The Beer Nut

When you spend a lot of time watching the doings of small breweries, the behaviour of big breweries can seem a bit weird. Diageo, for instance, has two new beers out but looks to be treating them in very different ways even though they're quite similar to each other, on paper at least.

Smithwick's Blonde I learned about via my ancillary hobby of peering in pub windows at what they have on tap. The first place I noticed it was The Norseman, but the bold yellow font was also to be seen leering across the bar in The Boar's Head and neighbouring Slattery's on Capel Street. It was in the latter that I finally caught up with it. A simple substance, it's dry and crisp with lots of fizz, a watery heart and a rather stale malt husk finish. The gas and water makes it nicely palate cleansing, which is about the best I can say for it. Why they made it and who it's for is anyone's guess. I've seen no related PR and not even the Smithwick's website recognises its existence. As soft launches go, this one is downright soggy.

Compare it, then, with its almost-twin Hop House 13. This was launched with a thumping audiovisual fanfare at a media event in St James Gate last month. Here's Nick Curtis-Davis, Diageo's Head of Innovation for Guinness, explaining the rationale behind the new beer, followed by the soundtrack of a short video they made to introduce it:

Sounds great, eh? The show-and-tell was followed by a taste down at the pilot plant with Peter Simpson, the young brewer fronting this release. It was cold in there and the little sample even colder so I didn't get much of a chance to assess it. I caught up with it again in the wild at Slattery's a few days later.

Diageo has branded it a lager even though it's made using standard Guinness ale yeast, and there's definitely an extra ale-like body to it rather than the clean blank slate of a pale lager. Hopwise they've employed a prestige combination of Mosaic, Galaxy and Topaz which creates an immediate fruity spicy buzz on entry with even a hint of naughty dank and some dry but fun pomegranate and cranberry. These are mere nuances, however, and the main thrust of the beer is a simple and sessionable English-style golden ale, putting me a little in mind of the likes of Hopback's Summer Lightning. At a piddling 16 IBUs and high-gravity brewed in huge quantities it's not going to displace any Irish micros, but like another of its siblings, the Amarillo-laced Smithwick's Pale Ale, it's the sort of beer I'd happily drink when it's the best available option.

The new brewhouse at St James's Gate has allowed Diageo to design and launch new beers faster than ever before: Hop House 13 was an unprecedented seven months from first draft to first draught. That makes four brand new recipes out the gate of the 'Gate in the last six months. At this rate, and with access to all those increasingly scarce hops, they're bound to hit on something really good at some point soon, right?

There was a raffle at the Beoir Christmas party at 57 The Headline, with a top prize of a box of Irish beers hand picked by the chairman Reuben. I never win anything so was very surprised when my number came out of the hat. Even better, there were a few in the set that I'd never tasted before. Cue this blog post.

Puck Pilsner by Jack Cody's of Drogheda had been on my must-drink list for a while. It was a perfect clear gold colour on the first pour and had plenty of head retention, though perhaps I shouldn't have used a glass with so many nucleation points at the bottom. Still, drinking through the foam wasn't a hardship: there's a gorgeous sharp and bitter herbal effect from the concentrated oils. Underneath, it's pretty plain fare with light grass up front though bitterer on the finish. The body is rounded and comfy, more like a helles than a pointy pils. I don't get much malt, though there's more than a hint of candyfloss in the aroma. And maybe a whisper of cardboard oxidation too, but you'd need to be a real fusspot to notice. Stylistically, Puck earns its pilsner stripes better than most any Irish beer out there. Be warned, however, that it's bottle conditioned and if you don't have a steady hand you'll end up with something more like a kellerbier.

A witbier to follow: Mescan's Westport White. There was lots of spume on opening so it took me a while to pour, noticing a sharp lemony aroma as I did so. The colour is a little on the pale side for the style though the ABV is a totally typical 5%. Its flavour is also true-to-style though very much on the dry end of the scale. There's a chalky crispness and a somewhat harsh beeswax bitterness at first. It mellows as it warms, with hints of honey and lemon meringue peeping through. Overall it's just a little too severe for my liking: I'd prefer more of the spice and fruit you find in the mainstream Belgian examples.

That just leaves Altered Amber by 12th Abbey, a label-sticker brand which gets beers brewed by Brú Brewery in Meath. This is the first of their three beers to come my way and is 4.2% ABV and a clear, dark red-brown. The promised citrus aromas are there, though a little muted. Its flavour is complex and interesting, starting bitter and vegetal, turning to bitter coffee roast, adding in a little toffee and a little candied fruit, and then finishing dry and rather metallic, a little unpleasantly gastric and saccharine. I'd heard it being described as a plain Irish red, but it's not, there's definitely a bigger hop element. I'd place it closer to crisp English bitter like Adnams or St Austell's Trelawny, though not as good as either. The acidic finish builds as it goes and I was finding it tough drinking before the half way point. I reckon the recipe could do with some tweaking to soften it.

Definitely a mixed bag, then. Proof that raffles are not the ideal way to source new beers.

The theme for March's Session is Up-and-Coming Beer Locations and it would be remiss of me not to stay close to home for this one. Ireland really genuinely is an up-and-coming place to drink beer and this post reflects just a few of the recent new additions to give you a flavour of what's going on right now.

Though the national beer scene has changed immeasurably, even in just the last two years, I'm still drawn back again and again to the place where I first discovered independent Irish beer in the mid-1990s: The Porterhouse in Temple Bar. It's currently doing a great job of tapping up what's new and interesting from all over the country.

It was, for example, the first place I found the new beer from Jack Cody's: Drogheda Cream Stout. Something didn't quite work out as planned with the colour of this one, arriving as it did a distinct ruby hue instead of properly black, but don't let that distract you. From the first pull this is most definitely a stout. A rich latte creaminess kicks it off followed by a smack of intense burnt dryness and then a big vegetal hop acid burn, possibly even more so than you get in bitter Porterhouse classic Wrassler's XXXX. That hop kick lasts long after swallowing, building gradually on the palate. The name suggests that this might be an innocent sort of introductory stout but it's far bolder than that and all the better for it.

Brewed down the other end of the country, but pouring beside it, was Gasman, another uncompromising hop bomb from Eight Degrees, their second with rye in the grain bill. It's a whopping 7.8% ABV but could easily pass for more, being thick and greasy. It's basically pure Aussie hop napalm, 68 IBUs of Topaz and Vic Secret burning into your palate in a slow, determined way. And despite the strength, all of that is down to the hopping: the beer itself is not harsh or hot in any way, even if the bitterness does get emphasised somewhat by the rye. After the initial shock, what are the flavours in here? I got semi-composted grass cuttings, top-shelf marmalade sold in very small jars to the Discerning Gentleman Who Knows What He Wants and chewing lime skins for a bet which you immediately regret. Did I say it's intense? It's intense. And on balance (if that word isn't complete anathema in this context) probably not one I'd go rushing back to. It's a little severe but there's no doubting the quality of the product.

