Gone for groceries. Mayfield to Bradley's.

Gone for groceries. Mayfield to Bradley's. 

#walkies (with camera) 07.04.2021

Brighter days ahead (with the ESB!)

The Montenotte (above and below)

In the grounds of the former Marymount. Wellington Road.

Cork Arts Theatre, Carroll's Quay. Keepers of the flame, even these Covid days

Sign at the Abbot Ale House

Queen Anne House (early 18th century). Popes Quay

Lose this skin! Popes Quay

Iyers. Shutters down but you can still get the good stuff to take home

Smile! Popes Quay

Lunch on Popes Quay. Looks like a regular date

Popes Quay. Colour on a dull day.

North Gate Bridge. Shine a light.

Coleman's Lane (also below)

Many of Cork's medieval lanes (many no longer extant) are marked with these
signs, quite a few in North Main Street. All Elbow
Lane beers are named after local lanes.

A Quart of Ale± #45 On the craft journey with a mixed bunch. A Brown Ale, A Black Ale, And Two With ID problems! But Relax, All Drink Well.

 A Quart of Ale± #45

On the craft journey with a mixed bunch. 

A Brown Ale, A Black Ale, And Two With ID problems! But Relax, All Drink Well.

Wide Street “Peach Berliner” Sour or Wheat? 4.6%, 440ml via beercloud.ie

Well, the head on this vanished faster than that of an Alka Selzter. Colour is a hazy pale lemon, a bit like Lem-Sip. Are we having the cure first?

I’m expecting fruit and I get it in the aromas as it manages to make itself known through the funky stuff. And, yes, it is sour too on the palate, superbly so. And immediately you’re thinking, summertime in the open air, either a beer-garden or a back-garden. 

The fruit, not immediately identifiable as peach (more lemon than peach, I thought), is sharp and tangy and the mouthful is refreshingly dry. Apparently that dryness comes from their house yeast.

They say: Meet Peach Berliner. More than 12 months in production and 4 of those months on 100 kg of peaches and our take on the Berliner Weisse style. The refreshing tart peach flavour and aroma combined with a large percentage of wheat with a Brettanomyces and lactobacillus fermentation to deliver a fireside thirst quencher. 

Our house yeast is a custom blend of Brettanomyces, saccharomyces and lactobacillus strains from Bootleg Biology, a yeast laboratory based in Nashville, USA. This gives our beer a distinctive dry mouthfeel and enhanced fruity flavours. Available nationwide through Alpha Beer & Cider Distribution.

So quite a different animal all the way from the wide streets of Longford. Very different indeed. Excites the curiosity a fair bit and now I am on look out for their saison!

Fruit and Veg: Tried this with a bag of Joe’s Farm Vegetable Crisps, my last bag. And was delighted to see how they paired so well! The crisps are made on the Burns farm in East Cork from their own carrots, parsnips and beetroot.

Berliner Weiss, by the way, is a cloudy sour beer. It is a regional variation of the wheat beer style from Northern Germany, dating back to at least the 16th century. Wheat (and barley) is listed in the Wide Street ingredients along with with a 100gm of peaches!

The brewery have an informative article here about Brett in cans.

Whiplash “The Ocean Wide” Brown Ale, 6.8%, 440ml can*

Brown, going on black, is the colour of this ale, a tribute to the tale of Dingle’s Fungie. The head, a touch of coffee in the colour, doesn’t stay around as long as our mammal mate did in Kerry. Coffee, and indeed toffee, both with hints of roast, fill the nose without even having to place the proboscis that close to the glass.  And you meet the pair again on the palate, some chocolate now adding to the experience. Sweetness now but how much that owes to the adjunct Maple Syrup is hard to say. Must say, well not so much must, rather I’m quite happy to say I enjoyed this one.

Whiplash say Fungie was “doing tricks for hungover brewers on a boat of a Sunday morning down in Dingle harbour”. “That’s why he was our number 1. In his memory we’ve brewed the beer we can only assume he was really into – A maple syrup infused Brown Ale. We hope this would be his tipple. We don’t know where he is now. Hopefully he’s retired to warmer waters and we wish the lad well and thank him for his time with us.”

And where did the name come from? Over to Whiplash: As his best bud Paddy Ferriter put it: He can go where he like. There’s no one going to say to him “where did you come from?”, “where are you bound for?”. No. He has the ocean wide.

