Porterhouse Brewing is one of those craft beer companies in Ireland that I feel rarely gets enough kudos for their beers. They’re like the bastard-red-headed-step-child of the Irish Craft Beer scene, & frankly it’s an insult to them, their history in Irish craft beer & the fact, when they do a special beer, christ do they make a special beer. And their latest one, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that within the next week, it may earn them a cease-and-desist letter from one of the largest food companies on the planet.

In life, it is the simple comfort food that often emanate from your childhood that bring you to your happy place when you need it most. For me, it’s simple things like sausage, egg & chips, or beans on toast. But, there’s one that for me trumps everything, chunky bitter orange marmalade on toasted & buttered Irish soda bread. It for me is the ultimate guilty pleasure & comfort food. So, when one brewery in Ireland declares they’ve knocked this out in a beer, I’m deeply curious.

In Autumn 2014, BrewDog joined forces with legendary German brewer, Weihenstephan to release an ‘India Pale Weizen’, which was effectively a hopped up wheat beer. It was like a beery fanta orange on the nose, & in my view it was a really out there beer-style hybrid. Here we are in late Autumn 2017, three years later, & BrewDog have released another IPW, this time on their own called ‘Nine to Five Wizard’. Is this deja-vú, or a time-turner moment a-lá Harry Potter from Ellon?

I have a very love/hate relationship with Galway Bay’s beers since the departure of Chris Traynor for pastures new in the Sound of Music of Heidi-land. Their regular beers have remained steadfast, but their special beers in general I have not liked at all. Their previous table beer (read: session beer), ‘Via Maris’ which came from the second-runnings of ‘Of Foam & Fury’ to me was always just an exercise in Brewery economics that tasted like it. So when they introduce a session/table beer that’s 3.8%, AND it’s a New England Style IPA, my expectations were subterranean, let alone rock bottom. I’ve never been happier to be so wrong, even with a huge Man VS Food-style serving of humble pie to eat in that error of judgement.

Ruination from Stone in my humble opinion (okay, so maybe my opinions aren’t very humble) is still one of the best DIPA’s in the world. But Stone being Stone, like Spinal Tap know where eleven is on the dial, & like to amp up Ruination to a tripel in the form of RuinTen as their tenth anniversary of Ruination. It has since made a few returns , each a full-on sensory assault of hops & barrels in double digits ABV. Orange peel? Vanilla bean? Are Stone going soft?