The other stuff

On the periphery of the Toer de Geuze there was a modest amount of pubbing done in Brussels. Here's what came my way therein.

Our hotel chain, Thon, has its own house beer, a refuge from the otherwise AB InBev-dominated bar. Thonner'ke is brewed by Den Triest and is 8.5% ABV. That earns it "Triple Blond" as a style descriptor, but really it's a pretty basic blonde, more Leffe than Duvel, but without all the joy filtered and pasteurised out. It's a dark hazy orange with a generous head. The aroma is spicy -- nutmeg, cinnamon, clove -- though the flavour is a plainer mix of bread and banana. Pouring the last of the dregs into the glass improved the complexity a little, and overall it's sweet and wholesome but hard to get excited about.

In a convenient Irish pub nearby I encountered Ramée Blond, a 7.5% ABV tripel brewed by Palm. It poured clear until the last dregs went in and has a fun peachy aroma. I was expecting it to be a bit of a candy-bomb from this, but instead I got an assertive bitter citrus peel foretaste against a background of dry tannins, for a kind of lemon tea effect overall. The ABV is on the low side but there's still enough heat in the taste to pass for the style. This is a very well-balanced example and a happy discovery for me.

With the Toer over, the inevitable visit to Moeder Lambic Fontainas got me a couple of beers from Gent's new brewery, Dok. First up, Still Røkin', described no more explicitly than "rauchbier". It's a murky amber-brown colour and has a gentle aroma of kippers with a slice of orange on the side. A quite acrid, harsh, bonfire smoke opens the flavour. It fades quickly enough, though leaves a rasp of rubber in its wake. There's not much else going on; the only other noteworthy feature is the heavy bready body, more than is suggested by 5.5% ABV. This is a very simplistic affair, offering almost nothing beyond the initial promise. So much for Dok's effort with smoke. Let's see how they do with hops.

Uw Dikke Ma Zit Aan De Zuid ("Your Fat Mum Sits On The South" -- it's a football thing) claims to be a juicy IPA. It's a wholesome and mostly clear pale orange colour with fine white foam on top. The aroma mixes the promised citrus juice with sweet candy, oily dank and a more worrying savoury element. I thought one or other of those would come to dominate, but the flavour plays out the same way. There's a sickliness to it, aided by another big and heavy texture. The sesame sharpness helps offset the worst of this but it's still tough going to drink. If you're looking for easy-breezy hop juice, this isn't that beer. Unfortunately it's also missing the clean assertive bitterness that would otherwise make it a good old-school US-style IPA. It falls between two stools and isn't very nice as a result. Not a good first impression from Dok, then.

Up the hill to Gist, to follow a recommendation from Joe for the En Stoemlings lager Papy Vandepils. Obviously unfiltered, it's a witbier-yellow colour. There's a slightly fermented funk to the grass in its aroma. The flavour is perfectly clean, however, with a piquant bitterness behind a very Belgian farmyard buzz, dusted with old-world spice: white pepper or nutmeg. All that happens quickly, tailing off to finish as the cleansing, refreshing lager I was looking for. It's an unusual combination of flavours, but an enjoyable one.

A new-to-me Musketeers beer next to it: Cross the Desert, a 6.5% ABV blonde ale. It's a completely clear yellow with a striking aroma of bubblegum and mango candy. Although it has a big sticky texture to match that sweetness, the flavour is bitter and herbal with just a little balancing peach sweetness. It's an interesting take on the style, doing more with it than most, something at which Musketeers is quite adept.

An all-Stoemlings round followed. On the left is Пушкин Projekt, a Baltic porter created collaboration with Victory Art in Moscow. This is dark brown rather than black, and a little weak at just 6% ABV. A further surprise was the burst of smoke on smelling, though it is the clean and hammy sort found in Schlenkerla. Unsurprisingly that's a big part of the flavour too, the bacon balanced decadently with chocolate. One might be disappointed if looking for a straightforward Baltic porter, but for smoked lager fans it is inarguably delicious.

The yellow fellow beside it is Hoppy Madame, broadly a witbier, with additional Aramis and Strisselspalt hops. Only 4% ABV, it tastes lighter: thin and watery with not much character in general. There's a grain crispness, a gentle lemon sherbet and some summery lavender. I'd like to say it's refreshing, but the dryness is just too severe for comfort. Another point against it is the undelivered promise of the name: I wanted hoppy and it's really not. The lager above achieves this beer's goals much more effectively.

