Popernicus rises

My beer bucket list, is, was, a short one. Bamberg came off it in 2014; Portland last year; and the Toer de Gueze back in May. The only other item is one that had been on the list since the very beginning, so long that I regularly forgot about it for long spells, though never quite lost interest in it completely. The Poperinge Hop Festival happens once every three years, in the heart of the West Flanders hop-growing region. It's a celebration of the harvest on which the area's fortune was traditionally made and which, judging from the fields surrounding the town, is still part of the economy. The 2014 iteration was covered excellently on Belgian Smaak in this post, and it seems that the festival doesn't change; everything was pretty much the same when I arrived for 2017's outing.

It's not a beer festival as such. Various events are spread over the weekend including the marching band tattoo, the election of the Hop Queen and all culminating in a three-hour parade on the Sunday, describing every aspect of hop growing culture in flamboyant, and often quite confusing detail. The friends and enemies of the hop plant was a highlight, with its children dressed as weevils and a lady in grey lycra interpretively pole-dancing wind burn. It's not the sort of thing you see every day. All festivities are overseen by Popernicus, the spaced out ladybird mascot and ambassador.

At the top of the town is the feesttent, a vast Oktoberfest-style marquee where the only beer on sale is Jupiler. One of those Grampa-Simpson-in-the-burlesque-house turnabout moments. Down in the main square of Poperinge, however, the open space is occupied with Lekker Westhoeks, a celebration of local food and drink with stalls selling cheese, sausage, chocolate, ice cream, and of course beer. The beer stall is the biggest, listing 32 Flemish beers, with generous samples from the bottle going at €2.50 a throw. That's a reasonable price for the Westvleteren 12 that topped the list, but what else did they have?

I opened my account with Hop Hanker, from client brewer Homo Beerectus. It's a single-hop IPA made with locally grown Sorachi Ace. And it turns out that Belgian Sorachi is just as effective as Sorachi from anywhere else: this is massively pithy, the citrus peel effect buoyed up on a chunky Belgian texture. It's hard to believe that something this substantial is just 5.5% ABV, but it is. There's not a whole else going on beyond the orangey hops, but it does its one thing well and when it's only a sample that's not a problem.

Beside it stands another IPA: All Inclusive by De Plukker. This one has a bit more Belgian welly at 8% ABV and piles on the sugar and yeast resulting in big floaty bits and a sweet aroma that turns to a saccharine bitter tang on tasting. What's missing is any discernible hop flavour, making for a very disappointing overall picture, especially given the name. And at a hop festival too!

I couldn't resist giving Troubadour Magma Hop Twist a go, the basic Magma double IPA being an all-time favourite of mine. "Hop Twist" is an annual series of variations, and in 2017 they seem to have just scaled everything back. The ABV is down to 7% and the bright colourful hops that are Magma's calling card are very muted too. The aroma is a slightly soapy citrus and herb thing, while the flavour is clean but a little dull: a dash of mint being the most distinctive feature. It's fine, but really doesn't deserve that association with Magma.

The other beer in the picture was chosen solely for the alphabet soup of a name: Gemeldorp Verpleegster. It means "nurse", apparently. It's a golden ale of 6.5% ABV with added honey and herbs. There's not much else to say about it, however. It's cleanly flavoured to the point where I'd be prepared to believe it's a lager, and has a decent refreshing waxy bitterness. But that's as exciting as it gets.

Something strong and sippable was required for parade-watching on Sunday afternoon, and that was Den Twaalfth by 't Gaverhopke, whose name is also its ABV and recommended serving temperature. This is jet black and completely flat, tasting sweetly and boozily of rum and raisin. It still manages to stay light of body, however, which does wonders for its drinkability. It's one I would have liked to have taken a closer look at, but needs must.

Back at the stalls, De Ranke Simplex was next, the brewery's sort-of pils. It's a pale hazy yellow colour and opens on a zesty note, the bitterness growing to eventually become waxy and a little harsh. A lighter jasmine spice is present in the background, but the dominant feature is a big honking gritty yeast flavour that it would be much better off without. There's a decent beer under there somewhere.

