV. I could have handled a pint of this no problem, though maybe just the one.

My nightcap is Eldon, an oak-aged imperial stout from Thornbridge. A modest one, though, at just 8% ABV. It smells enticingly of rich and thick churro sauce and lays on the cocoa heavily in the flavour too. The oak (chips, I assume) has been used previously for Bourbon but I wouldn't have guessed it: no sickly vanilla or heavy booze, a honeycomb sweetness being the only possible nod to the liquor. There is, however, a dry sawdust taste that doesn't add anything positive. With every sip I get the impression of a very well-made strong stout which would be a better beer with less done to it. It's still pretty good, though, getting rounder and smoother as it warms. Definitely a good one to finish on.

I'll have been in and out of London on a flying visit by the time this gets posted, so expect a report on further British craft experiences in the near future.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-64301892898357181082017-09-22T08:06:00.000+01:002017-09-22T08:06:04.862+01:00Taking the Mikkel

I have to admit, I'm surprised that Mikkeller still generates a buzz. The Danish gypsy brewer is a veteran at this stage, and in the highly fickle world of "craft" beer few brands generate enthusiasm for so long. Mikkellermania may have peaked some years ago, but when UnderDog dedicated a swathe of their taps to the beer, excitement ensued.

I stuck my head in on a Friday afternoon to see what was what. Tap 1, and beer of the moment, was SpontanDoubleBlueberry. This is an attempt to recreate the lambic brewing process, with mixed results in this drinker's opinion. It looks dark and tarry in the glass, the deepest of purple with a shock of violet foam on top. The first flavour to come through isn't sourness, nor fruit, but bitterness: the tannic bite of berry skins. A harsh Bretty funk follows, rough and uncouth. I was expecting some fruit flavour but that didn't really emerge until the beer had warmed up a ways, and was heavy and jammy, perhaps reflecting the weighty 7.7% ABV. And sourness? It's buried in there but it's not a central feature. There was the saltpetre spark of proper geuze, doing little other than reminding me I'd rather be drinking a proper geuze. There's certainly a lot going on in this one, but I definitely preferred the lighter and cleaner beers I've had from the Spontan series.

Hallo Ich Bin Berliner Weisse Mango has been around in cans for a while. I just had a quick taster as a contrast with the Spontan. It's a bright pale yellow, thin and clean, and with a sharp, slightly metallic, sour bite. I could barely taste the mango at all: there's certainly no fruit-pulp thickness. It's simple and refreshing fare and for the price usually demanded it ought to be offering more.

It's hops from here on in. I had not realised that the Mikkeller Single Hop Series, which I started drinking in 2008 and last encountered back in 2010, is still running. The beers are all 6.9% ABV and they seem to have acquired double IPA siblings now.

There were two varieties available: Citra and Mosaic in both single and double versions. As a fully-certified Mosaic hound I asked for a taster of the Mikkeller Mosaic IPA first. I was not expecting the aroma of toffee. The hop flavour struggles to come through the heavy malt sweetness, and manages to bring only the savoury side of Mosaic when it does, and none of the fun fruit. I decided not to struggle through a full glass of that.

So instead I surprised myself by opting for Mikkeller Citra IPA instead. Unsurprisingly it's sweet again, though the aroma does include plenty of fresh grapefruit to help cover the caramel. The texture is thick and this helps the hops do their thing: a lovely oily lemon and lime flavour, coating the palate at first, while building to a bitter crescendo. A juicy counter-melody of mandarin adds a tasty extra dimension, though I also detected a burr of yeast bite spoiling things ever so slightly. But overall an excellent performance.

How would that stack up in a double IPA? Remarkably well. Again just a taster, but Mikkeller Citra Double IPA really emphasises the tropicality, piling in mango (more than in the Berliner weisse) and cantaloupe. It doesn't have the whole toffee thing, leaving more room for hop fun, and there's no trace of alcohol heat; an amazing achievement at 8.9% ABV.

With thoughts that I should have given the Mosaic Double IPA a chance too, I headed off. I suppose it should be of comfort that Mikkeller is still doing the Spontans and the single hop IPAs after all these years, and that people are still enjoying them. Perhaps even craft beer radicals settle down at some point.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-31175924941328398912017-09-20T08:40:00.000+01:002017-09-20T09:03:20.816+01:00In for a TreatyThe Beoir AGM happened in Limerick last month. It's the first year that my attendance was not compulsory, but I had never been to the city, nor experienced its beer scene, so there was no way I was going to miss it. The meeting was kindly hosted by The Wickham Tap, Galway Bay Brewery's new pub and their first outside Galway or Dublin (Kilkenny will follow next month). We also dropped by the handsome Smyth's, the cosy Nancy Blake's and the very handsome Mother Mac's.

