Beer, Bosch and beyond

A bit of pub crawling from my New Year Dutch excursion for you today, starting in downtown The Hague. I paid a couple of visits to The Beer Garden, and there I got to try Finale, a high-end limited edition champagne beer from the Grolsch brewery. This is a pure clear gold colour and they nailed the champagne effect in the aroma: white grape and crisp, lightly-browned toast. It's close to champagne strength too, at 10.5% ABV. Unfortunately it all unravels in the flavour. Instead of crispness it's sticky sweet with lots of honeycomb and golden syrup. From champagne to cheap cava in one sip. I really thought they had got this one perfectly right, but the taste is such a lower grade to the aroma. I'm glad I was dealing with a 250ml glass rather than one of the 6000 75cl bottles.

From Amsterdam's Troost, Beer Garden was offering Club Tropicana, billed as a Berliner weisse with no further description. Yes, I should have guessed it would be fruited. And boy is it, arriving an opaque pink colour, looking and feeling more like a smoothie than a beer. There's a lot of jam on the nose, raspberry in particular, with the woody vibe of raspberry seed. The flavour isn't spoiled by the sugar, though it is tangy rather than sour: a zingy kick like rhubarb compote forming the centre of it. It's tasty, and while it's very definitely about the fruit, there's enough of a sour beer presence to make it enjoyable.

Beside it is something called Fluffy IPA by Vet & Lazy of Rotterdam. That sounds like it should be in the New England style but it turned out to be quite dark and resinous, heavily textured in an old-school, west-coast sort of way. The hops are bright in it, showing fresh oranges and an incense spicing. Though only 5.6% ABV it's warming and was suitably wintery. Misnomered, perhaps, but a serious and classical IPA.

Across the square is The Fiddler, a perfectly-preserved former Firkin brewpub which now produces beer under the Animal Army brand. I've written about it before, but new to me was Albino Fox, a 4.5% ABV pale ale they were serving on cask. This settles to a pale and clear amber colour with a flavour that's mostly waxy bitterness and rye crackers. There's a mild honey effect plus a spritz of lemon juice, but that's about all it does. Rather dull, all things considered.

I should have switched to the reliable stout but instead picked Redhead, their red ale. This was also casked and suffered some bad yeast bite. The flavour behind it is OK for a red: some ripe and mushy strawberry set on a milk chocolate sweetness. None of that lasts and there's a rapid watery finish: unforgivable at 5.6% ABV. This was a big red pint of regret.

Hoppzak is a basement bar with the lived-in air of a Hague beer institution. I'd never been before so was delighted to see it open as I was passing. Inside, I picked the Uiltje seasonal from the blackboard: Most Wonderful Time For A Beer. This is described as a "Scottish gruit beer" and is 10% ABV. It's a murky red-brown colour and, unsurprisingly, is very much malt-driven, beginning with a smooth caramel-flavoured base. This is rendered interesting by a mix of sour cherry, cinnamon, nutmeg and chocolate cake notes. The blend of sweet and bitter works rather well and the result is a big warming beer without silliness or gimmickry. Great job.

And if 10% ABV is too much, they also had De Molen's Noble & Nuts "coconut breakfast stout" on, a mere 9.9% ABV. This has a huge coconut and dark chocolate aroma. It's beautifully smooth and the flavours, while unquestionably gimmicky, are integrated perfectly into the beer. This gives all the satisfaction of a big, silky, imperial stout but with an added and very real-tasting crunch of coconut flesh. With the possible exception of the late great Independent Brewing's Coconut Porter, I've never encountered coconut in beer done this well.

We took a side trip to Den Bosch, mostly to see the creepy crib, but got a few beers in too. That began at Proeflokaal 't Paultje and their house beer D'n Gouwe Janus, from local brewery Muifelbrouwerij. It's a pretty straightforward Belgian-style blonde, 5.9% ABV with lots of perfumey herbal and floral elements, shading towards the medicinal. There's a slight overdose of savoury yeast and a sweet cordial finish. It lacks polish, but as a no-thinking-required house beer it's fine.