When I'm not chasing new beers in The Porterhouse, there's a good chance of finding me doing the same in 57 The Headline. It was first on the southside to tap up another antipodean-hopped Irish beer: Kiwi Pale Ale from Dublin's own Rascal's. Wakatu, Waimea and Motueka are the chief performers in this otherwise quite simple 4.5% ABV clear dark gold beer. The sticky, sappy, resinous grass looms large, and there's a bit of a minty element too, particularly as it warms. It's a pretty stark reminder of the German heritage of these hops, and even reminds me of Germany's own Polaris variety in its effect. Don't expect much by way of juicy explosives, herbal dank or (thankfully) cat piss, but it's a fun, bold quencher and I was quite happy to follow up my first pint with a second.

So that's a fairly representative sample of a few days pub-hopping in Dublin. If it sounds like the sort of thing that interests you, you'll find us just to the left of Wales.

Boxing and poker are the themes for today's beers, though we're in Northern Ireland rather than Las Vegas. You can fit your own joke about fear and loathing in here.

Ghrian is a 4.5% ABV dark golden ale from Pokertree, bottle conditioned yet miraculously clear, doubtless due to the deal with the devil that gave the brewery its name. And it's a damn fine version of the style, with clean and crisp oatmeal biscuit and golden syrup, overlaid with a leafy vegetal complexity: bok choi and spinach plus a garnish of peppery rocket and finishing on a slightly metallic bitterness. The body is properly aley and full but the residual sugar isn't allowed dominate and it stays perfectly refreshing throughout. This is a deftly put together beer, positioned well for both the cautious newcomer and those looking for an extra dimension or two of flavour.

It turns out that a fondness for big floppy jumpers isn't the only thing I have in common with the late Kurt Cobain. We both have our roots in Pokertree's home town of Carrickmore, Co. Tyrone, and Dark Nirvana is the brewery's tribute to him. I'm sure the one to me will follow in due course. Badged as a "cascadian ale" this is 6.5% ABV and smells enticingly of fresh coffee, cherries and incense. That fragrant, oily perfumed bittersweet incense spice is a big part of the flavour, with a breezier turkish delight and milk chocolate sweetness humming along merrily behind it. It's a very strange beast, and won't be for everyone, but I loved it, even if I probably won't need another bottle any time soon.

Up the other end of the M1 there's Belfast, now boasting a second microbrewery with more on the way. These samples from Knockout Brewing arrived courtesy of Steve.

Take a swing and feel the hops connect as a haymaker of a punch hits your mouth says the label of Knockout Irish Red Ale. Um, OK. It's not 100% hyperbole, either: this is a strongly flavoured beer, but not really in a way I enjoyed. The toffee is laid on very thick, and while I guess an attempt has been made to balance it, it ends up being a harsh and acidic bitterness. There's definitely no subtlety or nuance here, but then the name doesn't exactly imply there should be. More than Irish red, it reminds me of some of the more intense German bocks, beers which have legions of fans but just don't suit my palate at all. It looks nice, however, beaming rosy red and topped by a comfortable layer of foam, and I can't say I was able to pick out a single technical flaw anywhere. I just didn't like the bugger.

At 4.5% ABV, Knockout's Middleweight IPA is the same strength as the red and features the same strained boxing metaphors on the label. It's another massively weighty and quite sugary one, and once again the hops are simply trying to out-shout the malt. This time they're a bit more coherent, but there's not much of the fruit flavour associated with the advertised New Zealand and American varieties. Instead I got intense coconut, sticky pine sap and marmalade rind. Like the red, the recipe doesn't quite gel together and it's all very harsh and tough going to drink. I feel I've gone more than a couple of rounds with these two.

Still, I was singularly unimpressed with Pokertree first time out so I'm definitely not counting out Knockout yet.

There's something very wrong-looking about Anchor beer packaged in a container other than their iconic stubby bottle. Even the veteran brewery's large-format bombers have retained the classic shape. So it felt a bit weird to come to this can of their California Lager, but that's just the times we live in.

This San Francisco 4.9%-er pours a hazy, bitty yellow, topped by a thick mat of loose bubbles. It's plain but decent fare to taste, mostly quite grainy but with a heavy layer of banana and mango on top. The fruit is accentuated by quite a dense texture and very low carbonation for a lager. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. It's a bit too weighty to chug down but isn't quite complex enough to be a sipper. I guess they're going for a kind of Munich helles smoothness but it just doesn't quite have the cleanness of that style.

We stay in California next, well maybe: this bottle of New DogTown pale ale carries a helpful reminder that Lagunitas operates out of Chicago now too. It's a tangy beast, an innocent pale gold but tasting brassy and galvanic at first while the aroma is all rubber and sulphur. So far, so industrial. My palate took a little time to refocus. Once it did I found there's much more fun to be had in here. Yes it's intensely bitter, but there's orange and grapefruit, gunpowder and sherbet, spinach and weed to be enjoyed too. It's perhaps a little watery, especially given the stonking 6.2% ABV, but those powerhouse hops leave me feeling very forgiving indeed.

Apologies to anyone who thought this post was going to be on the respective merits of beer genres. Like any self-respecting beer fanatic, I enjoy both.

I have yet to delve into the notes I brought home from three days of downright promiscuous beer speed-dating at the Alltech Brews & Food festival a few weeks ago. But among the events there have been since then was a much smaller affair but along similar lines organised by beer distributor Barry & Fitzwilliam. It was more a trade fair than a festival, set in a hotel function space on a Friday afternoon and offering journos and retailers the opportunity to meet with brewers and cider-makers, and taste their wares. Most of the breweries were relative newcomers to the scene and for me it was a chance to try some of the new additions they'd added to their existing ranges.

Munster Brewery was a case in point. I covered its first two beers here and the new one is the first non-lager: 12 Towers red ale. It's quite pale for the style, but has a fairly typical ABV of 4.2%. In what may be another sign of the evolution of the style away from toffee-laden crystal malt showcases, this one is light and refreshing with a sherbety spice to it, gently primed and conditioned in the bottle for a pleasantly understated prickle of carbonation. Better than you might expect for something calling itself an Irish red.

At the next table over, Liam from St. Mel's was pouring his latest seasonal: Spring Bock. It's a bock. For the spring, like. Pale bocks are pretty rare in Irish brewing, and it's another style where the real thing doesn't usually put a smile on my face. This one did, though. Darkly gold and properly weighty at 5.6% ABV it doesn't have the big horrible melted plastic thing I often get from strongly hopped German-style beers. Instead the clean lager base buoys up a random and unexpected smoky note. Since there's no smoked malt involved, this is probably one of those things that counts as a technical flaw, but it's one this drinker is perfectly happy to tolerate, nay encourage.