The latter three were all pouring The Market Quarter, a new pale lager that was being launched that weekend. In total a group of twelve pubs in that area are carrying it on draught, having commissioned it from local brewery Treaty City to be, according to the Leader, "for traditional drinkers and craft beer enthusiasts alike". I like to think I can speak for both of those demographics and I reckon they've nailed it. It's a light 4.2% ABV and an approachable medium-gold. The flavour bursts with fresh tropical flavours, mango and pineapple in particular, before finishing clean. There's a palate-scrubbing fizz to please the mainstream lager drinkers, but it's not thin or overcarbonated, just great session drinking. I would worry about how well the fruit will hold up if it has to spend more than a short time sitting in the keg, but hopefully that won't be an issue. Well done to all concerned.

Our guide for the day, the redoubtable Cyril, had arranged for us to visit Treaty City Brewing itself, where we got a guided tour by the enthusiastic proprietor Stephen Cuneen. Local, local, local is the mantra. I always feel better about not being able to get my hands on a beer when I learn it's deliberate. I hadn't tasted any of the core beers so happily there was a table of sample bottles. Yes, I brought my bottle opener.

Harris Pale Ale is the one that's been around longest, named after Limerick's most legendary drinker. This is quite a dark amber colour and dry tasting, mixing up metallic aspirin bite with a touch of roasted grain. It's reminiscent of decent dark English bitter and is similarly moreish, despite a sizeable ABV of 5%.

The lightest of the set is Hells Gate Lager at 4.2% ABV. I think there's a sneaky reference to the intended style in the name (don't tell AB-InBev) as it's quite sweet and softly textured, with elements of candyfloss and spongecake. This is balanced with a few sprigs of fresh spinach leaves: no doubt a German noble variety or two at work. It's maybe just a little too sweet for my taste, even for a helles, but it's perfectly well made.

Treaty City hasn't turned out a porter yet so Thomond Red is as dark as it gets. And its pretty dark for a red: a cola brown colour with an almost dunkel-like sticky treacle aroma. The caramel arrives to the party early and I was fully expecting it to talk loudly over the top of the other guests. However it leaves room for some clean, green celery hops, a smattering of ripe summer fruit and a roasty finish that prevents it from getting all sticky in the end. Irish red full house then, pretty much, and probably the most complex offering of the set.

The IPA, Shannon River, was a bit of a let-down after that. They've gone too sweet in this one, resulting in a dark orange colour and buckets of orange candy all through the flavour. There's a certain minerally dry bitterness quality too, but it fights with the sticky malt rather than complementing or balancing it. The whole thing is just discordant, rendered extra loud with the volume turned up to 5.8% ABV.

There's a definite sweet theme running through the range, which is perhaps why the red ale is the best of the lot. This may be to do with local tastes so it's very promising that the newest beer, Market Quarter, doesn't have it. Turn your treacle to tropical fruit, Limerick, and embrace the 21st century.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-73006899241228550562017-09-18T08:46:00.000+01:002017-09-18T08:46:00.825+01:00Getting Lough'd

I had somewhat lost track of Lough Gill Brewery since the beginning of the year, having last tried a new beer from them just before the Alltech festival in February. So when I made enquiries in DrinkStore I ended up coming away with three cans from the Sligo brewery I'd never tasted before.

First to get opened was the Sour Wheat Ale. I was hoping for something light and refreshing, but the 5.7% ABV suggested otherwise, as did the dark and murky appearance. I had plenty of time to contemplate that as I waited for the foam to subside sufficiently to allow me a sip. It's as heavy as I expected, with a slick and briney salinity. There's a touch of lemon behind this which, combined with a grainy crunch, calls witbier to mind. Overall I'm not keen on it. The sourness is too strongly lactic, more like something gone off than deliberately inoculated, and the grain tastes stale and husky, possibly as a result. It's doesn't compare well with the cleaner and lighter Irish sour beers out there.