Moving on but keeping it Brussels, Crianza III is relatively new from Brasserie De La Senne. It's a mixed fermentation red ale, and I'm assuming from the name that Spanish red wine barrels were involved. There's a warning on the label to keep the lees separate from the main pour, and my waitress did exactly that. It's a burnished copper colour with an off-white head and a typically Flanders-red aroma: a rich summer fruit tartness with sappy oak overtones. The ABV is a substantial 7.4%. It's remarkably easy going for that: the sweet and luscious strawberries and cherries at the forefront, their sugar balanced with a distinctly tart edge. The resinous wood of a mature red wine follows, adding complexity without covering up the fruity fun. While it's distinctly sour, it's balanced too, avoiding any harsh vinegar tang. This mellow sipper is the beer I find myself wishing for every time I taste Rodenbach Grand Cru: an enhancement on the basic style which doesn't turn extreme in the attempt.

I haven't had any beers from BrewDog's Overworks tame wild beer facility. I guess Funk x Punk is the beginner beer from that: a mix of Punk IPA and something wilder. It's an orange-juice orange colour and smells of mandarin with a more serious heavy apricot Brett fruity slickness, The juice dominates the flavour: super spritzy mandarin, more like a soft drink than a 5.5% ABV beer. Brettanomyces adds a subtle but delicious complexity: nothing severe or barnyardy; more an accessible juiciness. This is balanced, refreshing, and honestly an excellent use for your wild facility.

Imperial stout for the lady: Velvet Vengeance, at 8% ABV. Lots of cocoa and chocolate in this, and while it's pleasant it offers nothing I've not tasted many times before. Perhaps it's better in bottled or canned form: the coldness of the draught version, I'm certain, strips out a degree of complexity. It deserved to be let warm up and supped considerately, so probably not the best beer to chose when you're legging it for the airport.

I don't know when I will next be in Belgium. The beer scene has changed significantly since I started going regularly. Maybe it'll be interesting to leave it a few years and see what happens next.

Acid party

My second post on the 2019 Toer de Geuze begins at Lindemans. This brewery, more than any other, brings a carnival atmosphere, with a wheel of fortune, two bouncy castles and beer sampling conducted 50 metres in the air atop a crane. Vertical tasting, wha'? It also has the best shop on the route, where I bought my takeaway bottle of Megablend 2019.

Not without tasting it first, though. I had been disappointed by the 2017 version on the previous Toer, but this year's outing was much better. There's a huge aroma of pepper and gunpowder making it immediately attractive. This comes through in the flavour though in a slightly muted way and there's no deeper complexity, at least not yet. It's still highly enjoyable, however. The spicy side of lambic is my favourite feature and they've done a great job of accentuating it here.

On the right, looking every bit of its name, is Platte ("flat") Lambiek. I'm quite fond of the straight unaged lambic occasionally found on cask around Brussels. This is a good example, being quite sweet and almost juicy, with notes of mandarin and tangerine. It's simple, with no spice or wood, not even very much sourness, but delightfully refreshing and moreish.

I almost bought a bottle of Lindemans GingerGeuze, and I'm glad I tried that one first. There's a strong smell of fresh ginger from this 6% ABV hazy orange blend, and a dose of disinfectant as well. The flavour is exceedingly unsubtle, making it a ginger alcopop by completely losing all sight of the base lambic. The ginger is enjoyable on its own terms, making for something that's OK as a beer but a complete disaster as a geuze.

The clear yellow beer beside it is Goyck, a collaborative blend Lindemans makes with Brouwerij Varenbroek near Antwerp, consisting of lambic (of course) mixed with a blonde ale. It has the stonefruit aroma of many Brettanomyces beers; that slightly gummy apricot effect. This is coupled with urinal-cake herbs and lots of sweet elderflower, the latter continuing through to the flavour. The fruity funk is still there too, giving it a cantaloupe taste. I'm not sure it's an improvement on straight geuze but if the intention was to take the sour edge off while still retaining the basic character then I think it worked.

From one party brewery to another: Boon. The set-up here was largely the same as before with a big Oktoberfest-style tent and two bars, one with the "connoisseur" selection. The monoblends featured heavily and I picked numbers at random.

