Big swinging langer

Our beer culture in Ireland is, to a very large extent, pub based. Even when we're not in the pub we tend to prefer approachable beers in the 4-5% ABV range. Below that is perceived as low-rent pisswater; above it is crazy loopy-juice. It results in a fairly limited range and it's impressive that our native brewers manage to do as well as they do inside it. But breaks in the pattern -- in both directions -- are always welcome. The microbrew revolution hasn't yet produced any iconoclastic new breweries making excitingly strong beers, so we have to depend on the more established reliables. The Porterhouse's Brainblásta and Celebration are plenty to be going on with; O'Hara's Leann Folláin is a tasty bonus. And now we welcome the latest of the 1990s craft breweries to start bottling strong beer: Franciscan Well and their Shandon Century extra stout.

Rebel county rules dictate that not just any bottle will do, so they've gone for hand-numbered one-litre swingtops. The beer inside is 7.5% ABV, so it seems we're a long way from the cosy confines of the pub session here. Although that said,  it's also available on draught in the Franciscan Well brewpub in Cork city.

And on tasting I can see that it really would be quite pub-compatible. I've never been the biggest fan of Shandon, but this is definitely a cut above. Smooth, with lovely smoky overtones helped out of the main, lightly chocolatey, flavour by a gentle carbonation which adds further to the smoothness. Of all that alcohol there's very little sign: dangerously so, in fact. I can't see any stout drinker having difficulty sinking a pint of this which, as an exercise in trust, is wonderful indication of the maturing Irish beer market.

In short, I'm delighted to see the Franciscan Well do this, and the format has wonderful potential, even if the first outing is on the solidly-drinkable side of things rather than the awe-inspiring. But we're getting the previously-extinct Bell Ringer winter ale next. I'll be in the queue.

A boutique festival

Tuesday of last week saw the Bull & Castle's beerhall given over to the first Deveney's of Dundrum Beer Festival, a modest affair: just 240 punters and a mere three hours of drinking time. Ruth had invited in the major distributors to hawk their wares from tables around the hall, and the varied crowd was as interesting as punters at Irish beer festivals always are. It's only at events like this that you get to stand behind someone inspecting the label of an exotic IPA and remarking to his friend how amazing it was that the beer had come all the way from India. Bless.

My first port of call was the California Wine Imports stall, debuting three new American beers, albeit from New Jersey rather than the more usual left-hand coast. River Horse Belgian Freeze was proferred first, a dark red-amber winter ale. I wasn't so keen on this. At 8% ABV it tastes very hot and boozy, with a bit of an unpleasant syrupiness added on to unsubtle banana notes. Hop Hazard was next -- a sessionable 5.5% ABV pale ale, in which the hop fruitiness is slightly jarringly set against a harsh bitterness, though there's not really enough of either for my taste. River Horse were zero-for-two until Hop-a-lot-amus was poured. This is an 8.5% ABV double IPA and has that intensely resinous hop bitterness I love. Harsh? Yes, maybe a little, but it works beautifully.

Over at Premier International, Dean McGuinness was showcasing Harviestoun's Ola Dubh 12, one of the barrel-aged versions of Old Engine Oil. There's a definite hit of marker-pen phenols in this, but I don't think it interferes with the rich and smooth chocolate flavours -- I'm looking forward to spending some more considered drinking time with this, and to trying the others in the range. After my recent shockingly-sweet experience with Maisel's Weisse, I gave the Maisel's Dunkel a go late in the evening and quite liked it. There's a decent bit of caramel without it being at all sugary. And at one point Mrs Beer Nut thrust a mystery beer at me, an amber affair which tasted weirdly porridgey. It turned out to be Hambleton's gluten-free GFA. Interesting, but not something I'd choose to drink unless I had to.

Anyone who asked me for recommendations got sent to the table where Goudenband was being poured. Next to it was Liefmans Cuvée Brut kriek which I'd never tried before. For some reason I'd thought it would be a bit more mature and sour but it's actually very sugary with just an underlying current of Rodenbach sourness. I'm not sure I approve -- it made my teeth hurt.

Grand Cru were serving 3 Monts, a French blonde I'd not had the pleasure of in ages. I like the soft fluffy texture and the not-too-bitter yeasty character: a lighter and more easy-going Duvel. Wally's team were also showcasing the latest from The Porterhouse bottle-conditioned line in the form of their strong ale, Brainblásta. I really enjoy the toffee-and-apples kick off this 7%-er, and the new version is wonderfully smooth and drinkable, toning down any harshness that may be present in the cold fizzy kegged edition. I noticed at the weekend that The Porterhouse have printed up beermats to promote the new release of their Celebration imperial stout. That'll make a welcome addition to the line-up for their annual stout festival in March.

It's great to welcome another new event to the growing Irish beer calendar, and it's extra good when they happen on my doorstep. Venues are always going to be difficult, but I'd love to see this even bigger next year.

Master blasta

I have to confess that my weakness for multi-lingual puns is behind my choosing An Brainblásta for this month's Session. It's not a new beer, having been part of the original Porterhouse line-up from nigh-on twelve years ago. I'm no stranger to it either, but I've never mentioned it here, partly because I haven't tasted it in the years I've been writing this. Today's barley wine theme prompted me to go back for a reappraisal.

These days, Brainblásta is Ireland's only regularly-produced barley wine. Until a few years ago Diageo made something branded a barley wine under their Smithwick's marque. I never got to try it, but at only 5.5% ABV one has to question how barleywine-ish it really was. Back in the mid-1990s, when I was working as The Worst Barman In Dublin, our pub's stock of Smithwick's Barley Wine was consumed exclusively by one very elderly gentleman who would buy one bottle per week on a Saturday evening on his way home from Mass. This, I suspect, was representative of the beer's main demographic and isn't a terribly sustainable economic model.

It was the year I worked in that pub that The Porter House microbrewery opened its doors in Temple Bar (it later became The Porterhouse and moved the brewery out of town). The connotations in English of the name Brainblásta reflect how shocking a 7% ABV beer was to a country where beers of 5% or more were almost unknown. As part of the marketing gimmickry, the pub made a big deal about only selling Brainblásta by the half pint. This policy didn't last, though there seems to be an effort to revive it judging from this image (right) on the pub's web site (though despite this I was served a pint of it, having asked for "A Brainblásta". I'm not complaining). Nevertheless, judging from the media, the government, and the lumpen commentariat there's little enough evidence of much maturity in Ireland's beer drinking habits, and yet here we have a very strong, cheap beer on sale in Temple Bar for over a decade without civilisation breaking down completely. Civilisation outside of Temple Bar, I mean.

An braon blasta is Irish for "the tasty drop". Does this beer live up to its punnage? I think it does. It starts out with a powerful bitter punch which manages to avoid the harshness sometimes found in strong hoppy ales. It's followed immediately afterwards by a sweet candy caramel flavour which is similarly uncompromising yet delicious. Sipping Brainblásta -- bitter then sweet, bitter then sweet -- produces a taste sensation akin to eating a toffee apple from the inside out.

The trend among Ireland's handful of craft brewers is still for sessionable beers of 4.5% or under. The stronger stuff only shows up as special editions from the Porterhouse, Messrs Maguire and the Franciscan Well. It all makes me very glad that the novelty of Brainblásta shows no sign of abating, even after a dozen years.