Wild for the Chardonnay

The quarterly Wicklow Wolf Locavore series has really hit its stride in recent years, with some truly creative and high-end beers. It may be a bit of a gimmick -- all ingredients are acquired locally, mostly on the brewery's own land -- but the commitment to quality comes as standard. That said, the spring release last year was nothing more adventurous than a weissbier, so I was pleased that Locavore Spring 2024 has them back playing with barrels and Brettanomyces again.

To be precise, it's a "Barrel aged farmhouse ale with Brettanomyces", presumably starting life as some class of saison before getting the wild yeast treatment and 16 months in Chardonnay casks. The result is 7.2% ABV and a bright, though murky, golden colour. The best of these have a flavour profile in common with lambic, but this is nothing so wild and sour. The Brett is the more cuddly sort, giving the aroma and flavour big soothing notes of ripe apricot and tinned lychee. There's a certain amount of peppery spice, but not as much as I would like. As it warms, the white wine character emerges, complementing the stonefruit elements, but adding a little alcohol poke, which shouldn't be unexpected, given the strength.

Although it's no masterpiece of mixed-fermentation complexity, it's very nice stuff. I see it working well as an aperitif, in place of white port or cocktails based on dry vermouth. By the end of the glass I had become aware that lazy summer evenings aren't too far away. Get a few of these in for that, and thank me later.

Hops wanted

Some big IPAs from Hopfully today, beginning with ThreeLeaves, their new St Patrick's Day special. This is a cold IPA of 6.3% ABV and brewed in collaboration with Milan's Birrificio WAR. It's a near-perfect clear golden colour and smells sharp and spicy, of pine resin and raw red onion. I'm happy to say that, for once with a cold IPA, the onion does not come through to the flavour. Instead it's all very west-coast, offering lemon zest, grapefruit rind, and then a harder pine resin in the finish. The clean, presumably lagered, base gives the hops a wonderfully clear platform to work their magic from: Chinook, Mosaic, Nectaron and Hallertau Mittelfrüh, for a fun mix of American and Germanic characteristics. There's no heat from the alcohol, but the gravity gives it a lovely smooth texture, making it delightfully quaffable, despite the welly. Maybe the next one will slow me down a bit.

This is Watchdog, a double New England-style IPA. It's 7.5% ABV and very hazy -- densely yellow with a fine foam on top. The hops are a simple fruity combination of Azacca and Amarillo, and that gives it an aroma of orange-flavoured chew sweets. The flavour isn't anything so sweet, and it's almost a little... funky. Maybe the bitterness of the previous beer was still hanging around, but I didn't get any of the anticipated candy from the flavour. Instead, it's a rather hard and waxy taste, with a savoury note of fried cabbage and roasted meat. There's a stern resinous side, and a dry, plasterboard rasp. Only at the very end is there any kind of sweetness: a concentrated orange cordial effect. There's not enough character here overall, and what's there isn't especially enjoyable. Hopfully is usually much better at this sort of thing.

A chance to turn things around is Moodlift, double IPA again, with the strength boosted to 8% ABV. It's explicitly in the west coast style, and while it's the right shade of amber, is a bit hazy as well, which spoils the effect a little. Again, I think they've low-balled the hops, because there's neither zest nor zing in the aroma and flavour. Talus, Chinook and Centennial should have more of a presence than is in evidence here. It smells only slightly of orange oil and tastes of pith and coconut, a little like there's Sorachi Ace in here, but nothing so strong or distinct. Although the body is heavy and chewy, it doesn't host a big malt or hop taste, and is sadly quite plain, all told.

I like a pisco sour cocktail, and I like a sour IPA, so Hopfully looked to be catering very much to my tastes with a sour IPA called Pisco Sour. They've got the visuals spot on: an opaque yellow/orange topped with a very fine white foam. You have to supply your own Angostura bitters, however. The aroma is surprisingly savoury: smoky, like charred embers or lapsang souchong tea. On tasting, that transforms into a very mild tartness; a bite of black lime rind or the aforementioned bitters. Behind it, there's a softer fruit side, more typical of hazy IPA, suggesting peaches and apricot. According to the can it's all done fairly simply, with a mix of Citra and Nelson Sauvin hops plus lime juice. That made me realise that the smoky thing is a more concentrated version of the diesel or kerosene I often get from Nelson, and it's unusual to find Citra taking any kind of a back seat. I would have liked more of its particular brand of lime sharpness, and indeed more sourness. Instead, this is a big softy, with all the fluffy texture which comes with 7.8% ABV but absolutely none of the heat. While fun and different, for sure, I question whether it should be badged as an IPA at all.