The other beer this time is Gloriaan Tripel, a strangely dark amber version of the style. At 8.9% ABV it's not a total alcohol bomb, but it seems like one, with pear on the nose and a stronger acetone flavour, coupled with bitter aniseed. Too hot and heavy for my liking, with no spices or herbal finesse. Is it me or are decent clean tripels becoming rarer in Belgium?

One for the road was Stoute Pitte, a weighty 8%-er by Pater Pitte. In the Belgian style it's sweet, but there's a lot going on with that: caramel and liquorice to begin, turning to prune and warm Christmas pudding at the end. There's enough bitterness to keep it from cloying as well. A great one to end the festival on.

I'm told Lekker Westhoeks happens annually, so there's no need to wait until 2020 if this bit takes your fancy. I expect you won't get to see Popernicus, though. The Hop Museum is well worth a visit, if hop information isn't available in parade form.

We were staying in Ypres for the weekend, which should  have been a ten minute jaunt on the train. Unfortunately, Belgian Rail chose this weekend to close the line for engineering works so it was a less-reliable bus replacement service instead. On the plus side, Poperinge station has a nice little bar attached, Flou's, and we awaited our bus there. The area seems to have resisted the domination of national lager brands and most pubs bore the livery of older local marques such as SAS and Bavik which I've never seen elsewhere. Flou's is a Bavik house. Unsurprisingly, Bavik Super Pils is not great. There's the standard cooked corn flavour of eurolager though with more of a hop kick than might be expected. I found it a bit severe overall, something its brewers probably regard as character.

From the bottled selection, herself went with another by De Plukker, mentioned above. I had heard that Tripel Plukker is their best, but it really didn't taste it to me. It pours with lots of unattractive suspended bits through it. The aroma is a headache-inducing mix of phenols and higher alcohols while the taste is savoury: caraway and diesel, all set on a greasy, sickly body. There is some peach fruit buried deep within it, almost completely out of reach. Maybe I got a bad bottle, but either way this was not a good beer.

There is one brewery in the town of Ypres: Kazematten, established in 2014. I had the first of theirs at the festival: Tremist,  a saison. It's quite a plain one with banana laid on thick and just a little pepper in the dry finish. I felt there should be more going on at 6.7% ABV.

The flagship brand at Kazematten is The Wipers Times and I got hold of a bottle of 12 in a local shop. It's a 6.2% ABV blonde ale, smelling enticingly of honey and peach nectar while tasting principally of vanilla custard. A stimulating fizz keeps it clean and overall it's a cut above your standard Belgian blonde.

Grotten Santé gave me pause when I saw it. The branding is very similar to St. Bernardus's Grottenbier, the dark ale designed for them by Pierre Celis when he was on the payroll. St. Bernardus is only around the corner in Watou as well, so it's not like they won't see it. Only when I sat down to write about it did I discover that Kazematten is a subsidiary of St. Bernardus, and that this beer is actually a slightly tweaked version of it. The casements of Ypres provide a cave-ageing facility that Bernardus don't have at headquarters.

For all that, the beer is another plain and simple one: dark red-brown, 6.5% ABV and quite dry with just a dusting of cinnamon across it. It's nice to have a dark beer that doesn't try to burn you with booze or smother you with banana so it's probably quite a welcome addition to the scene. Not really one to write home about, however.

On Monday morning, with the trains back online, we packed up and headed on our way. Ypres and Poperinge were just one stage of a week long jaunt across the Low Countries. Next stop: Bruges!

Mild enthusiasm

Eoghan at the Brussels Beer City blog hosts November's session, on the intriguing subject of missing local beer styles: the kinds of beers you'd like to be able to get your hands on regularly but can't. As a man of simple drinking tastes, I tend not to pine for beers that aren't available to me. If you find your hobby is making you miserable it's time to find a new hobby. But when a local brewer asks, as they do from time to time, "what kind of beer will we brew?", my answer is generally "cask mild".

