By royal disappointment

Last week the Franciscan Well released its 2009 Christmas ale, under the jolly seasonal name of 3 Kings. Having adored last year's mad maple syrup and ginger confection, Phúca, I was well up for what Russell and the Cork gang had for us this time round. When I heard there was rauchmalt involved, I was off to the Bull & Castle at the earliest opportunity.

Unfortunately the reality didn't live up to expectation. Yes, there's smoke there, but rather than the hammy goodness I love, it's the rather harsh iodine-like smokiness you get in the likes of Laphroaig scotch. The late great Messrs Maguire Imperial had this as well, but it was balanced against the sweetness of dark roasted malts. Here there's just more bitterness and no cheery seasonal spices or warming sweetness. It rounded out a little as it warmed, and I did manage to get through two mugs of it -- Mrs Beer Nut not able to handle more than a mouthful -- but it was a disappointing experience.

Thankfully, Colin and 9 Bean Row of California Wine Imports were on hand to whisk us us away from all the pain. It was Colin's birthday and celebrations were in full swing at the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art -- celebrations which included a keg of the fabulous Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA. When this ran out it was replaced with Gordon Biersch Märzen, just as solid a lager on draught as it is from the bottle, and nice to get a full pint of. Thanks for a fun evening, guys.

And back to Irish beer to finish. Carlow Brewing now have an Irish red -- Traditional Irish Ale -- in Aldi's own-brand line-up. When I first heard of it I assumed it was rebadged O'Hara's Red, and the ABV is the same, but anyone I know who's tried it has said it's different. Only one thing could settle this (well, I could of course have asked the brewer, but where's the fun in that?): a taste-off.

They're both the same colour, and I got a better head from the Aldi one, though I put that down to it being at a slightly higher temperature when serving. First impressions confirmed that these are not the same beer. They're similar, though, and it took me a while to figure out how. The Aldi ale is heavier and warmer than O'Hara's, and finishes drier. It might not look darker, but it tastes it. The O'Hara's compensates with a bit more spice shining through the sweetness.

Interesting that Carlow have opted for the world "traditional" on both beers. This is a tradition that doesn't date further back than about 1960, when Guinness finally took complete control of Irish ale brewing and set about downgrading the national pale ale to appeal to a wider audience and extend its shelf life. As a result, beer that was probably indistinguishable hitherto from English bitter, became what Michael Jackson in the following decade dubbed "Irish red". It follows that when English breweries followed suit -- kegging and blandening their beers -- they'd end up with the same thing. I got to put this theory into practice recently when Dave set up a blind tasting of red ales that I went along to, with Mrs Beer Nut, Laura and Séan.

O'Hara's came away as the favourite of most -- that signature piquancy comes out far more in the keg version than the bottle. Just about no-one in the group was able to express a preference between Smithwick's and kegged Bass, and it was a 50-50 for who could guess which was which (they're both watery rubbish). They are, essentially, the same beer, proving my theory. One of the upshots is that if one were foolish enough to decide that "Irish red ale" is a beer style all its own, then you'd have to include John Smith's Extra Smooth, and the keg versions of beers like Worthington's in there too. Probably kegged London Pride and Bombardier, for that matter. Daft.

Nevertheless, I hereby claim Watney's Red Barrel as the sovereign territory of Irish ale. Where's my flag?

More puker than pukka

I like writing. Even more, I like having written. I like the discipline of writing to order and on schedule. But I could never have been a journalist because I am a painfully slow reader. Digesting press releases on the hoof, ahead of press conferences and deadlines, would just not have been my forte, and I take months getting through even the shortest of books. Which is why it was only yesterday that I published my review of the excellent Hops & Glory by Pete Brown, despite having been sent a copy shortly after it was published.

I had an English IPA sitting in my beer fridge and I reckoned I may as well crack it open to mark the end of my own two month voyage (of the armchair variety) to India with Pete. It's Fuller's India Pale Ale and comes in a bottle with a breathtakingly classy royal purple label. 5.3% ABV and bottle conditioned: this is a beer going all-out for the IPA purist -- the people who'll buy it based on the words "faithfully recreated" on the back label. Close your eyes, imagine a balmy tropical evening on the veranda, and try to ignore the way your beer smells of vomit.

It does smell of vomit, though, and this acidic harshness carries through into the flavour. There's a good body under it, and a hint of caramel sweetness, but those utterly unfruity bitter hops are very hard to get past and make the end beer really quite unpleasant to drink.