Keeping things Teutonic, relative veterans Bo Bristle were at the event, ably represented by brewer Dave. Shamefully, I'd never tasted Bo Bristle Pilsner so made sure to put that right. It presents very very pale and smells worryingly... uric. Thankfully the flavour is entirely piss-free, Mount Hood hops giving it a decent kick of bitterness with gentler green flavours coming from the Hersbrucker. It's a tough one to judge on just a small sample: I think it's made for pinting and I'd be very willing to try that at some stage.

Into every trade fair a little rain must fall, and the disappointment of the evening, for me, came in the form of West Mayo's Clifford's Connacht Champion golden ale. I've previously pointed out there's a big diactyl issue with their red, and this one too is more Danish butter cookies than beer. The extra hopping gives it a spicing which, unlike the red, means it isn't a complete disaster, but pale ales from an established brewery should not be coming out this mucky.

I mentioned Tyrone brewery Pokertree last week, and owner-operator Darren was pouring his beers at the event. It was my first chance to try Seven Sisters, a 5.2% ABV treacle and oat stout. It's lighter than the description suggests, but more than your typical roasty flavours or any dark sugars, I got a kind of beefy, Bovril-esque flavour. The calling card of autolysis? Possibly. It was still perfectly drinkable, just a little unsettling.

Darren was over in Manchester recently, putting together a collaboration brew with Marble. The result is a pale ale named after the infant heir to the Pokertree empire: Little Barney. This is 5% ABV, amber coloured and extremely dry, with a definite astringency coming through in the flavour, reminding me of cranberries in particular, while the strong aroma is all fresh damp grass. It's one of those beers that requires a moment or two of palate recalibration, but is worth the effort.

It wasn't the best beer I tried, however. That honour goes to a new start-up operation from Laois called 12 Acres. They're currently using 9 White Deer's brewing facilities but, here comes the USP, the malt is home-grown. The family farm has been producing malting barley for years. Now they've started asking Boortmalt to separate their crop and give it back to them when malted. That's then used (with a bit of extra Munich malt) to make 12 Acres Pale Ale.

It's 4.6% ABV and golden in colour. The hop aroma is powerfully sweet, perfumed even. They've made good use of Citra, giving the floral sweetness just enough balancing bitterness. A superb refresher with plenty of complexity at a modest strength.

Thanks to all the brewers for their generous samples, and to the Barry & Fitzwilliam guys for inviting me. More wandering around event space with a plastic beer receptacle coming up...

On the eve of Alltech Brews & Food 2015, Grand Cru beers held a meet-the-brewer session with Thornbridge in Against the Grain, tasting the classic line-up of Chiron, Jaipur and St Petersberg and finishing on the 10th anniversary special Jaipur X. This monster is 10% ABV but really doesn't taste it, being the same innocent pale gold as Jaipur and exhibiting the same waxy, honey flavours as the basic edition, just a small bit more of them. I've never been much of a Jaipur enthusiast, but I think the profile works better in a mellower, stronger beer, like this.

Two other special editions were on: Eroica (left) is a 4.3% ABV golden ale with little by way of hop character. Some might call it simple and sessionable; I'm afraid I'll have to file it under watery and boring. The complete opposite can be said of Jehanne, an amber-brown bière de garde of 7.4% ABV and laying on that alcohol in hot and heavy fashion. The dominant flavour is green apples (acetylaldehyde, if my beer chemistry is correct) which I found drowning out any subtleties on offer. Still, it's nicely smooth and warming from the keg and a full pint (cheers Wally!) sent me home glowing.

And so to the main event. Alongside the Irish breweries, Alltech attracted a wide international selection from brewers brought in by their local distributor and those present off their own bat. From the Thornbridge end of the Grand Cru section I snaffled a taste of AM:PM, a 4.3%-er in the must-brew style of the moment, "session IPA". This is rose-gold in colour and has a lovely rich golden syrup aroma, with a matching weighty English ale body. The hops offer little more than a pleasant buzz, with a faint metallic edge. It's not boring and certainly not unpleasant, but it had its work cut out sharing space with the genre-defining Founders All Day IPA and didn't quite match up to it, in my estimation at least.

And that's where it started. There's more to come from Alltech Dublin 2015 next week. A lot more.

Alltech Brews & Food returned in spectacular fashion for 2015 at the end end of last month. Rumours of a dialled-down beer offer at the three-day event proved totally unfounded, with a host of brewers from across Europe and further afield represented. The only bit that irked me was the translucent plastic beaker we were given to drink from. It made it impossible to photograph the beers so, rather than leave you bereft of the benefits of my singular lensmanship, I abandoned mine early on and used whatever clear receptacle I had to hand. On the upside, tasting my way like that through all three sessions did mean I got to try a vast number of beers. We have a lot to get through between now and Saturday. Let's get stuck in.

I'll begin where I left last week's Thornbridge teaser post, with the British breweries. Beavertown had a whole stand of its own on the Four Corners strip. Talk of the festival was Londonerweisse, a 2.8% ABV Berlinerweisse-style beer, prepared with gin botanicals. It's a hazy pale yellow colour and offers up a very fruity and funky aroma. The herbs are unmistakeable, lending a peppery bite to the clean and gin-crisp flavour. You sometimes get a waft of grainy wheat in this sort of beer, but there's no such fuzziness here, just perfect poise.

Staying on a highly-attenuated kick, Applelation is a saison, brewed stonkingly strong at 8.2% ABV, and with added apples. It's all about that saison funk, plus a dry finish preventing it from getting difficult to drink, as I often find with strong saisons. I'd been hoping for more of a fresh apple flavour but there's really none to speak of. I'm not complaining, though.

From dry to sweet and Beavertown Moose Fang made its début at the event, a super heavy brown ale of 8.6% ABV and tasting richly of espresso and chocolate ice cream sauce. The coffee roast balances the sweetness and makes for an excellent sipping beer. This is possibly the first "imperial brown ale" I've met that adequately hits the spots normally reserved by imperial stout.

And the other Beavertown headliner was Bloody 'Ell, an IPA with added blood orange, strong again at 7.2% ABV. This is quite new on the market and its freshness was evident from the get-go: a huge hit of heady, oily hop volatiles opens proceedings. The added ingredient works really well to complement the hop effect and you end up with a beer that's juicy in two different ways at once. So juicy, in fact, that it's very easy to forget how much alcohol is present. Handle with care.

Redwell from Norwich was back for a second year, with Mr Nate Southwood at the helm. He insisted, insisted, I try all their beers. There was: the irrepressible Redwell Hells, as smooth, full-bodied and bready as you'd like a helles to be, though at a happily modest 4.6% ABV; Redwell Steam Lager, a lighter, simpler, copper-coloured job; Redwell India Pale Lager, bringing us up to 5.5% ABV but not doing a whole lot flavourwise to justify the extra strength as the hops are quite muted; the near-inevitable session IPA Redwell Anytime: not a great example, with a bit too much butter happening and little else; and new special Redwell White IPA, a 6% ABV souped-up witbeer which holds back on the bitterness and allows the traditional spices to come through more, with a candy-fruit sweetness and a warming buzz of alcoholic heat.

