Kinnegar came out of nowhere to impress the Irish beer scene with their core range, with particular praise showered upon Rustbucket, a rye pale ale. Recently, they've started to experiment with limited edition brews that have, rather unsurprisingly, been equally impressive.
First up is Maddyroe, described as a 'burnt red IPA' and released as a pseudo-Valentine's special. True to its name, it pours a dark rusty red and produces a gorgeous aroma of juicy, sweet orange and grapefruit with sprinkles of pine here and there atop an underlying bed of lemon sherbert. I mean Christ, there is tons of fruit hitting the nose here, with the overall effect being round and softly sweet but with plenty of sharp zestiness throughout. Things are even rounder on the palate with that resinous, pithy bitterness taking the back seat to candied citrus and red fruits. The bittersweet character of the beer is rounded off by just a touch of darker roasted malt.
Whatever the label suggests, I absolutely love this.
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| No, it's not the same photo |
The other special I got my hands on was the Yannaroddy Coconut Porter. Of course, I couldn't miss this. While observing the stream of black liquid leave the bottle and fill the glass I realised this was to be my first (the first?) properly dark beer from Kinnegar, which only bolstered my enthusiasm. Unfortunately, despite being relatively pleasantly sweet and roasty, there wasn't much to be said about the nose on this. The palate does get a bit more TLC with a deliciously smooth and lightly milk chocolatey base porter just about teasing the tongue with the slightest hint of coconut.
An enjoyable drink, but mainly for the smoothness and drinkability of what is a very good plain, rather than any exotic additions.
Here's to more dark and experimental beers from Kinnegar!
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