The week that's in it

We had a couple of goings-on of beery significance in Dublin last week. Thursday saw 57 The Headline host the local launch of St. Mel's Brewing. St. Mel's in Longford Town may be a very new operation but it's helmed by Liam Hanlon, previously the head brewer at Carlow and the creator of the beers that went on to become O'Hara's IPA and Leann Folláin. He's operating on a 15hL Irish-built brewkit now, producing three bottle-conditioned beers to begin with.

Funny thing, bottle conditioning. Staff at The Headline were handing out the half-litre bottles with a 33cl glass -- perfectly normal practice in the Irish pub, but not ideal when you have beers that work best in a single careful pour. The samples at the event were in small tasters and after the first round I thought somebody might have to take the brewmaster aside for a talk about quality control. It seems just to have been an unlucky pour of concentrated dregs, however. Another taster later on was much better, and enough to convince me to trade up to drinking entire bottles. So what's in the range?

Interestingly, St. Mel's have opted for a Brown Ale over a red or stout, possibly the only one in permanent production in the country. It's a substantial 5.2% ABV though the texture is light and the taste crisp, prickled by quite a busy fizz. The centre is all chocolate, of the dry cocoa-powder variety. It's also dry-hopped, which lends it not so much a fruitiness as a green vegetal bitterness which lasts long into the finish. St. Mel's Brown one of those quite serious, solid beers, but very enjoyable for all that.

St. Mel's Pale Ale is a little lighter at 4.8% ABV and pours a clear shade of deep orange-gold. Cascade hops are doing the heavy lifting here, imparting a gentle flavour of ripe juicy peaches and some light herbal grassy spicing. Its best feature is the texture: a pillowy softness with a sherbet effervescence which leaves it exceedingly drinkable. Overall a well put-together and accessible pale ale.

Finally for the first round of releases there's St. Mel's Helles Lager. Not exactly Munich-grade, but there's a wholesome grainy flavour and some pleasant fruit ester sweetness. Plenty for lager drinkers to enjoy here.

Liam says that distribution of draught beer is likely to remain mostly local once that's up and running, but bottles should hopefully be easy enough to get hold of all around the country.

Also on Thursday, The Porterhouse kicked off a ten-day festival of pale ales across the chain. The line-up includes much to like from British and American luminaries Thornbridge, Camden, Founders, Sierra Nevada, and the promised first appearance of Magic Rock beer in this country. The centrepiece, however, is a new permanent addition to the Porterhouse range: Dublin Pale Ale, essentially a re-working of last year's Pale Face special edition brew. (I'm probably the only one sad enough to note that the name "Dublin Pale" has been used previously, being the cask bitter produced briefly by Messrs Maguire in the late '90s). Dublin Pale is on keg, at least for now, and is 4.2% ABV, hopped with Admiral and Styrian Goldings. The flavour is unsurprisingly very English: big thirst-quenching tannins at the front and a coppery tang in the finish. The crisp bitterness reminds me a lot of its cask sibling TSB. For those occasions when TSB is absent and Hop Head would be just a hop too far, this is a welcome addition.

Among the early guest beers in Porterhouse Temple Bar was the new black IPA from Eight Degrees. It's named after the single variety of Australian hop it uses, Vic Secret, and is 6% ABV. It arrived a dense black colour, showing hints of red at the edges, and density is a theme. It's very thick and extremely tarry, with lots of bitter roast coating the palate. Set against this is a gaudy galah of bright tropical flavours, starting with mango and pineapple in the aroma, bursting out into bitter grapefruit and concentrated peach nectar on tasting. It's an incredible experience and it's hard to believe that all that colour comes from just one hop variety. The finish is long and bitter, and I honestly couldn't say if that's a result of the big hops or the roasted grains, or both. Either way, it's another hoppy winner from the Mitchelstown brewery.

And there's yet more new Irish beer to come later in the week.

Mixing it up

Shane Long talks to the Dublin Ladies Craft Beer Society

A footnote to Monday's post on the Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival today. Founder Shane was keen to show off the new education centre that they've put into the upstairs bar, the walls decorated with flavour wheels, brewing diagrams and tutored tasting instructions.

Last year the bar was dedicated to some special cask beers from Molson Coors stablemate Sharp's, and it was the same this time, only with a bigger range and shinier handpumps. With all the Irish beer available downstairs I had only one small taste of one of them: Six Hop, a 3.8% ABV bitter which tasted terribly dull and biscuity for something that uses the H-word in its name. How big a batch did they put the six hop cones into?

The 'Well itself had a couple of new releases downstairs. One is called Eggenstien and is a 5.5% ABV pale brown German bock. It tastes quite inoffensive, striking the right balance between rounded grain flavours and the grassy tang of noble hops, but the smell of it really got to me. I struggle with German noble hops at the best of times and this beer just reeked of the green nettle acridity that turns my stomach. I'm sure it will have its fans among the bock-drinking community but it was just too full-on for me.

