Hype, hype train, #hypetrain.
Whatever you call it, it’s a funny old thing. It’s a bedfellow with something called FOMO or #fomo, depending on your angle of seeing the world. Generally if something is hyped up, you want it and have Fear Of Missing Out. FOMO and hype go together like Mosaic and Galaxy hops.
Aboard this hype train for a few years now has been a passenger called Putty by Verdant Brewing from Cornwall. This 8% New England-style Double IPA first took a seat in 2017 and was met with hysterical cries of adulation among the indie beer drinking fraternity. It reappeared yearly, and every time the hype train gained an extra ten carriages.
But what’s the craic with it? What’s so special about it? Why’s there so much knicker wetting over it? I’ll be honest with you – I really don’t know. The last version of Putty I rated highly was in 2021 but since then, I haven’t felt the Putt Putt vibe. So how’s the 2025 version? Well, merely in the name of research you understand, this beer blogger succumbed to the #hypetrain and bought an £8.50 can, (I’ve seen prices range between £7.50 and £10) which immediately sent the #fomo up in a puff of smoke. Slap me now.
Anyway, Putty ’25 is fluffy and full of grapefruit and passion fruit with a sideswipe of mango juice. However, that’s accompanied by an uncomfortable onion twang that stared at me the whole time I was drinking. It wouldn’t go away. It just sat there laughing at the tropical elements, and me, with utter contempt. I wanted better, I hoped for better, but ultimately I was slightly disappointed. Could that twang fade with time? Possibly, but I’m commenting on this beer from last week rather than in six weeks.
So if you didn’t manage to grab a can and are suffering with FOMO, is it possible to obtain better from the island of Ireland? Is there a tastier, local, double IPA that’s available nearly all year round? Let’s have a very quick and simple sweep.
Galaxy Full of Nectaron isn’t a million miles away from Putty. It’s a Northern Irish collaboration involving Beer Hut and Modest, comes in at 8.3% ABV, and hopped with Nectaron and Galaxy. Naturally, that hop bill provides all the juicy fruits – peach, mango, papaya with a quick, sharp dab of passion fruit and orange rind at the end. It’s one of those beers that would make beer drinkers of a certain ilk recoil in horror – y’know the sort, those who want beer to taste of old socks. It’s a great beer and I feel is easily beating Putty in the “Can Putty Be Beaten?” game.
Let’s veer towards a couple of double IPAs in the classic west coast style, beginning with The Wall by Mourne Mountains Brewery in Warrenpoint. First released in 2018, it’s been set in stone at 8% ABV and is one of the few beers to get a second review on this blog. Cascade, Simcoe, Azacca and Citra are your hops here and to use wall-building terminology, a few medium sized pebbles of resin and pine sit comfortably underneath a huge boulder of tangy, zesty orange marmalade. I’ve always enjoyed this beer – it’s a decent westie with extra weight.
Finally we reach what many would call the O.G. of Irish DIPAs, the iconic Of Foam and Fury by Galway Bay Brewery. Foam was unleashed in late 2013, a time when the double IPA landscape in Ireland would have been a barren wasteland if it wasn’t for O’Hara’s Double IPA, which was also released earlier that year.
There’s a bit more body to Foam than The Wall and it has a touch heavier citrus and stone fruit element shining through. A bit less pine too and although I enjoyed The Wall, Foam is sharper, punchier, cleaner. It is as it has always been, a wonderful beer.
There was a time when thoughts of Irish brewers trying to replicate US double IPAs such as Pliny the Elder or Heady Topper was the stuff of fantasy. The idea that our local brewers would even attempt something like that on a regular basis was a world away, but that was then and this is now.
Now, Verdant’s Putty is hyped as the benchmark of double IPAs on this side of the Atlantic. But whereas with that you’ll have to wait 12 months for more when it runs out every January, there are plenty of year-round Irish DIPAs that are just as good – if not better. There, I said it. I’ll even fortify the comment by adding that of the four beers tasted here, I enjoyed all three Irish beers more than Putty. (Plus all 3 were much cheaper.) You can start swearing now.
I took a sample of only three comparative Irish beers but there are many more that could also have featured here – Eight Degrees’ Double Irish, Boundary’s Imbongirific, Modest’s Half Decent DIPA, Bullhouse’s Yer Ma/Yer Da duo, Kinnegar’s Thumper and Whiplash’s Surrender to the Void to name but a few. Whatever your choice and whatever your views on my points, I can only reiterate that sitting on shop shelves there are some cracking local beers without the #hype.