Thus with Britain taken care of, let's see what our own lot were up to.

The arrival of new Irish breweries is always exciting, so I made sure to stop by the Wicklow Brewery stand at Alltech Brews & Food. I say "new": the brewpub on the caravan site in Redcross has been in production since last summer, but so far hasn't got much beyond its very local market. Not that it has to, of course.

My grin of delight became a little fixed when I noticed that Wicklow Brewery Helles was front and centre. New Irish pale lagers can be something of a gamble. All doubt was swept away with the first taste. Yes, it's a bit hazy, and there's maybe rather more sulphur on the nose than you'd expect for this style of beer, but it has just the right amount of bready weight in the body and some lovely light green vegetal hop notes: celery and raw spinach. It's very drinkable and I wasn't remotely surprised to learn that Mathis the brewer is German born and trained.

There's a Weiss in the line-up too, a spicy one, with more of that crisp celery backed by fruity candy and a slight edge of pear. Again a very easy drinker and very much on the cleaner and drier side of the genre -- no big bananas or clove notes here.

The outlier of the range is WB-40, a 6.6% ABV amber ale. It's mostly quite bitter, turning a little metallic in the finish, but the malt adds a raisin and fruitcake complexity, as well as a generous helping of caramel. So, nearly an Irish red then, but with enough other stuff going on to differentiate it.

Rye River really pulled out the stops to impress, with a vast high-tech festival bar and a sequence of one-off geek-bait beers. Saison? Obviously. This one was an approachable 4.9% ABV, golden in colour with a heady nose of honey and meadows. A dry crispness is the centrepiece of the flavour, almost like burnt popcorn, with just a wisp of peach esters alongside. A simple refresher, and further evidence for me that lower strength is better where saison is concerned.

There was a very porterish Brown Ale, more roast and toast than caramel and toffee, and all the better for it; and a Double IPA. The latter was textbook stuff: peach and pineapple aromatics; a thick, almost greasy texture, and an explosively tangy flavour consisting mainly of mandarins but with a darker edge of dank. Very, very nicely done.

And last of the Rye River specials was their Berlinerweisse, claiming to be brewed to just 1.3% ABV. It hits all the usual style points within that, however: a grainy wheat quality, a crisp finish, and of course an electric buzz of super-refreshing lactic sourness.

Another German-style Wicklow beer to end on: Distinction Lager is from the newly-established Manor Brewing Company in Blessington. This trial batch is an all-Saaz job, 5.1% ABV and beautifully clean, allowing the hops to shine out. It was one of only two Irish gold medal winners in Alltech's Dublin Craft Cup (the other being barrel-aged Leann Folláin) and it was a deserving winner, I think. Hopefully nothing will change between now and full-scale production.

That's the new and surprising Irish stuff at the festival. More from the local breweries next.

Several established Irish breweries brought beers I'd never had before to the 2015 Alltech festival at the Convention Centre. Galway Hooker, for instance, has just launched a new bottled IPA called 60 Knots. It's a serious dark gold colour and is all about the classic grapefruit aromas. As my first beer on the second day of proceedings it seemed sharply acidic to begin, and a little brassy. But there are mellower elements in the flavour too: a touch of that signature Hooker biscuit and a more fun gunpowder spicing. You know you're getting a full-on 6.5% ABV and 60 IBUs here. This is one for the Hooker Pale Ale fans who've spent the last nine years craving something bigger.

Hilden is also at the ABV-raising game. Their new one is a double IPA called Buck's Head and is dark gold once again. While the hops definitely make their presence felt -- bitter and waxy -- the malt is a major contributor to the overall flavour. You get a warming cake-and-caramel weightiness with this one. It's perhaps a little old-fashioned compared to the zingier sort of US-style DIPA, but it works perfectly well as a beer in its own right.

If it was zing you were after, Kinnegar was the bar to go to. The Donegal brewery has jumped on the white IPA (ish) bandwagon with one called White Rabbit, hopped entirely with Vic Secret and while allegedly brewed with the customary wheat, there's very little sign of it or any other malt in here. Bask instead in the glory of grapefruit and the roar of the resins. The rabbit beer from the rabbit (ish) brewery is unapologetically hoppy.

IPA fail of the weekend was a non-exhibit, but a bottle of Farmageddon Wet Hop IPA smuggled into the press room by Nigel. I can only assume a saboteur filled two thirds of this with TCP as it reeked and tasted of raw disinfectant and absolutely nothing else.

From ale to lager, briefly, and Remix India Pale Lager from the increasingly hyperactivie Trouble Brewing. It's 5% IPA and very dank, tasting akin to the air just outside the front door of Amsterdam Centraal. There's a fun peppery piquancy and a quick, clean exit from the palate like a proper lager ought to have. Big and complex while also being simple and quaffable. A taster really didn't do this justice.

Two more new Irish saisons made an appearace. Carlow's latest seasonal Spring Saison is the plainer of the two, No fruit, no esters, just very dry -- stale, even -- dusty burlap and grain sweepings. Wicklow Wolf, meanwhile, had the shortest-pitched seasonal I've ever encountered: Solar Eclipse was topical for about five minutes last Friday morning. It's a lovely dark copper colour and rather strong at 6.5% ABV. While it leans towards the fruit-forward type of saison -- green banana and lychee coming through in a big way for me -- it's all very deftly balanced with peppercorn and similar dry spices. There's great refreshment power here despite the strength.

I have to fit a couple of token stouts into these Irish posts, and Jack Cody's fits the bill first with their Paddy's Day seasonal Hail Glorious Saint Patrick. It's 5.4% ABV and absolutely bang-on for a slightly-bigger-than-usual Irish stout: chocolate looms large in the aroma and the flavour profile floats nicely between sweet dark malts and drier roasted elements. They've cheekily badged it as an imperial stout and I can kind-of see the basis for the claim -- it's pretty full-flavoured after all -- but it lacks the warmth to really pull off the illusion.

I finally got to catch up with the two 12th Abbey beers I hadn't tried, and to hear about the highly ambitious brewery development plans under way. In the meantime, Raven Stout is a very simple and straightforward Irish dry stout, throwing a bit of caramel into the mix as it warms, though also featuring a strange aspirin acidity. 12th Abbey Pale Ale also has this. Jaffa orange is the sum total of the hop fruit flavour, but it's more sharp than anything else. Like the Amber ale, all of these recipes could do with tweaking to smooth out their rougher edges.

Our last port of call before we head abroad is Station Works, up there by Newry railway station. They had a new pale ale on the go called The Foxes Rock. It doesn't really work, being all buttery diacetyl and nasty chalky mineral dryness. One of those beers that leaves you boggling at what the brewer could possibly have intended. Station Works also has grand plans to revitalise cask beer in Ireland and has been busily cloning the beers from its sister operation Cumberland Breweries. Station Works No. 1 was the first fruits of this, a 4.7% ABV cask brown ale. While there's more butter here, it works far better in this sort of beer. The overall effect is of milky coffee or chocolate ice cream. I'd love to say it hits the mild style spots but it's just too heavy and not refreshing enough for that. Still a decent beer: a regular sweet brown ale on cask could well be a winner.

