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.

Northern Ireland's Gypsy Breweries

At my last count there are now 25 breweries from Northern Ireland.  Or are there?

It's difficult to keep up with the wave of new beers and breweries coming from Northern Ireland over the past few weeks and it's great to see but not all NI breweries are in NI.  I've no problems where a beer is brewed: Belfast, London, Timbuktu, wherever - as long as it tastes good.  World class Danish brewers such as Mikkeller and To Øl fit into the 'gypsy' category and I don't hear anyone complaining about them ... for very good reason.

A couple of the newest brewers are registered here but come from outside our wee country - and that's grand.  The newest one I've come across is Sailortown Beer. Named after the historic port area of Belfast, this Czech-style pilsner is made by Carrig Brewing Company from Co. Leitrim - also expect a pale ale and red ale soon.  Pils and lagers aren't my cup of tea (?) due to them traditionally being a bit thin and very mild on taste (as Sailortown Beer is) but it will, no doubt, appeal to the lager drinkers and hopefully entice them to try something different.

Something I was more pleased with and has also just been released is Gallopers Golden Ale.  Declan Holmes (Eamonn's son) is the man behind Night Cap Beer Co. and at the moment this is brewed by Sadlers Ales in the English West Midlands.  By Declan's own admission he's appealing to the non-craft drinkers - it's light and slightly citrussy and it has to be better than drinking any of the macros out there.

On to a seasonal belter of a beer now.  Mourne Mountains (definitely brewed in Northern Ireland!) released the Pumpkin Porter and in my humble opinion it's one of the best local beers I've tried this year.  A very mild coffee aroma, good body with a slight, but not overpowering, taste of chocolate and spice.  Pumpkin/Hallowe'en beers are a tricky tightrope for brewers and this one is very impressive.

Finally a word on the new co-operative brewery from Portrush, Lacada.  Conceived along the same publicly funded lines as Belfast's Boundary Brewing, Lacada have a trio of new brews: a golden ale Sorley Boy's Stash, Giant's Organ IPA and Stranded Bunny porter.  Cracking names.

Pumpkin Beer

The Hallowe'en party time has come and gone and kids everywhere have thrown their manky old and wilted pumpkins in the bin.  But what else is a pumpkin good for apart from displaying on October 31st?  
Soup, stew, even ravioli.  What about ... beer? Now bear with me on this, don't screw your nose up like that.

One of my favourite Ulster beers is from Rathmullan in Co. Donegal, Kinnegar Brewing's Long Tongue - a pumpkin beer with added ginger. This review doesn't include that one as it's not yet on the shelves, will be soon though.

Over Hallowe'en I did manage to track down 5 pumpkin beers and here's what I thought of them.  (The quick review is Beavertown's Stingy Jack is the best by a county mile - the longer review is below)

 

TROUBLE BREWING'S PUMPKIN BREW (County Kildare)
4.5% abv
Red ale with strange spice mix.  Could have had more pumpkin flavour and also a bit too sweet for me.

BROOKLYN BREWERY'S POST ROAD (New York)
5% abv
More carbonated than Trouble Brewing and with slight nutmeg spice.  Very fresh and easily downed.

BEAVERTOWN BREWERY'S STINGY JACK (London)
7.2% abv
The Beavertown website website modestly states this as "The best damn spiced pumpkin ale you will ever sup on. Fact."  And batta bing, they're bang on the money.  This phenomenal beer is brewed with maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove and cinnamon!  Hunt it down, buy a few and repeatedly enjoy.  Oh yes.

 

FLYING DOG BREWERY'S THE FEAR (Maryland, USA)
9.0% abv
The strongest of the lot here, this rich imperial porter does pack an alcohol punch.  In my opinion, the alcohol greatly overpowered the taste of any actual pumpkin.  Bit of a shame.  It was still a decent slightly spicy beer but fell short of tasting how a pumpkin beer should - that is - of pumpkins.

RED HAND BREWERY'S PUMPKIN ALE 
(Co. Tyrone)
4.5% abv
I first tried this just after Hallowe'en and I have to admit I wasn't impressed. Very sharp and bitter (Mrs W even made a comparison with TCP).  I tried another a few days later in case I had a bad bottle.  It was the same - so bad I had to throw it down the sink.  And I hate doing that.  
(Edit. Simon from Red Hand saw this review after publication and very kindly contacted me to apologise for the beer being off. It had obviously become infected and should not be been sold he said. Thank you for your honesty and kind apology.)

Anyway, I hope you had a good Hallowe'en and here's to enjoying the Kinnegar offering when it appears.

Cheers
Roy

www.twitter.com/roywillighan