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Spring cask-cade
The Spring 2026 JD Wetherspoon Beer Festival has just come to an end. As usual, I made an effort to try as many of the 30 specials as I could conveniently locate in Dublin. Handily, Keavan's Port jumped the gun, and had three of the beers pouring a couple of days before the official kick-off on 5th March. Two of those were the prestige international collaborations, so I started on Malteza Session IPA , brewed at Oakham under the supervision of Cervecería Malteza of Mexico. At 4.8% ABV, it's a bit overclocked for "session", I reckon, though there's more than a hint of Oakham magic about it. Brewed with Citra, Amarillo and Cascade, it has the fresh bittersweet lemon zing of Oakham's own Citra pale ale. Gravity be damned, this is seriously sessionable stuff. The cleanness and simplicity may, however, be a flaw, because the beer has added hibiscus, and I could find very little sign of that. Normally, it manifests for me as a cherry or raspberry tang, and there's maybe a tiny hint of the la
fromThe Beer Nut - news
Little by little
Looks like it's time for me to get my Little Thing out again. The latest in Sierra Nevada's seemingly endless variations on its signature hazy IPA is Citra Little Thing . As usual, the can is most uninformative, beyond the ABV of 7.5%, but the brewery website tells me it's not a single-hopper, the Citra joined by Simcoe. It's reasonably hazy, though not the full-on beaten-egg emulsion you get from the more extreme practitioners of the art. It smells reasonably juicy, though with more of a fruit candy vibe than actual juice: Skittles, Starburst, that kind of thing. For all the alcohol, the flavour is quite muted, I thought, and there's none of the hop vibrancy I had been expecting. You could argue that Citra is famously bitter so might disappear in an IPA designed to be sweet, but you'd be wrong. Plenty of breweries use Citra for this purpose to excellent effect. This seems like a big industrialised brewery low-balling the hops for budgetary reasons. For shame, SN! That said, it's not a
fromThe Beer Nut - news
Afters
It was Sunday evening and I needed dessert. Step forward Wavy Gravy , an imp. brown ale from Third Barrel, "imp." meaning 8% ABV, for those unfamiliar with the terminology. It looks quite black once poured, though pales to ruby with the light behind it. The aroma mixes soft toffee and red flower petals, which is a good mix for strong brown ale, though it's not as aggressively fun-forward as I'd have liked. Smoothness is what this beer is all about. The texture is light yet silky, flowing past the palate in a siphon motion, making the conscientious beer writer careful not to chug it all down quickly. The flavour is standard brown ale business, but the style is rare enough for this to be welcome, and maybe a little exciting. To the toffee is joined lavender, milk chocolate, café crème, condensed milk and pink candyfloss. It's sweet, but not overpowering, with a lacing of crunchy roast to balance any dark sugar excesses. I had expected something more full-on and boozy, but am fully p
fromThe Beer Nut - news
Everything but the haze
After the positive performance by Bådin's saisons last month , I noticed there were seven other beers from the same brewery in the fridge at Craft Central. I took six of them, judiciously deciding that I didn't need their hazy IPA. First and lowest-strength is Nightshift , a Czech-style dark lager. There's rarely anything to dislike in these. It looks well: the appropriate shade of cola-brown or dark garnet with a decent off-white head. The aroma says rich and wholesome, with elements of malt loaf, burnt toast and dark, viscous treacle. That made it surprising that's it's relatively light of body at 5% ABV, and very drinkable. 440ml is too small a measure for this, which does a very good job, I thought, of replicating a sessionable sort of dark lager, designed for venues where a multiplicity of beer styles is not part of the offer. That said, it's also far from bland, delivering a beautiful combination of earthy, savoury umami, lighter caramel and a decent poke of Mitteleuro
fromThe Beer Nut