That's the UK and Ireland covered. Where to next?

For a festival organised by a US-based company, we weren't exactly drowning in American beer at Alltech Brews & Food 2015. It took a bit of hunting to find what was there. Obviously, Alltech's own beer was front and centre, including the new Kentucky Honey Barrel Ale. This is mahogany red and has a very woody bourbon nose. Vanilla is massively dominant in the flavour and, coupled with a huge sugary sweetness and a high level of carbonation, the overall effect is very like a bourbon and coke. Not something I'm looking for in a beer.

Meanwhile, at the Grand Cru stand, they had tapped up Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. The coffee flavour isn't too overdone here and at its heart it's a simple middle-of-the-road dry stout. Lagunitas DayTime was much more fun, all bright sherbet lemons and more serious heavy resins finishing perfectly cleanly for bonus drinkability. And all at 4.6% ABV, making it a session IPA truly worthy of the style.

DayTime, like the remaining American beers in this post, came from the Dublin Cup bar, where leftover beers from the international competition go to be disposed of. It's a wonderful idea and I took full advantage. Where else would you get to try Schlafly Oatmeal Stout, a marvellously smooth and sweet number, using its 5.7% ABV to give it extra welly but staying soft and approachable at the same time. The same can't be said for New Holland's Dragon's Milk, a 10% ABV imperial stout given far too long in bourbon barrels coming out the other side dripping with vanillins and only a late rush of milk chocolate offering any kind of complexity.

Back to simple and subtle again, and Major Tom's Pomegranate Wheat by Fort Collins brewery is light on fruit but makes good use of the dry flavour from the pomegranate for a very refreshing end result. Dark Horse's Crooked Tree IPA is also nicely refreshing, though perhaps darker and a little sweeter than many of its contemporaries. There's a lovely hard orange candy flavour but nothing blaringly bitter or citric. It's one that's worth taking time over, not that I did.

Two rather plain sweet dark ales to finish on. I've been very impressed with Great Lakes beers in the past but Conway's Irish Ale didn't do it for me. It offers only a few crumbs of biscuit and a dry mineral edge but otherwise failed to hold my attention. Similarly, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog is dark red and mostly tastes of caramel. This time the extra dimension comes from a few wisps of roasted grain but there's not really enough to make it interesting.

Some quality beers here, but nothing too daring or different in this selection. I've saved the more thrilling beers for the last couple of posts.

What got me most excited in the run-up to Alltech Brews & Food 2015 was the large number of Hungarian brewing companies listed to attend. It's far too long since I was last in Hungary so the opportunity to taste my way around its beer scene only a few minutes from my front door was one I relished.

First port of call on arriving into the Convention Centre on the Friday evening was Budapest brewpub Legenda Sörfőzde who brought a very impressive collection of off-kilter beers. Brettania is a 5.3% ABV dark red ale. It claims sourness but isn't really sour, having instead a big bretty funk and the heady sweetness of cherry cough sweets. There's even a slightly unpleasant sugary burn in the finish. An interesting sipper but I couldn't see myself drinking lots of it. Their Bazooka was altogether more integrated. This is a rye smoked dark lager and has the exact meaty aroma of a Bavarian classic. The taste is absolutely clean and balanced with plenty of rich smoky flavours. This guy I could drink in quantity.

There's a similar deft simplicity exhibited in Bunny Hop, a lager which Legenda Sörfőzde brews for Csupor. There's a fantastic ultra-fresh mown grass aroma set atop a silkily sinkable body. Csupor ThermoStout was also excellent: 6.3% ABV, big roasty aromas and a flavour which mixes a little bit of quality chocolate with a generous floral perfume. The shine comes off the partnership a little with Csupor Tántorgó ParIPA, a very minerally IPA with an unshakeable copper tang. The hops bring classic grapefruit and the body is quite light and dry. I think I expected more at 6.5% ABV.

Hello My Name Is Sudan was another Csupor beer but I don't know if Legenda Sörfőzde brewed it. It had its world première at Alltech and is named in honour of a the last male white rhino in Africa. It's an 8.2% ABV double IPA and very easy drinking despite that. Dry sherbet notes are the centrepiece and the body is remarkably light given the strength. No wonder it's endangered.

Legenda Sörfőzde brews for several other brands too, including Zodiak who brought Zodiak Red Rye Pale Ale. Though the colour was spot-on (it's almost pink!) it tasted rather grainy and stale. Along similar lines but much better was Mi újság Wagner úr? brewed for Hara Punk. This one is an amber ale at 6% ABV and with lovely cherry and cake notes, plus a slightly more grown-up funky overtone. Hara Punk also gets beer brewed at Hopfanatic in Kiskunhalas, including their new saison Monkey Funky Yeah, a modest 5% ABV and brewed with added coriander and black pepper. The latter adds a lovely oiliness to the aroma and the beer is very sharp and dry overall, though invigorating with it.

Zip Technologies was at the trade show part of the festival to show off its ultra-shiny brewing kits. But it had a small bar down on the main floor as well and I stopped by to try a couple of their offerings. Neither were much cop. Pineapple Noir is a dark saison of 6.5% ABV, with masses of stouty roast in its aroma and a flavour packed with crunchy burnt grain. There's only a very slight fruit juice element, and nothing I would have identified as pineapple. Without a label I would have taken this for a dry stout, and a very plain one at that.

The black IPA from Zip's is called Hopiverzum and it's 6% ABV but could pass for a lot stronger, with a nose full of spinach and tar, plus the burn of cheap vodka. It's smoother on tasting but loses its complexities along with the weird stuff and I got very little hop character. Another one I'd be marking as a very ordinary porter if I didn't see the style in advance.

Still, mis-steps notwithstanding I was intrigued by what the Hungarians brought to the table. It looks like an exciting place to go beering right now.

One more international round-up to come before we head for the door.

I mentioned the Alltech Dublin Craft Beer Cup in one of the earlier posts this week. Danish brewers Coisbo were outright winners for the second time in a row, with a barrel-aged version of the beer that won them top prize last year. Eleven is a 10% ABV imperial stout matured in sherry casks. It's not a subtle beast, smelling strongly of sweet oak, though dryer on tasting, but still very very woody. I think the barrel-aging may have left it a little overcooked for my liking.

Also waltzing off with a gold medal was the only Belgian beer I had all weekend. Bertinchamps Brune also has the distinction of being packaged in a half-litre bottle, the way Belgian beers generally aren't. And that's not the only unorthodox feature. In with the very typical rich Belgian chocolate flavour there's some lovely fresh roast coffee notes too. If it wasn't for the Belgian yeast esters this would almost be a first-rate porter. It certainly hits a lot of those notes.

