AS SLAVISH as I can sometimes be to the seasons when it comes to beer, it does no-one any good to immediately switch to stouts and dark ales alone once the days draw in.
A refreshing IPA can hit the spot any time of the year and when a bottle of The Preacher, a session IPA from O Brother winged its way to us this week courtesy of Prohibition, I was ready for it.
It was the second time I'd supped an offering from the Wicklow-based brewers, their saison Huck having gone down a treat at the start of the summer with a wonderful depth of flavour and refreshment.
The first thing you notice about The Preacher is the head. It's like a cloud plonked on top of a what at first is a golden sparkling ale. The fluffy, suddy heady emparts the kind of grapefuit aroma you'd expect from an IPA.
Dive in, and that bitterness continues into the flavour. It's very much a hop-forward IPA and the natural carbonation helps to roll that bitter, hoppiness around the mouth.
With the hops up front, you expect a flood of fruity, sometimes tropical flavours to follow – but, sadly, they never came.
Instead, the bitterness lingers with little to balance. Any fruity flavours are very subtle and there's little malt flavour either.
Being a bottle-conditioned ale, there's a bit of yeast and the bottom of the bottle and if you, as is my own preference, chuck it in, it clouds up the beer nicely and damps down the bitterness as well.
But is it worth waiting right to the last drop to pull a bit of flavour out of any beer?
This is a straight-up session IPA and would go well with a medium to high spicy curry.
:: I managed to get my hands on a couple of bottles of the new limited edition Whiskey & Vanilla Stout from Mourne Mountains. The creation of an online competition winner and master brewer Tom Ray, this is a real treat of a stout.
There are sweet licorice aromas followed by a strong whiskey and coffee flavour with vanilla coming in later but lingering nicely.
With 750 bottles hitting the shelves, this needs to grabbed fast and drank slowly.
