Zagreb brews

My summer holiday this year began with a few days in the Croatian capital Zagreb. It has a busy beer scene with a number of specialist bars, both tied and independent, offering beers from all around the Balkan region. I'll get on them later, but we'll start with a couple of local producers.

Garden Brewery I had already heard of. Indeed, one of the sour beers was a highlight of this year's Hagstravaganza so I made sure that a visit to the taproom was on the agenda. This proved tougher than anticipated as Garden is buried in a literal maze of fenced-off industrial premises on the edge of the city. After multiple wrong turns on a day too hot for meandering we arrived at the front gate of the self-consciously run-down boho bar.

I needed a pils and that's what I got. Alas Garden Pils isn't a great example. Poor head retention was the first sign of trouble, and then it had that dusty stale thing I often get from noble hops. Pils can be a bit of a coin toss that way. The malt wasn't any help, being almost sickly sweet, and despite the lack of head it was also too fizzy. But it was cold, and I felt the better for drinking it all the same.

A different approach to refreshment was taken across the table: Garden's 3% ABV Micro NEIPA. There's a lovely juicy mandarin aroma, and the flavour starts on those lines, being sweetly fruity with lots of vanilla, as one might expect from a New England IPA. But equally, as one might expect from an IPA at 3% ABV, it turns thin and harsh quite quickly. That begins as citric pith then the hops give way to nasty yeast dregs. There's potential here but the flaws are too numerous for it to be properly enjoyable. It felt unfinished to me.

False start notwithstanding, we'd come too far to countenance leaving yet so a second round was procured. I went for a complete change of tack with Garden Stout, a bruising 5.7%-er. It's a cola-red colour and appropriately smooth and full-bodied. The flavour is on the sweeter side of the stout spectrum, but not excessively so. Milky hazelnut-infused coffee is balanced with a sterner liquorice bitterness. Given the strength it's reasonable to expect a smidge more complexity than this, but what's there is good.

Garden Session IPA, meanwhile, is another golden and headless job. The aroma here reminded me of Lucozade: that combination of indeterminate fruit sweetness and phosphoric spice. While interesting, that did not prepare me for the full-on hop dank assault on tasting. The resins start off slick and oily, building to an intense pine bitterness. The result is a pleasingly invigorating little beer, one with bags of character for just 4% ABV.

Overall I think I expected better from Garden. My working theory at this point is that sour beers are their specialty so I took a selection of those from the fridge to have on the train later on.

I began while still waiting at the station, with the one simply called Sour. This is 3.5% ABV and pale yellow with a slight haze, brewed with oats and hopped with Summer and Hallertau Blanc. It's a perfect sunny day beer, tart and refreshing with nothing busy or distracting going on. A spritz of Jif lemon is as complex as the foretaste gets, the texture just heavy enough to carry that without bringing any malt flavour that might interfere. After a moment there's a softer hint of cantaloupe and stonefruit, though the sour-citrus punch gets one last dig in before it finishes. It was sour beer that first attracted me to Garden, and if this is the basis of them then it boded well for the rest of my journey.

Next open, once we were under way, was Sour Pale. Summer features on the hop list again, joined by Azacca, Citra, Columbus and Mosaic. It's a bright and hazy orange colour and smells like a Calippo: refreshingly tropical but with an underlying threat of sickliness. Thankfully that threat didn't materialise. There's a lot of fruity fizz about this, the pith-on-water of Orangina or Club Orange. The sourness is a barely-there tang, doing no more than clear the decks to let the hops perform. Mango and tangerine complexities emerge tentatively as it goes, and go it does: I finished in no time. This didn't offer the extreme refreshment of the previous one, but was still quite delicious.

Garden's Gooseberry & Elderflower Sour appears to be based on the first one, having pretty much the same ingredients list, with added gooseberry purée and elderflower essence. The ABV is down to 2.8%. I was struck immediately on tasting by a harsh, dry minerality, like chalk dust. The beer's base sourness is added to by the sharp green gooseberry, and it's not a positive improvement. I suspect they skimped on the elderflower too as its signature sweet cordial notes are very muted. An appley tang is the parting flavour. While it's fine, and I'm sure the brewers achieved what they set out to make, this failed to charm me the way the others did.