Luxembourgian brewery Bofferding had a stand in the trade area just opposite Galway Hooker and Aidan dared me to try their lurid cherry beer Battin Fruitée. It's not all that bad, being one of those super sweet syrup concoctions commonly found in Belgium. It doesn't edge over into saccharine so it gets a pass from me.

There were some decent beers from the Spanish exhibitors Rosita and Lo Gambusi. Both had clean and refreshing blonde ales on offer. Rosita's Carmen has a chalky mineral element for extra quenching power, despite a hefty enough 5% ABV. Gambusi's Riu is simpler again but worked well as a mid-festival palate-cleanser.

The other Rosita beer I tried was a White IPA. The herbs in here gave it a strong sausagey smell, which wasn't at all unpleasant. Juniper has been employed, I'm told, but I didn't get much of that. Everything else from the herb garden is present, however. Lo Gambusi's second tap was pouring an amber ale called Cinteta. I liked this a lot: it's not too sweet though there's a proper dose of light caramel. To balance it there's lots of greasy hop oil and flavours of pine resin and white pepper. At 5.2% ABV it's a very nice complex sessioner.

Progressive Austrian operator Brew Age had some highly impressive offerings including a black IPA called Dunkle Materie, 6.9% ABV and hopped generously with Cascade, Amarillo and Columbus for a massive juicy orange effect plus just a slight echo of roast on the finish. Dangerously quaffable stuff. Their Hopfenauflauf pale ale was less of a powerhouse, but wasn't really trying to be one either. You get a sweet and spicy kick of bath salts and a light front-of-palate bitterness. No big hop impact, just perfect balance at 5.4% ABV.

Cologne's own Freigest caused a bit of a buzz around the room all weekend. Gose was the name of the game and Geisterzug the beer of the moment, in its rhubarb infused incarnation. Between the yeast and the fruit it delivers two kinds of tartness at once. Coupled with the addition of spruce needles it's a jolting, invigorating beer, but enormous fun to drink. I also had a taste of Abraxas, Freigeist's smoked wheat beer with added pears. It really makes full use of every ingredient involved, with a huge smoky fug in the flavour, layered over with a fresh and tangy pear fruitiness. I've never tasted anything like this but amazingly it all works really well.

A fake Rhineside beer to bring us home. Hoppy Cologne is by Moa in New Zealand and claims Kölsch credentials. One of the other connotations of the word Cologne popped into my head on the first sip: this tastes strongly of perfume. Given a minute it settles out into something less severe, but no more Kölsch-like: you get a spritz of lemon and a faint whiff of cattiness. It's a pretty tasty effort overall and I could easily envisage a session on it.

But, at this stage, a session on anything was furthest from my mind. A big thanks to all the exhibitors and organisers for making Alltech 2015 a fantastic event. Here's to many more years of random beery wonder.

Wet night. Push the heavy front door of Alfie Byrne's. Across the threshold and down the steps. The back-and-forth buzz of conversation. And ping-pong. The bar glows at the centre of the dim room, beckoning. A new beer from a well-respected English micro was touted earlier on Twitter. There it is, minimalist design on the tap badge. But due diligence first: a glance across the other options, over and then down to... the handpump. Chalked on the blackboard Gate Crasher Bitter by Trouble Brewing. Thought I'd missed it, and certainly didn't think I'd see it on cask. A pint, please.

Settling in the handled jug to a dark amber, though not quite brown. And not quite clear, either. First pull: yeast, gritty and bitter. Behind it, tannins and floral spices. All that jasmine. Classic English bucolics and the potential for greatness, let down by poor handling. For shame.

Still chasing rumours, out into the night again, across St Stephen's Green south, past Sir Benjamin's Palladian mansion and Joyce's alma mater. Skirting by Cuffe Street flats and around the corner to Against the Grain. Busier here. Crowded by the bar. A glance at the taps, a scan of the blackboard, and back to the taps. There. Dortmunder. Galway Bay aren't known for lagers. A brave step. A pint, please.

Husky and hazy. A wan orange hue and orange marmalade-flavoured. Biting bitterness sits atop the full grainy body, its texture the only nod to real Dortmund Export. Debate: does the assertive hopping take away from the style, or an improvement, a stage in its evolution? No matter. Good beer. Enjoyable drinking.

We're a long way from Dortmund. Is that a stout on cask? A pint, please.

This trilogy of beers from Poland's Łomża brewery presents an interesting case study for students of lager (sure weren't we all, nudge nudge). The three are all the same style and 5.7% ABV strength, but made with slightly different production methods, for comparison.

The starter, or possibly the culmination since it's had most done to it, is Łomża Export. I don't know if the brewery is making a serious claim to the formal Dortmunder style, but it is strong enough and is the appropriate shade of rich dark gold. That's where the similarity ends, however. The flavour is crisp and husky with a touch of corniness in there, though the ingredients list admits no adjuncts. There's also a bitter, slightly unpleasantly gastric bite, especially in the aroma, along with sulphurous rubber and metallic aspirin.

It's not a great start, but the less processed ones are bound to be better, right?

We get an upgrade to brown glass for Łomża Export Non-Pasteurised. It looks identical, but I suppose that's hardly surprising. And it tastes less awful too: rounded, more integrated and with none of the nasty pointy edges. It's not a great beer by any standards, but it's clean and there are some tasty red berry notes and some proper Dortmunder breadiness, though that grain husk lingers on too. Does pasteurisation really cause all those acidic flaws? I'm sceptical, but that appears to be what the evidence suggests.

And to conclude, Łomża Unfiltered. A predictable layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle but careful pouring yielded a clear glass, dark gold again. The dry grain husks start early but there's not really much else going on: it lacks the pleasant complexities of the unpasteurised one, and also the nasty ones of the original, with a dull watery core in the middle. It livens up a little with the lees poured in, the crisp cereal becoming a softer, sweeter biscuit, so it's got that going for it, but still far from being a flagship example of the joys of unfiltered lager.

I'd recommend the non-pasteurised one if you absolutely have to choose, but your mileage may vary and in all honesty I'd suggest driving a different vehicle altogether.

I had an interesting conversation with a brewer at a recent beer festival about bottle sizes. He pointed out that in the UK there's a tendency for breweries to use bottle size as an indicator of which side of the craft divide they sit. I can't say I'd noticed, but having run a few examples in my head, I now see what he means: 330ml shows you're young and hip and craft, whereas a half litre leaves you open to the accusation of being a fuddy-duddy family-owned provider of boring brown bitter. As a home drinker and a pint man, I'm very glad that this worrying trend hasn't really caught on here. But today I'm exploring some British beer from very much the "craft" side of the house, all sold 330ml at a time. As it happens, it's also Session day and our subject is Cans or Bottles, so I'm including both formats and may even throw in the odd observation on their respective merits. But back to craft beer as applies to British brewing...

