Welcome to Mikkeller World

Mid-November landed me in Copenhagen for four days on EBCU business, and afforded the chance to see where this most vibrant of European beer scenes is at these days. It turns out there's a lot of Mikkeller. Last time I was in town, the brewer's retail outlets consisted solely of the little basement bar on Viktoriagade; now there are over a dozen premises in Copenhagen alone, with more worldwide. Where to start?

Mikkeller & Friends was the simple answer there, another basement pub, easily missed, in the Nørrebro district, a good hunting ground for specialist beer bars. John and I didn't even trouble ourselves with walking around the convex bar to read the full menu and just ordered from the first section we saw.

For me that was Riesling People, an IPA with grape juice. This is one of those beers where I formed a sensory image in my head of how it tasted and then got annoyed when it didn't live up to that. An opaque shade of yellow, it's savoury at first, showing gritty yeast and an odd saline twang. Then suddenly it turns sickly sweet, a concentrated and syrupy grape taste, like an artificially flavoured candy. I expected clean and floral and wine-like but that's not what I got.

John didn't do much better in my assessment, picking another Mikkeller IPA, called Deception. This was a dark and murky job, with more than a hint of wonky homebrew about it. There's an unfinished, under-attenuated, sugary quality, and a harsh over-bittered pithy burn, turning metallic in the aftertaste. There's probably a decent, old-fashioned, west coast IPA under here but it's in need of serious cleaning. Two dodgy IPAs into the trip and time for a change of tack.

Adjoining Mikkeller & Friends, forming part of the same premises, is Koelschip. I'd heard it was a Belgian theme bar but wasn't prepared for the dark-wood-and-tiles décor, doing a good job of channelling the rustic Belgian feel, and forming a marked contrast against the sparse Scandi stylings next door.

Sour is the principal stock in trade here, and it was the first place I'd ever seen beer from Den Herberg, a relative new addition to the lambic pantheon. Herberg Oude Lambiek, from a bag-in-a-box, was near perfect. A little more sparkle would have been nice, but there was no shortage of flavour: all the waxy, spicy mineral bitterness one would expect, given serious substance by 6% ABV. It's amazing how a strong and flat beer can still be refreshing.

John stayed local with Mikkeller's Spontanlingonberry, a whopper at 7.7% ABV. There's a lot of genuine lambic quality about this: the same sort of palate-drying nitre-crusted brick effect. This runs in parallel to the jammy berries which add an element of frivolity without compromising anything. This is a very classy sort of novelty beer.

Aside from this mini-complex, Mikkeller's other big footprint in Copenhagen is Warpigs, a barbecue-themed brewpub in a repurposed meat-packing warehouse, created in collaboration with Three Floyds brewery in Indiana. Its own wares make up most of the selection, with a smattering of guests and collaborators.

Sitting outside on a chilly Friday evening, I began with Smoldering Holes, a 12.1% ABV imperial stout brewed in-house. It proved as thick as might be expected, piling in rich dark chocolate and bitter liquorice with an edge of cola nut. No sooner had I adjusted to it than it started pushing a new wave of herbal flavours too, basil and thyme in particular. Despite the busyness of it all, it remains nicely sippable all the way down; none of its myriad components coming to dominate or unbalance it.

John joined me in darkness with Warpigs Rain of Terror, chalked on the blackboard as a "black hoppy ale" and 5.5% ABV. It's a simple little number but hits black IPA's good points bang on. There's a sharply bitter dark chocolate and red cabbage foretaste, mellowing quickly to an effervescent and citric lemon sherbet. The two elements are nicely balanced and helped by a chewy malt base which isn't too heavy. Nothing fancy or outré, just understated quality.

The next round brought Pocket Dragon, the Warpigs attempt at a rauchbier. This is 5.3% ABV and a cloudy amber colour. I had convinced myself it was going to be either a triumph or a disaster, and it's neither. It's fine, if far from a classic: relatively clean with a light and pleasant smoky tang; a bit on the sweet side but still perfectly drinkable, even in quantities greater than the little tumbler provided, I suspect.

The hazy yellow chap to the left of it is Warpigs Azacca Pale Ale, a hazy 5%-er with lots of the titular hop's bright and fresh tropical fruit notes. This is another pintable one, balanced and cheery if not exactly bursting with complexity. I was starting to realise that they don't really go in for gimcrack recipes at Warpigs, which is a refreshing approach for contemporary beer.

I sneaked some teeny tasters of some other beers on the go around the table. One was Henry Ded Mon, a triple IPA collaboratively brewed by Warpigs, Mikkeller and The Veil. It's 9.5% ABV and offers an intense mixture of orange juice and garlic, managing an impressive feat of being punchy and powerful yet balanced and quite easy-going. The obligatory brut IPA (pictured) was a collaboration with California's Claimstake Brewing and called John Rohner Is My Homeboy. It wasn't remotely dry, displaying a custard vanilla flavour matched oddly with grapefruit pith. And there was another imperial stout, this one brewed with maple syrup, called Kenn Lee's Revenge: 11% ABV and extremely thick and sticky. The maple is present in no uncertain terms, almost to the point of obscuring the roasty bitter beer. I really enjoyed my single sip but I think I would have struggled with a glass to myself.

The following day I took advantage of their early Sunday opening -- a rarity in Copenhagen -- to try their pilsner, Salmon Pants. This looked well in the tumbler: a rich golden hue with a proper head. The flavour is strange, however. It's dominated by a concentrated fruit sweetness, like orange cordial or peach nectar. Where there ought to be a hop bitterness there is instead a jarring mineral sharpness, part soda water, part tinfoil. While not actively bad, this isn't very well put together, neither for the style nor as a beer in general. A rare miss among this lot.

Three pubs down, several to go, and we're not even done with Mikkeller yet.