Admittedly it's not the most exciting of beer styles, but then it's not meant to be. A good mild is light and easily gluggable yet has a colourful bouquet of flavours. It's the sort of beer you can choose when you just want a beer without thinking about it, though one which is in no way bland or insipid. I'd love to see it in regular rotation in Ireland, but we rarely do -- Dungarvan Brewing deserving an honourable mention for occasionally dabbling.

Naturally, after all the nagging to get a new Irish mild onto the bar, when Trouble Brewing finally stepped up to the challenge I was out of the country. I watched on Twitter as Walk On The Mild Side landed in at UnderDog and was promptly drained by the masses in just a couple of days. I thought I'd missed the boat until the brewery mentioned that The Black Sheep still has some left. Hello!

It was true; they had. Saved by the 10% mark-up compared to UnderDog's pricing, perhaps, but €5.50 is still quite sessionable for Dublin these days. Full marks for appearance (black) and ABV (3.7%): all in accordance with my own personal mild style guidelines which, to be honest, is really just St. Peter's Mild.

The aroma is very roasty, almost to the point of being acrid, which put me on guard immediately. That was largely assuaged by the first sip, which had sweet milk chocolate and caramel as its main feature. A jammy blackcurrant flavour follows this, and only then does the roast reassert itself: a dry charcoal burntness that grows quickly and lasts long into the finish. A little too long, really: this tarry acridity in the taste was the only part I didn't like. Nevertheless, despite my preference for more fresh coffee and dark fruit characteristics, this mild still does what I'm looking for. The body is full enough for it to be satisfying and easy drinking yet the flavour is pleasingly multifaceted.

This beer really underlined my desire to have something like it popping up on a regular basis from a variety of producers. By coincidence, a cask of West Kerry's superb Uncle Columb's Mild was hooked up to the handpump at UnderDog on Tuesday and last I checked was still on. Two simultaneous Irish milds available in Dublin might not exactly qualify as a golden age, but by golly I'll take it. More please!

Ghost, train

It was the distinctive branding that first attracted me to Stone's Ghost Hammer IPA, and a canned-on date showing under three months since it left San Diego sealed the deal. So it was a big disappointment to find it doesn't taste of very much. The ABV is a not-insignificant 6.7% and there's a sticky, sugary flavour and texture to go along with that. The main element is orange, of the boiled sweet and marmalade variety, turning to harsher pith towards the finish. A search for other facets came up mostly blank, with just the faintest hint of pine, mostly squashed under the weight of malt. I genuinely expected a bigger, more active, flavour profile from this, instead of this tiny quiet one. Ghost by name and ghost by nature.

There was more orange on the cards with Stone's Tangerine Express IPA, brewed at the Berlin satellite brewery also from headquarters* and arriving on keg to 57 The Headline. This one is much murkier than the Ghost Hammer, though a similar bright and cheery orange colour, and around the same strength too. There's a proper bitterness, much of which is down to the fruit I'm sure, but at least part of it is earthy and dreggy, suggesting it's coming from residual yeast suspended in the beer. In the middle there's a decent fresh and green hop flavour. Azacca and Mosaic are in the mix so I'm surprised how untropical this part is, suggesting more Cascade to me. And then there's a tiny tangerine fruit tang at the end, though none of the juice. If this were as sweet as the previous beer, with that citrus fruit flavour, it would work much better. Recipe design aside, my main criticism is the lack of cleanness: the yeast is definitely harming the quality here. It may have been a bit of a rush job.

A case of one beer I merely didn't like and one that seems to be poorly brewed. Time to drink something else.

*Thanks to Amy from Four Corners for the correction.

Tarnished spoon

Is it me or is the beer selection at the Wetherspoon Real Ale Festivals getting worse, year-on-year? Nothing struck me as of interest from the 30 beers on the advance list for Autumn 2017 and there was a signal that something is definitely awry when I saw that the beer officially judged as the best of the line-up came from the execrable Caledonian Brewery. I didn't get to try it so perhaps I shouldn't be so prejudiced, but still.