I try to avoid writing about beers that are simply blends of other beers. Some of the more geek-focused continental breweries are a little too fond of doing this and I don't feel obliged to provide space for their mixes. However, I'm making an exception for Franciscan Well's Spring Fusion, also available at the Easter Festival. This is a straight saison blended with the brewery's longtime flagship Rebel Red. The result is a fascinating combination of crisp tartness next to totally incongruous red ale toffee and caramel. It shouldn't work, but it does: at once palate cleansing, thirst quenching and comfortingly warm.

Of course, The Franciscan Well are not merely confined to Cork these days. The long reach of Molson Coors and their PR team brought beers and brewer to Dublin last month for an evening's ligging in the opulent surrounds of House bar and restaurant on Leeson Street. After a 4km walk in the warm Spring sunshine, the free Blue Moon on arrival was the nicest Blue Moon I've ever tasted. Mind you, sucking the orange slice was even better than the beer. We also got a try of the new seasonal Summer Honey Wheat. It's pretty poor, as it goes, much like the other Blue Moon seasonals: an aroma consisting of no more than a trace of sugar, and a flavour to match. Some minor honey stickiness is just about detectable on the finish but very little else is going on. I'd swap back to regular Blue Moon in an instant.

Also on the preview list for the evening was Chieftan, an IPA which looks to be joining the permanent draught line-up. It's 5.5% ABV and is another one of those dark oily pale ales, like Porterhouse Hop Head or JW Sweetman Pale Ale. This is, of course, a good thing. The hop combination is Tettnanger, Magnum and Citra, though it hides this at first, presenting burnt caramel and toffee in the aroma to begin with. This dark malt theme continues in the first sip, some almost coffeeish notes come into play, quickly followed by a dank green funk of the sort found in many an amber ale, and bringing to mind BrewDog's 5AM Saint in particular. Rather than bitterness, there's a sharp citric piquancy, followed by a long resinous, palate-coating finish. Those who prefer their IPAs to have a bit more fresh zing to them might rather think of this as an amber, but either way it's a good beer and a welcome addition.

On the above evidence, Molson Coors Ireland seems to be strongly outperforming its American and British brethern.

Still got it

The last in my series of posts on the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, which ran at the RDS in Dublin a couple of weeks ago, moves away from the new young and thrusting breweries of the burgeoning independent Irish beer scene to look at the stalwarts: the veterans of the dark 20th century, all established and churning out safe, approachable, mortgage-paying beers, with one eye on the pension fund.

Are they hell.

Franciscan Well Coffee Porter has been knocking around for a while in a limited bottle run but showed up on cask at the festival. It's 7.5% ABV and they've added just the right amount of coffee, which is to say all the coffee they could possibly stuff in. The aroma delivers the invigorating bang of walking into a roastery and the only beery compromise is the chocolate flavour imparted by the dark malt producing a kind of mocha effect. The rich texture and heavy sweetness add cream and brown sugar to the cup and the end result, in Reuben's words, is "more coffee than beer". Not for everyone, but I loved it. After that, the Franciscan Well IPA was a bit of a let down. 7.5% ABV again and with some nice herbal notes in the aroma but the flavour is mostly smooth sweet toffee with no proper bitterness or fruit, just a mild jasmine spicing from the hops.

The Porterhouse have suddenly decided to make September their IPA themed month, though oddly eschewed Hop Head in favour of a new 4.6% ABV cask ale called Pale Face. There's a nice kick of marmalade in here, and some mild sandalwood, putting it on the same spectrum as good old Harvey's Best. Simple but flavoursome.

Whitewater's new one is Bullrush, a straightforward clean amber lager, dark gold with a fascinating smoky aroma. It's only 4% ABV and represents very light easy drinking. The corny grain character puts me in mind of the cream ale style. One for quaffing, not sitting over, anyway. And they've returned to the log books to resurrect Bee's Endeavour, a honey ale of years gone by. It's a beautiful liquid gold colour with a bohemian golden syrup quality to the taste. The honey hovers subtly in the background.

For a bigger honey kick the one to go for was Belgian Connection, produced at JW Sweetman in collaboration with Carlow Brewing. It's intended as a dubbel and is appropriately dark brown, though is a little light on its feet at 6.3% ABV. The banana esters loom large in the aroma and though the texture is as thin for a dubbel as the ABV might suggest, there's no lacking of complexity or intensity in the flavour: massive honey, for one thing; some incense spicing and a powerful sweetness that triggered pineapple syrup in my flavour analogy bank. Strange and unique, but quite delicious. Carlow also had O'Hara's Barley Wine on the bar, packing a bit more heft at 7.2% ABV. I guess we're spoiled by American barley wines these days because this is a perfectly good beer which left me asking where the hops are. Wheaty grains are the centre of it with a little bit of roast, but otherwise it's simple, malt-forward and warming. Retro barley wine, if you will.