Time for a complete contrast: 'Round the Clock is a coffee and oatmeal stout, a path that has been trod by many breweries previously. It's 5.2% ABV and a rich chocolate brown colour. They've gone all-out for the coffee here, and there's a lot of dark roasted, even gritty, espresso in the flavour and aroma. The harsh bitterness isn't helped by the thin texture and if that's all there was I'd be giving it up as a bad job. But! This beer does have a redeeming feature in a floral complexity that runs backwards and forwards through it. It's a meadowy sweetness that doesn't quite take the edge off the sharp roast but does manage to distract my attention from its worst excesses. It's still some fairly tough drinking, lacking smoothness. You'd really want to be into your coffee, or at least your beer that tastes of coffee, to enjoy it fully.

Finally for now, Lough Gill's Irish Sloe Barley Wine, the first in a series of strong beers, and at 9.5% ABV it definitely qualifies. I was struck by the colour of this: after two cans of murk it's a gorgeous crystalline garnet. On sticking the nose in I'm met with typical barley wine characteristics: heavy slabs of alcoholic toffee, but there's a cheeky sour twang suggesting the sloes are mixing right in the middle. And so it proves on tasting: there's a chocolatey syrupy sweet thickness that would be cloying if left to its own devices, and where a classic US barley wine (hi Bigfoot!) would lash in a load of big citric hops, this utilises the fruit to give it a tangy edge that cleans up the malty excesses and renders it drinkable, while also giving it a uniquely complex flavour. It's almost plummy, like you might find in a Belgian dubbel, but lighter, spritzier, and altogether cleaner -- think cranberries. For a high-gravity palate-thumper this has been carefully and subtly put together. It's not often you encounter an Irish beer that isn't just slavish copying the way they do things abroad but this expresses a terroir all its own.

So, one super-impressive beer out of three. Not bad. There'll be more from Lough Gill in my round-up of the Irish Craft Beer Festival in a few weeks.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-9563507269700028302017-09-15T08:09:00.000+01:002017-09-15T08:09:08.045+01:00Shropshire citrusA couple of beers from top Shropshire brewers Salopian today, kindly muled over to my parents' house by my sister over the summer.

First to be opened was Lemon Dream, after a long walk on a warm June afternoon. I was so thirsty I almost didn't stop to take notes. It's a 4.5% ABV pale ale and a bright clear lemon-yellow. There are real lemons in it, and they really make their presence felt in the aroma: an oily citrus perfume, akin to air freshener or washing up liquid but with none of the negative connotations. Crisp cookie malt gives this a base and ensures the body is full enough for it to be satisfying to drink. The bitterness is surprisingly low, meaning it's more like a golden ale than any hop-forward style, but it's literally and figuratively refreshing to find that the added fruit hasn't been overdone. So, an excellent subtle twist on quality golden ale, keeping the good bits while banishing boredom.

I followed that with a bottle of Bulletproof, from Salopian's craftish range with the uninformative labels. It's bottle-conditioned, 5.8% ABV and turns out to be an IPA. This is even more citrusy than the beer with actual lemons in it. The aroma promises a sharp bitterness while first sip delivers a huge blast of lime: fresh, bitter and invigorating. That's followed by a softer and juicier passionfruit and mango flavour. A deposit of greasy hop resins on the tongue make the finish very good value for money. On the down side the body is a little thin, especially for the strength, and it risks accusations of unbalance as a result. That doesn't bother me, however, I could frolic in its hoppy wonderland forever.

Boring old regional English beer in half-litre bottles, eh? Not so much with Salopian. The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-75829931499396242592017-09-13T08:52:00.000+01:002017-09-13T09:18:50.543+01:00A drop of the black stuffI laughed when I saw that Grand Cru Beers had put a stock of Oude Geuze Boon Black Label on the shelf in my local SuperValu. Every week, doing the grocery shopping, I'd pass by it and think "Haha, I mean who's going to buy that in Dublin 12? For €11 a bottle?" It took a couple of months to realise that it was me.

There's a whiff of the US about its English-language label and imperial units. I guess it's intended more for there than Sundrive Road. There's also the claim to be "the driest geuze we make", because those Americans love a superlative. I did precede it with a standard Oude Geuze Boon, for calibration. Any excuse, really. And yes, while the basic one has a lovely stonefruit juiciness, that's missing from this. Instead there's a mouth-puckering edge and a hit of bricky nitre. It's not overdone, however, keeping everything very classy and classic. There's a real invigorating quality, helped by the busy palate-scrubbing fizz.

While highly enjoyable, I do think some of the complexity is missing compared to the standard. It's less rounded, going all-out for big sour. Just as well the Boon blending skill kicks in and insists on still making a superb, properly balanced, geuze. €11 well spent.

