Three beers from 100 bridges

All going well, by the time this is published I'll be in Wrocław. It's the home of the Stu Mostów brewery, which has become a regular fixture at the Galway Bay pubs in Dublin. I thought I'd better get my notes on their range up before I have a bucketful of other Polish beers to tell you about.

At the January tap-takeover in The Black Sheep I gravitated straight to Salamander Black IPA, a beer style I try to encourage where possible. This was a good example, redolent with spices and herbs, with liquorice in particular, alongside peppery red cabbage. The dry roast bitterness is perhaps a little higher than I'd like, especially given the quite thick and sticky consistency, and the prodigious 6.8% ABV. Overall, though, it had enough complexity of flavour to prevent any of the extremes from dominating completely.

I followed that with WRCLW Pils. This is a beautiful example, showing the kind of creaminess normally only found in the finest German pilsners. It's packed with bitterness too, offering loads of spinach, as well as a certain level of diacetyl which adds a richness rather than being an off-flavour. This is a wonderful harnessing of all that makes good pilsner great.

A short while later I was in Against the Grain where WRCLW Imperial Stout was pouring. The tap badge says it's nitrogenated but it really didn't look it: just a thin skim of ivory bubbles which faded to nothing very quickly. The body is jet black and there's plenty of density, fitting for its 11% ABV. The flavour was too sweet for my liking, however: lots of banana esters, plus sugary toffee and milky coffee. There's a modest bitter herbal kick in the finish but it's not hard enough to bring the rest of it to heel. A big slice of banoffee with a liquorice chew on the side? I'll pass.

The forecast for the coming weekend in Wrocław is a warm one. If I have to stay to drinking pils that won't be a hardship on this showing.