Siren Sounds with a Pumpkin Alert

Siren Craft is a big name in UK brewing.  I first became aware of it in 2014 after having a very appealing Soundwave, a US west coast IPA.  Siren Craft hail from the west of London direction near Reading and three of their recent offerings had me praising any 1 of the supposed 5 made up patron saints of beer.  Religion sucks by the way.

First up Hillbilly Wine, labelled as a passion fruit and oak IPA. Damn they weren't wrong there, oodles of juicy passion fruit coming through and as you would expect, a light smokiness from the oak.  The 9% ABV is fantastically well hidden and this Hillbilly ain't no gormless redneck neither. Beautiful.



Next, the Cigar City collaboration 8.4% ABV Barrel Aged Caribbean Chocolate Cake.  I'm a fan of the original Caribbean Choc Cake which is like liquidising a Death by Chocolate dessert and ramming it in a bottle. Now imagine before the bottling process, sticking it in a bourbon barrel for a year. Maybe not to everyone's taste as the vanilla and bourbon may be a little sweet for some, but I love this style and I loved this.



Suitably salivating like a demented window-licker, the taste buds were equally in for a treat with another collaboration, this time with New Zealand's Garage Project for the 2016 Rainbow Project.  Blacklight Banana at a hefty enough 9.2% ABV has a lovely smokey aroma from the barrel aged coffee beans that lead into a subtly sweet molasses/banana combo upon tasting.  Crazy ingredients but wow do they work superbly.



Moving onto this year's pumpkin beers (or at least the ones that are available in Northern Ireland)... there aren't many.  I did a review of pumpkin beers a couple of years ago where I managed to track down five.  Alas this year I managed only two.  Thankfully my preference of the five was available again this time around - 7.2% ABV Stingy Jack by Beavertown.  What used to be a 660ml bottle is now a 330ml can and all the better for it.  Very fresh, slightly fruity with a sweet spiciness of maple syrup, nutmeg, clove and cinnamon.



Finally from New York, Brooklyn's 5% ABV Post Road Pumpkin Ale.  Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't have that little punch of spicy excitement that comes with Stingy Jack.  A little nutmeg but a lot less boom for your buck.

Portrush - Land of Barry's, Chips & Beer Festivals

Make no mistake, I love Portrush.  It's where the family would take day trips when I was a child and it's where I now take my family for the same - driving the dodgem cars and sliding down the helter skelter at Barry's amusements, eating a 10% meat (probably) sausage supper in a chippy and generally enjoying life.  Life got even better last weekend when the town's co-op brewery Lacada hosted the 1st Portrush Beer and Food Festival in the impressive town hall. As well as the host, north coast local breweries Northbound, Glens of Antrim and O'Connor were present alongside Farmageddon, Knockout, Co. Donegal's Kinnegar, 8 Degrees from Co. Cork and Yellowbelly from Co. Wexford.  Add to that Bushmills and Long Meadow cider.

First was an interesting new brew released for the festival.  Lacada already have a sour, Eldersauer, but Sauer Beans has the addition of coffee beans in collaboration with Portrush's harbour cafe, Babushka.  Putting it gently - beardy hipsters look away now - I'm not the greatest fan of sours, but Sauer Beans (4.2% ABV) ticked some of the boxes that most sours don't tick for me.  It wasn't overpowering and there was a gentle belly tickle of coffee.  Mrs W really liked it and I must confess I sort of liked it too - it was interesting mix of light gooseberry and coffee bean (is there another Irish coffee sour on the market?)

It was great to see three well respected southern breweries represented and fair play to the organisers for securing them.  Kinnegar from Rathmullan in Co Donegal already have a very visible presence in Northern Ireland but less so Yellow Belly from Wexford.  The brewery lies beneath Simon Lambert & Sons pub and they brought a seriously impressive range of nine beers with them - from fruity sours and pale ales to imperial IPAs.

My choice of Yellow Belly's was the cask Imperial IPA Queen Lizzie (8.3% ABV) - a single dry hopped English ale. Some hints of citrus fruit at the start following on with a welcoming dryness. Congrats to Yellow Belly for their branding - every one of their pumpclips is, literally, a work of art.

It was also great to see County Cork's 8 Degrees at the festival.  Co-brewer Scott is from New Zealand and I wonder how much influence one of Lacada's founders, Kris of Kiwi's BrewBar in Portrush, had in their appearance?  Anyway, on tap when I was there on the Friday were the Amarillo IPA, Kolsch style Going Out Out, DIPA Supernova, which I'd tried at the recent Irish Beer Festival in Dublin, and the always tasty Full Irish - brewed using 100% Irish malt.

A tip of the hat to Michael O'Connor of O'Connor Craft Beer near Greysteel for the Game of Thrones inspired A Beer Has No Name.  He confessed that after brewing the amber he still didn't have a name shortly before the festival started.  However his GoT loving brother came up with the title, much to Michael's confusion as he doesn't watch the show.

Again congratulations to all involved with the creation and smooth running of the 1st Portrush Beer and Food Festival.  I've only mentioned a small snippet of what was available so if you fancy seeing more I'm sure the organisers are already planning 2017's festival ... aren't they?

It's great to see another reason for heading to the Port - man cannot live by chips and roller coasters alone.