Me? I like the yarn. And I did enjoy my one and only trip out to Fungie along with kids of all ages. And yes I like the beer.

So Brown Ales? The New York Times: 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.

Other Irish Brown Ales (and neither very close to the Whiplash) worth looking out for are Ballykilcavan Bamrick’s and Lough Gill’s Mac Nutty, a nut brown ale (with toasted macadamia nuts).

Metalman “Moonbeam” India Black Ale, 5.0%, 330 ml can via beercloud.ie

Black, as you’ve no doubt guessed, is the colour; the soft head has a light coffee touch about it. I’ve been on the old cocoa lately so I recognise it in the smokey aromas. And in the flavours too but here the hops rule, tropical fruits, including pomegranate, getting a chance to shine right through the dry finish. This Waterford beer is yet another hybrid. Has ambitions to be a Black IPA but, black though it is, for now methinks it’s an ale rather than an IPA. 

They say: Moonbeam is brewed with a selection of New Zealand hops and balanced with plenty of dark malts to deliver a solid cocoa backbone. Dark and luscious, but deceptively light in body and smooth on the finish.

Früh Kölsch, 4.8%, 500ml bottle via Bradleys

This German beer comes with a bright and clear light-amber hue, a slim white head, with bubbles by the thousand racing to the top. After that it is crisp and refreshing, with no lack of flavour, from this easy-drinking beer.  It is a hybrid, as its production and subsequent beer drinking experience straddles both lager beers and ale. While it can be classed as a lager, it is top fermented (besides, malted wheat is one of the ingredients), so you could also call it a wheat beer..

The beer from Cologne (hence the Kölsch) has been around for centuries and the family owned company is in its fifth generation. The “deliciously palatable beer” is the Cologne specialty - and an original still brewed today according to the original recipe by Peter Josef Früh - from the best ingredients and in accordance with the German Purity Law. With such a long history you might be expecting a beer with more heft to it but the Früh Kölsch is a relatively simple drink that’s stood the test of time. Nowadays, you can also find an alcohol free version.

They say: Almost 400,000 hectoliters of Früh Kölsch now flow out of the brewing kettles every year. Today, early Kölsch is valued as a beer specialty far beyond the borders of the Rhineland. And so you can find early lovers not only between Heligoland and Munich, but also in over 30 export countries.

* sample supplied

A Quart of Ale± #40. On the craft journey with variations on a lager theme.

A Quart of Ale± #40

On the craft journey with variations on a lager theme.  

O’Hara’s Lager 4.5%, 500ml bottle via Radical Drinks

This Helles, a traditional lager style on the continent, has a lovely clear mid-amber colour with a myriad of little bubbles rising towards the shrinking white head. Aromas are pleasant if not intense. And on the palate you have a very pleasing smooth lager that heads confidently, full of flavour but with a balancing low hop bitterness (thanks to having been hopped several times), towards a clean and satisfactory finale.

They say: The hop profile is tailored to suit the craft beer drinker and the bitterness is clean and intense. The malty body pays tribute to traditional European lagers and an extra-long conditioning time allows the maximum array of lager flavours to develop. The combination of noble hops, speciality malts and a classic lager yeast strain allow the esters and hop aromas to combine and balance perfectly.

Brewed to the Helles style (combining the brewing methods of a pale ale to the lager style) developed by German and Czech brewers, this is a lager with true character. It is conditioned for over 4 weeks to allow the floral esters from the lager yeast to fully infuse into the brew and develop a well attenuated body. These offset the malt and hop aromas to produce a truly unique craft lager brewed with flavour. Can’t argue with that assessment. Class in a glass as far as I’m concerned. Helles by the way is not mentioned on the label.

Advice is to serve at 6-8°C with roast lemon chicken, Spanish paella and grilled seabass or snapper and more using the O’Hara’s Irish Craft Beer conical glass.

Weihenstephaner Original Helles, 5.1%, 500ml bottle via Bradleys

This German beer, from the oldest still existing brewery in the world, comes in a bright amber colour, with no shortage of bubbles streaming towards the slowly reducing white head. Spicy hops and malty sweetness can be found among the delicate aromas. The character shines through in the palate, strong and clean and refreshing. Terrific balance with a friendly light bitterness coming through also. Weihenstephan Original Helles is unique and exceptional and a regular award-winner.