Last of the set is a collaboration with Brick Brewery of London and is a Rosehip & Wild Sorrel Sour. Hüll Melon is combined with a hop I don't know, Southern Passion, and the beer is a hazy yellow colour and 3.8% ABV. Brown apple juice was my first impression on tasting: quite sweet with just a tiny tang of acid. An interesting earthy spice follows that, bringing subtle notes of cinnamon and nutmeg. At heart this is still a light refreshing sour ale, but they've given it a very unusual savoury twist which works very well indeed. Again it's perhaps not as stimulating as some of the above but the added complexity is worthy recompense.

Theory proven, then: Garden is a sour-first brewery.

But back to the city. Out on the western edges is Pivovara Medvedgrad. This brewery's story is similar to Dublin's Porterhouse, beginning as a mid-1990s brewpub before growing to a standalone brewery with a chain of diverse pubs and restaurants.

Fakin is perhaps the most self-consciously craft one of them, situated in a brutalist basement beneath a college campus in Zagreb's modernist new town. I paid a flying visit with just enough time for a Zlatni Medvjed, the pilsner. In stark contrast to Garden's effort this was absolutely bang on. The colour is a mesmerising deep golden while the texture is big and satisfyingly bready, despite a modest 4.4% ABV. The hopping brings a sharp dried grass note which is just bitter enough to balance the malt. It's not a complex flavour by any means but it's an immensely satisfying beer to drink, one with an effortlessly charming balance.

Up in the middle of town, Medvedgrad has a vast Germanic beer hall and garden: Medvedgrad Illica. Here we met local beer expert @Plucicanakiselo to compare notes.

My notes begin with Mrki Medvjed, a 4.5% ABV dark lager. It's auburn coloured rather than properly dark, and reminded me a bit of Czech polotmavý, that in-between lager style which lacks the good features of both pale and dark lager. On the plus side there's a pleasant wholesome melanoidin biscuit character, but also a thick estery noise destroying any crispness there may have been. It's fine, unexciting, workmanlike: a glassful of shrugs.

I was intrigued by it sitting alongside Crna Kraljica on the menu, advertised as a schwarzbier. Few breweries would bother presenting the two as separate styles. This one is definitely darker, though, and a little stronger at 4.8% ABV. Still it's not a brilliant example of the style, being just dry and roasty enough to pass the guidelines and with a mild liquorice character for bitterness. It is at least clean and quaffable; a beer I could happily drink in quantity but without having much to say about it.

As well as being the name of one of their bars, Fakin is also the flagship IPA, and I had that next. I suspect they've been making this for a while because it channels first-generation west-coast IPA perfectly. 7% ABV and brimming with crystal malt and Cascade hops, it nevertheless balances all these features deftly, turning neither too hot, too heavy, too sugary nor too pithy. There's a gentle lime and grapefruit flavour which strokes the palate instead of assaulting it, fading to a flowery perfume. This is very easy going; dangerously so, perhaps. If indeed they have't changed the recipe in a long time then there's no need to do so now.

Beside it is the doppelbock Grička Vještica ("Greek witch"?). Like the pilsner, this is a solidly made example of the style. Though a rich mahogany red it smells and tastes like a crisp and clean lager, the hops bringing a fresh spinach kick to a light layer of caramel malt. And like the IPA it's almost inappropriately drinkable, 7.5% ABV but slipping back with ease. There's sufficient heat to give it substance and character but it's neither hot nor heavy.

Unsurprisingly, herself followed that with another; while I took a punt on Baltazar for the final round, Medvedgrad's hoppy lager. The garlic and onion aroma from this was unsettling but it turned out quite fun to drink, spritzed as it is with Sprite-like lemon and lime. The malt sweetness accentuates the fizzy pop effect, though it does make the overall beer a little heavy, even at 5.6% ABV. I can see what they're getting at here, trying to blend modern exotic hops with classic lager but I don't think they've quite nailed it; certainly not when compared to that pils.

We leave Medvedgrad there and next we'll do some bar exploring and drink some beers from further afield.