Ten Hope!

Dublin's Hope brewery is celebrating ten years in production this year. They've come a long way from the contract brewer I first met at the RDS beer festival in 2015, growing into one of the established mainstays of Irish brewing, via the radical and daring strategy of making nice beer and then selling it to people.Celebrating with it is its Dutch twin sister brewery, and homophone, Hoop. Hope has brewed its own version of a honey ale Hoop did earlier this year. It's called Queen Bee® and is 5.5% ABV, found on tap at Caribou, thanks to a heads-up from Lisa Grimm on teh socials. The honey manifests in the flavour as meadow flowers and a sterner waxen note, both of which return emboldened in the flavour. It tastes more of perfume than honey, almost musky: arguably less honey-like than a typical, unadorned, golden ale in the low-countries style. And while it's definitely a gimmick, it doesn't lose sight of the underlying beeriness, with a lager-like clean crispness in its finish as well…