All of which brings us down to the elder statesman in the house: Hilden Brewing. It was great to see Seamus himself at the pumps for a while. New to the range is a keg session stout, well put together with loads of super sweet chocolate and a very slight sour lactic finish. I suspect this may be the final one of the College Green range to be incorporated into the main Hilden brand: a rebadge of Molly's Chocolate Stout. Still, it would be no harm to see it out and about a bit more. Meanwhile on the cask engines, the newbie offered nothing more of a description than Hilden Number 4. It's a dark amber ale of 4.4% ABV and fantastically smooth. There's a big hit of chocolate and lots of sweet nutty marzipan too, combining into a kind of mozartkugel effect. I loved it, its moreish sweet dark malts reminding me of the first time I met Clotworthy Dobbin. Hilden Number 4 takes the prize for my beer of the festival weekend.

And after that my liver and my feet took a well-earned break, but normal service will resume here on Monday.

I know why the lizard croaks

All of a sudden it seems like there's loads happening on the Irish beer scene. For one thing, Franciscan Well have a new seasonal out which I caught up with in the Bull & Castle recently.

Croaking Lizard is a brown ale of the murky reddish variety. Where one might expect a certain sweetness, this is incredibly dry with lots of roasted grain, almost akin to a stout or schwarzbier, in fact. At the end there's a little kick of vegetal hop bitterness. But no coffee, no caramel: none of the flavours I'd consider important in a brown ale. I did have a second one, just to get my head around it, but I don't think it's for me, really. If you're looking for something light, crisp and quite fizzy, however, this could be the dark beer you're after.

Meanwhile, the most hotly-anticipated new arrival finally made its debut at the end of June, with the appearance of Galway Hooker in bottles. I'm actually a little surprised by how hotly-anticipated it still was. Irish drinkers have been clamouring for bottled Hooker since the time (up to a mere three or four years ago) when it was the only Irish beer in permanent production and distributed widely that had any kind of hop character to it. Since then we've been able to take home Porterhouse Hop Head and O'Hara's IPA, yet still the cry has been "We Want Hooker". Now that I've had a bottle -- a half-litre resplendent in its county colours -- I think I can see why the attraction is still there. Though lacking the punch of Hop Head and the strength of O'Hara's, it's doing its own thing: very sessionable at 4.3% ABV yet rounded out with a crystal malt sweetness that the others haven't matched. For me, the real bonus has been a whole glassful at cellar temperature. The anticipation of a dry-hopped cask version is almost unbearable.

Also fresh off the bottling line is Eight Degrees's Howling Gale. Bottle conditioning in 33cls makes this an even more complex affair, with a bit of yeasty grittiness in with the intense hop bitterness, plus some sweet biscuit malt just peeping through at the end. The guys say the second batch was done with an adjusted hop schedule so I'm looking forward to comparing the two, pathetic geek that I am. In the meantime, keep inspecting the fridges for Howling Gale. The second in the Eight Degrees series -- Sunburnt Red -- should making an appearance soon too. (Oh, today, as it happened. Now on tap at L. Mulligan Grocer.)

And finally a whole new brewery has brought its wares to Dublin. BrewEyed is based in Co. Offaly and met the public at the Brewers on the Bay festival in Galway last April. I happened across BrewEyed Lager when out for a few leisurely Sunday beers in The Village on Wexford Street a couple of weeks ago. This is their first release and as such I wasn't expecting much from it. The tang of cider in the aroma immediately put me on guard for a poorly constructed lager. But beyond it I found a remarkably well-made pilsner. There's a decent amount of sweet candyfloss malt forming the base, and then some lovely grassy Czech hop notes, including a touch of asparagus, rounding it out. Maybe there's a slight oxidised note in there too: another flaw one can expect to find in a first-run beer. But overall a promising start and I look forward to trying the blonde ale when and if that appears in these parts.

Days of beer and roses

The Irish summer made a fleeting appearance late last week, coinciding with the opening of Bloom in the Park, a garden festival organised by Bord Bia, the state food promotion agency. Bord Bia are long-standing friends of the independent beer movement in Ireland, having organised the SeptemberFest extravaganza in 2008 and 2009. Last year it was incorporated into Bloom with the creation of the Bloom Inn tent. This year saw the Bloom Inn return, in a larger double-dome form as part of an artisan food village which included pigs-on-spit, Murphy's amazing ice cream, pies, cheese and all the other wonderful foodie delights of which this country has every right to be proud. I spent Friday afternoon dodging the rays and beering and pigging my way round.