Vat 91

Vat 92

The first pair are Vat 91 and Vat 92. Both are a powerful 8% ABV. The first doesn't really justify that strength, being quite light and soft. There's a minor smack of saltpetre on the finish, matching a bricky nitre aroma, but no real punch and not a whole lot of sour. The other one offered a great deal more, the mellow spiciness balanced by an assertive bitter kick and a spritzy acidity. Fresh and crunchy green cabbage sits next to a plaster-of-paris alkalinity. Yet none of this, nor the strength, turns it into a monster: the complexities are all very well balanced beside each other.

From geuze to lambic, and next was Lambiek Foeder 82, a rather plain offering with an orange rind flavour bringing tartness without turning full-on sour. Again the ABV, at 6.5%, is rather high for the modest taste.

L: Foeder 14, R: Foeder 82

While that was clear, Lambiek Foeder 14, next to it, is a cloudy shade of orange, so I'm guessing is a younger creation. And once more the second beer is the one with all the complexity. There's a mouth-watering citric zing and lots of lovely peppery spice. Although the strength matches that of 82, it's a touch on the watery side. This does make it very easy-drinking refreshment, and the mere €2 price tag helps as well.

One of the most interesting phenomena of the trip was observing the emergence of Schaarbeekse Kriek. The cherry used in these seems to be a heritage variety, the forerunner of modern cultivars. Boon's example is a very deep red shade and smells quite sickly, like jam. While nowhere near as sugary as regular Kriek Boon it's still quite candyish, showing lots of cherry sherbet and donut filling. The cherry flavour is nicely intense, though, so the potential for ageing into something excellent is very high.

Stop three on the Sunday was De Cam, the simplest set-up of all the venues yet somehow they still managed to make a mess of it. You buy your bottle from the makeshift bar and either take it away or pick up a glass to drink it from. And this is where the system broke down, with the glasswashers on a go-slow. Not in the mood for swigging room-temperature geuze, I waited with my De Cam Oude Geuze.

And because it was room temperature it exploded everywhere once I pulled the cork out, and took ages to pour. I was already in a bad mood before I took my first sip. Despite being three years old, it tasted unfinished: sweet and worty with lots of sickly popcorn butter and sticky candyfloss. There's a brisk spritz but nothing I'd call properly sour. Between this and my recent experience with their bilberry geuze, I think I've fallen out of love with De Cam.

That brings us to our final stop, Hanssens blendery in downtown Dworp. The sun was out and so were the crowds: the tiny courtyard and cramped bar uncomfortably packed with long queues for everything. I still managed to get through a fair few beers so maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

L: Framboos, R: Cassis

I began with Hanssens Framboos, a sickly shade of orange-pink and quite flat looking. There's a pleasant raspberry sweetness -- real and not syrupy -- but its positive influence is undermined by a harsh vinegar burn which makes it difficult to enjoy. There's no subtlety or nuance here: you take what you're given from the first mouthful.

The purple beer there is Hanssens Cassis, a much better offering. There's loads of farmyard funk in this, plus just the right amount of burning sourness. The fruit needs all of this to settle down before emerging, contributing solely to the finish. It's a wonderful contribution, though: juicy blackcurrant bringing balance and complexity. Amazing how two beers with probably quite similar base recipes can taste so different.

This next canary-yellow chap is called Oudbeitje ("oldie"). It certainly didn't taste mellow, having a marmalade character which ramps up in sweetness to become artifical orange-flavoured candy. The vinegar tang is back as well. I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be (strawberry geuze, apparently), though I do know I didn't enjoy it.

The Schaarbeekse exploration continued at Hanssens, and I was able to taste theirs next to the regular version.

Hanssens Schaerbeekse [sic] Kriek is a dense purple colour, almost blue, in fact. The cherry flavour is huge: all real cherry juice and ripe flesh. This is matched with an invigorating tartness which complements the fruit without overpowering the total picture. What we have here is kriek done big and loud; the kriekiest of krieks I've tasted. 6% ABV helps boost that, as well as giving it a lovely Bakewell-tart cakey warmth.

So Hanssens Oude Kriek was bound to be a let-down after that, though it was far from a disaster. It's thinner looking but still nicely purple. The flavour tilts more towards sour and it offers much less fruit richness though it's still well-balanced. There's an enjoyable balsamic resin quality as well. A very decent effort but I would still recommend trading up to the Schaerbeekse.

I took a variety of bottles home with me, including the special edition beer Hanssens made for the occasion, and I'll get round to drinking them in the not too distant future, I hope. It wasn't all sour fun that weekend, however, and I'll cover the rest of my beering in Friday's post.