Another from Uiltje was the canned special: a double IPA called Hops Alone 2. This tasted quite familiar though I'd never tried it before. It's heavy, intensely dank and very hot, even given the 8% ABV. A burst of lime opens the flavour, followed quickly by spring onion and finally some softer satsuma and pineapple. The thick texture makes it one for sipping. Convincingly west-coast but a bit over-egged, I thought.

Not far from the station, in a modern residential zone of Den Bosch, is the Jongens Van De Wit brewpub. It's sparkly and modern, all clean lines and industrial chic, with the shiny fermenters on a mezzanine above the bar floor, supplying serving tanks suspended over the counter below.

L-R: Boze Griet, PIPA, H4

From a quite traditional selection I picked H4, the tripel. This is 8.5% ABV and a clear golden colour. There's a strong banana bread quality to the aroma while the flavour really reflects the strength, turning out marker pens and nutmeg. Most interesting is the white wine elements in the middle: notes of gooseberry and kiwifruit really help lighten it up and offset the heat. More spice or juicy fruit would improve it but I found it quite enjoyable.

On the right is Paleiskwartier IPA, or "PIPA" for short. They're not sure of the ABV, but it's modest: somewhere between 4.5% and 4.7%. It's amber coloured and resinous textured, with a peppery sandalwood spice. A little lavender adds a note of polished furniture and the whole thing gives an impression of old cold churches: very Dutch. Despite the strength it's not an easy-going beer but there's fun to be had with its complex profile.

Finally a 9% ABV barley wine called Boze Griet. This begins on a heavy cough-syrup aroma, which was a little unsettling. The flavour is more refined, however: old port, bourbon biscuits and cherry liqueur. Yes it's hot but it's not excessively boozy, the sum total being a full and satisfying after-dinner sipper.

L-R: Flora, Coffee Malt, Tapit

Heading back to the station for the train home there was just time for a quick round at the Thornbridge pub nearby. I was surprised to see one of our own on the taps: DOT Brew's Coffee Malt. This is a dark barrel-aged coffee beer of 7.2% ABV. The aroma is sour and funky -- a little sweaty with it. The flavours opens on that funk before turning to a more pleasant sweet coffee liqueur. It's a nice twist. Without the coffee I think this might have come out harshly astringent so I'm glad it's there. Fans of extreme Brett funk might feel hard done by, however.

My companions stuck with Thornbridge beers. Flora is on the left, a kegged hazy IPA with quite an acrid bitterness -- orange pith leading to aspirin. Tough going. The other one is a chocolate orange stout called Tapit which goes big on the chocolate in both aroma and flavour but showed very little sign of the orange. It's basic but decent.

The journey onwards to Belgium took us through Rotterdam where we dropped in briefly to Bokaal which had just opened for the afternoon. Two IPAs for the road: one Bad Kid by The Goat, a 6% ABV Simcoe and Citra job. It poured red, almost pink, in fact. A very resinous aroma accompanies that, leading on to more of the same in its flavour, turning almost astringent in its bitterness. Here it's joined by a massive hit of sugary crystal malt, resulting in something like a '90s American IPA on steroids. It's well made and tasted fresh so was enjoyable, but not a beer to order if you're in a hurry. It demands the drinker's time.

A more modern (ie paler) double IPA joins it: Hopstorm Chaser, a "7 day IPA", getting multiple dry-hop doses of Equinox, Idaho 7 and Cascade. This results in an absolutely amazing aroma: spritzy and juicy like a freshly peeled mandarin. Alas it fails to build on this. The flavour is much less impressive, mixing savoury caraway with orange oils and some dark chocolate. Redemption of a sort comes at the end in a thrilling bite of grapefruit rind. Despite significant alcohol heat -- it is 8.5% ABV, after all -- it's cleaner-tasting than most of this style, with a pleasingly full and chewy texture. While it doesn't live up to the promise of that stunning aroma, it's pretty decent stuff.

With this pair polished off at a leisurely pace it was time to catch the next Eurostar to Brussels.