 

The IBU figure, not given on all beers, is a modest 21. Serve at 6-8 degrees. Again, like many of the continental beers, the brewery comes up with a food pairing. Here they recommended Rump steak with marinade and give you the recipe as well. Check it out here.

Almost a thousand years ago Weihenstephan was the monastery brewery of the Benedictine monks. Then, the Royal Bavarian State Brewery stepped in and it is now operating as a state directed enterprise under the control of the Bavarian Government.

This bottom-fermented beer of Southern Germany is called Helles, which means both light and bright. Weihanstephaner also have a non-alcoholic version; check it out here.

Germany, by the way, is the “world’s fifth largest producer of beer” and “is also its second largest grower of hops”.

Rascals “Jailbreak” Helles Lager, 4.2%, 330 can via Bradleys

Colour of this Dublin produced lager is a light amber, no shortage of carbonation. No head worth talking about, at least from this can. Aromas are mostly floral. A pretty good Helles follows, decent body (soft and full), good balance between hops and malts as the lager smooths its way to an excellent finish. Now where would you get a pizza to go with it?

They say: In Inchicore, Dublin, we’ve a world class pizza restaurant with the freshest beer pouring straight from tank to tap. You can check out our event spaces and find out about brewery tours and the Rascals taproom experience at www.rascalsbrewing.com  

 

Geek Bits:

Malt: Bohemian Pilsner, Vienna, Melanoidin

Hops: Hallartau Mittlefruh

Yeast: Munich Helles

ABV: 4.2%

Wide Street “Mill Pils” Farmhouse Pilsner 5.5%, 440ml via beercloud.ie

Colour of this Wicklow Pilsner is a pale yellow, quite close to lemon, and cloudy, with lots of bubbles shooting up to the steady, if not substantial, head. No shortage of hops here so you notice them straightaway on the nose and soon on the palate, where you come across plenty of earthy character and a hint of spice and a good dry finish. Something that bit different and well looking out for, a lager with attitude.

The label reveals it’s unfiltered, unpasteurised and can-conditioned, containing yeast sediment. Fermented with the famous German strain 34/70 at 12 degrees then dry hopped 12g/l with Hallertau Mittelfrüh and Saaz blend to add an Italian twist and create a hoppy Pilsner.

Wide Street Brewing Company specialises in mixed fermentation methods and 100% Brettanomyces beers. The vision is to brew innovative beers with alternative fermentation methods. Their house yeast is a custom blend of Brettanomyces, saccharomyces and lactobacillus strains from Bootleg Biology, a yeast laboratory based in Nashville, USA. This gives the beer a distinctive dry mouthfeel and enhanced fruity flavours.

They say: It’s a Pilsner with a twist! This Farmhouse Pilsner is double dry-hopped with hopped with Hallertauer-Mittelfrueh brewed revealing traditional spicy and earthy notes. The inspiration behind this beer is an Italian Pilsner style. This is brewed with Chateau pilsner malt and a small addition of Cara pils. 

Not quite the “traditional” lager as we’d know it around here and might be just to dry and too hoppy for some traditionalists. On the other hand though, it would be very interesting to compare it in a head to head tasting with Fort of the Fianna by Eight Degrees, another Italian style lager. Actually, very recently and at the last minute, I did manage to do just that and must say, that the Wide Street may be a shade more hoppier and a touch drier, there is very little qualitative difference, both getting the thumbs up, not just from me, but from around the table!

A Quart of Ale± #39. Moving on over to craft with a session of IPA.

A Quart of Ale± #39

Moving on over to craft with a session of IPA.

Western Herd “Magic Road” IPA, 5.8%, 440ml can via Bradleys

Clare’s Western Herd bill this as a New England style IPA “brewed using experimental hops from the Charles Faram development program, so new to Irish brewing, they don’t even have names yet”.  They are acknowledged though via numbers on the can label.

Colour is a hazy lemon. Quite a bit of citrus (lemon) in the aromas along with a touch of pine. And you again meet the citrus and pine on the palate, nicely balanced here all the way through to the satisfactory finalé of this quite distinctive IPA with its dry and satisfying bite.

The instigators and leads of the Western Herd are the brother and sister team of Michael Eustace and Maeve Sheridan. “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.” Bridger Kelleher is the brewer. He’s from Montana where they know their beer.

Label tale: Those privy to the holiday episode of Father Ted will have heard about the “Magic Road” - a place on the mainland where the laws of gravity have no meaning. A physics-defying wonder where cars roll up it. So, it’s a sort of a “mad road’, according to Dougal.