With a taste for geuze in my mouth I decided to open the freebie bottle I picked up at the Mort Subite brewery back in May. They've called it Bubbles from Brussels, which is slightly odd as Mort Subite isn't in Brussels: the nearest large town is called Asse. Maybe a rebrand is in order.

I wasn't expecting much from it, but it's not half bad. Not first-tier geueze by any stretch, but neither is it an oversweetened nerve-jangler. Instead it's right in the middle ground: tangy and earthy without going for full-on wince-inducing sourness. There's a waxy bitterness, some citrus peel, and a mild gunpowder spice: the core elements of really good geuze, but dialled back, as though the brewers weren't sure if people would like them. The biggest surprise is that this light-touch lambic is a whopping 7% ABV. It really doesn't taste it. Much like the Mort Subite tour itself, it's far from unmissable but not bad for free.

It must be nearly time to go to Belgium again.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-14666835862081622742017-09-11T08:57:00.000+01:002017-09-11T09:12:35.803+01:00Flame onThe Big Grill Festival turned four last month, returning to Herbert Park for four more days of barbecue-based entertainment. It was the best year yet for beer, with a second long bar added to the field, lots of new beers, and even one brand new brewer.

But my first port of call was to the standalone tent (hut? lodge?) of Franciscan Well, since they were nice enough to send me the tickets and a few beer vouchers. Their new offer was called Shoot the Breeze and it's a California Common. It's a pretty ugly looking one too: these are supposed to be clear, aren't they? This is a grim murky ochre. There's lots of crunchy roast immediately on tasting and then these strange sweet esters that seem very out of place: it's much too fruity for a style which should by dry and crisp. The hops are decent, bringing a grassy bite late in the flavour that helps reset the balance. The end result is an OK brown beer just misses being a good California Common.

Over to the main bars, then, and this was the first festival outing for Hopfully Brewing of north Dublin. They've launched with three core beers and one special, and some very distinctive artwork. I covered the fabulous beetroot saison here and it's joined in the line-up by a pale ale and an IPA. Lovemaker is the former, a quite dark and spicy number which incorporates rye with its Summit and Cascade hops. It's only 4.8% ABV though big-bodied and surprisingly dry. While it opens with quite a perfumed flavour, the finish is classically bitter. Overall a very grown-up no-nonsense sort of beer, high quality but with no fancy bells or whistles.

The IPA, Graciosa, is bright and pale and boasts a massive tropical aroma of mango and peach. The flavour is dank and dry, yet still fruit-forward, with a perfect clean finish. Citra and Chinook is the power couple that made this possible, and they put in one hell of a performance in a beer that's only 5.3% ABV. I think this one will turn a few heads, especially when the canned version starts getting out and about.

The initial limited-run beer in the Hopfully range is another California Common, but one with a distinct twist. Sakura is absolutely loaded with Sorachi Ace hops and uses that clean crispness I spoke of earlier to launch a massive hit of greasy coconut oils. It's a surprise attack too, because the aroma does not foreshadow it, nonchalantly wafting light coconut but no more. There's quite an intense bitterness too, making for an invigorating and stimulating experience. If you don't like Sorachi Ace, however, this is probably not going to be the beer to cure you of that affliction.

Hopfully's next appearance will be at the Brewtonic Beer Festival in the Bernard Shaw at the end of next week. Rascals will also be there, launching the second edition of their urban crowd-sourced hop beer. At Big Grill it was the turn of a fruited New England-style pale ale, Planet of the Apricots. It's an interesting phenomenon. The fruit seems to latch on to the dense and fluffy beer, intensifying its flavour as a result, meaning this thing really tasted of apricots. There's enough citrus bitterness to twist it towards tropical breakfast juice, which is also how it looks, and there's a memory of peach schnapps and orange from my misspent youth as well. But is it any good? Maybe it was the good weather but I kinda liked it. It doesn't fall into the usual fruit IPA trap of trying to copy the hop flavours: there's a proper contrast here. The end result is a fun, if silly, sunny delight.

Less fun was Park Life (not to be confused with the recent Trouble lager of the same name), a festival special from Brewtonic. This was badged as an American wheat ale and was just too harsh for me, all savoury caraway and a hard bitterness. Moving on...

