A Quart of Ale± #120. On the craft journey with Lineman, Wide Street and a Treaty City double.

 A Quart of Ale± #120

On the craft journey with Lineman, Wide Street and a Treaty City double

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Lineman Big Calm Brown Ale 6.0%, 440ml can Yards & Crafts

 

“Big Calm is our kind of brown ale,” declared Lineman when they launched the beer late last year. "…We wanted to brew a brown ale that showcased the flavours of chocolate and caramel malts at their best.”

Did they succeed? Let us check. Colour is brown, a dark one with a short-lived tan head. The aroma box may also be ticked: rich coffee, caramel too. 

And that same combo appears in Act 3, filling the stage of the palate with superb flavours. Some of these chocolate/caramel/coffee beers can be over-sweet. No danger of that here because of a streak of tartness that helps provides an excellent balance plus a lip-smacking finish. 

Suitable for vegans, they declare. Suitable for brown ale lovers, I reckon. All boxes checked then.

Wide Street Monksland Belgian Stout 5.2% ABV, 440 ml can Bradleys

This Belgian style stout from Wide Street pours black and tan (head), just like a stout should. The head doesn’t hang about but that shouldn’t really matter, its lack of staying power more a cosmetic issue rather than an indication of a lack of quality.

There’s a chocolate element to the fore in the aromatics. And you also meet it, with a sweet fruity touch (figs, raisin), on the palate; here you’ll come across a streak of acidity and there’s also a strong presence of roasted malt. 

A stout with a difference and one worth considering for your shortlist. For all that, there are quite few really excellent Irish stouts and, overall, I’m as strongly inclined as ever, to favour the home variety but fair dues to Wide Street for offering this interesting alternative that is well worth a try.

This is unfiltered, unpasteurised and can-conditioned and may  contain yeast sediment. Refrigerate, store upright and pour carefully. Primary fermented with a Trappist ale yeast for an alternative fermentation take on a stout containing no less than five different Belgian malts.

Treaty City Outcast Juicy IPA, 3.8%, 440ml can O’Brien’s Douglas

A cloudy session beer bursting with fruity notes. The massive hop additions during every stage..give rise to tropical fruit flavours and a citrusy aroma. That’s was the build-up from Treaty City, the brewers of this Limerick IPA.

Colour is a very pale orange, a hazy one. It has a “massive” all-American hop line-up of Idaho 7, El Dorado, and Columbus (also known as CTZ), so expect pine, tropical (pineapple), citrus, and a refreshing pungency in the mouth. That is more or less what you get with quite a bit of fruit on the palate before a dry finish. And that US hop trio certainly lend it a hefty hit, no doubting its hoppy credentials in either aromas or flavour. Overall, it is more than a satisfactory session beer.

Malts, put somewhat in the shade by the hops, are: Pale Ale, Munich, Oats, Wheat

Treaty City, the brew/pub is close to King John’s Castle, say: Treaty City Brewery started in a small two bedroomed apartment in East Vancouver, Canada. After a long night of general debauchery, plenty of merriment and many bottles of bland tasteless beer, we decided enough was enough. Something had to be done. Life was too short to drink bad beer. The next morning, while nursing a spectacular hangover we headed for the local homebrew store and purchased our very first brewing equipment….. 

Soon they were brewing at home and not too long after that they found the real home was calling and, back in the Treaty City, they carried on brewing!

Treaty City Harris Pale Ale, 5.0%, 440ml can O’Brien’s Douglas

Named after Limerick’s most famous film-star, this Pale Ale has a lovely golden amber colour with a soft white head. Aromas are mostly citrus, some floral notes and a modest touch of pine. And it proves itself hop-forward and impressively well-balanced on the palate and beyond. Again the citrus (grapefruit) features strongly in the mouth and so too does the malt. And the combination also provides a very satisfactory finish indeed.

Wrote that paragraph about a year ago when I tasted it first. And I see no reason to alter it after tasting it again. 

The Harris Pale Ale (suitable for vegans by the way) is one of the brewery’s first and is named after Richard Harris, swashbuckling on and off the screen and a man who appreciated a good drink. He performed in a huge variety of films over a number of decades including The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Field (1990) and Gladiator (2000).

The label tells us that the malts used are Pale Ale, Caramunich, Carapils. “A generous helping of Cascade hops gives this tawny colored ale a citrus/floral aroma and a grapefruit flavour with a hint of resin. A blend of the finest Pale and Caramel malts gives a complex malt character while keeping the hops in the forefront.”