Hardy boys

Marks & Spencer has always been a useful seam for this blog to mine. It now carries a galaxy of own-brand beers, most of which I've never tried but I feel secure that there's always a post on the shelves there, should I need one. These days it also carries a selection of imports that nobody else brings to Ireland. Today's beers are two such, coming from the Hardywood brewery of Richmond, Virginia.

I begin with Hardywood Pils, a "German-style" pilsner. It's a lot hazier than I'd expect from any bottled pils from Germany, pouring a translucent gold colour. The flavour is deliciously crisp: fresh-mown grass is a style cliché, but it tastes like that in the best way possible. The opening is damp and succulent, before tailing off into a dry and slightly metallic tang. 5.2% ABV means lots of substance to boost the hops, but there's no distracting malt sweetness; no cake or golden syrup like you'd find in a helles or světlý ležák; this is pils to its bones. Needless to say I like it a lot. It doesn't tip over into the strong vegetable taste that many of this type, including authentically German examples, too often do for my liking. The only ding I can give it is that the 355ml bottle is inappropriate. Gimme a halbe. Then another one.

Instead, I switch to something more typically American, VIPA, a pale ale at the same strength but even cloudier. It looks like a witbier in the glass, that slightly sickly hazy yellow. From sickly to sticky: it's a dense and sugary fellow, with a rock candy or boiled sweet feel. There's a quite intense lemon flavour tacked on to this, turning harshly astringent at the end. This isn't a subtle beer, and a million miles from the modern soft and fluffy pale ales. Here is where I'd put in the line about how refreshing it is to find a '90s throwback like this, but it's not a good example. There's not enough of a snap from the hops, the palate-clogging barley sugar calling the shots all the way through.

Two very different beers, then. You'd have thought the expertise that good lager requires would result in better pale ale: it usually does when German brewers try out American styles. Something to analyse over another bottle of that pils.