Beoir#1

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2014 | ABV: 9% 
On The Beer Nut: April 2014 | On Stash Killer!: September 2017

Over on the other blog I write daft puns and oblique references for the post titles. Here, I don't do that (it's exhausting) but if I did, this one would be called "To The Faithful Departed". I have reviewed Beoir#1 here before, but a few years after that I inherited a couple of extra bottles from Andrew Moore, the man who orchestrated the beer's creation and distribution but didn't live to drink all of his own allocation. This is one of those.

By way of background, it was created on foot of a crowd-funding project by Black's of Kinsale and had been an attempt to make Ireland's first double IPA, though was beaten to the punch by Galway Bay's now legendary Of Foam & Fury. Though the fresh hops were long gone by 2017, it was still good drinking. And now, almost nine years after that?

At first I thought all the carbonation was gone, but it's a viscous creature, and though it began by pouring flat, a head did form. It has got darker, presumably from oxidation, and has passed out of amber and into deep garnet or even brown. There's still a trace of the port aroma from last time out, but it has deepened further, into chocolate and toffee. It smells beautiful, though.

Amazingly, the first thing that hits on tasting is the hops: still bitter after all these years, presenting a very English mix of metals and minerals. After that there's a rush of tannin, something which had been a feature from the get-go but is now the central character, by a long way. Where there used to be port-like grape and musky spices there's only old leather and raw tea leaves. Its smoothness and relatively gentle alcoholic heat prevent it from turning harsh, which is good. I still think it's past its best, though. The complexity is gone. A winey nose and starkly dry flavour are all you really get.

Still, it hasn't spoiled, and although I'm sure that evil oxygen has been getting busy in it, it hasn't quite turned to cardboard. My advice is to drink it now anyway, unless the sentimental value of the liquid is what matters.

Cheers Andrew.

YellowBelly The Last Stand

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2019 | ABV: 8.2% | On The Beer Nut: December 2019

Poignancy is rare on this blog, but today's beer is something of a nostalgia bomb. It's one of the final releases from YellowBelly, the most fun brewery of the late lamented Irish beer boom. This one ended the last of their annual runs of exclusive beers for club subscribers.

I see from my 2019 review that it was brown. It seems to have brightened up over the years, because this glass of it was distinctly red, in a mahogany or teak way. There's a fresh raspberry zing in the aroma, alongside wine-like cork and a hint of toffee. Still, the sweet malt is its main feature, and there was never any fresh hop character to lose. But while the various elements were easily pulled apart for analysis while fresh, age appears to have mellowed and melded its flavours.

Doing my best anyway, I find smooth and runny toffee hitting against brightly tart raspberry and strawberry. There's a distinct background of tannin, suggesting the beer has dried out in the can as it aged. I get a spice element as well -- part clove and part pepper -- which I'm reasonably sure wasn't there when it was fresh.

It's lovely. With all the cans up in the stash these years, I was beginning to fear that beer doesn't actually mature in them, just occasionally explodes. This one indicates that fun stuff still happens under the aluminium blanket. No oxidation, no infection, just a clearly agéd barley wine, smoothed out and highly enjoyable with it.

There is still YellowBelly beer out there, contract brewed and occasionally rebadged as pub house beers. I buy them when I see them. Poignant.