CorkBillyBeers #11. Craft with APA style beers by Western Herd, Ballykilcavan, West Cork Brewing, Larkins

CorkBillyBeers #11

Craft with APA style beers by Western Herd, West Cork Brewing, Ballykilcavan, Larkins

*********************

Western Herd Spanish Point APA, 5.9%, 440ml can, The Cru

In September 1588, the Spanish Armada came to grief on the Clare coast in a savage storm. The legend lives on in the name of the place and in the name of this American Pale Ale (APA) from the Western Herd brewery. 

The pungent aromas of the all-American hop quartet make their presence felt at the outset, even as you pour this mid-golden American Pale Ale with its white head that doesn’t hang around too long. Notes of pine and citrus shine in the dank background of the palate. Good thing! (I’ve been listening to Roland Gift recently). The impression has been building, time to sit back and enjoy (and put away the notebook and maybe play the FYC on YouTube).

The Western Herd brewery stands on a picturesque Clare hilltop farm in a converted shed built over 80 years ago “by our great-grandfather”.

“We are a brother and sister team brewing beer the way nature intended.  Our great, great, great, great, great, grandfather farmed the land where our brewery now stands.  Every time we would visit the farm growing up we would think ‘if only we could bottle this’!!!  We aspire to brew beers that embody the charm and character of this idyllic hilltop farm on the west coast of Ireland.”

The brother and sister are Michael Eustace and Maeve Sheehan and the brewer, who just turned up and walked in one day in 2018, is Bridger Kelleher from Montana.

Geek Bits

Style: American Pale

Hops
Colombus (Dank, pepper, pungent), Centennial (blossom, orange, resinous), Chinook (Grapefruit, pine, spice), Simcoe (pinem grapefruit, berry)

Malts
Stout Mix, Crystal

Very Highly Recommended.

*********************

West Cork Brewing Beacon of Hops American Pale Ale, 4.1% ABV, 500ml bottle Ballymaloe Craft Fair

Sherkin Lass has been a favourite with West Cork Brewing customers since they opened in 2014. Now the long standing favourite is reportedly under pressure from this relative newcomer.

Colour is a hazy orange with a soft white top that soon sinks down too to a slim disc. It’s got quite an attractive aroma, citrus and malt. And that sets the scene for the palate where the flavours are citrus led with the malt  (with a slight hint of caramel sweetness) again providing the balance so it turns out fruity and just mildly bitter. Excellent body feel and a lip smacking finish. The brewers recommend pairing it with fish, white meats, mild cheese and salads.

Like all of their beers, this is brewed using their own spring water, is bottle conditioned, unfiltered and vegan friendly. The 2014 brewery is the first Brew-Hotel to set up in Ireland.

Highly Recommended

*********************

Ballykilcavan Line Blocker Hazy Pale Ale, 4.9%, 440 ml can, CraftCentral

Ballykilcavan tell us this New World hazy pale ale “is packed with Citra and Amarillo hops”. By the way, did you know Citra is one of the top three most grown hops in the world and is also in the US top five? 

The Line Blocker was one of first ever canned beers at Ballykilcavan. A hazy pale ale, double dry hopping helped promote the aromas and flavours of citrus and tropical fruits that you’ll find.

Colour is a murky amber/orange with a white head that soon runs out of depth. Hops are certainly evident in the aromas with exotic fruits (mango, pineapple, grapefruit and guava) fighting with citrus for space. And it is much the same on the packed palate with mango getting its nose in front of the hop posse. A good stiff drink though (with a resinous backbone), strong lip-drying finish too, thanks to all those hops.

The other ingredients are Malted Barley, oats, water, and yeast. IBU is  54.

If you'd like to join visit the brewery, they’d love to show you around. “You'll hear the family stories from the more than 380 years that we've been at Ballykilcavan, and see the 18th century farmyard behind the brewery. Weather permitting, we'll bring you to the old stable yard, the champion black walnut tree of Ireland and the remains of the walled garden. Then we'll bring you into the brewery itself to find out how we make our beers.”

A few tips here from suppliers CraftCentral

• Refrigerate on delivery. Especially the hoppy ones.
• Store beers upright
• Avoid light
• Enjoy with friends!
• Do not age for too long - hoppy beers are very sensitive!