Nine of the country's craft breweries were represented at the Bloom Inn, with a mix of their core beers and some specials and seasonals. Unsurprisingly on such a scorcher, the highlight for me was an ice-cold lager. When I visited the revamped Messrs Maguire brewery back in January I remarked on the excellent unfiltered Haus lager, served from the conditioning tank. It stayed there for a while as Mel wrestled with filtering hardware. I'm delighted to say that she eventually gave up and the Haus now in commercial circulation is unfiltered, and really quite wonderful. Amber and only slightly hazy, it's crisp, full-bodied and ever-so-slightly sweet with a light hand on the carbonation. Irish lager is rarely so good.

Galway Hooker was another star of the day: Ronan had the inline chiller turned up to 11 and the pale ale was pouring beautifully. For once I wasn't complaining about the ubiquitousness of hoppy keg ales in Irish brewing as it was just the day for them, with 8 Degrees Howling Gale, Trouble Ór, O'Hara's IPA, Porterhouse Hop Head and Metalman Pale Ale all just the ticket. At the cask-only Dungarvan Brewing stand there wasn't much action between the two stouts, but Helvick Gold was wonderfully cool, refreshing and full-flavoured. While I was overjoyed to find Metalman Windjammer on cask again, it was let down by a too-high serving temperature, but fortunately it was also on keg: the right dispense method for the weather, especially since the keg edition retains a lot of the cask's delicious tropical fruit flavours.

Just one brand new tick for me, from the always-inventive White Gypsy. Bruin is billed as a "Belgian Brown Ale", which had me thinking of tart Flemish red style flavours, but it's quite different. I guess the best way to describe it is a light dubbel: it's a rich chestnut brown, smooth and incredibly fruity, packed with the banana flavours closely associated with Belgian yeast working at high temperatures. There's lots of filling malt sweetness too, hinting at raisins and chocolate. The cask dispense added to the smoothness but it was still a bit of effort to drink it. Even though there was a cooler in action it was just a bit warm for the day that was in it. A beer to save for a rainy day, perhaps.

Today is the final one of Bloom 2011, with the curtains coming down on the beer tents at 6pm this evening. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of the Phoenix Park, go.

Hearty congratulations are due to Bord Bia for putting on a superb show, very well organised and great fun to attend. And a big thanks both from Beoir and me personally for providing this platform for Irish craft beer to show off to a crowd which otherwise might never notice its existence. Here's hoping for many more years of the Bloom Inn.

All it's casked up to be?

I love cask beer, but there's an awful lot of horseshit preached about it, particularly from certain sectors of that lot over to the east of here. One of the observations that often gets trotted out is "I've never had a well-kept cask beer that's not been better than the brewery-conditioned version". Fair enough: you can't argue with anecdotes, but I have a theory that this cask-is-always-best principle only holds up for beers which were designed for cask in the first place. It is, by and large, a British thing, and people who believe it need to get out more.

So, mostly for my own reference, I thought I'd take advantage of this month's Session to examine the handful of beers I know in various dispense formats and see just how often natural condition is the best method of serving.

The two examples I trot out most frequently are Clotworthy Dobbin and Galway Hooker -- two of the best ales in regular production on this island. Bottled Hooker does not yet exist, but I've encountered it on cask on several occasions and it's always lacking. It's very much a hop-driven beer, and the Cascade and Saaz get deliciously propelled by the pressurised CO2, creating a clean, refreshing zingy session beer. When that force is taken away it ends up flat, watery and quite green-tasting, like it's not finished. What it probably needs for cask purposes is a dose of dry hops, but as-is it just doesn't work. Clotworthy also loses its hop character on cask. I'm most familiar with the force-carbonated bottle where late Cascade adds a mouth-watering fruitiness to the dark chocolatey ruby porter. The one time I had it on keg this interplay of malt and hops was even more pronounced, and if it wasn't for a bit of a metallic bum-note on the end, it would have been sublime -- I definitely look forward to seeing the keg version again. But on cask this all gets blended into a homogeneous brown lump, indistinguishable from a zillion other brown beers. A case for dry-hopping again, I reckon. Consider this next to the extremely unhoppy Curim Gold wheat beer from Carlow Brewing. I don't think I've met anyone who likes the dishwater bottled version; the keg edition has more of a fanbase but was still a little soapy for me; but on cask it's stunning -- jam-packed with witbier spice and refreshing lemony zing.

And yet, big hop flavours don't always die in the cask. Porterhouse Hop Head is a beer not at all dissimilar to Galway Hooker -- a bit bigger, a bit bitterer -- and it works equally well from cask, keg and naturally-conditioned bottle. If anything the bitterness is even more extreme in the cask edition, which is why I'd generally opt for it kegged, if given a choice.