Hope was next door, with cans of numbers 6 and 7 in its limited edition series. Nut-watchers will of course remember that 1 and 2 were my top picks of last year's festival. They are, respectively, Tropical Sour and Tropical IPA. I think (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) they're both flavoured the same way, with Citra, Azacca, Mandarina Bavaria and Simcoe hops, plus pineapple, passionfruit, lime and mango.

I started with the IPA and found it surprisingly hop-forward for everything that's in there. There's a serious heavy dank bitterness, roaring with pine, and an accompanying resinous mouthfeel. The fruit barely gets a look-in, cowering behind the hop onslaught.

The sour one also asserts its identity in no uncertain terms, including an eye-wateringly sharp aroma. The flavour is strongly sour too, but still provides a firm base for the various fruits to work out of, a lot like its cousin, YellowBelly's Castaway, though bitterer and more complex. Much like the IPA it's still highly enjoyable for all its seriousness, being properly sour while also properly tropical. What more could you want?

And that was just one bar finished. Thankfully there wasn't so much new stuff over on the remaining side.

As if the phabulous Phunk Bucket wasn't enough, Kinnegar had another new release on their bar: Freak Show. This is a cream ale of 5% ABV with added orange. Cream ale has never been my thing and this is a classic demonstration of why: it has that unpleasant sweetcorn rasp that comes of putting maize at the centre of the recipe. The orange, though very obviously present, does nothing to improve the picture, giving the beer an over-the-top cordial sugariness. I genuinely don't get the point of this beer, or what it's meant to be. It's definitely not up to Kinnegar's usual standard. Momma, don't let your children grow up to brew cream ales.

Obliquity is the portentously-titled new special from Metalman, created in collaboration with Solvay Society brewery of London. It's a pale lager, enhanced with a dose of saison yeast. And it makes good use of both sides. There's a fundamentally solid clean and easy-drinking lager here, very accessible despite a substantial 5.8% ABV. And then there's an extra layer of spicy saison fun: white pepper in particular, and a gentle puff of banana esters. An interesting experiment, and a successful one.

The nightcap was Chocolate & Coconut Extra Stout, presumably one of the last beers brewed at Wicklow Brewery by departing head brewer Jason. And it's a hell of a finish. 8.5% ABV and every bit as rich as most imperial stouts, it's jet black and sumptuously smooth, exuding an aroma of iced latte. This turns darker on tasting, all mocha and espresso, with merely a dusting of coconut on top. I got a slight buzz of higher alcohol heat on the finish, but nothing that really throws it off balance. It's very clean and sinkable overall.

And that was my Big Grill for 2017. Thanks again to Franciscan Well for the tickets, and to all the brewers who tolerated my sleeve-tugging: you're always the star of the show, more than the pigeon-butchery classes or any number of flayed goats.

The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-6252230779413128012017-09-08T08:47:00.000+01:002017-09-08T08:47:03.044+01:00New in townThe arrival of a new showpiece brewpub to Dublin ought really to be headline news on this blog. Brewpubs are my thang, and for the previous 17 years my hometown city centre has had just the one. I've been to the newcomer, Urban Brewing, twice now, at launch events, but even now I'm not sure if I should be writing about it yet.

There's no doubt that Urban Brewing is spectacular. It occupies a portion of the CHQ Building, originally a wine and tobacco warehouse in the docklands. It was meticulously restored during the boom years but never really took off as a shopping centre as intended. In 2013 the Docklands Development Authority sold the building to businessman Neville Isdell and it now hosts an exhibition, event space and a tech start-up facility. Isdell co-owns Urban Brewing with Ireland's largest microbrewer Carlow Brewing, and though it's not explicitly Carlow-branded, the mother brewery is very definitely present: most of the guest taps pour O'Hara's beer and the head brewer, Mickey Lynch, was seconded from Carlow.

At ground level it's a glass-fronted café bar with a generous west-facing terrace for catching the evening sun. On a gantry above the counter sits the brewhouse and the serving vessels, making it the only brewpub in Ireland where beer is served directly from the tanks rather than kegged. Stairs lead down to the vaults beneath, atmospherically lit and mostly dedicated to dining space, with room for a fully stocked basement bar and the fermenting tanks. The menu is all very high-end and cheffy, with tapas being the centrepiece of the offer.

But what about the beer? Well. That's where the reluctance comes in. I don't think the beer is quite ready. I'm not even sure any of it is fully sale-grade. But the place is open, pints are a reasonable €5.50-€6 and I think I'm within my rights to review them, even though -- disclosure -- I didn't pay for any of these as they were at events.