Prior to cracking the bottle open I had been drinking Big Daddy IPA by Speakeasy in California, recently on tap in the Bull and Castle as a limited-time guest beer. Here, there are firm and fruity mandarin and grapefruit notes in super-smooth harmony with the caramel malts. Mrs Beer Nut suggests that the Fuller's beer is just suffering by comparison, but I disagree: whatever way it's looked at, I think it's simply a poor quality beer. Crank up the alphas, throw in more crystal, then we'll talk.

Gone commercial

ICB's monthly amateur night at the Bull & Castle recommenced on Thursday last, with a difference. We had the usual interesting variety from the home brewers -- a fascinating dampfbier; a passable bitter; a cracking red ale; a powerful coffee stout and a tasty winter warmer -- but the larger-than-usual crowd also included several representatives from our favourite trade, including a bar manager, an importer and, best of all, a brewer.

I've already mentioned Jonathan the importer of Californian beers. His website is now online, though it seems oddly preoccupied with a weird grape juice by-product I know very little about. Along with news of new stock he has on the market here, he brought a couple of samples of Speakeasy's Double Daddy -- the souped-up version of their Big Daddy IPA. To me (not a fan of Big Daddy) it tasted more like a double version of Prohibition. It had that same superb finely-tuned balance between the dark caramel malts and the American bittersweet citrus hops. I spent a fair bit of time with my nose stuck in the sample glass because it smelled divine. It tastes pretty good too, and the 9.5% ABV adds a marvellous warmth to it after swallowing. Absolutely magnificent stuff.

Our hosts had promised us a sneak preview of the new stout from Carlow Brewing, and were true to their word. Leann Folláin (pictured left, resisting Laura's telekinetic powers) shares the label colours and ABV (6%) of the limited edition 10th anniversary Celebration stout they made last year, but is a different animal. Instead of the classic Irish roast barley dryness, this appears to have been oaked up in a big way [edit: actually, no, it's not oaked], creating a heavy, sticky, sweet stout, filled with that lactic, vanilla-ish barrel flavour which I'm never sure how to take. I decided this wasn't a beer for me. Carlow probably agree, hence the packaging is a 355ml bottle intended for the North American market [edit: wrong again -- they just had leftover bottles; this has not yet been exported to the US]. Mind you, if it's being pitched at people lucky enough to have never sat through an Irish class it probably would have been worth mentioning somewhere that Leann Folláin means "wholesome ale". Thanks to na gaelgoirí of ICB for the translation -- I dropped Irish like a proverbial superheated root vegetable after just three years of half-arsed study.

The main event of the evening for me was a tasting of the first beer from Ireland's newest craft brewery. Based in Co. Down, Clanconnel is starting with something safe -- a blonde ale called Weavers Gold, in honour of the trade which accounted for most of the industrial revolution in Ulster. It's only available bottled and is pitched squarely at the middle ground, with 4.5% ABV. But it's no lowest-common-denominator mass-market clone for lagerboys: it starts with a hefty whack of Saaz aroma, and the first sip couples this with a striking bubblegum maltiness, with the Styrian Goldings making themselves felt at the finish. It's a complex blonde ale, but still eminently sinkable -- a great one for introducing wary drinkers to the joys of properly-made beer. Nice one Mark, I hope it sells well, and I look forward to the next one from Clanconnel.

Coincidentally, the Bull & Castle management had a couple of bottles of Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale available on the same evening. It's not sold in these parts, but Richard Fox had been in town for an event before Christmas and had left them lying around. Oh dear. It's really not very good, and next to the Weavers Gold it fared very badly indeed. In an attempt to attract starstruck lager drinkers they've managed to create (or commission, rather) something almost indistinguishable from mass market yellow lager. It's bodiless, flavourless and overly fizzy. Maybe it works better in draught form, but from the bottle it just failed to deliver anything worthwhile.

All this sampling was punctuated by a hefty halbe of Phúca, still on tap at the Bull & Castle and still highly recommended, with a couple of Hookers to finish on a lighter, hoppier, note. It was one of those evenings when it becomes very easy to forget that I live in a city where good beer is really quite thin on the ground: it takes brewers, importers and bar managers of a very high calibre to make that possible. Thanks all.