The Line Blocker is Highly Recommended.

*********************

Larkins Hustler Pale Ale 4.5% ABV, 440ml can CraftCentral

Larkins tells us this is their “classic best-selling pale ale rebranded for the new range. Hoppy but low in bitterness this beer has been a craft beer favourite since 2018.”

Pale it is, almost lemon in colour, and also very hazy, certainly not see through. The bubbly white head sinks slowly. Aromas are of the hoppy citrus kind and the hops are also in charge of the refreshing palate. For all that though, the finish is not as grippy as you might expect. Not a bad balance at all and a decent refreshing drink indeed.

Recommended

*********************

CorkBillyBeers #10. Craft journey with Brown Ales from Ireland and Belgium: Ballykilcavan, Whiplash, Bacchus, and Chimay

CorkBillyBeers #10

Craft journey with Brown Ales from Ireland and Belgium: Ballykilcavan, Whiplash, Bacchus, and Chimay

********************

Bacchus Flemish Old Brown, 4.5% ABV, 375 ml bottle The Cru

Bacchus introduce Old Brown (Oud Bruin) as “A typical Flemish beer with a pleasant taste of wine...and a rich past. Partially matured in oak barrels, this dark brown beer has moderately fruity aromas and a slightly acidic aftertaste.” This type of beer has been brewed in West Flanders since the 17th century.

Colour is brown as you’d expect with a slight tan head that barely says hello before its fades, leaving just a trace on top. It is indeed a mild one and the first taste indicates a tart wine-like acidity (somewhat similar to what you’ll find in the Basque wine Txakoli) but that moderates soon enough. That fresh sweet-sour taste is, the producers say, typical for this type of beer. The sweetness, nothing mega, comes from the touch of caramel from the roasted malt while the sourness is “is less pronounced than the sourness of other Flemish red-brown beers”.

And another odd thing is that there is no label,  no info at all on the bare bottle, but it comes on the unusual paper wrap! It informs us it is a mixed fermentation beer with sugar and sweetener and that the ingredients are water, barley malt, sugar, wheat, hop, spices, aromas, sweetener. That sweetener is steviol glycosides, aneis around 150-300 times sweeter than sugar! Check it out here,  if you are inclined!

Bacchus Oud Bruin was launched in 1955, making it their oldest beer. The Bacchus Kriek (in my queue) and Bacchus Raspberry are brewed on base of Bacchus Oud Bruin. Once I settled in to it, I found it quite a lively and refreshing beer with a pleasant finish, perhaps more suited to the garden in summer.

This beer was not designed to be a culinary or gastronomic beer, unlike some other beers within the extensive Van Honsebrouck range. When Oud Bruin was developed in the 50s as a beer style, no thought was given to gastronomy when brewing beer.

More about the brewery here.

********************

Chimay Red “Brown Ale”, 7.0 % ABV, 330 ml bottle Bradleys

The Chimay Red is the oldest of the Chimays. It gets its name from the the colour of the label. The colour of the beer is a multi-hued copper tinted brown (from copper to deep ruby) with a tan head that sinks down to a thin disc without too much delay.

Malty aromas, fruity and toasted, invite you on to the palette where you meet them again in the flavours. Fruits such as orange, peach and apricot now meld with sweet honey, nougat and baguette from the malt. And yet, there’s a delightful balance from first to last, minerality, aromas and flavours all combining in bringing a super conclusion as the aftertaste lingers

The Authentic Trappist Product label certifies that this ale is brewed in a Trappist abbey and that the majority of sales income is intended for social aid. Chimay Red was brewed for the first time in 1862.  

The perfect pairing for the Chimay Red is with Chimay cheeses but particularly with the Grand Chimay.

Trappist beers are among those that age gracefully. Brew Dog's Great Beer for the People list three requirements: high ABV, low hops, and bottle conditioned. Trappist beers tick those boxes and “they get softer, sweeter and fruitier.  …… They age beautifully.”

Ingredients: water, barley malt, sugar, wheat starch, hop, spices, yeast, 

********************

Ballykilcavan Bambrick’s Brown Ale, 5.8%, 440 ml can, The Cru

"Possibly the beer we're best known for! A beer to savour all year round, but it does really suit these shorter, cooler Autumn evenings. Enjoyed all the way from Laois to Lombardy," says David Walsh-Kemmis of Ballykilcavan.