Where I've found cask really works best, however, is with black beers. O'Hara's Stout, Porterhouse Plain and Porterhouse Oyster all far outshine their force carbonated incarnations. At least part of this is the unmitigated evil of nitrogenation. I can completely understand why Guinness came up with it: I'd say the early test batches of keg Guinness Extra Stout didn't get very far since the feel of CO2-pressurised draught stout was all wrong. It would have been so good if they'd just said "Well, there you go: you can't keg stout" and went back to casking. Instead, they managed to recreate the texture of the cask beer, but via a method which destroys its taste and aroma. I've met very few beers which are bold enough to stand up to nitro, Wrassler's XXXX being about the only one I can think of, and the Porterhouse have achieved this by brewing a monstrously aggressive stout that's probably undrinkable any other way (bottle-conditioned edition out soon, I hear: beware!). It's a massive shame that even across the water, in the spiritual home of cask beer, the style of beer which works best on cask is overwhelmingly represented by smoothflow keg rubbish. Where are the mainstream cask stouts from Britain's large regional breweries? Why aren't they as ubiquitous as the brown bitter and nitrokeg stout?

I should add that even stout-is-best-on-cask isn't a universal rule. Hilden's Molly's Chocolate Stout manages to dodge most of the rich sumptuous roasty flavours and comes out rather boring and thin. The bottled version at least adds a certain carbonic dryness that makes it a little more interesting. Which brings me on to the beer I'm wedging in for review in this post. It's not one I've had from the cask, but it is bottle-conditioned and wears its "CAMRA says..." badge up front with pride on its neck.

On pouring, Hook Norton Double Stout does a very good impression of a cask stout, coming out smooth and foamy though just a teensy bit overzealous with the carbonation. From the off-white head you get an enticing nosefull of dry and crunchy roasted barley or black malt. The foretaste contrasts this with a silky, creamy, chocolate sensation, followed by a brief tang of hops. Finally, there's a dry finish to clear the palate for the next mouthful. All this complexity on a mere 4.8% ABV makes it nearly perfect as a session stout. I'd love to try it on cask and would be willing to bet that the dryness tones down and even more of that chocolate creaminess comes to the front and hangs around. Yum.

While I remain incredulous in the face of the CO2 fundamentalists, it's only when we turn to stout that I have to bite my lip.

Call and Bustle

The number of pubs around Dublin which carry at least some drinkable beer is getting bigger. Our national microbreweries are doing a great job of getting out there and convincing managers and owners that their product has something going for it. Yet the city's Beer Central remains on a pedestal, and is the subject of this month's Session.

The Bull & Castle has changed a lot since it converted from being a scummy inner city boozer to being the epicentre of Ireland's tentative craft beer revolution. The range of draught beers continues ever upwards, with the wonderful O'Hara's Red being the latest permanent addition to the line-up, while the capacious fridge now includes the two bottle-conditioned Porterhouse beers, Plain and Hop Head. Best of all, earlier this year the management installed a beer engine, whence has poured some great Carlow beers, including two new draught-only dry-hopped ales, Malty Bitches and Goods Store IPA -- both raising the bar for the quality of Irish beer generally.

Any wonder, then, that the Bull & Castle is the headquarters for Dublin's beer aficionados. If this wasn't enough, the home brewers get some fairly special treatment, with the upstairs beerhall hosting a tasting night every month where all-comers can bring their own beers, share them round, and generally geek out on zymurgy.

Of course no proper beer connoisseur is ever completely happy with what pubs do, so it's only fair that I throw in a few criticisms. Top of my list is the halbe glass: a German-style half-litre mug that's the preferred vessel in which most of the beers (though not the cask ones) are served. Aside from not being a proper pint, the tall narrow glass is terrible for bringing out aromas. The restaurantiness of the downstairs bar during the evening is also a bit irksome -- once you have a please-wait-to-be-seated inside the door, you've stopped being a pub. Ordinarily I don't mind nipping up to the beerhall instead, but at weekends that gets impossibly crowded, and with the DJ in full flow it's not the place for a pint and a chat.

But these are minor issues. I remember all too well what Dublin was like in the days when looking for decent beer meant either drink in the Porterhouse or stay home (and of course I still enjoy both). There are beers available today which I doubt would have an outlet but for the Bull & Castle.

This month's Session is called "Stumbling Home", with an emphasis on the transport aspects of beer connoisseurdom. Fortunately the Bull & Castle is a mere three miles or so from my gaff and well served by buses. Dublin's noble city fathers have also seen fit to position a municipal rental bike depot right outside the front door. Even were I possessed of my own motorised transport, I doubt I'd be bringing it the pub.

On one recent stumble home, I brought back a bottle of beer the manager on duty, Declan, had donated to me. It was a sample left by a wholesaler and I had spotted it from my barstool by its unusual bottle shape, but that doesn't seem to have been enough to win it a place on the stocklist. Viru hails from Tartu, though appears to have been commissioned by a UK importer. It's not too bad, I thought, being sweet and smooth, in the style of a Munich helles. I don't know how long it had been sitting in that fridge, but it could definitely benefit from being fresher. This one had started to unravel a bit at the edges and turn unpleasantly stale. Still, far better than I expected an Estonian lager in a novelty bottle would be.