Notes for the Geek:

Style
New England IPA

Hops
CF160 (Mystic), CF184, CF185

Malts
Pale, Malted Oats, Flaked Oats, White Wheat, CaraPils

Rascals Yankee White IPA, 5.0%, 330 can via Bradleys

Rascals introduce this “hybrid” as: American IPA meets Belgian Witbier. Yankee is a hybrid of the two styles, hopped like an American IPA with the malt bill of a wheat beer and fermented with Belgian Wit yeast. 

Mid-amber, slightly hazy, is the colour; bubbles galore and it comes with a big fluffy head that is inclined to hang about. Aromas, as you might expect from the hops used and the addition of orange peel, are heavily in the citrus spectrum, some pine and herb also in the complex mix. And you get much the same on the palate as the soft hop-loaded beer moves gently across. Soft and light but with a refreshing and crisp finish. While the touted contribution of spice from the Belgian yeast is barely noticeable, Witbier does have some presence here; however, the complex hop flavour is centre-stage and I’m happy enough to place this under an IPA heading.

FOR THE BEER GEEKS!

Style: White IPA
Malts: Lager, Wheat, Oats, Acid
Hops: Magnum, Mandarina Bavaria, Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo 

Other: Orange Peel

Bitterness: Medium

Label: IPA meets Belgian Witbier and orange peel. Unfiltered. Unpasteurised. 

Porterhouse “Yippy” IPA 5.0%, 500ml bottle via Bradleys

Mid-amber is the colour of this heavy-on-the-hops American style IPA from Dublin’s Porterhouse. Aromas are fresh, pine and citrus. And the hop bill too plays a prominent role in the mouth with citrus and pine to the fore. Quite an impressive presence actually and the nicely judged bitterness is another plus from this refreshing drink.

Hops are Cascade, Amarillo, Mosaic and Citra plus Nugget and centennial.  Malts are Ale Malt, Wheat Malt, Dextrin Malt, Oat Malt, Vienna Malt and the brewery’s suggested pairings are the old reliables Burgers and Chicken Wings

Quite a few of the newer craft breweries are keen to tout their environmental credentials and Porterhouse have quite a list to their credit.

• Our spent hops are collected by mulch (http://mulch.ie) and are used for composting.
• Our effluent treatment system ensures waste water is safe to release to the water supply. Regular testing both by the brewery and Dublin water ensures this.
• Our modern brewing equipment is designed with energy efficiency in mind, heat exchangers reclaim energy in the form of heat and an extensive insulation system ensures the efficient use of our refrigeration system.
• The Brewery is a verified member of Origin Green (https://www.origingreen.ie/), a Bord Bia initiative enabling Ireland’s food/Drink industry to set and achieve sustainable food/Drink production.
• Our spent grain is collected by a farmer south of Dublin and used as cattle feed.

Third Barrel “Break from the Haze” West Coast IPA 8.5%, 440 Bradley’s

Don’t always get along with high ABV beers but Break from the Haze is highly compatible. It is, though, quite hazy in the glass, colour is close to orange and there’s a slight head that hangs around (though briefly). Aromas are fruity (of the exotic kind), along with citrus and gooseberry.

The “stupidly big dose” of New Zealand Bruce (for the dry hop) makes an immediate impact on the palate but the tropical fruit stands out too. Dense, like most high ABV beers, but the balance works well here as heft and harmony combine to the satisfying finale. One to sip and savour as you try and work out the design on the can. Looks a bit like the fingerprint I use to sign in to the Apple!

They say: This big ass double West Coast IPA is brewed with Loral and Idaho 7 hops in the whirlpool and a stupidly big dose of New Zealand Bruce for the dry hop.

So who are They? Third Barrel is a unique concept, a collaboration brewery between Stone Barrel Brewing and Third Circle Brewing who have combined their experience, resources, love for brewing and absolute passion for beer to create one of Ireland’s most cutting edge breweries. They can be found in Bluebell (D12).

A Quart of Ale± #38. Continuing on the craft trail with a variety of IPAs.

A Quart of Ale± #38

Moving on over to craft with a variety of IPAs. 

Cotton Ball “Another Bloody IPA” IPA 6.00% Cotton Ball off licence.