Geuze Bus Tours II

I mentioned unfinished business off the back of the 2017 Toer de Geuze: the two participants I missed out on last time. This year's Toer, earlier this month, was a chance to resolve that. The bus schedules meant that I visited two places twice, and one of those was one of my prime targets: Timmermans.

It also happened to be among the worst-set-up experiences of the weekend. Getting to the beer involved a painfully slow, non-discretionary, single-file trudge past the vessels and equipment of an admittedly pretty lambic brewery. Towards the end there was a chance to try Timmermans Jonge Lambik, from the maturing barrels in the attic. It definitely tasted unfinished, with the same sort of harsh bitterness you get in a hopped wort prior to fermentation, and flat without being smooth. A background oaken spice hinted at the beer it will hopefully become, in time.

The snaking queue eventually disgorged into the roomy tasting bar at the end of the tour. Unfortunately the people staffing this were not at all set up for serving the thirsty hordes descending from the rafters, the process further hampered by an unnecessarily complicated token system. Fight to the bar to see the pricelist; work out how many of which colour tokens you need; queue to buy tokens; queue at each part of the bar where the beer you want is being served. Ballache. On the Saturday afternoon I did manage to procure and quaff a Kriekenlambic from the cask engine. It was a deep pink colour with an unsubtle cherry syrup and an only slightly mellower wax bitterness. It was drinkable, and I was gasping, but not as good as a plain handpumped lambic, I think. With that it was on to the bus and away to the next venue.

On Sunday we were prepared. At the entrance we asked to skip the tour, and the lovely Timmermans folk escorted us through the courtyard and straight to the bar. It was early doors and none of our fellow visitors had made it to the end of the plod yet. And it still took ages to get served. I went with the one remaining unfamiliar beer: Brewer's Desire, a one-off created in 2016, released in 2018. From the brewery's official description I don't know how it differs from ordinary two-year-old lambic, but apparently they're very proud of it. Honestly, I couldn't see why. There's a harsh and almost bleachy sharpness dominating the flavour. I did find some more subtle lemon rind and a pleasant mineral sourness, but the finish is acridly acidic, there's no spice, and none of the smooth finesse of age. It would be passable were it not for the horrible bleach thing.

A lovely, more orthodox, Timmermans Oude Geuze cleansed my palate after that, and I deemed Timmermans resolutely done.

The other producer to feature on both days' itineraries was Tilquin. They certainly warranted it too, with a superb range of beers on offer and, behind the bar, a team who knew exactly how to keep the queues moving.

So, on the left there we have their Assemblage de Lambics, a 6.4% ABV blend which presents murky and headless. As one might expect from an expert blendery, there's an excellent balance of fruit, minerals and spice: all the lovely things about lambic in perfect harmony. Somehow it manages to both scorch the throat and quench the thirst at once. Sheer wizardry.

Next to it is quite a scabby portion of Guezérable, a geuze made from maple syrup. It's probably for the best that I didn't get more of it as it really doesn't work as a flavour combination. The funky, sticky syrup retains its full character and fights with the clean spritzy lambic beneath. There's a woody, sappy element which turns acrid in the finish. The one redeeming feature is that you can taste around the gunk and appreciate the excellent base beer, but the added syrup brings nothing positive to it.

Quite a few of the Tilquin offerings were from their two Experimental Fruit Series. I began exploring these with Groseille Blanche (white currant) from series 2, on draught. It's a hazy dark yellow colour and, like the others so far, has a great lambic base, assertively sour with a hard minerality. The sweet and juicy berries peep through this beautifully; a total contrast but a perfect complement too.

Also from the series was Myrtille, arriving a gorgeous rich purple colour. The flavour is packed with funk and spice, tasting of cork oak and old leather in particular. The bilberries add a certain softness to this without coming across as sweet, and I certainly would not have been able to identify the fruit tasting blind. This tastes very mature, any puckering sharpness long since mellowed away. The funkiness more than compensates for any loss of character. Overall, a thoroughly ungimmicky fruit lambic and another winner.

All this experimentation has to lead somewhere, so I'm guessing that's what the Oude Grosseille Rouge is: a bottle, 6.6% ABV and a pinkish-orange colour. The distinguishing feature here is a woody dryness, like a berry seed. There's a saltpetre spice at the base but I think most of the significant tartness is coming from the redcurrants. A dusting of pepper finishes it off nicely. It's balanced and complex, making great use of the different components. The experiments paid off, then.

