Not on your life

I had no idea what this beer was when I acquired it, only that it's Danish and has a green label. So, hops, right?

Kissmeyer/Ølkollectivet '45/'85 was brewed as a salute to the Danish army's Royal Lifeguards. It's 4.9% ABV and came out the clear coppery gold of a märzen. There was some yeasty gunk in the bottle but it was good enough to stay there. One sniff made it very clear that it wasn't going to wow me with hops. Instead it has a dusty, husky smell: something that could be a German-style lager, or even a softly-spoken saison.

You can add Belgian-style blonde ale into the mix too, I discovered on tasting. Though quite dry, and crackling with fizz, there's a rounder fruit element as well: the apple-and-pear esters that speak of warm Belgian fermentation. And that's really the long and short of it: no real hops to speak of, no spicy complexity and not a peep out of the many Danish delicacies mentioned on the label, not that my ability to identify sorrel, woodruff or beech buds is especially well-honed. It's not even easy to drink: the carbonation is so lively it physically hurt the inside of my mouth, while the finish is like sparkling water in that it's cleansing, but thirst-inducing too.

Should this come your way, unless there's a Danish guardsman to toast, you can go on past it. I'm just glad to have it out of my fridge, which is what One-Shot Wednesdays are for.