The Cotton Ball’s “Another Bloody IPA” boasts an attractive dark amber colour and a myriad of bubbles, furiously making their way towards a white head that soon loses much of its early “bulk”. The aromas are strongly citrus, no surprise considering that they use blood orange zest and peel as an adjunct.

Quite a rich and flavourful mouthful with that Blood orange a light and pleasant (rather than forceful) presence. Biscuit malt gives it, yes, a biscuity flavour, and is quite a factor here.

This is what the brewery has to say:  “This isn’t just another IPA, this is our bloody IPA . Our blood orange infused IPA with a mixture of biscuit and Munich malt to give this beer a pleasant malty undertone.A full bodied IPA with a medley of USA citrus based hops, which is infused with blood orange zest and peel to create a fantastic citrus aroma.”

The Cotton Ball brewery is less than 200 metres from my house but my pleas for a direct pipeline have fallen on deaf ears! At least, their off-licence is open and the beers are otherwise widely available.

Growing up in the bar trade, it was always Eoin Lynch’s dream to put his own stamp on the well renowned Cotton Ball Bar (which was founded by his great grandfather Humphrey in 1874) and in 2013 he established the brewery in the basement of the historic pub. The brewery has taken on a life of its own and their beers are stocked far and wide on the island of Ireland and even in some other European countries.

Wicklow Wolf with Dot Brew “Guardian of the Galaxy” Double Black IPA 8.00%, 440ml can Bradley’s

The collaborating brewers, Wolf and Dot, have an out of this world sense of pun. Astronomical. Intergalactic. Space age. Well yeah, this is (still) the age for all three. And then there’s Cosmic Hops. Really? Galaxy, Strata and Milky Way. Oh sorry, Comet, not Milky Way. Just got my chocolate bars in a melt.

I suppose you could say, you wouldn’t be the first, that the hops are the stars of the show. The chocolate and coffee come through and there’s a pretty decent balance and a genuine bitter finish. 

If you’d like to explore the style, why not start at normal strength. Perhaps check out the excellent 5% Kinsale Black IPA (by Blacks, of course). 

Dot Brew So Far So Good session IPA, 3.5%, 440ml via beercloud.ie 

Colour’s a lot like unclear lemon juice, a murky one, and the head is slim and won’t be around for long. Hops dominate the nose.  And on the palate as well, those exotic fruits are to the fore, with mango leading the posse. Smooth and fruity all the way to the satisfying dry and bitter finish. Much more muscle to this one than the 3.5% abv suggests. Chalk it down for those sessions.

No point in looking in on their own website. No beer info at all. Their site just wants three hundred of your euro to continue their work. The label’s more helpful: easy drinking, bright and light. A fruity hop forward New England session IPA. Tropical fruit aromas. A healthy bang of Amarillo and Galaxy hops. Super smooth.

A general web search finds agreement that it is brewed with New England yeast without the murky but retaining all of the big bright stone fruit characteristics offset by a healthy dose of malted and flaked oats for a medium body / velvet mouthfeel. A double charged dry hop of Amarillo / Galaxy for a super tropical fruit bowl aroma. Hints of peach & pineapple. Finishes with a light dry bitterness.

Contradictions abound. It is not bright. It looks 

muddy. It is not without “the murky”, it is as murky as a welly disturbed woodland pond. It is however smooth and satisfying, no shortage of hops and no doubt a contender for your, and my, session nights. More than happy to have one in my fist and at least one or two more in the fridge.

Larkin’s & Catalyst Coffee Rwandan Coffee Rye IPA 7%, 440ml can via Bradley’s

This limited edition from Larkin’s, with the coffee roasted by neighbours Catalyst, was a lovely surprise. It has a murky orange colour. There seems to be a fair bit of carbonation present. And, yes, the aromas are of coffee. This is a complex mouthful, a smooth one too, where the harmonious combination of the hops and the coffee characteristics is rather impressive, something special. Exotic citrus stuff from the hops give bitterness enough with fruity notes from the coffee, notes (plum, apricot) I’d be hard pushed to find in the cup. A good deal better than I expected.

They say:  We teamed up with the coffee masters in @catalystcoffee_ in our home town of Bray for this collaboration. We chose a coffee from Rwanda this time round which gives hints of chocolate on the nose and a really velvety smooth flavour on the palate. Cold brewed so don't expect this to be a dark bitter coffee experience. It’s subtle and gentle and balances with the hops and malt rather than trying to over power them. Limited edition.