Finally, for no particular reason, I gave Tilquin Faro a go. This was sugary and slick, but oddly not especially sweet. There's lots of oak spice next to soft candyfloss and a sort of blackcurrant bitterness, though no fruit is involved. The smoothness makes it very easy to drink and gentle on the palate, demonstrating for me the reason faro was developed in the first place. Unlike most extant examples, this one isn't janglingly sweet or sickly.

Pretty much wall-to-wall classics at Tilquin, then. The Toer rumbles on, however, and the four guezeries in the next post will visited on more of a quick-fire basis.

Clouded issues

A couple of offerings from Manchester's Cloudwater Brew Co. today.

Cairde Gan Teorainneacha ("Friends Without Borders") is a collaboration with our own White Hag brewery. It's a black IPA, the almost-dead but increasingly-common beer style, and is 6.2% ABV. The aroma is mildly citric, showing a gentle cabbagey greenness. A bitter-first flavour follows, with more of that acidic boiled veg, tailing off into pithy grapefruit and lime rind. Beside this is a fun chocolate note, complemented by a creamy texture. The finish is dry and a little sharp. It's not spectacular by any means, but it's decent: one of those black IPAs that has tuned the balance between big hops and dark malts just right.

Cloudwater has a new numbering system for its beers, and A•W 18 IPA is its IPA for the autumn and winter just past. It arrived in October and I caught up with it at UnderDog in late March. 6.5% ABV and in the New England style, it's an opaque orange-yellow colour, bright rather than beige, which is pleasing. The foretaste offers an equally bright sherbet or sorbet effect: sparkling tangerine and mandarin. A harder grapefruit bitterness balances this afterwards. While unspectacular, this is very well made.

Cloudwater's moment in the limelight seems to have passed. They don't appear to get the same level of attention as they used to. But, like many a high-profile UK brewery before them, they've continued making solid beer after the hype has faded. This is as it should be.

Milling pints

The third annual Indie Beer Week begins today, an opportunity to shout a bit about the small-and-independent brewing scene across the island of Ireland. A press launch event was held a couple of weeks ago at Lost Lane, the new venue above Porterhouse Central. A selection of brewers brought wares to show to the assembled journalists and liggers. My attention was drawn immediately to Old Mill Brewing, recently established in Co. Donegal but not currently distributing its beers very far from the brewery, not to Dublin anyway. Brazil native Julio has turned his homebrew hobby into a business and produces three core beers and regular specials at a renovated woollen mill. I tried the range on the evening but was also given a set to take away.

The one nod to mainstream styles is Red Brick, although it's a little overclocked for an Irish red, at 5.1% ABV. It's the appropriate dark copper shade, topped with a lasting off-white foam. There's an interesting herbal-coconut aroma, and the body is decently full. That carries lots of toffee, with a small bitter tang on the end. There's quite a lot of buttery diacetyl in the mix, but this is one of those beers that gets away with it. Unless you're very sensitive, it's a good example of the Irish red style, given a little extra heft.

Session IPA Wool Store brings us down to 3.9% ABV. This was a little gushy on opening and a little murky in the glass. Again, no argument with the head retention, however. Citra and Mosaic are the hops and, despite the soupy appearance, manage to bring a fresh and tropical spritz to the aroma. The flavour is less exciting but still clean. Apricot and mango flesh are just about discernible, mostly in the finish, but before that it's just water. Yes, you definitely could session this merrily, but it's not a beer that will hold your attention.

Last of the cores is Seven Thirty, described as an American pale ale. Authentically strong at 5.8% ABV, the hops are all the Cs with Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and Citra. It has the same amber-tinted-with-gold colour of Sierra Nevada's flagship. For all the hops I found it strangely sweet, a basket of summer fruits with raspberry to the fore. Caramel in the background lends it a red ale vibe, while the bitterness is a tokenistic metallic pinch of aspirin. It's fine as a beer, but I think it's a little off the mark as regards the APA style. Even the old-fashioned malt-forward ones have more of a hop punch than this.

On to the specials, then, and I nabbed two of them. Labbadoo is a New England IPA, 5.8% ABV and only modestly hazy, the orange-amber body topped by a dense, ice-cream thick, head. Cream is a particularly apposite descriptor as there's a lot of smooth lactic vanilla here, though no non-core beer ingredients have been employed. Mosaic is the primary hop and that gives the beer a luscious stonefruit sweetness, rendered slick by whichever New England yeast is involved. It's incredibly moreish, each mouthful just slipping back and inviting another. As before, the taste isn't bold or extreme, but it's very good at what it does. Irish NEIPA brewers could learn from this.