The archetypal self-declared UK craft brewery is BrewDog and they had embraced the 330 even when they were still brewing cask ale and writing their best-befores in biro. Nowadays they're big enough to send random bloggers free beer, like this here bottle of Bourbon Baby which arrived in the post a while back. As the name suggests, it's barrel aged but of a modest strength: just 5.9% ABV. Cola-coloured with a cream-toned head, it does have the spicy vanilla scent of bourbon, but enticingly so, and not overpowering. The base beer is a sweet and toffeeish scotch ale and that's still just about detectable in the taste, but the woody whisky dominates the flavour completely. I'm used to the roundness you get in stronger, darker bourbon-aged beers and this is showing me why they're made that way: there's a thinness at this beer's core which doesn't do it any favours. If you love the taste of bourbon in beers, and don't mind it being there for its own sake, then this is for you. Seekers of a more integrated beer experience need not apply, however.

Siren is a brewery whose beers I've only ever encountered on draught before, so this bottle of Undercurrent oatmeal pale ale is the first I've ever had in the house. I'm a frequent ranter against the bottle conditioning of small-pack hoppy beers and this is a definite offender: murky orange to begin with and then a surprise extra swish of yeasty goo going in accidentally at the end. Arrgh! At 4.5% ABV that's bound to have detrimental effect on the hops. But I don't think it did. Undercurrent has a simple but lovely aroma of oranges and grapefruit while the flavour screams freshness: piney resins, juicy mandarins, sweet tinned peaches and a pinch of gunpowder spicing. It's a session-strength hop tour-de-force (though quite possibly a waste of oatmeal) but I'd still like a pint of it. At a recent focus group for a new Irish beer brand I said some very rude things about the test version of their pale ale. Standard-setting beers like Undercurrent are the reason why.

So I was totally stoked facing into Broken Dream "breakfast stout". It's not so spectacular, however, being a damn decent but rather plain thick, strong stout of 6.5% ABV. There's lots of roast, or possibly even generous amounts of burnt; dry overall with a streak of very dark chocolate to lighten the mood. Usually, breweries of Siren's calibre toss in a dash of fruit or flowers, but that's all absent here, more's the pity. I'll need to look elsewhere for that sort of action.

And here it is, in the aluminium overcoat of Beavertown's Holy Cowbell stout. Once again the yeast gets the better of me as overenthusiastic pouring dumps some beige lumps from the bottom of the can into my otherwise flawless black beer. But yet again the beer gods smile down upon me because there's nothing that can interfere with this beer's greatness. The exotic fruit aromas entice, Bisto-style, from three rooms away and the flavour is a punchy mix of bitter veg leaves, fleshy tropical fruit and invigorating bath salts. Whereas something this strong and dark normally departs from the palate on its bitterer aspects, it's the sumptuous juicy fruit that's the parting shot here which makes the beer very moreish indeed. It's only slightly weaker than the first beer of this post but packs so much more in.

Is it the packaging format that makes Holy Cowbell so amazing? No, I don't think so. It's spectacular on draught too, for one thing. I'll admit I like the practicalities of canned beer: the robustness and stackability, and the speed at which they chill. But I also respect the opinion of those fusty half-litre merchants at Thornbridge when they say the case for quality is unproven. For the moment I'm not fussed what a brewery puts its beer in, as long as what comes out is the grade of Undercurrent and Holy Cowbell.

Drinking in the RDS on St Patrick's Day is a proud Dublin tradition. Or at least it was until the early 1960s when the spoilsports in government made it legal for pubs to open, removing the necessity to feign interest in the Irish Kennel Club's annual dog show in order to take advantage of its refreshing licensing loophole.

This year the custom returned, in a manner of speaking. After four years in the docklands, the upstart little brother of Ireland's biggest beer festival has moved in next door to its sibling. To a bigger house, too. The 2015 Irish Beer & Whiskey Festival was held in Hall 1 at the RDS, a grand space with plenty of seats and room for the amateur drinkers to stagger safely.

It wasn't quite the extravaganza of limited-run beers that the September festival tends to be, but there was plenty to keep me occupied. Eight Degrees, for instance, was showing off Enigma, a 6% ABV pale ale made with the eponymous hops, a real Australian rarity. It reminded me most of Nelson Sauvin, in its milder, gooseberry manifestation. There's a melon rind quality too, and some red apple: all the dry, tart fruit, in short. It's decent drinking but could stand to be more complex.

The other new one from the Mitchelstown machine was Polar Vortex, a 5.8% ABV pale ale brewed with Cascade, Simcoe and Citra. I got a lot of resinousness from this and it's even a little acidic. Only the big malt body saves it from harshness. Rather than the hop explosions we've become used to from Eight Degrees, this is altogether more rounded and nuanced, something I certainly appreciated about it.

White Hag was present at the festival in a big way, bringing a nice comfy couch for the crew to lounge on behind the bar. It was a long five days of festival, after all. New beers included White Sow, a 5.2% ABV milk chocolate oatmeal stout. It sounds more interesting that it turned out to be. The milk chocolate is right there, smooth and sweet at the centre of the flavour, but that's about the extent of what happens. My attention wandered, even when sipping a sample. They also had a version infused with fresh coffee at the bar and that simply replaced one single-dimension flavour with another.

I was much more intrigued by Searbh Rua, described as an "imperial sour red". Wut? Well, it's 7.9% ABV, and very definitely red. But the first sip reveals it to be massively sweet. It certainly makes up for the stout's shortcomings in its complexity: I got raspberries, cherries and even chocolate in the first few seconds. The sourness arrives late, providing just a little kick of tartness right on the end. The alcohol heat is very present throughout and I'd be placing this on the shelf with the barley wines. It's not a clean and invigorating sour beer; more a warming fireside sipper.

The "OMG When Do You People Sleep?" award for overactive brewing activity went to Trouble who had three brand new beers, plus the regular range and minus one new one they didn't reckon was ready yet. My beer of choice, and beer of the festival, was Centennial SMASH, 4.8% ABV and served on keg and cask, though I only drank the latter. Knock a percentage point off this and we'd have Ireland's Jarl. It's has that dry and ever so slightly soapy floral character of the Scot, but a beautiful smoothness and plenty of bright, zippy citric notes. Insanely drinkable material.

I was less impressed by Wandering Star, a blonde ale with nothing much going on other than some dry grain husk and an unpleasant tang of marker pens. Fallen Idol cheered me right up after that: a murky brown ale smelling edgily of gunpowder and weed and with a powerfully juicy flavour, mostly consisting of abundant, decadent peaches. At 6.3% ABV it demands a bit of respect but is great fun at the same time.

My other festival highlight alongside Fallen Idol was O Brother's Bonita, another dark hop-forward beer. Instead of fruit flavours, however, this is big on piquancy: liquorice and perfumery spices are to the fore, backed by dark chocolate and a lip-smacking dry roast.