Back in the middle of August there was a Raspberry Wheat Beer. Its hazy greenish-yellow colour was entirely within the spec of a witbier, and the raspberry aroma was clear, clean and fun. And while it didn't look pink it definitely tasted pink, with lots of sweet raspberry. Except possibly too much: there wasn't a lot going on past the fruit, the base beer seeming very plain and watery. Still, not a bad start.

The other launch beer was an elderflower saison, later titled Forager's Wife. Originally this was a dense eggy yellow (pictured), the image of one of those fancy opaque New England IPAs. Banana esters featured big in the aroma, while the flavour began crisply but quickly turned overly sweet. The elderflower makes it taste of concentrated cordial, and then there's a nasty, but predictable, yeast bite on the finish. "Needs time" say my notes. Two weeks later I was back and it was still on. It had brightened a little, looking less outrageously soupy now, but it still tasted far more like a weissbier than a saison, all butane and bananas. Curiously, what little elderflower flavour there was previously had vanished completely. Maybe more time still is required, but I'm not so sure now. It could be just that the whole brewing system is not yet bedded in.

And that seems to be borne out by the other beers that were pouring at the grand opening last week. One was Urban Wit, a light and clovey offering once again full of esters, this time tasting specifically of green banana. It was perfectly drinkable but I missed the herbal flavours and dryness that witbier ought to have.

The other two were IPAs. Deanli IPA, presumably made wth the titular hop, did have a fun spicy green taste but it was buried under a snow-capped mountain of yeast and fruity esters. The flavour careens through weissbier, witbier and saison without coming anywhere close to American IPA. It was drinkable, but what bugged me about it wasn't the flavour but the wasted potential: I really wanted to taste the IPA underneath, but couldn't because of all that interfering goop in the way.

Its companion was an orange fellow called Paradisi. Cloudy again, but happily this time without the plague of bananas. Instead it's weirdly tangy, with almost a sour tint. There are sparks of orange and grapefruit citrus, but not up to the recommended level for a decent new world IPA. With these two they have attempted beer styles that require a clean flavour profile but have turned out results that very definitely don't have it.

I sincerely hope that there isn't a systemic flaw in the way beer is produced at Urban Brewing, and that once the rush of launch events goes away Mickey can get everything running the way it ought to, turning out beers with somewhat more polish to them. There will most definitely be more to come from Urban Brewing here, but maybe not immediately.

The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-33181086253515229142017-09-06T08:42:00.000+01:002017-09-06T08:42:06.550+01:00Black Hook down

Mooching around the judging room after the Killarney Beer Festival awards had been decided, back in May, I spotted a pair of tall handsome swingtop bottles among the leftovers. Hook Baltic said the label, a Baltic porter from Arthurstown Brewing in Wexford. I was intrigued, and a little excited: Baltic porter is not a style that gets sold much in Ireland, never mind brewed here, and this strong black lager popular in Poland can be absolutely delicious when done well. Chief steward Kellie had deservedly earmarked both bottles for herself but very kindly yielded one to me, for which I am extremely grateful.

When I finally got around to pouring it a couple of months later, I found a dense jet-black and thickly textured beer. The head is a dark tan colour but I kept having to top my glass up to get it in the photo at all: head retention is not a strong point here. It tastes sweeter than I'd expect from a Baltic porter, full of rich chocolate and wholesome cereal, missing the bitter liquorice that often features and getting no more herbal than a touch of cola nut. I'm not bothered about authenticity, however: this Irish iteration of the style is beautiful. The chewy and filling quality of Baltic porter is present, as well as the intrinsic cleanness, so even though you're feeling everything that a dark beer brings to the table at 8% ABV, it doesn't clag up the palate as you go through. I've no idea what the availability of this is -- I've certainly never seen it for sale -- but it deserves to be more widely enjoyed.

For good measure I also half-inched a small bottle of Hook Porter, seemingly a more commonly Irish sort of dark beer, although at 5% ABV it's perhaps a little bigger than the norm. It's a very dark brown colour with little by way of head so seems like it would be dense and chewy. It's not, however, proving surprisingly lightly textured. The flavour is unusually floral, presenting a bouquet of lavender, violet and rosewater up front. Some chocolate would be nice to balance that, but the thinness strikes and only a faint burnt and smoky roastiness answers back. In what I'm guessing is an attempt to make the beer sessionable, all the taste is at the front, with a very quick finish, leaving just water and a slightly stale oxidised burr on the end.