A late add at a more modest strength is Patience, a hazy IPA of 5.5% ABV. This is hopped with Chinook, Azacca, Comet and Citra so definitely shouldn't be lacking in hop character. Unfortunately, it is. The aroma is again quite bland with vanilla custard and little more than a distant squeeze of citrus. The flavour, too, is reticent, offering up minimal amounts of zest on an unforgivably thin base. The lack of hop taste leaves room for an unpleasant gritty and savoury side from the haze to creep in and muddy things up. If it were 4% ABV or less it might be understandable, even forgivable, but I know it's possible to give a beer of this strength a much more assertive and enjoyable hop side.

What happened here? The top one was glorious and then it all fell apart after that. I'll allow Hopfully an off day or two, but I hope they won't be making a habit of this.

Haze praise

I've been a fan of the work of Romanian brewery Hop Hooligans in the past, so picked up these three new ones when they passed my way.

Elder Gods is an interesting proposition, being a sour ale of 5% ABV with added elderflower, honey and lemon. That suggests summer drinking to me, and it is a sunny opaque yellow colour in the glass. Neither the aroma nor flavour are especially strong, indicating that real fruit and flowers have been used here, rather than concentrate or syrup. There's a bright and zesty lemon character, and then a bonus sweetness which is just about recognisable as elderflower, plus a spicing that would have me swearing there's ginger involved too, but it's not listed. Nothing about it is sour, though it's not horribly sweet either. While refreshing, it's very plain, and a lot less interesting than the specification led me to believe. Oh well.

Two hazy IPAs follow, beginning with Seaview, hopped with Cryo Mosaic, Azacca and Pacific Sunrise. The half-litre can took a while to pour, piling up lots of fluffy foam. It's inconvenient but I'm not complaining about getting 60ml more than the norm. Under the head it's a pale, beaten-egg yellow. The aroma isn't especially interesting, having the broadly sweet fruit effect of a zillion nondescript murky IPAs. It does go interesting places with the flavour, however. First of all it's clean: no heat, no grit, no garlic. That leaves plenty of room for the fruit attributes, and that's done subtly, like the aroma. There's a soft peachiness on a milkshake vanilla effect. I thought at first that it lacked bitterness: there's certainly no punch up front. It does leave a residual echo of lime in the aftertaste, which I enjoyed. The big surprise is a kind of tannic dryness which complements the smooth mouthfeel beautifully, plus a mild peppery spicing which adds a very unexpected twist. At 6% ABV it should be a sipper, but I found that the combination of silky mouthfeel and balanced, understated flavours, made it very sinkable. A half litre barely lasted a quarter of an hour before I was ready to open the next one.

Mass Production is the same strength and looks broadly similar, though perhaps a little paler and more transparent. The hops this time are Strata, Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin and, as you might expect, there's more going on in the aroma from that. Juice is very prominent there, and quite tropical, with pineapple and cantaloupe notes. Again the flavour is subtle for the most part, though with more character in evidence than with the previous one. I credit the Nelson with jazzing the whole thing up, bringing its own kind of mineral spice, plus a dollop of gooseberry, pear and honeydew melon. They've retained the overarching cleanness from the other beer and that really helps the hop flavour come through unimpeded, its sweet vanilla side relegated to a supporting role. I took a bit longer with this one, enjoying exploring the delicate hop features which are tastefully displayed. By the end I wish wishing for a third IPA with even more of a clean hop profile.

My appreciation of Hop Hooligans continues unimpeded. They caught my attention first with brash and banging bitter IPAs, but this shows they're a dab hand at the gentler sort too.

Kor range

Dublin's Asian supermarkets aren't a brilliant source for new and exotic beers to tick, but they're worth checking every once in a while. On a recent visit to Asia Market on Drury Street I uncovered this pair of unfamiliar Korean beers.

We start with Kloud Draft, a pale lager of 4.5% ABV, and about six weeks past its expiry date by the time I opened it. No matter. It's a bog standard eurolager, and has nothing to which a month or two either side of the best-before will make a difference. There are a number of cheap mass-production lager's tropes in evidence, including a syrupy body, a plasticky hop twang, a grainy mustiness and a scattering of potentially headache-inducing esters. Not a recommendation from me, and I'm not even going to compare it to Hite or Cass or any of the other familiar mainstream Korean lagers. There's nothing here beyond the exotic novelty factor, and if that's not something you're chasing, drink a Spaten or a Budvar instead.