Nevertheless I trooped along to The Forty Foot a couple of Saturdays ago, where my nascent disappointment became all the realer with the availability of just two from the line-up. Groh. I began with a half of Zululand Pale Ale, brewed at Wychwood under the supervision of the eponymous South African brewery. It cheered me right up. The orange-amber colour of a classic English bitter, it starts straight away with a superbly fresh tannic bite. There's a hop bitterness behind this, mostly tasting of earthy and English varieties, with a dusting of orangey fruit and an exotic jasmine spice. The dryness clears all of that right off the palate quick smart, and you're ready for another pull. All very jolly, in a serious, traditional and grown-up sort of way.

Farnham White next, from the sturdy, reliable, Hogsback brewery. This is rather plainer fare, a pale amber gold with a slightly lagerish flavour of cereal and honey; mostly quite sweet with a gentle waxy buzz on the end. The key ingredient, says the pumpclip, is the Farnham White Bine hop, and I think this is another example of English brewers being prouder of their local varieties than they really warrant. It's fine, but it doesn't make me want to seek out more of examples of this hop and I don't taste the pepper notes I've been promised.

I did a little better on moving up to The Three Tun Tavern in Blackrock: three festival options. My first half was Liberation Ale, I guess the flagship from Liberation Brewery on Jersey and my first Channel Islands beer. What is that foretaste? An exotic mix of melon and pomegranate making it almost more like a saison than the pale golden ale it actually is. There's a tropical stickiness going on, surprising for 4% ABV, though the finish is quick, leaving just the faintest trace of honeydew. It's odd but I liked it. A full pint was really needed to explore properly, but obviously that's not how these things work. Next!

Next was Autumn Wheat, one of the internationals. This time it's Michigan's Arcadia at the controls of Banks's in Wolverhampton for a 6% ABV pale amber job. Wheat would suggest smoothness, and this definitely delivers on that front. On top there's a pleasing sprinkle of incense and cinnamon. A glance at the official description tells me coriander and orange peel have been added, so I guess it's a witbier of sorts, though it doesn't taste anything like one. Nor does it taste its strength for that matter. I really enjoyed this: spicy, filling, yet surprisingly clean and refreshing. I'm at a loss to compare to anything else I've tasted, but that's not the beer's problem.

Last orders was Old Nutty Hen, and time was I wouldn't have bothered, but I've had good experiences of Greene King's Old Speckled Hen brand extensions -- still trading on the defunct Morland name -- so figured this was worth €1.35 of my money and time. It's a dark garnet colour and extremely caramelly. It's hard to find any complexity beyond that, however: there's a slight bonfire smokiness and, oh!, was I supposed to be finding nuts? If so it's more like the hazelnut syrup that gets squirted into coffee for people who don't like the taste of coffee. There's no real nut character, and not enough proper English beer flavour either. Half way through my half I was finding it sickly and difficult. Morland goes back on the naughty list.

It's hard to judge a thirty-beer line-up from just five of them, and there were more hits than misses in amongst this lot. So yes, I'll be back for the Spring 2018 festival, though hoping for more daring beers.

And just to cover off a final pair from The Forty Foot that weren't part of the festival, Loddon Forbury Lion was one I found during the summer, a 5.5% ABV IPA. It's a clear gold colour and has a pleasingly beery smell, an old-school mix of the biscuit tin and grassy green veg. There's a heavy density about it, which wasn't much use to my thirst that warm July afternoon, and neither was the golden syrup sweetness up front, almost like something you'd find in a super-strength lager. The bitterness only really bites at the very end, a waxy sharpness, while in the middle there's a strange fruity pear drop flavour that immediately makes me think of headaches. I had to remind myself that its ABV is actually quite reasonable. Anyway, it's not quite the golden guzzler I was after on the day.

Bringing us back to the present, Ein Stein by Lymestone Brewery was an interloper at the Autumn festival. I nabbed a cheeky third for the road. Again there's a modest ABV -- 5% here -- but it seems a lot stronger, feeling almost Belgian. It owes its name to the use of Hallertau hops, which certainly puts a twist on the otherwise unambiguously English vibe. I don't know that it's especially German, though. It's a musty sort of flavour: sackcloth and crêpe paper, switching to a more easy going white grape roundness at the end. I had real trouble trying to figure out if I liked it or not, eventually deciding it's OK for a third but I was glad not to have any more to hand.

