Take one down and pass it around

Bottle shares aren't usually my bag, but I'm not completely averse. When Wayne and Janice announced they were putting one together at Piper's Corner in late January I figured I'd tag along and offload a bottle I'd been keeping for just such a purpose.

As it happened, when we lined the beers out, mine was the lightest and palest of the set, so that's where we started. Matawin was a random pick from a Montréal liquor store last September. It's from Quebec brewery À la Fût and is fermented completely with a variety of Brettanomyces strains, beneath which it's a barrel-aged blonde ale of 5% ABV. It poured a pale yellow with lots of froth and gave off a powerfully tart aroma. I was poised for a sour assault on tasting, but no: it's much more typically Brett-ish, presenting luscious ripe peaches and an aftershave spice; jelly candies and white pepper. It's a wonderful expression of Brett in a beer, deliciously clean and only very slightly flawed with a plasticky twang on the finish. The tasting was off to a good start though the same can't be said for my photography.

Keeping the ABV at 5% the second bottle was a wild beer from Wild Beer. Squashed Grape is, obviously enough, a grape ale. This is a style I have high expectations of and this one didn't measure up for me. It's a hazy orange colour and has a somewhat harshly funky aroma with a scary twang of vinegar. This acetic quality comes through too strongly in the flavour. If you like the less subtle sort of Flanders red beer this might be for you, but its mere cursory nod at fruit flavours before going all-out vinegar did not suit me at all.

The squad voted for a sour break at this moment, and malt relief was provided by SchuppenBoer, a barrel-aged tripel by Belgian brewer Het Nest. I've no recollection of tasting anything in this sub-style before, and this example offers some very good reasons not to brew them. The diacetyl was rife, first of all: a slick and unpleasant butteriness. This was followed by a parallel seam of ethyl acetate: a hot and solventy nail varnish remover effect. There's none of the sparky spiciness that tripel ought to bring, just a lesson in the chemistry of off-flavours and a taster glass of toffee, banana and headaches.

Back to the sour, then, and Saturnalicus, a Flanders red from Speciation Artisan Ales in Michigan. It's a big 'un at 7.3% ABV and shows a lovely and spritzy red grape aroma. Despite the strength, its texture is quite light, and while it's plenty sour there's a proper balanced complexity in its jammy strawberry and raspberry flavours. I don't think this quite has the beatings of the Belgian classics -- the sourness is a little overdone -- but it reminded me a lot of Russian River's Supplication, a beer high up on the second tier.

To actual Belgium next, and one from Alvinne: their Cuvée de Mortagne, a beer I've tasted in smoked and fruited form, but never this 12.8% ABV wine-barrelled version. It got off to a bad start by gushing everywhere, doing nothing to offset my general belief that the brewery isn't fully in control of its ingredients. The beer which emerged was heavy, like a malt loaf with chewy crusts. There was a harsh waxy bitterness on top of this, and an acetic throat-burn of a finish. Maybe some people like this sort of weighty, busy, hot-and-sour palate-pounder but it was just too much work for me. I just wanted it to calm down, and was glad I only had a small sample to get through.

Another American Flanders red followed, this one from Odell, called Flemish Giant. It's only 6.5% ABV and presents a clear copper colour. Like the Saturnalicus beforehand, there's a lovely vinous nose, leading to a juicy grape foretaste, but after that it's a very different picture. I found this much too sweet: the taste of unfermented sugar intensifying until it reaches saccharine levels. A very poor finish after such a promising start.

A magnum of lager came next: the "dark imperial lager" (doppelbock, basically) called Sticks n' Stones, brewed by Stone in collaboration with Lost Abbey, as part of a series to mark the opening of the former's Berlin brewery. The doppelbock style points are present and correct: it's a dark brown colour and has a strong liquorice bitterness coupled with lots of dry roast, in a package that's 8.3% ABV. Some sticky butteriness is perhaps less in keeping with the Germanic style, leaning it more towards a Belgian dubbel. This, plus the musty noble hops, made it hard work for me, and I found it quite cloying in a way that properly-brewed German lager shouldn't be, regardless of the colour or strength. I'd chalk this one up as "interesting" more than "good".

Before we jump into the stouts there was an imperial red ale to deal with first: Brewdolf, the Christmas release from 5 Lamps. It poured a very dark red colour, smelling weirdly of sour toffee. They've aged it in bourbon barrels, resulting in a very unsubtle blast of oaky vanilla right in the middle of the flavour. This calms a little after a moment, fading to caramel, but it never quite loses its underlying harshness. The barrel ageing really adds nothing beneficial to this beer, and it's not at all fun or festive. I'd have been disappointed to get one for Christmas.

I was owed another win at this stage and it came in the form of Hope's Flat White Imperial Stout. I understand this isn't a general commercial release but was gifted to customers and friends of the brewery at the end of last year. 9% is the ABV, and it puts the coffee to work immediately. There's a huge raw coffee aroma, followed by a flavour that piles the oily cold-brew in as well. There's not much room in that for any beer character, but I was enjoying it too much to mind. The flavour is fresh and bright and the texture wonderfully silky. This is uncomplicated enjoyment, camply over-the-top but tremendous fun.

The next imperial stout came from Beer Nouveau in Manchester. This was a barrel-aged version of their Salacia, brewed with chocolate and oranges. Everything that goes wrong with barrel-ageing had gone wrong in this, the flavour an unpleasant mix of cork taint, stale oxidation and savoury Marmite autolysis. It finished with a sour tang that might have been the oranges but I suspect was more likely an infection of some sort. If it wasn't so busy with awfulness this would be a compact and instructive off-flavour testing kit. Next!

Next was Double Shot from Kees, a big 11%-er. As the name sort-of implies, this was brewed with coffee, and that gives it a bit of a sweaty flavour, like drip-filter which has been stewing too long. The aroma is the best part: a rich mix of caramel, nuts and chocolate. On tasting that turns harsh, dry and almost sour. Maybe it's an acquired taste, but the little sample I had didn't do much for me. At least it wasn't openly offensive.

The finisher was an iteration of BrewDog's Paradox imperial stout, still going 11 years after its début on this blog. The company has moved on a fair bit since the days of handwritten labels, and the whisky this one was aged in was BrewDog's own brand: Uncle Duke's. There's a massive vanilla aroma and a flavour of honeycomb and crème brûlée. That's fun for a moment or two but gets cloyingly sweet very quickly. Unlike the Paradox of old, there's no proper stout flavour and nothing really of the spirit about it either. This is Paradox re-imagined for the Omnipollo generation, all cupcakes and candy corn.

Considered together, a handful of standouts aside, it wasn't a great line-up, but obviously that's the sole fault of the brewers, not the event's organisers or participants. Thanks to everyone involved, and better luck next time.