This Bambrick’s Brown Ale is brewed with barley and water sourced from the family farm in County Laois. It is named after Joe Bambrick who worked on the farm for sixty years. And, believe it or not, the Walsh family have been farming here through 13 generations, since 1639!

Not a Belgian style beer this time but a Brown Ale based on the rich and malty American style. The ingredients are simple: malted barley and wheat, water, hops and yeast.

It is a dark brown colour with a tan head that slinks away rather quickly. Aromas are modest with a little fruit (including slight cherry notes) coming through the chocolate and toffee. Superb on the rich and malty palate, just a soft touch of hops, roasted coffee and burnt toffee all the way through to the dry lip-smacking finish.

IBU of this one is 26. It seems to be quite a successful style for Ballykilcavan and, in a recent post, brewery co-founder David Walsh-Kemmis indicated that they may well have another example or two during 2023. They already make an Export Bambrick’s with an 8% ABV so I must watch out for that!

Very Highly Recommended

********************

Whiplash Quiet Crowd Robust Brown Ale 5.0%, 330 ml can Whiplash Online

Colour’s more black than brown and there’s a silky and tight knit tan foam that hangs about a bit.  The aromas, of modest intensity, are on the malty side, caramelised and toasty, with prominent coffee notes. And so too are the roasty flavours (not too modest now though!) and there’s quite a depth here with chocolate, caramel and bread. Really impressive. 

Malt certainly has the upper hand, yet there is a very satisfactory lip smacking finish with enough bitterness to allow the malt shine without having it too sweet, that balance coming despite the heavy use of caramel and aromatic malts.

Not sure the 5% would qualify it as robust though! According to the Beer Bible, you are more likely to find these nowadays in Chicago rather than on this side of the Atlantic.

Very Highly Recommended

********************

Ballykilcavan Beers. The taste of Laois in your glass.

Ballykilcavan beers. 

The taste of Laois in your glass.

The restored mill race and clock on a frosty morning.

Another award for Lisa and David

Since David and wife Lisa set up the brewery business in 2017 - the brewery itself followed a year later - the Ballykilcavan beers have earned quite a reputation in the craft world. We had an online chat with David - a busy man - and you can read about his drive and hard work, the pride in his area and county, a drive and pride shared by Lisa and the younger members of the family. 

Since 1639, Ballykilcavan Farm has been the home of the family; no less than 13 generations have lived and worked here since.  With the current careful stewardship of the land, it looks as if the story will go on and on.

What stands out  about your brewery, your beers? Is there something

unique?

David: I think the first thing you notice when you visit the brewery is the

setting - the brewery itself is in a 240 year old stone building, and

the new visitor centre beside it is in the old farm mill house.  In

terms of the beers, one thing we're very proud of is sourcing our own

water, barley and some hops from the farm.  All the beers are brewed

using our own barley, and we make one beer every year where all the

ingredients are sourced from the farm, all from within 400 metres of the

brewery.

The ever popular Bambrick's Brown Ale, the beer they are best known for, enjoyed all the way from Laois to Lombardy.

Who started the brewery? Who is the current brewer?

David: I started the business along with my wife Lisa back in 2017 and set up

the on-farm brewery in 2018.  In fact, Nigel Oakes, our first head

brewer, physically put the brewery together.  It arrived flat pack in

two shipping containers, and Nigel had a two week job of putting all the

vessels in exactly the right place on the brewery floor and then

connecting up all the pipework.  Nigel retired in 2021, and our new Head

Brewer is Joe O'Driscoll who comes up with all the recipes and runs the

brewery.

What are your core beers? Which is the favourite of the brewery team?

David: We had a wide range of core beers, probably too wide because trying to keep them all in stock in cans, bottles and kegs is pretty hard for a brewery on the scale that we're at.  We brew a lager, a pale ale, 3 IPAs, a red ale, a brown ale and a stout, along with seasonal and one-off specials.  We're not allowed to have a favourite - it's like asking which of our children is our favourite - but personally I do change my drinking habits over the course of the year: pale ales and the lager in the summer, and the darker beers in the winter.

Cleo, the brewery "guide" and photo bomber!

Any new beers in the pipeline?

