Belfast’s Bullhouse Brewery sure is making big strides into the supermarket scene, as you can now purchase Hoppy Days IPA in 310 selected Asda stores across the UK and three pale ales – Pie Face, Road Trippin’ and The Vibe – on shelves in all 12 Sainsbury’s stores across Northern Ireland.

We’ll begin with the Sainsbury’s trio and Pie Face leads the charge. This west coast pale ale was released three years ago and the ABV has been nudged southwards a little bit, down slightly to 3.5%.

I get nervous when I see a low ABV westie, it’s a style which I prefer to be a bit stronger – even starting at around 4.5%. However, for anyone counting those all important alcohol units over Christmas, this is a decent place to start. Pie Face is slightly bitter with a little touch of chestnut and resinous pine but the takeaway was me wanting another can. Whether that’s because I enjoyed it immensely or maybe wanted more oomph is hard to tell.

The extra pale ale Road Trippin’ is next and before we go any further, what exactly is an Extra Pale Ale? That’s a good question, and one which is hard to answer as it means different things to different people. For some, it’s the extra use of pale malt, some expect an extra pale colour, some want the hop levels to be between a pale and IPA. It could be one or a combination of all those explanations – and then some.

What I do know is this one is 4% ABV and not as pale in colour as some may expect but a refreshingly crisp biscuit base with the merest sniff of tangerine and pine should make up for any colour inadequacies – if that’s your main beef with this you need to get out more.

Completing the Sainsbury’s Three is The Vibe, a 4% ABV hazy pale that’ll appeal somewhat to the juice lovers. I say somewhat as those folk might want more body, more hops, more….juice from their hazies? What they’ll get is a very acceptable little beer that has little sprinkles of apricot, melon and passion fruit zigzagging through it, followed by a little touch of dryness at the back end.

It’s a tasty wee number and just like the other two, very acceptable for the price point – that being all three are under £3.50 each. If the supermarket is your only venue for buying beer, let alone independent beer, you could do a lot worse than pick up a can each.

*At the time of writing this, I didn’t get a chance to buy or try Hoppy Days from Asda so that one’s on the to-do list for now.

Bullhouse constantly goes from strength to strength across NI, UK and Europe – I wrote about its first two beers – El Capitan and Uber Tuber – when they were released in March 2016 so with its 10th birthday fast approaching, there’s another cause for celebration just around the corner.