Blind Ambition: Take Five Irish Stouts ...

Back in the late eighties and early nineties I was exclusively a stout drinker, which meant in this part of Ireland that I was by default a Guinness drinker of course. That was after my brief love affair with Harp lager and before my general apathy of drink in general either side of the millennium. After that there followed a brief flirtation with trying different lagers from various corners of the world before I ended up on my current path of beer appreciation via trips to Belgium and elsewhere. So really my return to drinking dark beers came via beers such as Hercule Stout and Fuller’s London Porter to name but two, and moved onwards to Irish microbrewed porters and stouts. Recently I have been bitten by the beer history bug and started exploring our island’s brewing past, which of course has brought me full circle back to the ‘historic’ stouts that still exist in Ireland - albeit the new versions are hardly the same as their past iterations.

With the exception of the Diageo owned Guinness, these 'older' stouts are available as one beer type and serve - a nitro stout - with Beamish and Murphy’s now being simply brands owned by Heineken. As far as the take-home versions of these nitro beers are concerned, two more names have been added to the line up of easily available stouts in can format. O’Hara’s Stout brewed in Carlow - my home county for clarity - and the new Island’s Edge which Heineken added to its range for no apparent reason other than to annoy Diageo as far as I can see. They appear to even give a slight dig at Diageo’s Rockshore brands with its name ...

It has been on my mind to do a tasting between these five nitro stouts for a while but I had difficulty finding single cans of Murphy’s, so eventually I had to purchase a six-pack - only to discover that the cans I found are being brewed in Scotland! I wonder if this is a temporary measure and if kegs are still being brewed in Cork? There is certainly some irony in the fact that both Beamish and Island’s Edge are being brewed in the old Murphy’s brewery in the city but Murphy’s stout itself is not! (It is entirely possible that production in Cork stopped due to Covid pub restrictions and will commence again shortly.)

Anyhow, having finally - and literally - lined up all five stouts I wondered which would actually be my favourite? I must stress that I have a liking for fuller bodied, less bitter stouts, and had tasted all five previously but not in a side-by-side comparison. There can only one way to do a tasting like this and that is (mostly) blind, as other factors will certainly sway your palate if you know which beer is which. I put the names of all the beers on the bottom of matching half-pint tulip glasses and poured them out myself looking straight down on them in case there were obvious head-size issues. Then my independent adjudicator mixed up the glasses so that I did not know which beer was which, and as you can see the look practically identical at this point, with similar colour and head size. I then numbered each one, wrote the numbers on a pad and got to work tasting the beers. (By the way, I tweeted this tasting as I was doing it and kept referring to Island's Edge as Ireland's Edge!)

I started with writing a few simple notes after each number regarding the immediate perception of what I was tasting, which read as follows:

1 - Mild tasting, a little bitter and dry with quite a light flavour/mouthfeel.

2 - Stronger, more bitter but better balanced. Pleasant body and mouthfeel.

3 - Full flavour with a soft quality - not dry.

4 - Very mild and light tasting, a little dry and bitter.

5 - Fullest in flavour and body, lovely balance and not too dry or bitter.

I sipped some water and went through them again in different orders before dividing them in to three groups.

A - (5) This was the fullest flavour and most appealing to my tastes.

B - (2 & 3) These were the next fullest in flavour and body, and quite alike in certain ways.

C - (1 & 4) These were the lightest, driest and the weakest flavour-wise for me.

I then compared stouts number 2 with 3 and although they were close in taste and possessed similar qualities I had to decide which I preferred, and I then did the same with stouts 1 and 4. I now had a ranking of the 5 beers for my tastes and palate, and to make it more interesting I also attempted to name the brands. I went as follows in descending order with my favourite at the top:

5 - O’Hara’s

3 - Beamish

2 - Murphy’s

4 - Guinness

1 - Island’s Edge

It is hard to describe my nervousness as I picked up each glass and looked at its base, with my adjudicator writing down the actual beers beside my guesses on my note pad.

I was wrong on four of them - so this is my actual list in descending order of favourites:

5 - O’Hara’s

3 - Murphy’s

2 - Beamish

4 - Island’s Edge

1 - Guinness

As you can see I got the beers in the groups right, although I mixed them up with each other. I was quite happy to have picked out the O’Hara’s, although it was easy in hindsight, and it is a beer I am quite familiar with of course - but it was still quite tense as I got down to the last three beers. In fairness all the stouts were generally alike in taste and flavour, there were no ‘bad’ beers or even close to poor in the selection - hardly a surprise given the brewers - just some that were not to my taste preferences.

So what does this mean?

Well not a lot for anyone other than me, as this was my palate on a given day and relates to my personal preference. But I was surprised on two fronts, firstly that I preferred Murphy’s to Beamish, as I always thought it was the other way around. (Maybe the Scottish brewing has added to it!) Secondly that Island’s Edge and Guinness were so similar, with the Island’s Edge having that slight advantage flavour wise - maybe it is the tea and basil it contains! Island’s Edge has had a bit of bad press but I think much of that stems from people knowing they were drinking it and having preconceived notions perhaps? It would certainly be interesting to repeat this blind side-by-side tasting on actual draught in a pub.

Guinness being my least favourite is not a surprise to me in many ways given my tastes, it is perfectly brewed to be an everyman stout and not to stand out in any way, so there is certainly a logic to my mind in where I placed it. Where I would rate a large bottle of Guinness among some other non-nitro stouts might be a different matter I suspect - but that is a blind tasting for another day ...

Cheers!

Liam K.

Just so you know:

I served all of these at cool - but not fridge-cold - temperatures, as this is my preferred temperature for beers in general and dark beers in particular - the colder the beer the less flavour you perceive.

Yes, those are O’Hara’s glasses and no they did not directly provide them - this is not some kind of sneaky, bribed promotion for their beers - I was given a box of these glasses by my local off license a few years back.

I am sure some of you are shocked regarding my ranking of these beers, but my palate, my rules, my opinion. Feel free to try it yourself, I would love if you did, just be honest and leave all the ridiculousness that usually surrounds Irish stouts regarding glassware, lacing and head size out of the equation - it is (mostly) meaningless social media clickbait …

That independent adjudicator - my long-suffering better half - can verify all the above if need be!

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