Other breweries I just tried one new beer from were Independent, which had a new IPA, a 7% ABV job utilising Citra, Cascade and Summer hops, smelling spicy and tasting very grassy but without being too bitter, balanced by a tasty sweet orange candy character; and Kinnegar, whose Cup & Saucer coffee stout really lays on the thick brown-sugar-laced coffee but there's plenty of roast so while it's certainly heavy, as befits 6.2% ABV, it's not sickly or difficult drinking.

White Gypsy had an Australian Pale Ale, 4.8% ABV, amber coloured, toffee aroma'd and tasting of perfume and caramel with a rather sticky texture. Much better was White Gypsy Helles, a tiny bit of diacetyl but also lots of crisp green celery and a little white pepper too, alongside a golden syrup sweetness. Its best feature is the texture: authentic Bavarian levels of soft smoothness making it very quaffable indeed.

Finally to Station Works. I mentioned in relation to their brown ale the other week that they've been doing local recreations of Cumberland Breweries beers. Two more to report on from this festival: Station Works Irish Stout is nicely dry with a sharp black malt edge but smooth too, making for a plain but easy-drinking pint. Only a slight rubbery waft in the aroma spoils it, and only a little. I liked Station Works Irish Blonde too: no aroma, but cool and crisp like a good lager, and every bit as refreshing. If Station Works has truly set itself a mission to breathe new life into cask beer in Ireland then this is sort of beer that could do it. This and Trouble Centennial SMASH, obviously.

A couple of north American beers today, shared by generous fellow beer nerds.

Nigel produced this bottle of Crooked Coast by Driftwood of British Columbia on a cross-country rail trip a few months back. The brewery has designated it as an altbier, and while I can see that -- it has the right sort of wholemeal biscuit malt base -- it's much bitterer than typical alt, with an unpleasant English-style waxy hit right at the front. That makes it much more like a brown bitter or a second-rate amber ale than an alt, and just not a great beer whichever way you slice it.

Meanwhile, this bomber of Stone Enjoy By 02.14.15 came via Steve and, for the record, was enjoyed just two days past the recommended date so shouldn't be too far from the brewer's intention. Besides which, it's 9.4% ABV: that seems like a stabilising strength to me, enough to carry a beer that was bottled on 9th January. It pours a clear gold and is hot and thick at first, greasy with hop oils and burning its way onto the palate with high-acid grapefruit. But a few sips in and it starts to balance out and make more sense. The heat and acidity die down a little and you're left with a mellow but spicy sipping beer. This is another one of those softly-spoken high-quality Stone beers that makes me wonder why they bother with all the bluster and machismo in their branding. "Devastatingly desireable"? I'm charmed, but I'm not devastated.

The Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company was kind enough to invite a Beoir delegation down to its headquarters in Bray for a look round and a run through the range. Established in 2014 by ex-home brewers inspired by the Colorado way of life, the compact ex-bakery near the station is now turning out 1,650 litres of beer at a time, 12 times a month, supplying 50 pubs and 200 off licences (yes, I took notes) with a range of four core beers and varying specials, all delivered unfined and unfiltered.

The brewery has been kitted out well for its new use, and particularly impressive is the tasting bar at the front: the sort of thing you'd be more likely to see in the US or London than Wicklow. Sadly it's not open for general public use. Stupid licensing laws.

I had been hoping to get a taste of the latest Wicklow Wolf seasonal, Falconer's Flight Blonde, but Quincey informed me that it had all left the brewery at that stage. Luckily, I happened across a bottle in DrinkStore a few days later and snapped that up. I still had a bottle of their last seasonal Blonde, Locavore, knocking around so I decided to open them side-by-side for comparison.

Six months on from brewing, Locavore has calmed down a little. The bitter lemon-and-wax effect I perceived when I first drank it has mellowed and there's more of a gentle sweetness going on. The new kid, however, has all of that wax in spades. Though the same colour and a tiny bit stronger, Falconer's Flight Blonde is assertively bitter, almost heading for a metallic tang. I noticed the fill level on the bottle was lower than on the Locavore and I'm putting the lighter carbonation down to that. After a moment or two at room temperature the malt starts to make its presence felt, adding an insistent honey and bubblegum complexity. The end result is something that tastes very much like a northern English golden bitter. Maybe not quite Boltmaker, but close your eyes and wish and you're nearly in the zone. The Falconer's Flight hop blend may be classically American, but this beer is a long way from Colorado.

Cheers to Quincey, Simon and the team for entertaining us. Wicklow Wolf has already expanded since our visit, with new tanks installed a few weeks ago. Though space is tight I completely agree with the management that there's a tangible benefit to being part of the neighbourhood rather than occupying just another anonymous industrial unit.

So slow is my transference of drinking experiences to this blog that it's possible to follow the evolution of individual beers, whole styles even, in single posts. Camden Town's Indian Summer was an exciting prototype on its second annual outing when I found it on tap in The Black Sheep in the middle of last year.

It arrived looking like a kristall weiss, clear gold in a tall Germanic pint glass, topped by a generous head. The aroma was unequivocally that of an IPA, all grapefruit, lime and mandarin. But it tasted like lager: crisp, fresh and with little aftertaste. While it certainly had plenty of hop oils lurking in there, the tropical fruit flavours took primacy over the bitterness just the way I like. The end result was a complex but very refreshing and drinkable beer, expertly hiding its hefty 6.4% ABV.

I looked forward to seeing more of it but it seems Camden Town weren't prepared to leave well enough alone and you can follow the transformation in more detail on Mr Curtis's blog here. Next thing I'm walking out of DrinkStore with a 33cl can of something called India Hells Lager.

Obviously it's almost impossible to compare Indian Summer meaningfully with its successor, a beer that seems to have become the brewery's flagship, or at least the product that gets talked about most. The golden colour and pillow of foam are repeated, though I got more sweet tropical fruit in the aroma: some pineapple in with your grapefruit. I think, however, that the lager element is lost in the flavour. There's a massive fresh cut-grass bitterness, almost peppery, and then the grapefruit, lime and all the rest of that. But this time the alcohol is very apparent, even though it's a smidge lower at 6.2% ABV: the texture is heavy, thick even, very much like a warm-fermented IPA. This isn't a bad thing, and really the residual sugar provides a stage for the big hops to act out their roles expansively. But I miss the clean, crisp quaffability of the original and found the intense lime pith of IHL just a bit too much like hard work to drink.

The lager gods have answered the prayers of hopheads and while I don't want to be one of those irrelevant old fossils bleating on about balance, I do prefer my superhopped bleeding-edge lagers to be a bit more, well, lagery.

Cherishing the children equally

Luck of the draw

Here we are now

Hold, fold and punch

Lager vs. Ale

The next round

Bakewell start

Events, dear boy

And not an Irish red to be seen

What else you got?

States of mind

Hungary for novelty

Grand tour

Out for a couple

Crap, three ways

Good things in small packages?

Funny place to bring a dog

Geeks bearing gifts

Flight of the wolf

Hells angles