Cask beer; rare beer; home-made beer; free beer. And people to talk to about it. The Bull & Castle is pretty much as good as it gets around here.

It's a short way to Tipperary

He doesn't look like your typical slow-food advocate. Plain-speaking ex-plumber Cuilán Loughnane is rarely seen without either his Munster rugby or Tipp GAA jerseys. I doubt he even owns a pair of sandals. Yet, as an advocate for locally-sourced hand-crafted produce, Cuilán is among the most visionary in the country. A brewer of many years' experience, he only recently set up his own operation in his home town of Templemore, Co. Tipperary using the former brewkit of the now-defunct Kinsale Brewing Company. His White Gypsy beers are starting to make their first appearances in the area's pubs, and Cuilán intends to expand this to as many as possible -- to make White Gypsy the beers you drink when you're in north Tipp. He firmly believes that every town in Ireland should have its own brewery supplying the local area, as it was before the market consolidated under a handful of foreign-owned national brands.

Furthermore, Cuilán intends to source all his ingredients locally, with water from the family well, a hop garden in front of the brewery, and barley from the local farmers, traded at a fair price. If his plan can be successfully executed, and then repeated elsewhere, the face of Irish beer will have undergone enormous change.

A couple of weeks ago Cuilán and family staged an open day at the brewery, a chance for the locals to have a look at what he's doing, and I'd hope one or two publicans were there to discuss possible enhancements to their beer line-up. The farmer whose livestock receives the benefit of White Gypsy's spent grain provided a bit of pig pro quo, so there was roast pork washed down with Cuilán's award-winning Bock, his quaffable Blonde and an achingly fresh and delicious IPA on cask.

Prior to all this there was work to be done. His new imperial stout -- White Gypsy Vintage -- had just finished primary fermentation and was due for racking into oak barrels for a few months of aging. Cuilán invited us the beer enthusiasts to come watch, and have a taste of the green product before it undergoes maturation. It's harsh stuff -- 10% ABV (OG 1.104; SG 1.029) and with an intense Play-Doh sort of flavour, finishing on a nasty hit of marker pen. This is, of course, entirely deliberate. Cuilán dislikes barrel aged beers which taste of nothing but the barrel, and deliberately brewed this one to be a thumper so that the woodiness and the stoutiness will balance each other in the finished product. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. Dave from Hardknott has his doubts about this sort of thing.

There were three barrels to be filled: a retired Bushmills cask, and two of virgin oak -- one French and one American. The finished beer will then be bottled in 75cl bottles and corked Belgian style. The world premiere is expected at the Franciscan Well next Easter -- two of the guys from the 'Well were along to lend a hand, as well as the other great advocates for localised craft beer in Ireland: the Beoir Chorca Dhuibne team from Dingle. When it's finished we'll have the first wood-aged Irish beer since Guinness substituted old-fashioned maturation for the injection of lactic acid which their beer has been getting for the last fifty years or so instead. I'm really looking forward to getting my mitts on some of this when it's ready.

In the meantime, the brewery I should regard as my local is the Porterhouse. They seem to be going through something of a local expansion themselves at the moment, with more bars outside their own estate carrying their beer -- you'll find it in classic Dublin boozer The Palace as well as fatcat eatery Bentley's, to name but two. And, as I mentioned in my post about SeptemberFest, the first of their bottled beers have just started to appear in shops and discerning bars. I've covered Hop Head already, but just recently nabbed a bottle of Plain from DrinkStore (and you can too, if you're in Ireland -- their new online store is open for business). Here we have Ireland's only bottle conditioned stout, a beefed-up version compared to the draught at 4.7% ABV. There's a subtle hint of coffee on the nose, so there it's already better than the odourless nitro draught. When served at cellar temperature, the body is light and quite fizzy, which in turn adds to a dry and carbonic flavour. However, let it warm up and it really comes out of its shell with heavier roasty and chocolate flavours. This is one for drinking straight from the shelf, I reckon. Incidentally, the Porterhouse's annual Oktoberfest kicks off today, seeing the return of their tasty Alt for a second year, and plenty of interesting imports. More on them next week.

While getting hold of exotic beers from far away -- and preferably collecting them in person -- is very much what I'm about, a decent selection of quality local produce is a notion I whole-heartedly support. Best of luck to all involved in such projects, wherever they may be.

Anti-Arthur's Day

You know how neighbours love to gossip, and how annoying that can be. So it's not in the least bit surprising that when Edward Cecil Guinness shacked up with his attractive cousin Adelaide that he felt the need to buy a large semi-rural estate, away from prying eyes. Edward's dad, Benjamin Lee, was also an enthusiast for, ahem, keeping it in the family, so it was probably wisdom passed down from father to son over the sherry. It was Edward Cecil who first floated the family firm on the London Stock Exchange, and retired at 40 as Ireland's richest man, having set the foundations for the growth of Guinness into the unstoppable monster which would eventually destroy all traces of quality and variety in Ireland's beer market.