Serious cojones

O the serendipity. One of the lads on ICB (hi Kevin) spotted that Deveney's in Rathmines were offering a free tasting of American beers last Friday evening. It's not far out of my way and I'm always good for a free thimbleful of Goose Island IPA, so I went along.

But this wasn't an attempt to hock the tried and tested US beers we know and (mostly) love. Instead, we met Miles and Jonathan, two guys from over there who have just set up their own drinks import business, of which beer is a part. Their aim is to undercut the distributors who are using multiple middlemen and routing through importers in the UK, the Netherlands and the like. Instead, they're concentrating solely on Californian products and shipping direct, which knocks nearly a euro off the RRP of each bottle. Up against the conservative tastes of the Irish drinker, a biting recession and a government determined to make life as difficult as possible for the off-trade, it's a bold move.

The pilot offerings are seven Californian microbrews: four from Gordon Biersch of San Jose, and three by San Francisco's Speakeasy. After sampling them all we moved on to the ciders and meads, but you'll need to go to someone else's blog to find out about them, though I will note that the meads are, as far as I know, the first and only real meads to be available commerically in this country.

Gordon Biersch specialises in styles from Germany and environs. We started with their supposedly Czech-like Pilsner. It's a lovely golden hue with a good malty nose, smelling much stronger than the 5.3% ABV the website says it is (no strength is given on the label of most of these -- naughty). The first sip delivers a slight apple and butterscotch flavour, almost reminiscent of a dry cider. It settles down after that into a decent and workmanlike pale lager, though not really possessed of enough flavour to pass as Czech, in my opinion.

Raising the strength quotient we come to the 7% ABV Blonde Bock. I expected that if this is true to style then I wouldn't like it. It is and I didn't. Sugary nose, sugary taste, syrupy texture. Blech. Not for me, but if you like horrible German bocks then this is right up your straße.

I was similarly wary of the Märzen, having been previously bitten by the sickly monstrosities of Samuel Adams Octoberfest and Winter Lager. This dark gold fellow was rather better, though. Still sweet, but with a tasty and warming fresh bread character and a solid chewy body. Not mind-blowing, but decent, and pretty much the only märzen on the market.

Best of the lot, however, is the Hefeweizen. I haven't complained about the Yanks putting European-style beer into kiddie-sized bottles in ages, but this one deserves it. It doesn't really taste like any actual German weiss I know -- it's much sweeter, with the emphasis on the bubblegum-and-bananas end of the flavour scale, and rather thinner than I'd have liked, but it's still a tasty drop and enjoyably chuggable. But I just don't get that proper quaffing sensation without at least a half litre in front of me.

The other three beers are much more what one would expect from the western US. The marketing literature didn't say what variety of citrus American hops were being used, but they're being used all right. Staggeringly, Speakeasy's Big Daddy IPA, the last one I tried, isn't the massive IBU-fest I was expecting. It's a beautiful pale amber hue and gives off surprisingly subtle fragrant hoppy aromas. The foretaste is quite strong and sweet, from the Munich malt providing 6.5% ABV, but despite the dry hopping I get very little by way of bitter flavours at the end. Having felt the bitterness building in the other two beers, I was secretly relieved that this one let me off lightly. Though I can't help but wonder what the souped-up double version of it is like.

Slightly down the alcohol scale, at 6.1% ABV, Prohibition amber ale is well up the flavour scale in comparison to Big Daddy. The nose provides a lovely, oily, resinous overture, but surprisingly, once again, it's malt at the forefront. The slightly dark, toffee-and-marzipan notes are topped up with a quite gorgeous sharp orange-grapefruit bite, and the resulting exquisitely balanced flavour just runs and runs. I have a feeling this is going to be one of my regular beers for the next while.

Finishing on a lighter note, there's Untouchable: named, I assume, for the fact that it has a superb aroma of citrus hops but loses its way somewhat once it's past the lips. The distinct west-coast hops bitterness is there all right, as is the toffee malt base, but they are shadows of the same thing in Prohibition. In the unlikely event that Prohibition doesn't do it for you, then here's a lighter, friendlier blander alternative that's still well-made and tasty.

So that's it from this strange and exciting new shipment. I've nothing further to add except to wish the boys luck in their ballsy attempt to make money out of Ireland's beer drinkers by selling them quality product. I won't say it can't be done -- of course it can -- but it's not going to be easy. I've heard already that the management of one of Dublin's well-reputed beer off licences has tried the beers, liked them, but won't stock them. Up against that, what do you do?