#nigredo

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