And finally, the head-banging BlackRepentance chilli chocolate stout. 5.8% of your ABVs and properly, seriously, black. On first tasting I thought the chilli was lost in the mix, but it builds slowly in the belly, producing a comforting warmth by the end of the bottle. In front of that there's a rich milk chocolate, albeit with a quick and somewhat watery finish. As a chocolate stout it's basic, but the chilli adds a fun twist, one that saves the beer. Chilli-infused commercial beers are rare, and I'm delighted that this one is out there.

Old Mill balances the mainstream with the daring, and I wish them the best of luck with it. They certainly seem to know what they're doing.

Inchicore blimey

With the Rascals brewery, taproom and pilot kit going full tilt these days, it's an endless game of catch-up for me. The cliff-hanger last time was Das Beaut kölsch-a-like. It was half of a set with its cherry counterpart, Das Beaut Cherry, which I got to on my next visit. I was expecting a clear red fruitbeer tint to it and was not prepared for the milkshake I was served. It's an almost grey shade of pink. So not just a squirt of cherry syrup, then. The realness of the cherries continues on tasting: it has a perfumed foretaste, an intense but brief sweetness with real maraschino skin, not sugary extract. Amazingly, the underlying beer survives all this: there's still a crisp finish and a waft of hops on the reflux. The fruit becomes a bigger part of the picture as it warms, shading its flavour towards the yogurt it resembles. It's remarkably well integrated and not just a novelty. I'm glad I came back for this. Perhaps I should be less sceptical about fruit beers in future.

The latest in a long line of Rascals fruited pale ales is Fruitropolis. This 4.3%-er is fruitier than most, thanks to the inclusion of passionfruit in with the apricot and pineapple. Passionfruit dominates in that sorbet/Calippo way it has, making it very sweet and tangy. The hops are left as background players, contributing little more than a twang of peppery bitterness in the finish. If you like your tropical and juicy beers to taste actually tropical and juicy rather than attempting it with hops, this may be the pale ale for you, though I understand that subsequent batches have the passionfruit dialled back.

On this occasion I had arrived just as the new stout, Cereal Killer, appeared, on nitro and via a brand new cask engine. I got to try both. The name comes from the inclusion of granola in the recipe and it really does have that crunchy oatcake effect, bringing a dry grainy quality, especially in the finish. But this is balanced by lots of milk chocolate. Although nirogenated, there seems to have been a light touch on the ol' N2 as there was plenty of sparkle to push the flavour compounds out, including a seriously rich and desserty aroma. The richness is more apparent in the cask version, and there's a summer fruit complexity too: tart strawberry and redcurrant. The chocolate is still there, as is the sparkle, but the dryness is reduced. Cask stout wins again, but the nitro version is barely compromised.

A couple of weeks later I was back for a whole new round. Tartness on the Edge of Town started me off, an opaquely milky sour beer of 3.4% ABV. The texture is soft, and as light as one might expect from the ABV. Fresh mint or rosemary blends with light lemon cordial to create the effect of something you'd drink from a big jug on a summer's day. Not lemonade because it's not fizzy enough, but maybe a non-alcoholic punch of some sort. The ice-cold serving temperature accentuates this further. What lets it down is the yeast burn, bringing a savoury kick that really doesn't belong. A bit more time in the tank is needed to fulfil its refreshment potential.

Rascals joins the micro IPA party with Microwave, at just 3.2% ABV. I think this may be the first clear example I've seen: a limpid amber-copper. With that comes a charming burnt caramel foretaste before the hop resins take over. You'd miss the alcohol, though. After the initial burst of flavour it turns quite hollow and watery, while the oily bitterness means it doesn't quite work as a thirst-quencher. Another interesting pilot-kit experiment, but I can't see this going mainstream.

A cream ale next -- you don't see many of them around. It's called Yale, is 5% ABV and a bright and shining gold. It was nice to have a bit of substance back after the sub-4%ers but the flavour isn't up to much here. There's a mild tang of marmalade or orange jelly and the rest is silence. Cream ale is a tough style to impress with, and I don't recall any that did better than making the best of it. This one fits in there too.