So it is with supreme irony that Edward's incestuous lovenest now plays host to an annual gathering of the handful new breweries which exist despite his corporate heirs' market dominance. Farmleigh House, at the western edge of Dublin's Phoenix Park, became state property in 1999, and last year the cultural events calendar featured SeptemberFest for the first time -- a free festival of drinks from native producers, which of course included the 10 or so craft breweries currently operating on the island. I missed it through being at the all-Europe festival in Copenhagen, but apparently it took 8,000 visitors over the two days and was deemed enough of a success to be given another outing in 2009.

This time round, IrishCraftBrewer was asked to fill a bit of space in the tent, so I was there for the duration, talking home brewing with anyone who'd listen. Which was lots of people, as it cheeringly turned out. We didn't get 8,000 people this year though. Estimates from the gate at close of business on Sunday put it at somewhere around 35,000, largely due to the glorious weather. When the beer queues were on the far side of an hour it's a definite advantage to have been in the tent well ahead of opening to get some sampling done before the masses descend.

And sample I did. Probably the biggest news of the festival was the long-awaited launch of Porterhouse beers in bottles. Porterhouse Hop Head, conditioned in its funky 33cl bottle (BrewDog who?), was flying out and is absolutely delicious. I recall a little bit of bitter harshness in the draught version, but that's smoothed away here leaving a beer which pounds the palate without inflicting any real damage. A new higher strength edition of Porterhouse Plain has followed it since. I look forward to more in the range. And, of course, to bottles sized for grown-ups.

Whitewater had brought their new stout on its first outing to the Republic. The brewery that began by making exotic English-style bitters seems to be going for more solid fare of late, with Belfast Lager appearing in bottles a couple of years back, and now the 4.2% ABV Belfast Black is available bottled and nitrokegged (though don't ask me where). From the keg it's an absolutely rock-solid chocolate malt dominated Irish plain stout, very much on the sweeter side of the spectrum. Some of the crew even mistook it for a dark lager. While I can hanker after greater diversity in Irish beer all I want, it's great to see yet another decent Irish stout following Mizen out into the world. I've yet to try Belfast Black from the bottle but there's every possibility it could give O'Hara's a run for its money.

And from the black North to the black of beyond. Beoir Chorcha Duibhne have been brewing in Dingle for two years now, supplying cask ale to two local pubs. At last year's SeptemberFest they were serving a pale ale called Beal Bán. This year, it was a dark copper affair rejoicing in the name of Cúl Dorcha (helpfully translated by ICB's Gráinne as "Black Arse"). Again the style-police fell on it and one commentator had it likened to an alt. I'd be calling it a porter myself -- full-bodied, slightly bitter and lightly roasty. However there is a slight grainy, dry element that lets me see where the alt comparison comes from. It's a simple and enjoyable beer, the sort that won't end up the talk of the festival, but if you were served it in its home pubs you'd be very happy. Especially considering what else is likely to be on tap.

Last of the three newbies was the latest from White Gypsy, a Blonde session ale of 4% ABV. It packs a fair bit into that modest body, being sweet and chewy with a firm kick of sharp German hops on the end. Though again, outside of Ireland's tiny festival circuit, I don't know where you're likely to see it.

That's the beer out of the way, but I can't leave without a quick shout-out to David Llewellyn, north Dublin's apple magnate, who was able to sell his magnificent dry cider due to the temporary licensing arrangements (courtesy of The Porterhouse) at SeptemberFest. He reckons it's just too expensive to distribute via a middleman, and his own licensing set-up means he can normally only sell it by the case at his numerous farmers' market stalls by prior arrangement. It's wonderfully refreshing stuff and, as far as I know, is Ireland's only proper cider available commercially. David had a very brisk couple of days' business at the festival, between the cider, his vinegars, apple juice and the latest innovation: super-creamy apple ice cream. If you see Llewellyn's Orchard Produce at any of Ireland's outdoor food markets it's well worth making enquiries on how to get hold of his wonderful artisan cider.

It was heartening to see the interest in Irish craft beer displayed by the visitors of SeptemberFest. I doubt there was a single punter hankering after Heineken, and the family atmosphere was just the sort of image about-face that beer in Ireland needs, even if it's only for two days. With more events like this we could go a long way towards turning the tide of Irish beer tastes, away from the global brands which currently stink up the bar.

I hope Edward's ghost had a good view from his tower.