What have we learned from this lot? Not much. Cask beer at Wetherspoon is still a hit and miss affair, whether there's a festival on or not. At least it's easy on the wallet.

A mile in my booze

What to do in London the day after the Beavertown Extravaganza? I wasn't going back for the Saturday session but had booked a late flight anyway, confident that I'd figure something out. Months later, sitting down to try and decide what exactly that was, I noticed on a map that my lodgings were just along the street from the FourPure brewery. I had inadvertently booked myself a bed on the Bermondsey Beer Mile, so that was that question answered.

The Mile wasn't yet a thing the last time I was in this part of London way back in 2013: only The Kernel and Partizan had bars open. Several more have joined in since, though The Kernel now only sells beer to take away. I was conveniently located at the bottom of the Beer Mile and it would have made total sense to start at FourPure and work northwards, catching a Tube train from Bermondsey station at the end. Less conveniently, checkout was at 10am and FourPure doesn't serve until 11 so I decided to make things difficult for myself and begin at the first brewery to open: Anspach & Hobday, near the northern end. After a sunny meander through the neighbourhood I arrived at 10.30, just as the shutters were going up.

I had heard that the Bermondsey Beer Mile had become quite self-aware and was more about professionally-run bars than simple taprooms these days, but the reality was that things still felt more charmingly improvised than I was led to believe. Anspach & Hobday is tiny, a handful of tables crammed in next to the tanks, and a miniature bar serving eight keg beers from the underback, plus one cask beer engine. Where else to start but with The Porter?

I'm guessing they're going for old London authenticity with this one, because it's a bold 6.7% ABV. The first sip revealed it to be rich and smoky, like a fine cigar. Behind the smoke there's an impressive balancing act of silky chocolate and dry coffeeish roast, the latter of which lasts longest in the finish. There's just enough creaminess to prevent it turning acrid, as well as a mild floral quality as well. Beautifully put together, all in all: the platonic ideal of London porter.

Loral 'n' Oats cream ale had a tough job following that. It's a pale and hazy yellow colour with a fresh lemon aroma and a different sort of creamy texture to the porter. The flavour is where it falters, however. The lemon is present, but it's faint and somewhat artificial-tasting, like a scented handwipe. There's lots of dry corn husk as well. It's perfectly refreshing and inoffensive, just not terribly interesting.

Brewery two was Brew By Numbers, and this was a little swish: the newly decorated taproom still poky, but fitted out conscientiously. One could definitely imagine spending a bit of time here. Somewhat missing the point of a brewery crawl, I ordered a guest beer: Fool For You, a 6.5% ABV saison brewed by Cloudwater in collaboration with forthcoming Norfolk brewer Duration. It's a murky dun colour and lacks a head. The texture is very heavy, a little unpleasantly so. Honeydew melon dominates the flavour, with some light peppering and then thick viscous banana esters. As this sort of saison goes, it's not the worst of them, but half way through I was already thinking I should have ordered something from the house.

That's what I did next: 05|25, an IPA with Citra and experimental hop HBC 431. It arrived looking like a half pint of pastis: yellow with a tint of green. The aroma was gorgeous, an achingly fresh mix of peaches with garlic, which sounds wrong but was beautiful. And the flavour followed through faithfully on that promise. A dense New England texture and low bitterness helps bring the juiciness out, starting on a limeade note, flashing past the raw garlic and finishing long on delicious plump and sweet peaches. There isn't a trace of harshness anywhere and, despite the appearance, no yeast interference in the flavour. Definitely one of the best modern murky IPAs I've tasted.

I packed up and started to move on except... what's this? Another Brew By Numbers taproom? Two arches down the shutters were up and a rather less swish bar was in operation. Apparently this is the original tap room and the plan is for the new one to replace it. I thought I'd better give it a proper inspection before it disappeared.