They've added Grapefruit to their inevitable Brut IPA, something that has the potential to jazz up this often pedestrian style. It didn't really work. The stripped-out brut IPA flavour is still there while the fruit adds a savoury, smoky, wax-and-plastic overtone: definitely not an improvement. For 6.3% ABV the texture is unforgivably thin. It's still entirely within the spec of brut IPA, so if you like them you'll like this. For me, the hacking just didn't move it far enough away from the style's inherent flaws.

Guest beers still feature regularly, and the most recent I tried was Baniwa Spring from Hopfully, a sequel to the original Baniwa Chilli saison from last year. The ABV has gone up to 5.3% but it looks the same and the flavour profile matches: a grainy crispness contrasting with banana esters, a generous dusting of chilli pepper and tropical hints of coconut as it warms. With all that going on I'd definitely describe this too as a saison more than a wit, though I also think the chilli has been laid on stronger this time. While I enjoyed the full-thorax warmth, the banana sweetness is just a little too full-on for my liking. It's a brave recipe, but one with room to be cleaned up a little, I think.

Daring recipes, varying styles and high turnover: exactly what you'd want from your local taproom.

Gate renovated

Open Gate Brewery has had a makeover, but not a severe one. There's a new kitchen and the museum artefacts on the walls have been replaced with more generic taproom signage. The format remains the same: €6 admission gets you a taster tray from the ever-changing line-up of one-offs. Here's what was on mine last time out:

"Hibiscus Helles" gave me the heebee-jeebies. You don't mess with helles on my watch. OGB did, but I think they got away with it. While this is a disturbing pinkish-orange, and there's a very faint hint of raspberry, it's otherwise a perfect Bavarian-style lager with no bells, whistles or nonsense. Spun-sugar malt sweetness on a candyfloss base; faint noble-hop greenness, and a glass that's empty before you even notice you're drinking it. Job done.

Earl Grey pale ales have never quite been in fashion, they just crop up unexpectedly from time to time. Open Gate's Brew-Tea-Ful Ale is 5% ABV and a hazy golden colour. There's a vague citrus in the aroma, but nothing disturbing. Unusually for this style it actually tastes like tea: tannic and almost raspingly dry. The bergamot and whatnot is relegated to the background, as are the hops. There's enough of a texture and malt character for it to pass as beer, but it's a little lacking in distinctive character overall.

L-R: Hibiscus Helles, Brew-tea-ful, Kiwi Sour, Gooseberry & Ginger Sour

Something called Kiwi Sour is third in the line-up, Kiwi hops rather than fruit. Or birds. It's only 3.7% ABV and a clear pale yellow. The aroma is pilsner-grassy, in keeping with many of the New Zealand hops' origins. That's there in the flavour too, but languishes in the background behind a sharply tart lemon-juice foretaste. That settles to a gentler sherbet twang, then fades completely. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that it's not watery, the way low-strength soured beers like this often are. Not the most complex of profiles, but properly flavourful and thirst-quenching.

The second sour beer in the lineup is Gooseberry & Ginger, a 4.5%-er, and a hazy amber colour. Ginger: check. Gooseberry: yes, though the berry tartness and underlying beer sourness meld together seamlessly. And once again we get a big and fluffy ale texture smoothing out any sharp edges. Sour Open Gate beers are almost a style to themselves at this stage, soft and accessible but without that proper smack of jaw-pinching tartness.

Next is Ghost Roast, one of those white stouts created by adding coffee and smoked malt to a pale beer. They never work. This one has its aroma game down: though a wan greenish yellow it smells wholesomely dark and roasty. The texture is creamy, so that's two points up. But it falls apart on tasting. There's a cream-ale adjunct thinness and an acrid smoke, like cold cigarette butts. Stout is supposed to be rich but this tastes every bit the lacklustre pale thing it is. All the ghost and not enough roast.

We conclude with Open Gate's take on the style of the moment, black IPA. Like many of these, Dark Side is more brown than black. The roast level is enjoyably low, though the fried level is high: specifically onions, and some green peppers too. It's an odd flavour but I'm sure it's all hop. Each sip brings a powerful oniony twang, part fried, part raw, and then a chlorophyll bitterness. It's 6.2% ABV but a bit thin for that. Subtle it ain't, nor complex, nor offering what black IPA does best. It's inarguably fun though. Black IPA is supposed to be silly. This one is just silly in a different way.

An interesting set, this, but the classically clean Helles is the pick of the bunch for me.