Playing with the big boys

As I mentioned the other day, the Porterhouse invited a bunch of interested parties out to their brewery last night for the launch of their new summer seasonal. Along with a dozen or so other members of Irish Craft Brewer I trekked out to the grim industrial estate on the edge of Dublin where the largest Irish-owned brewery has been operating since it moved out of Temple Bar in 2001.

We had an introductory talk from one of the Porterhouse's founders, Oliver Hughes (pictured right demonstrating the deference and respect he believes is due to Arthur Guinness & Son Co. Ltd.) followed by some words on the new summer seasonal, Hop Head, from Peter the chief brewer.

The new beer (in Oliver's right hand) was served from the keg at the brewery's tasting bar (demonstrated by the lovely Paul, left), and a cask version was waiting inside on the brewing floor. It was interesting to compare the two versions. Kegged Hop Head is an uncompromisingly bitter beer. It doesn't really have the zesty citrusy flavours I would have expected from the Cascade hops, but has a much rougher, harder edge. This sits on a big heavy body and the whole thing adds up to a no-nonsense powerhouse of a pale ale that demands the drinker's full attention. Comparisons with Galway Hooker are inevitable, but I can safely say that they are two remarkably different beers. Hop Head lacks the biscuity crystal malt notes of Hooker and its weight makes it much less sessionable. However, if you're having just one, and you want it bitter, Hop Head is the beer to go for.

The cask version was somewhat less demanding. Natural carbonation knocks a few of the edges off, and you get a relatively easy-going sipping ale. The bitterness creeps up on you gradually instead of serving an immediate smack in the face. Sadly, as is the way of these things, cask Hop Head is for export only and will be found gracing the bar of the London Porterhouse alone. It's good, but not good enough to send me into that place on a summer's evening.

My duties to the new arrival thus performed, I started noticing my fellow visitors with glasses of black beer. "Plain Porter," I was gleefully told, "from the conditioning tank". I had already bent the ear of the brewery's other head honcho, Liam, about the evils of nitro stout so was desperately keen to try this one. Porterhouse Plain Porter is a pretty good, understated, sort of beer. Free of nitrogenation, even at low brewery temperatures, it is amazing. I have never before encountered a beer that smells almost too good to drink, but this one manages it. The coffee and chocolate wafts coming from the foamy head are overwhelming. Add that to the strong, sweet roasted flavours and the silky texture and you have something very like the perfect session stout. My feedback to the Porterhouse management was fairly explicit. It included the word "crime".

The Porterhouse remains convinced that nitro is the only way to go in the Irish stout market. But if I've managed to sow even the beginnings of a seed of doubt about this, I'll be very happy indeed.

Finally, a big thank you to all the Porterhouse staff who arranged the visit and welcomed the thirsty swarm of beerites. We may not agree with everything the company does, but the Irish craft beer scene would be much worse without it.

Hop it

After their recent poor show with a raspberry beer, I was very glad to find Meantime's Pale Ale a return to form. I like this brewery and knew I wouldn't stay angry with them for long. At 4.7% this is a medium-strength ale, though is supplied in a 33cl bottle to save customers from the temptation of overindulgence. How thoughtful. It pours fizzily, a surprisingly non-pale dark rich amber, with just a light dusting of suspended sediment. Not much on the nose, but the flavour is far from understated. We get those marvellous mandarin-and-sherbet notes that are the hallmark of great hoppy pale ales, and which won Franciscan Well's Purgatory ICB Beer of the Year. They say there's East Kent Goldings in here, but they've definitely put Cascade in the driving seat. My only criticism is the texture: there's just too much fizz and it interrupts the palate's enjoyment of the complex malt-hops interplay. With a little less conditioning this could be a champion. Still, highly enjoyable and recommended.

It made me even more eager to get at Meantime's India Pale Ale: bigger bottle, higher strength and allegedly hopped nine ways from Sunday. The cork eases out with more of a puff than a pop. No overwhelming hops funk comes from the neck of the bottle. The pour is a lurid orange, topped with a big fizzy head that dissipates quickly. Even in my wide-bottomed glass I'm finding it hard to drum up an aroma. A vague fruitiness, but not much else. The main thing I can taste is the alcohol: heavy and sticky-sweet. But there's more underneath it. The Fuggles and East Kent Goldings impart a dry back-of-the-throat sort of bitterness that works better in lighter, more sessionable beers, but gets squashed by the booziness in this 7.5%er. There's a slight orangey-citric fruit tone to it as well, but nothing like the moreish big citrus of American IPAs, a flavour which may have spoiled me for most British and British-style IPAs: I end up thinking fond thoughts of Goose Island half-way through. All-in-all, I'm finding this beer tough going.

More of the green stuff is on the horizon for tomorrow evening when I'll be at the launch of the Porterhouse's new summer ale: Hop Head. Pilgrim, Nugget, Cascade and Hallertau in this one, and just a pinch of black malt. Doesn't sound like much could go wrong in that, does it?