David: There are always new special edition beers in the pipeline, but I'm not allowed to tell you what they are until Joe's happy with the recipes! All I can say for now is that there will also be more and different brown ales coming out.

Are you selling mainly in pubs or in off licences. Restaurants maybe?

David: In Ireland, it's mainly what we call small-pack: bottles and cans.

We're starting to get a bit of traction in local pubs, but draught sales

are the hardest part of the market to crack in Ireland.  For export,

it's completely the other way around - almost everything we export is in

kegs, with a few cans going out as well.

This plank for the taproom comes from the Kylebeg Wood on the farm

What’s your typical day like? No shortage of variety?

David: There's no typical day for me, really.  I'm still farming and now I do

the guided tours of the farm and brewery as well as the behind-the-scenes work on the brewery, so it really just depends on the time of year and what we're doing on the farm, or what groups are turning up for a tour.  If we're brewing, I usually start mashing in at 8am before the brewers come in around 9:30 to take over the rest of the brew day, and then it's just a case of keeping all the other plates spinning after that.

Welcome to the tour!

Tell me about one time when things went wrong. How did you learn from that failure? Can you look back and laugh about it now?

David: We roast our own barley here, which is tricky as it doesn't take long at all for barley to go from not roasted enough to being on fire.  One time, we had what we thought was properly roasted barley and brewed a stout with it, but when it was in the fermenter, we realised that it was much too light in colour, so we converted it into a porter and barrel aged it instead, and it went down really well.  The lesson is to double check the roast levels before you end up with a lot of beer that doesn't fit the style you're trying to make.

How do you choose which styles of beer to brew?

David: The first beer we brewed was our Bin Bawn pale ale.  It's the one beer

in the range that is my recipe from my homebrew days, before Joe came in

and showed he was a natural at putting recipes together.  The aim with

it was to make it interesting enough for craft beer drinkers, but not

too overpowering for everyone else, because craft is still only about 3%

of the overall beer market.

How is your beer connected to the local area?

David: I think the main way is in how we use our locally grown ingredients to make the beers.  If you're drinking a beer like our Brickyard red ale, where most of the taste is coming from the malt, that's the taste of Ballykilcavan and Laois right there.  We also like to get involved in the local community as much as possible, so we sponsor the local soccer and GAA teams, and we provide free access to the farm and event space here for local community, arts and schools groups.

Hop pickers in action last October

Water. Hard or soft? Is there much adjusting involved?

David: The water here tastes lovely, but it's off the scale hard.  Even in the

house we can't use it without furring up kettles and washing machines.

All our production water goes through a reverse osmosis (RO) system that

basically converts it to purified water, and then we re-mineralise it

depending on the beer style.  Our thinking is that you can't brew a

lager and a stout, for instance, off the same water supply - you have to

have a water profile that suits each beer.  By starting with the RO

water, we can make sure our water profile perfectly matches the beer

style and then build the malt and hops on top of that.

Our post on 9 White Deer Ballyvourney.

Over the next few weeks we'll be posting about some of the Ballykilcavan beers. For more info, on tours for instance, check out their social media.

Twitter: @Ballykilcavan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ballykilcavan

Instagram: ballykilcavan

Website: https://www.ballykilcavan.com/index.html

A Quart of Ale± #100. Quite a quartet for the 100th: Whiplash, Dot Brew, Ballykilcavan and Boundary.

 A Quart of Ale± #100

Quite a quartet for the 100th: Whiplash, Dot Brew, Ballykilcavan and Boundary.

Whiplash Smoke Stack Lightnin’ Oaked & Smoked Brown 8.5%, 440 ml can Bradleys

Oaked and Smoked it is with its tanned head over a very close to black body. Aromas are also from the dark side, rich dark dates and raisins come with toast and in a wee cloud of coffee, may even have been a bit of smoky bacon in the background, even though Whiplash say it is not a Rauchbier. Complex, isn’t it?

It doesn’t get any simpler on the delicious palate, just better. Toasty in the main from the Brown and Biscuit malt used and the smoke’s around as well. Add in the light tannin of the oak while the yeast contributes a mild sweet nuttiness to the complexity. And yet, it is superbly balanced. Lipsmacking and totally satisfying to the finalé. Think I may live forever on the dark side.