This is very nearly superb. The hallmarks of high-quality porter are there but there's a depth lacking, a heavier texture that should have been perfectly possible given the strength. Throw in some more silky chocolate and it would be a world-beater.

Nevertheless these are two very well-made dark beers. Arthurstown has tended to go in more for the pale ales, lagers and reds so far. A few more like this would keep me happier.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-308455251094870572017-09-04T08:42:00.000+01:002017-09-04T08:42:00.197+01:00Somewhere over the borderSeptember already? Yikes! These notes have been sitting in my drafts since my last trip north in June. I did a swift run around McAnerney's supermarket and The Winestore, Armagh's top two off licences, for anything new from the Northern Ireland breweries. This is what I found.

Glens of Antrim Ales is entirely new to me, though they've been brewing up in Ballycastle since 2014. First from them is Fairhead Gold, a 4.4% ABV lager. To be specific, this is very much the sort of lager made by microbreweries who don't really know how to make lager, or else don't have the equipment for it. It's a cloudy pale yellow and horribly thin and astringent. The flavour is sharp yet watery, like a weak lemon drink, finishing on a rough husky note before curdling in the stomach. It's too harsh to even be refreshing and I refuse to believe it's anyone's idea of a good lager, or that it'll convert many Harp drinkers.

I figured they'd be on firmer ground with Lizzie's Ale, although it's a tricky blonde one rather than safely dark. No wateriness here, thankfully: smooth and full bodied instead. The lemons are back, but they're able to use that big malt base to spread out and provide a gentle citrusy buzz, starting on a sherbet effervescence, the bitterness building gradually to an altogether modern C-hop sharpness in the finish. Where I might expect some estery ripe fruit or spicy yeast flavours there's no further complexity, but these aren't really missed. This is a very capable blonde ale and I think shows that Glens of Antrim do know what they're doing after all and simply shouldn't have attempted a lager.

One of the most exciting of Northern Ireland's new wave breweries is Bullhouse and I've really enjoyed the handful of their beers I've had so far. Two new ones faced me in The Winestore, including the first canned beer I've seen in their line-up: Koko, a coconut porter at 5.5% ABV.

Unfortunately it's not a great coconut porter. The aroma is suitably Bounty-ful but the underlying beer is too thin and everything gets dialled back because of this. I kept expecting a luscious chocolate flavour but instead the dry roasted quality is allowed to dominate. The coconut isn't sufficiently present either, though perhaps I'm a bit greedy when it comes to this ingredient: other people may think there's value in being subtle with it; I don't. A pleasant floral rosewater complexity is another underused asset, one which is really crying out for a denser beer to augment.

A second flavoured porter follows: The Notorious PIG, an ambitiously-titled "maple bacon coffee porter", and yes, all three things are apparently really in there. It's jet black with a tan-coloured head, showing off its substantial 6.7% ABV right from the start. The aroma is smoky, slightly burnt even, and I suspect some good old smoked malt has been included in the grist -- surely that can't be from however they added the bacon? The texture is pleasantly creamy though there's a sharp bitterness in the foretaste which gradually calms down to become a coffee taste. This is very heavily roasted and dominates the whole thing, granted support from the smoke side. No sign of the maple, however, and a little softening sweetness would be good for it. Overall it's decent gut-sticking fare, though a bit more tweaking to bring out the constituent elements better might be beneficial. It's doesn't taste as complex as the label promises.

Mourne Mountains brewery had a Whiskey and Vanilla Barrel-Aged Stout on offer, a big fella at 8.2% ABV. The whiskey element is off the charts here, smelling exactly like a glass of Bushmills and giving a substantial throat-scorch when swallowed. It doesn't taste of pure whiskey because of the other ingredients: lots of very sweet vanilla and a hefty dollop of chocolate sauce. Amazingly these don't turn the beer sticky or cloying, but rather work to offset the more severe booziness. It's all very entertainingly put together, every inch a stout but with elements from delightfully silly chocolate-cream cocktails too. I got to wondering what would happen to it with age, even though it's a beer which is possibly just too much fun to not drink immediately.

There's certainly some interesting stuff coming from the Northern Irish micros. I just wish the shops in Armagh would stock more of them.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-10569408282870922602017-09-01T08:08:00.000+01:002017-09-01T11:13:32.767+01:00Die übersüßHis Royal Lageriness Velky Al is hosting The Session this month and the theme is Oktoberfestbier. 'Tis the season, after all. Once upon a time, the myriad range of German lager styles were a source of great interest for the under-stimulated Irish beer geek. In the specialist beer shops we cut our teeth on helles and export and doppelbock, learning as we go. And of course the annual influx of Oktoberfestbier from the six great houses of Munich was part of that.