From the line-up I chose 08|06, an oatmeal stout, and drank it outside in the sunshine. It's another winner: silky and sumptuous, tasting primarily of milk chocolate with an assertive green-leaf bitterness to balance it. It does a great job of being at once richly malt driven while also very hoppy without being too loud or brash about either. And all of it is delivered at a session-friendly 5.5% ABV. Nice.

It wasn't far to Partizan, still in the same space as in 2013 but now with a permanent bar installed and some added outdoor seating. The afternoon was well underway at this stage and it was standing room only across the board. I opted for the Citra Pale Ale from the small selection on the pegboard. It's a suitably murky yellow colour with an ABV of 4.5%. Savoury herbs and heavy dankness make it taste quite serious and worthy, though the tone is lightened by an unexpected hit of summer fruit: rich and sweet strawberry and raspberry. It was still a touch rough for my tastes and would have benefited from a little more polish.

I chanced a second beer because I liked the look of one: Partizan Cherry Stout, something of a beast at 7.2% ABV. It's unctuous and heavy, though strangely doesn't really taste of cherries: I'd have thought a stout like this would be the ideal platform for them, but the fruit gets lost in a very bitter and slightly autolytic mix of not-quite-right stout flavours. Well it was worth a gamble. I wasn't going to push my luck any further here and continued on my way.

Almost back where I started, then, to FourPure: the biggest and busiest of the Bermondsey set. The long bar had a dazzling array of beers on offer, the selection promoted via large video screens. A slightly raucous mid-afternoon crowd were guzzling them with gusto. I found some leaning space on the bar and ordered...

... Roadside Picnic, a FourPure collaboration with Chapter Brewing in Cheshire, and indeed brewed on their kit. "Celery sour" were the words that sucked me in, and what I got was a clear glassful of basically Berliner weisse with a huge dose of dry yet juicy celery. It's simple and fun, enjoyable as a novelty but there's an unmistakably well-made beer as its base. Nothing not to like here, unless you're some sort of twisted celery dodger.

FourPure has built its reputation, with me anyway, on its lagers, so I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to drink one at source. Indy Lager it was: a 4.4% ABV helles. Sadly I must have picked the wrong one because this wasn't good at all: far too dry and with a suspicious smoky flavour. "Zest and spice", says the official blurb, but there was no sign of either on the day, for whatever reason.

Noticing I still had loads of time before I went on my way, I grabbed a quick glass of Deucebox double IPA, on the grounds that it tends to be very expensive back home and I probably wouldn't risk it. It's worth risking: this has a gorgeously juicy citric aroma and then a full-on dankness at the front of the flavour, splitting right down the middle into garlic and jaffa, so something for everyone. The modest 8.3% ABV really helps with the drinkability, letting the hops shine without any boozy interference.

Time was starting to run short, but not so short that I couldn't squeeze in one more brewery. I hadn't heard of Southwark Brewing Company before I started planning this excursion, but they're right there, at the north-western extreme of the mile, and not too far from my exit point at Bermondsey Tube. The small taproom was packed as the day's service was coming to an end: the shutters come down at 6pm on a Saturday, which suited my schedule but I still needed to make this quick.

Porter first, and Potters' Fields, a simple and easy-going one: 4% ABV, lightly chocolatey but with a substantial body. Only a slight hint of dirty earthy putty puts a damper on what's otherwise a no-nonsense quality quaffer.

I switched to keg for last orders, getting Big Bear IPA, in an American style, a hazy dark orange colour and 5.7% ABV. I got a fierce whack of acetone off this, combining with the fruity hops to create and odd, yet not unpleasant, Jolly Ranchers effect. It's missing the proper level of bitterness and I'm not sure I'd want to drink a lot of it, but it gave me something to ponder as I made my way back to Heathrow.

There, I had been following a recommendation from the lovely Pauline to try the fish and chips at The Perfectionist's Café in Terminal 2. This I duly did, and enjoyed it, and to go with it from the very limited beer list: Route 1 session IPA all the way from Dover, Delaware courtesy of Fordham Brewing. 4.5% ABV is stronger than a typical session IPA on this side of the Atlantic, but light for an American one, I think, so it's extra surprising that this feels much weightier than the strength would suggest. There's a decently thick base of caramel and toffee and it carries a massive lemon-and-lime hopped foretaste. Subtle it ain't, and I'm not at all sure how sessionable it really would be, but as an accompaniment to the food it worked very well indeed.