The next one is a little more intriguing. It's from Jeju Beer Company, "in partnership with" Brooklyn Brewery, though definitely brewed in Korea, with I guess some craft credentials. Jeju Wit Ale is a little dark for a witbier, being the orange of a pale ale instead of cloudy yellow. The ingredients are absolutely Belgian standard: wheat, coriander, orange peel. They express themselves politely and decently in the aroma, with a pleasant introductory mix of fruit and spice. There's an emphasis on the mouth-watering juicy side in the flavour, with tart, shred-studded marmalade and fresh kumquat or satsuma zest. It finishes quickly, giving it an almost lager-like aspect which is beautifully clean and works well as a thirst-quencher. At 5.3% ABV it probably shouldn't be quite so easy-going and accessible, but I really enjoyed its sunny disposition and could see myself, ill-advisedly, chugging several in a row. As Asian beers available in Ireland go, it's one of the best. I hope it's getting out to the restaurants and noraebang venues in town, where it would be a lifesaver among the shitty pale lager options.

For the sake of weird

Outlandish concoctions, and specifically a lime and elderflower flavoured Berliner weisse, are what first brought Swedish brewer Brewski to my attention, in 2015. When a bunch of their arty cans containing strange beers arrived into Dublin recently, I picked up a set.

It was hard to decide a drinking order for the first three. They're all 4.7% ABV and are those contemporary interpretations of old sour German styles which bear little resemblance to the originals. Salty Lemon seemed like an innocent enough proposition, so that's where I started. I thought it would be a gose but the label says it's a Berliner weisse, and there's more than just lemon in here: also vanilla and liquorice. How does that work? Poorly, you may be surprised to learn. It's a crazy mish-mash of contrasting flavours, beginning with the intense white-chocolate sweetness from the vanilla. That's in the aroma and foretaste, and lingers stickily for ages afterwards. In the middle, when you're actually drinking it, it's all about the sharply zesty lemon, a palate-pinching sourness which I'm guessing is nothing to do with the fermentation and all about the added citrus. Liquorice? Salt? There isn't really room for them under the other two foghorns. I mean, it's interesting, for a sip or two, but gets boring and cloying very quickly.

Matador is another Berliner weisse, and features seemingly saner additions, pineapple and lime. It's certainly a gentler experience without the vanilla, and the fruit here is nicely real-tasting. The pineapple in particular is identical to pineapple juice from a carton and is the centre of the taste. Lime is a mild tang in the finish, with a decent amount of flavour but no sourness or bitterness. The overall effect is a kind of piña colada, minus the coconut flavour, but including the creamy texture. It doesn't taste anything like Berliner weisse and definitely isn't sour, but as a silly novelty fruit beer it's enjoyable and well made.

Last of these hazy pale amber beers is badged as a gose, Grandmother Gose, but you know by now not to expect any coriander, though there is salt, along with mango, lime and two types of chilli pepper. Although I'm sure the fruit was added as a concentrated syrup, it's not sweet, and the chilli's first contribution is to make it dry. There isn't much of a flavour from them, but they do deliver that initial rasp and then a peppery bite on the end. Without the sweetness, the fruit side is quite understated. As with the above, the lime is gentle and unobtrusive, but mango is no pineapple, and contributes nothing but a broad, mixed-tropical squash, and heavily diluted. The ingredients don't gel together as well here as they do in the Matador, but it's still easier going than Salty Lemon despite the chillis. Phew. This is all getting very complicated. Time for a change of scene.

Liquorice is back for Blacpac, an imperial stout of 10.5% ABV which also contains our old friend vanilla. It pours very dense and tarry and has a strongly sweet aroma, the vanilla getting straight to work making it smell like a dessert, specifically a cheesecake. To taste, there's nothing unorthodox at first: it's a big imperial stout, providing a solid amount of creamy coffee and dark chocolate. It turns strange after a second or two as the sweetness builds. Banana milkshake and toffee sauce sneak past the sober roast and hang around as a long sticky finish. I thought the liquorice would have brought some bitterness but I couldn't taste it at all. Is there maybe a lightly metallic tang on the end? I'm not sure. There's not much if there is. This retains just enough bitter coffee roast to avoid descending into cloying nonsense, and is still a proper imperial stout, albeit a very very sweet one. I caution anyone approaching it to be prepared for full-blast banoffee pie over herbal aniseed.