They say: It’s still cold out there, and we’ve still room for some malty winter-ish warmers in us. Here’s Smoke Stack Lightnin’, an oaked & smoked big brown. After ferment we age this one in a light amount of American Oak. Not going for big vanilla barrel aged here, just a reminder of how beer used live for a week or two before the days of stainless steel.

Geek Bits

Pilsner Malt, Smoked Malt, Brown Malt, Dark Crystal Malt, Biscuit Malt, Flaked Barley, and Columbus hops.

Old English ale yeast

ABV 8.5%

440ml Cans

Artwork by @sophie_devere

Dot Brew When the Going Gets Gose 4.0%, 440ml can Bradleys

Coriander and Salt are among the ingredients here, a clue that this is a gose! The Beer Bible suggests that the flavour of this style of beer “is something like salted yoghurt”.

So, okay, we proceed with caution! Colour is not alarming at all, a light orange but murky. Perhaps that’s coriander in the herby aromas, light floral notes too. And then on the tangy palate, you may detect clove notes and the lemony tartness introduces itself, the coriander and salt duet towards the finish. Yet there’s nothing extreme here in the Dot Brew version; it is all very approachable, quite a pleasurable and refreshing beer indeed.

The can’s list of ingredients: Barley, Oats, Wheat, Hops, Salt, Coriander, Yeast.  The variety of the other ingredients has reduced the effects of the hops leaving us with a bright, zingy and refreshing beer. As they say themselves: “An easy drinking mixed fermentation tart ale built with pilsner malt and pale wheat.”

Gose-type beer is a beer originally made in Germany in the Goslar salt mining region, where the local water contributed the salty element.

Ballykilcavan Export Bambrick’s Brown Ale, 7.5%, Whiskey Chats Birthday Pack

“I’m in farming mode now,” said Ballykilcavan’s David Walsh-Kemmis as he joined a recent Zoom where the subject was whiskey. Whiskey? Yes, indeed. Ballykilcavan has been building strong links with the national spirit over the past decade or so. Their barley is used by Waterford while Irish Distillers have used their oak to make a limited amount of casks (for Dair Ghaelach).

This particular beer was one of the non-whiskey drinks for the Zoom tasting. David explained that the brewery is part of the diversification of the farm: “This is the export version of Bambrick, nice and malty with toffee and caramel, at 7.8%. Very much a malt beer yet not malt driven, a real flavour beer. It’s made with amber and crystal malt from our own barley.”

Deep brown going on black is the colour here, with a tan head. Aromas are chocolate and coffee. It is indeed rich and satisfying on the palate, a broad deep flavour, but quite a balance there too, maybe something mineral from their spring water and the land through which it flows, to help you to both enjoy the chocolate and burnt toffee flavours and enable the refreshing finish.

So what’s an American brown ale? The New York Times says: 

Brown ales and like-minded styles — including straightforward lagers, pilsners and porters — to name a few, are very different sorts of beers (to IPAs). They occupy subtler realms, quenching thirst with pure flavors and perhaps a snappy zestiness in the case of pilsner and a rich depth in the case of porter. They are not flamboyant styles that wow with complexity or make themselves the centers of attention. They simply satisfy. It’s the kind of beer that gets left behind in our I.P.A. culture.

The Beer Bible: Standard American Brown Ales generally weigh in at about 5% ABV and are accented toward malt richness.

Reckon the standard 5.8% Ballykilcavan Bamrick’s more or less fits the bill while this Export has a bonus for you!

Boundary Love is Here Hoppy Table Beer Pale Ale 2.6%, 440ml can Bradleys

On the lookout for a low alcohol beer? This Belfast offering, weighing in at 2.6 abv, could well fit the bill. Known in France as bière de table, table beers—are a low-ABV, malty, Belgian tradition.

Here though the tables are turned and this is a hoppy one. Boundary say: A full on hop assault in the kettle and fermenter ensures this low abv beer packs a punch. 

This is a hazy beer with a white head over a lemon-juice coloured body. The hops used are an American trio of Cascade, Citra and Simcoe and the Australian Vic Secret. Expect pine notes along with exotic fruit such as mango, pineapple and grapefruit and indeed that is what you get.

Superbly flavourful for a such a slight abv and just enough bitter notes to ensure a refreshing and balanced finish. Enjoy one. Or two!