And that's the end of my London jolly. It may not be the last word in trendy beering any more, but the Bermondsey Beer Mile is still well worth an afternoon of your time.

One busy beaver

Part two of my look at the Beavertown Extravaganza which happened in London last month. I mentioned on Monday that the festival was spread over three-and-a-bit halls. The "bit" was a darkened corridor space which was dedicated to the Rainbow Project. This is a series of seven collaborative beers produced at UK breweries with input from foreign ones, a bit like that thing JD Wetherspoon does a couple of times a year, but far more expensive.

They had only just been released so obviously there was a queue. I took the time to try two of them. First up, in the "Red" slot, Amanecer Mexicano by Magic Rock and Casita Cervecería of Vermont. This is a gose with added chilli, lime and lots of other traditional mole ingredients. It's a clear bright red colour and tastes soft and sweet, with a kind of cherry sherbet flavour. The tartness helps prevent it tasting too much like candy, and this builds as it goes along. Despite the multiplicity of additions it remains clean, refreshing and easy drinking, even if the ABV seems a little high at 5.8%. I wasn't wowed but did find it quite enjoyable.

There was a bit of a buzz around the "Green" beer as well: Mojito by Hawkshead and Modern Times. Described as a "tart IPA", it's a sickly yellow colour and tastes almost exclusively of mint. Mojitos have their place, but this had far too much mojito and not nearly enough beer. There was barely any sourness and absolutely no discernible hop flavour. It's a very disappointing novelty, and probably what I deserve for listening to the hype. Both breweries usually turn out great beers too.

Doing something vaguely similar but much better was Wylam with Bliss 322k, a white IPA. There's a lovely juicy lemony aroma from this greenish-yellow job, and the flavour pushes forward coriander first and then a light and refreshing bitterness. This is tasty and fun, and also surprisingly easy going despite being 6.8% ABV. The best feature is something entirely missing: an absence of the soapiness that so often plagues the style.

The other English brewery playing with fruit and sourness was Thornbridge, pouring Abacaxi when I dropped by their bar. It's a sour beer at 6% ABV with pineapple and, like the Mojito, is dominated by the non-beery addition. There's a very mild tartness but really it just tastes of pineapple juice and almost nothing else. That's a little more forgivable when the brewery isn't calling it an IPA, perhaps, but I still couldn't see the point of it.

The last English beers before moving on to what the rest of the world had to offer were from Bristol's Lost & Grounded, a new brewery that has been generating a lot of positive feedback but which had not hitherto crossed my path. Another round of punishment from the hype machine? Kind of, yes. Ciel Rouge is a red rye ale with American hops, produced in collaboration with Burning Sky. Unfortunately, the billed Amarillo and Chinook are nowhere to be found in the finished article and instead it's heavy, savoury and resinous with a musty, dusty, stale quality. I couldn't figure out what this was trying to be, only that I didn't enjoy it.

Running with Sceptres, the 5.2% ABV "special" lager, was similarly odd. It's a lovely clear dark gold colour, but the thickly perfumed hops were just too cloying for me, giving it a musky character. It's certainly distinctive, and I'm sure it's exactly as the brewer intended. It left me hankering after something more delicate, however.

Just as well Mahr's of Bamberg were in the house, looking quite out of place among all the cucumber and candyfloss concoctions. I just had a sinfully small helping of Mahr's Pils and really enjoyed it. This is flawlessly smooth with a creamy texture; a cake-like malt base topped with roaringly fresh greengrocer hops giving it bags of character but not in any way overdone. The bitterness is just enough to make you want to drink more. Yes, it's exactly the sort of pils you would make if the Keesmann brewery was the first thing you saw when you stepped out of work each day.

