ONCE upon a time, all beers used to be dark. Not so bad if you're as partial to a porter as I am, but a far cry from the full spectrum of colours we get nowadays.
A couple of centuries ago, anything which was labelled 'pale' was just a little shade above dark brown but pale ale is now a moniker slapped on just about everything from a traditionally English copper-coloured bitter to the suck-your-face off hop-crammed American IPAs which have stamped their big size 12s all over the craft beer market over the last couple of decades.
Basically anything which isn't a stout, brown ale or straw-coloured lager or blonde ale could be called a pale ale and that leaves plenty of room for interpretation and experiment. The English shipped barrel loads of the stuff to the colonies and the Americans have famously taken their own slant on the pale but most Irish brewers have a solid pale ale in their stable.
So with the fickle Irish sun gracing us with its prolonged presence this week, here are a few refreshing pales to enjoy during what might just be your lot as far as a summer in Ireland goes.
Howling from the top of the Wicklow mountains (OK, so they brew the stuff in Bray) is Elevation Pale Ale from Wicklow Wolf. It leans very much towards the American style of pale ales, light on the malt with loads of citrus flavours. There's a fruity, jammy mouthful and the hint of blueberries and summer fruits with a nicely balanced finished between sweet and bitter. A lovely, well-rounded pale ale.
If you’re looking to dial up the hops a bit, Galway Hooker is a well established pale ale. It's not loaded with eye-watering bitterness of west coast US IPA, but the light biscuity background gives way to a satisying hoppy finish.
Northbound Brewery have helpfully indicated the level of bitterness in their pale ale by simply calling it 26 – that's what this brew scores on the IBU (International Bitterness Unit) scale.
When you consider that most IPAs are north of 40, that gives you an idea that the four hops used in 26 come together to create a nicely balanced refreshing ale. There is an initial hit of hops but they are washed away with the tangy, grapefruit taste which borders on a robust white wine.
