On trend

You get a decent selection of beer types at the Borefts Beer Festival. I tend to skew towards sour and funky while the missus prefers strong, dark and sweet, but there's generally a good line in pale 'n' hoppy too. Today I'm looking at a smattering of them.

A custardy yellow New England-style IPA to begin: New Lands, brewed by Romanian brewery Wicked Barrel in collaboration with their countrymen Hop Hooligans. It's a powerful one at 7.5% ABV though has surprisingly little aroma coming forth. A sharp mintiness is the first flavour, flashing briefly before being replaced by chalky grit and hot yeasty dregs. A vague celery greenness is the only other nod towards the hops, which were doubtless added in quantity but somehow sank almost without trace. I briefly lament the state of modern IPA and move on.

Hard on the heels of the New England IPA comes the brut IPA, represented here by Brutalism from Spanish brewery Yria. Now here they've got the benefit of the hops. I usually find brut IPAs taste washed-out, but this absolutely sparks with hop goodness, from the heady dank aroma on to the aggressive bitter spinach punch of the foretaste. It takes a bit of a wrong turn after that, giving the nasty savoury caraway I often get from Mosaic, and I confirmed from the programme that Mosaic is indeed the culprit. In its favour, the brut effect does mean the flavours are clear, clean and distinct, it's just that I didn't particularly like them.

We continue running down the IPA subgenres with Monyo's Bipolar Bear, a white IPA. Remember them? The problem with these tends to be a soapiness, I'm guessing from the combination of hops and coriander. This one, however, leans heavy on the lemon zest, almost tasting like a plain witbier. The ABV is up at 6.1% giving it more substance than that, and late in the flavour there's a delicious hop perfume taste without any bitterness. It all works very well together, drawing on the best aspects its parent styles: bold and complex, yet refreshing and easy.

Beating that to the title of dodgiest name of the festival was Love You Long Time, a sour IPA with Thai ingredients: lime, lemongrass and horapa (Thai basil), coming from Van Moll in Eindhoven. There's a sweetly tropical passionfruit aroma, and I shouldn't really have been surprised to find it tastes like spicy Lilt, but it does. I can't really unpack that much further than mixed tropical juice and a fresh chilli piquancy. Overall it's beautifully refreshing, if a little on the sweet side.

Leeds brewery North hasn't put a sub-style qualification on their Sea of Tranquility IPA, but I'm calling it for New England anyway. It's bright yellow for one thing, and opens with meringue and lemon curd notes. A lime citrus bite completes the picture, keeping it from turning into too much of a custard dessert. There's no yeast interference here: the flavours are in perfect sharp focus and the whole thing is deliciously invigorating.

The other northern English brewer at the party was Wylam, who brought Danse des Coco. Coconut IPA? Go on then. This is a hazy pale orange colour and the flavour is a strange mix of citrus, tropical juice and... nail varnish solvent. I couldn't really pick out the coconut. The hops remain in the ascendant, through to the strongly bitter finish. It may not have presented the coconut novelty promised but it was fun to drink.

It's the Finns next: a New England IPA by CoolHead called Juiciness. I always get a bit apprehensive with names like this as they are often applied to beer inappropriately. And this one wasn't really juicy either, full of pithy orange — skin, zest and fizzy Orangina — accompanied by a strong waft of garlic in the aroma. There's none of your custardy softness here, not any vanilla taste or dirty dregs. So while it's not juicy it's just a very decent IPA and I have no complaints.

Not an IPA, but I'll throw another CoolHead in here, brewed in collaboration with New Yorkers Finback. Melting Dreams is described as a "nordic sour" and is 7% ABV. This is a clear yellow colour with only a slight haze. A lemon sherbet aroma is followed by a punchy tartness; lemon juice and even lemon skin. Once past the initial shock there's meadowy lavender and a quite lambic-like wax bitterness. This is an intense experience from start to finish, but an enjoyable one too.

Finality, for today, comes in the shape of Death by Hops from Olde Hickory, a brewery in North Carolina. That name writes a very big cheque but the date on it must be quite a few years ago. This 7%-er is amber coloured and goes all-in on the IBUs, producing a powerful, palate-stripping bitterness. I looked for nuance behind this but was unable to identify a single flavour descriptor to include in my review. Not even a grapefruit. It's fine, but a total throwback to when front-loading your hops was all you needed to do to impress with an IPA.

That was the day's last IPA, but several places from being the last beer. With time running short, the stronger stuff was beckoning.