And then the excitement died away. I guess the explosion of local craft beer and the greater availability of more thrilling offerings from more hyped brands meant there was no longer room for the Germans: a generation of beer enthusiasts grew up who never knew an Irish beer scene without Mikkeller or BrewDog in it. These days, the half-litre bottles of German beer, looking clumsy and old-fashioned, cluster together on the bottom shelves in the supermarket. I felt sorry enough for them to rescue a couple.

In keeping with the Session theme, I offer a festbier first. Eichbaum Festbier didn't come in a half-litre bottle, but an Oktoberfest-compliant 950ml can inside a complimentary Maßkrug, a fiver the lot in Dunnes: bargain! I'm used to German Oktoberfestbier being golden so was surprised when this one poured an amber colour that's almost mahogany. It's only 5.5% ABV and I suspect that reflects a high finishing gravity as it's very thick and syrupy as it sloshes out. There's a roasty element in the aroma but the flavour is very full-on Märzen: thick and bready. The darkness gives it a touch of caramel and liquorice, as well as a little jammy bramble fruit. The nettley noble hops wait until the end to make their presence felt but do so only briefly.

Though I can see how this has been designed for September evenings with the first chill of autumn in the air, it's not the Oktoberfestbier I'm looking for. Yes, the crisp and golden variety from the big brewers may be a recent affectation in line with popular tastes, but you can colour my taste popular here.

Looking for that golden cleanness, I switched to a helles next, Adlerkönig Urtyp Hell from Privatbrauerei Höss, funnily enough imported by Four Corners, who also bring in BrewDog and Mikkeller. It's a light and approachable 4.7% ABV and perfectly pale gold, but once again I'm let down by sweetness. The flavour is a jolting mix of candyfloss and caramel wafers, and hop balance appears to be far down its list of priorities, coming in at the end but tasting harsh and plasticky. The sum total of all this is a sickly and artificial-tasting beer, completely lacking in the smooth cleanness of good helles, and reminding me of the worty flavour commonly found in non-alcoholic weissbier.

Both of these styles are allowed to place malt sweetness at the centre of their flavour profile, but these two examples have gone way overboard with that and the beers (and the drinker) have suffered as a result. I'd trade either in for the Spaten or Paulaner equivalent without pause.The Beer Nuthttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12501248.post-76093677195113807182017-08-30T08:08:00.000+01:002017-08-30T08:08:08.343+01:00Whup-ah!

O the flurry and the scurry when new Whiplash beer drops. Two more arrived last week and I found myself hassling Carlos, beer guru at Fresh in Smithfield, to get the boxes open and make sure they rang in at the till.

First out was little Suckerpin, a Berliner weisse with Lemondrop hops and a bijou 3.3% ABV. The aroma is fresh and lemony, if a little hand-wipe-esque, while also intimating a sharp sourness lurking beneath the surface. This doesn't really materialise on sipping, however. In classic Berliner style it's smooth and grainy, softly textured with a decent body, and the flavour has a gentle mineral salinity, more like you'd find in a straight gose. There's a background tartness but that seems to be as much from the super-citric hopping as any lactic bacteria culture. Anyone looking for a Púca-like sour kick will be disappointed, but I like the balance, the cleanness, and the emphasis on hops.

Its companion is the third tall can of double IPA from Whiplash, following the excellent Surrender to the Void and the sublime Saturate. This is Drone Logic, 8% ABV, a hazy (but not murky) orange colour, and depending on Simcoe for its hopping. It smells fantastically juicy, like fresh-squeezed jaffas, with maybe a lightly green dankness to the side. Once again the flavour performs a sneaky bit of bait-and-switch, emphasising the resinous bitterness and leaving the juice still present, but relegated. The finish introduces a new savoury character that confused me: part smoke, part eucalyptus. It doesn't really fit with either the bitterness or the juice and really detracts from the whole picture. I found myself trying to cling on to the orange flavour as it passed fleetingly across my palate on every sip. So this is nearly a great beer but in the final assessment just slips into the too-hot-too-harsh bracket, along with most of the world's other DIPAs.

Hop fruit giveth, and hop fruit taketh away. Neither beers were quite what I was expecting but both gave me plenty to think about.The Beer Nuthttp://email@example.com