Maybe I'm getting old and boring, but this lot didn't really do it for me. I have a full tolerance for odd ingredients, but the sweetness I find difficult to deal with. Beer doesn't have to taste of beer, but bitter ones should be bitter and sour ones should be sour.

Variety isn't everything

Today it's one of my occasional check-ins with Co. Antrim brewery Lacada, beginning with Shallows, a 4.5% ABV sour ale with cherry and raspberry. No surprise from the pinkness, nor from the minimal amount of sourness on display. That's no more than a grainy cereal husk dryness, overlaid with heavily seeded raspberry jam. Nothing about it says cherry, though it's far from unusual for raspberry in a fruit beer to drown out everything else. I mean, it's a tough set of specs to do something impressive with. There are enough high-strength lactose milkshake wannabes and mixed-fermentation sippers on the market these days to make a standard kettled soured ale look lacklustre and, frankly, a bit pointless. I didn't feel I got much for my fiver from this one. 

For the next two I have Simon to thank for providing tasters. The Sugarloaf is a Helles lager at a somewhat slight 4.5% ABV. They claim a level of authenticity here, using Hallertau and Perle hops, but I think they've either used too much of them or left the gravity too low. It doesn't have the rounded spongecake richness of good Helles and is instead quite dry and grassy in the aroma and a little vegetal and bitter to taste: not bad, but more like a pilsner. The crisp biscuit base is part of that, and the rising volume of celery and green cabbage leaf continues it. I got a twang of brown sugar sweetness in the finish, but it didn't add anything terribly positive. Lager isn't really a Lacada speciality, and this has the feel of one brewed to meet a market demand without any real enthusiasm, a bit like the pink lad above. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but I'm sure there are better examples of Helles from Germany available wherever it's sold.

A stout to finish, the faith-and-begorrah stylings of Shamrock Pinnacle, named for a submarine geological feature off the Antrim coast. It's a stout, of course, broadly in the sessionable Irish style though given a little extra welly with 4.8% ABV. That provides an excellent framework for boosting the stout flavour characteristics, and there's lots of warming roasted richness and punchy cabbage bittering. More subtle elements arrive once the initial hits calm down, and I got brightly floral rosewater and a spiced cola complexity. There seems to be quite a fashion at the moment for Irish and Irish-style stouts, coming from all sorts of breweries here and in the UK. This is definitely one of the better takes, hanging on to the pintable fundamentals but adding some quite marvellous bells and whistles to that. Excellent work.

I could be glib and say that this demonstrates how making good dark beer is so much easier than lager or sour, but I think there's a genuine talent at Lacada for stout: Shamrock Pinnacle isn't their first to impress me mightily. It's a shame that, by every brewer's account, it's such a tough sell. I'd love to see more.

Auss!

It was the first sunny day on the patio this year, and in the absence of any actual pils, my utepils for 2024 were two other kinds of German lager. 

Schneider is a weissbier brewery, the top tier, in fact. Everybody knows that. So what happens when they turn their attention to new-fangled lager? Schneider's Bayrisch Hell has apparently been around since 1928, and has a retro-designed label to convince you of this. 4.9% strikes me as a very modern ABV for Helles, however. Is it just me or was over the 5% standard until recently? In the glass it's the proper shade of yellow, though a little hazy. Perhaps the weissbier legacy is making itself felt. The aroma gives little away, and it transpires from the flavour that there's little to be given away. This is very plain fare, lacking the rich sweet side exhibited by the best Helles. Instead it's dry and crisp, more like a pilsner, though without a proper hop kick, not a good one. "Inoffensive" is the best I can say about this. I guess some Schneider customers local to the brewery needed a lager to go with their wessbier order, but I reckon they could have done rather better than this one. Augustiner it ain't.

From Hofbräuhaus Traunstein comes Fürsten Trunk, a festbier. It's an innocent clear gold in the glass, looking light and refreshing, though the label tells us it's a voll 5.7% ABV. And full it is, weighty of body in the proper Oktoberfest way. The flavour is big to match, piling in sticky golden syrup and a salad of green German hops. Though loud and bold, it's all done fully within the specs of proper German lager, of course. I think it could have gone bigger: there's a restraint to the malt body in particular which means it doesn't quite balance the biting hops. It's fine, and well suited to the occasion, but more beef please. This Fest could stand to be a bit less restrained.

They weren't great beers, but the main thing is that outdoor drinking season is underway once more. Get out there when you can.