It’s one of the perks granted to you when you become a father that you are entitled to enjoy a good pun. The more excruciating, the better.
It’s a bonus for me when the worlds of puns and beer intersect, like they often do with the likes of Brew York.
However, the York-based brewers aren’t the only ones to be partial to a play on words when it comes to naming their beers.
A few breweries do it, partly for a bit of fun, partly to inform the drinker what to expect (see the aforementioned Brew York’s milkshake pale Rhubarbra Streisand which contains, yes you’ve guessed it, rhubarb).
Dublin-based Rascals love a good music-related pun too and judging by previous brews Rude Boy and Rude Girl, it’s not hard to see where their musical tastes reside.
Froots & the Maytals is 4.5 per cent milkshake pale which showcases mango and passionfruit and tips a porkpie hat to ska/reggae band Toots & the Maytals.
- Read more: Craft Beer: Drinking in black and white with Rascals' Rude Boy and Rude Girl
This one pours a cloudy amber colour with a slight fluffy white head. There’s all those tropical aromas that are well sign-posted but no less enjoyable.
The flavours are sweet, fruity and juicy and there’s lively carbonation to it which allows the tropical tastes to tingle on the tongue.
The tagline for this beer is ‘totally laid back’ but if you whack on a bit of ska while drinking, things could get lively.
Speaking of lively, another offering I sampled from Rascals this week was the playfully named Shemozzle. One of the meanings of this word is a coming together of some kind, usually with a high degree of ferocity, and that’s just what Rascals have done here.
They’ve teamed up with Sudden Death, a Germany-based brewery with a love of ice hockey. The lads at Rascals love their hurling, so they bonded over whacking a small, hard object with a big stick and this double dry hopped 6.4 per cent IPA is the final result.
It pours a light amber colour and is hazy to point of opaque and there are whiffs of orange and grapefruit on the nose.
Not only is it crammed full of Citra hops, they’ve also used Spectrum Eclipse hop oil, for a more intense hop hit.
This comes across in the first gulp – a crushable, almost thick, mixture of citrus peel, mandarin orange and pine.
It’s aptly named as this beer is a pretty crazy mix of sweet, fruity flavours and sharp, piney and citrus bitterness but it all comes together nicely.