I was pleased to find Swedish brewer Brewski was present and gave their Dunedin Stringduster a go, largely because of the name. Sadly this is one of their misses. It's a sea buckthorn grisette, though rather strong for the style at 5.3% ABV. A sickly pale yellow colour, it tastes of savoury, gritty yeast for the most part, with an unpleasant green banana acidity, turning plasticky at the end. Just because a beer has a silly name doesn't mean it's going to be any fun to drink, alas.

Stockholm Brewing Company was entirely new to me and I'm sure did well from their location around the end of the Other Half queue. I tried their Elderflower Sour, a simple, clean and smooth little chap, reminding me a lot of our own Brewtonic's In Cahoots. It's similarly balanced, with just enough sourness to wake the palate up, and sufficient sweet elderflower to keep it entertained without getting overwhelmed by syrup. At 4.4% ABV it made for a great mid-festival palate cleanser.

Last of the nordics is Põhjala from Tallinn. Imperial Ginie is the one I went for, produced in collaboration with To Øl. It's ostensibly a gose, though stupidly strong at 10.8% ABV and aged in gin barrels. It doesn't quite work. The end result is very sweet and tastes somewhere between an apothecary's dresser and an olde worlde sweetshop, all herbs and humbugs. There's a slightly soupy brine quality as well, removing any refreshment power it might have been intended to have. Definitely one for gose purists to steer clear of.

I'm not sure if Dublin's Italian beer festival is coming back this year so I made sure to get my fill of LoverBeer new releases while I saw them. Pruss Perdú sounded most intriguing: a pear lambic. It's 5.4% ABV and a dark hazy orange colour. I found it to be tough drinking, with a very stale and papery oxidised quality, lightened only by a mild cidery taste. The drinkability wasn't helped by the heavy texture and almost complete lack of carbonation. I'm not at all sure it was worth the effort it took to get through it.

For more enjoyable pear experiences it's probably best to leave the pear out altogether. So it was with Cardosa, one of LoverBeer's saisons. This had a fabulous multicoloured aroma of apricot and lychee with a heavy backing track of farmyard funk. The flavour is just as fruity but fantastically clean: crisp like a cool slice of just-ripe pear. Saison brewers take note that this immense complexity was all achieved at just 5% ABV. There's no need for anyone to make saisons stronger than that.

The simple four-letter name Lale hides an immense beer behind it. The basic style is a Flemish oud bruin, but with the ABV ramped up somewhat to 9.2% and given 20 months ageing on cherries. There is the acetic burn that you'd expect from the style but it's smoothed out through maturation so it doesn't attack the palate the way some of these do. The fruit is very apparent and almost fresh-tasting, adding a juicy summer sweetness that balances everything wonderfully. The warmth from the alcohol leaves you in no doubt that it's a powerful beer, and one to be careful with. Ideal drinking for a festival of small pours like this.

That leaves just the token Canadian. Dieu du Ciel were tucked away at the end of one of the halls, and perhaps this is why they didn't seem to garner the attention I was expecting them to. I tasted an intriguing-sounding dark saison called Isseki Nicho: 9.5% ABV and aged in Pinot Noir barrels. It's a very serious beer, tarry and resinous, loaded with bitter balsamic notes, lightened only slightly by dry grape tannins. It tastes like all of its strength and more, and while pleasant, it's not as complex as perhaps it should be, certainly when compared to Lale above. The gut-sticking warmth is probably its best feature.

Despite all of the beers in this post and yesterday's, I was still perfectly sober at kicking-out time. I stopped off at a pub on my meander back, The Yellow House, to have a beer in a grown-up measure for a change. It's a smart and modern place, and as is usual for such if they're not beer specialists, the selection was pretty poor. I took a punt on kegged Maltsmiths IPA, Heineken UK's fake craft brand. It's pretty grim: sickly sweet and huskily dry, with an overcooked marmalade foretaste and a stale grain finish. I wonder if they're brewing this at Caledonian because it had a lot in common with the execrable Coast to Coast I drank in Liverpool airport during the summer.

I hit the sack early, aware of the long day's brewery crawling I had planned to start the following morning...